The History of the Salem Witch Hunts

Series Summary

For hundreds of years the practice of witchcraft, or the perceived practice of witchcraft, has brought about both fascination and persecution from the general public and traditional religious figures. Dealing with spirits, deities, the afterlife and magic is a practice of many world religions, though it is usually magic or spell casting which traditionally constitutes witchcraft. Women throughout history have been accused of being witches for far less than casting spells though, and witch hunts were often brought about by any woman willing to question the established religion or commit any action thought to be heresy. Today, witches generally represent either a mythical creature who flies around on a broom for Halloween, or a practitioner of neo-pagan beliefs such as wicca or a general mysticism.

In this free video series, our expert will teach you about wicca and modern practices of witchcraft. You will learn about the history of modern witchcraft and get some general information about traditions in witchcraft. You will also learn about the gods and goddess that are worshiped and common misconceptions about wicca and witchcraft. Finally, you will get tips and instructions on how to set up spells and how to cast spells in witchcraft. If you are interested in mysticism, wicca or neo-pagan beliefs let our expert teach you everything you need to know in this free video series.

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village, I'm Caroline, and I'm here to tell you about Witchcraft. Everybody knows, or almost everybody knows about the great witchcraft trials in Massachusetts, which was I believe sixteen ninety-two. Where some little girls were playing around with a Barbados mate named Tuba, and they got caught by the girls' father who was a Reverend. So imagine that. A whole big to do, and the girls started faking saying the Devil did it, because this way they would get out of being in trouble. This led to a whole blown out thing of people trying to go for each others' land. There would be an old lady in town, who maybe wasn't so nice to people, she probably had who knows, arthritis, was in pain, and the little kids would taunt her. And right away she would be labeled a witch, which is what happened with one of the women. Another woman owned a great deal of land, and the neighbor's child said that she was coming to visit her at night. So, they took over her land, and deemed her a witch. There was one gentleman out of the nineteen I believe it was who had been accused of witchcraft. And what they did to him, was they took him and piled rocks on top of him. Now this is a very slow and awful way to die. So with each rock they would say 'Do you admit that you were cavorting with Satan?' and of course being the good Puritan that he was, he said he wasn't. So after I believe it was a day and a half, the poor man finally died. And then eventually they all came to their senses after nineteen senseless deaths, of people who were more than likely not practicing Wiccas. The trials came to an end. Now that's just the American history here. We could go all the way back to Europe, and that where witches were hanged, burned, sometimes hanged and then burned. Tortured, and this would be mainly for people who were a little bit different than other people. So if I had red hair, and blue eyes, in a community with people that were brown haired or black haired, you could bet I would be the next one on the chopping block. "