Causes Of Mass Hysteria In The Salem Witch Trials

During the 1600’s in the United States there was much economic and religious dissention within the Puritan society: a group of English reformed protestants who pursued the Purification of the Church of England. Among these issues, is the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials that prosecuted women to be found worshippers of the devil. The Puritans found the necessity to exercise this crusade in order to stay by their moral codes of conformity which included witchcraft to be the greatest crime, punishable by death. However, the true reasons of the trials was not to simply follow their religious constitutions. It is mainly in part from corruption of religion and how some had used the trials as a form of personal gain, the influences of the attitudes from the strict Puritan lifestyle, the need for unification between the Salem factions, and the society’s fear of evil.

The Salem witch trials were a result of mass hysteria. It was caused by false accusations. On May 1693, fourteen women, five men, and two dogs were executed for supposed supernatural crimes. The Salem trials have a unique place in our collective history today. (" Saxon, V,Procedure Used in...").

During 1692, from June to September, 24 people died due to accusations from people who assumed they were witches. Many historians have come up with possibilities and answers as to why civilized people would kill each other. Using the evidence provided, The Salem Witch Trial Hysteria was caused by jealousy, supremacy, and segregation.

In 1692, in the small village of Salem, Massachusetts, 20 people were hanged for offenses they did not commit. But what was the charge against the 20? The answer would be witchcraft. The charges deeply affected the small community. Neighbor turned on neighbor. Every act that a person made would be carefully scrutinized, dissected, and repeated to others. This would lead to the question. What caused the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692? The 3 main factors that would cause widespread panic in the town of Salem were gender, marital status, and age, actors and attention seekers, and neighbor conflicts within the village of Salem.

The salem witch trials hysteria of 1692 was caused by the Puritans strict religious standards and intolerance of anything not accepted with their scripture. The largest account of witch trials as well as deaths by witch trials occurred in Salem, a village heavily populated with the Puritans. Because most of the trials were occurring in Salem, this meant that the accusations were happening among the Puritans themselves, which could very well be anything as long as the Puritans found it as contradicting their bible. Not only did the strict religion intolerance fuel the accusations and trials, but also the possible factor of ergot being involved which has been known to cause symptoms leading to hysteria.

At the root of Puritan belief were three key points. The first that the bible was 100% accurate and should be followed down to every letter so if one should find a witch then they should be punished for the bible says ‘ Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ . Secondly perhaps most importantly is the belief that the Devil was real and the power to corrupt people and make them do his bidding, this belief is clearly visible as the Devil is mentioned in one form or another time again in the records of the trials. One such example is in the case of Martha Carrier in which the accusers claim to have see a black man either in the company of Martha Carrier or in the court room during the trial, time and again Martha is asked ‘What black man is that…or What black man do you

The Salem Witch Trials of 1692 was first brought about as a game by young adolescent girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts. The young girls had falsely claimed they were possessed by devilish beings which were innocent men and women of Salem Village causing an uproar of witchcraft in their village. I believe the great hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials was solely out of boredom, meaning it was a break from the norm and caused excitement quite easily. Those who were accused went to “trial” but given the behavior of the young girls who had claimed to be possessed made it impossible to walk free. Those who went to trial were hanged at the hanging tree for the practice of witchcraft whether there was proof or not.

Three centuries ago, the Puritan religion was the base of the Salem village and many townspeople strongly believed in the existence of witches and witchcraft. According to the common Puritan belief, witches were in alliance with the devil and were granted power to harm. People were blamed for illness, failed crops, to bad weather, and many other things that were evident centuries ago. Due to the belief in witchcraft villagers were, perhaps, inclined to the most improbable explanations. The Puritans held strict views, ways of living, perspectives fears, and fantasies. Many Puritan ministers used the the fear of witchcraft to scare the believers into following the church. Historians believe these strict Puritan ways of life may have brought upon the witchcraft hysteria in Salem. At the time, witches and witchcraft were a serious and viewed as a real threat; almost as real as

In 1692, the British colony of Massachusetts endured abnormal accusations of witchcraft against more than 150 people (Prentice Hall Literature, p. 1087). Many factors caused the witchcraft hysteria to come alive during the 1600’s. Two important factors were: Daemonologie, written by England’s King James I, and the bewildering behavior of the accusing teenage girls. While Arthur Miller explains that the accusations could have been made over the lust for land, there are also reasons not explained: how the role of women and children during the 17th century may have affected their behavior and the theory of Ergot fungus poisoning the girls’ minds.

Do you know what mass hysteria is? Mass hysteria is a condition that affects large group of people by behaviors, beliefs, anxiety, and symptoms of illness. Some examples of a mass hysteria are the Killing of John F. Kennedy, in the Middle Ages the case of Mewing and Biting Nuns, and the Indian Alien Attack. Most recognizable is The Holocaust with the murdering of Jews, and the Japanese- American Internment Camp during World War II. The famous Salem Witch Trials is an earlier example of mass hysteria and the killing of innocent people.

In the 1600’s, a group called the Protestant Christians also known as the Puritans immigrated to New England (modern day east United States) to break away from the Church of England. The Puritans were hoping to improving Christianity and to worship the Lord. As days went by, the Puritans started to make progress on their settlement that they started building when they arrived called Salem. Years and years were the same old lifestyle in the Puritans colony. But in the fall of 1692 a lot of things went wrong. The trouble began when a group of young girls began to show strange behavior. These girls started accusing people of bewitching them and that is what started the Salem Witch Trials Hysteria. Gender roles and

In the year (1692) witch trials held the Salem area hostage people were terrified. People of

The physiology definition of Mass Hysteria is “a condition affecting a group of persons, characterized by excitement or anxiety, irrational behavior or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness.a condition affecting a group of persons, characterized by excitement or anxiety, irrational behavior or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness.” The Salem Witch Trials is an example of mass hysteria. Between 1692 and 1693 more than 200 people had been accused of witchcraft. The colony admitted the trials were and mistake, and has since then tried to make it up to the families of those convicted. But, during that time no one could trust anyone and everyone kept accusing people because they acted differently or seemed off. Which only made the hysteria worse. Another event that mass hysteria was The Charlie Charlie Challenge is a modern incarnation of a Spanish paper-and-pencil game called Juego de la Lapicera (game of the pens) in Spanish. The game is played by teenagers using held or balanced pencils to produce answers to questions they ask, the basic setup is with the top pencil balanced straight, such that minor air movements can cause it to rotate. In May 2015, four teenage girls were sent to a hospital in Tunja and quickly released with a diagnosis of mass hysteria from playing the Charlie Charlie game. The ways that they are in common is that they both have demonic connections, happen mostly to teens or children, and they both have had false allegations.

The main purpose of this paper is to introduce reasonable explanations for why the afflicted girls from Salem acted like they did. In total there are five possible explanations that are discussed. The first being the theory that Mass Hysteria was why the girls acted like they. The second explanation discussed is their lifestyle, the third Mass Conversion Disorder, the fourth ergot poisoning, and the fifth being encephalitis lethargica. In each of these sections facts about the explanation, how the conditions supported it, and other evidence for them are discussed.

The historical record clearly shows that the Salem Witch Hysteria was caused by religion, lying, and jealousy.