Witchcraft At Salem

by Chadwick Hansen

Much has been written about the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, and much has been misunderstood. "The more I studied the documents of what actually took place in the community, "writes Chadwich Hansen, "the more I found myself in opposition to the traditional interpretations. It seems to me that a serious consideration was in order." He argues, for instance, that witchcraft was actually practiced in seventeenth-century New England, as it was in Europe at the same time. Moreover, the behavior of the afflicted persons was not fraudulent, as some have claimed, but these people were hysterics in the clinical rather than the popular sense of the term. Further still, the clergy did not inspire or take advantage of the witch hunts as has been charged; on the contrary, they were among the chief opponents of the "mass hysteria." Library Journal called this book, ..".The most important scholarly contribution to the literature of witchcraft to appear in many years."

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, Witchcraft, Religion, Read For School, Church History

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. This book was quite possibly one of the driest I have encountered in a very long while. I read this thinking I'd have an in-depth analysis of the Salem Witch Trials and have a larger conceptual understanding of the whole ordeal. I got that, but I also got a lot of unnecessary baggage with the attempts of the author to try and excuse the behaviors of the persons involved in the trials. His attempts were circular and seemed to not lead anywhere, instead making the argument that the persons involved were products of their time, that witchcraft did exist (although the impact on others was the arguable point), and that everyone was simply suffering from hysteria. When I say hysteria, I do mean the typical mass hysteria that WAS present in the time and promoted the fear; however, he was using the term "hysteria" in the Freudian sense, alotting neurotic symptoms and catatonia, in some cases, to the psychoanalytic processes discussed at the turn of the 20th Century. I can't begin to explain the amount of times I encountered the author chalking up the ravings of those inflicted as symptoms of hysteria. Granted, this book was written in the 1960s, a time when psychology was coming into its prime and was still highly misunderstood, yet assigning each one of them as having the same exact problem, which is not even considered a diagnosable mental issue at this point in time, is completely insensible. Granted, these women and the community at large were absolutely under the sway of mass hysteria in creating fear of witchcraft into a contagion, and everyone, including these same women, acted as if powerless to stop the contagion from killing innocent people. He did provide vindication for these women in stating how they were later regretful for their roles in the trials of Salem, yet states that time has been unkind to them. What truly boggles my mind is the author's insistence that witchcraft existed as a true entity in Salem at the time, yet the arguable point was the level of its influence in being attached to others or somehow cursed by true witches. This argument is almost just as bad as the accusers; while he does not state that these trials were in any way justifiable, he continues to make the argument that people were actively practicing witchcraft in the community, and that many of the accused were most likely guilty of this offense (although not necessarily requiring death as punishment). UNREAL. What does it MATTER if persons were Wiccans, Pagans, or otherwise practicing voodoo or other religions not tied to Christianity? THEY WERE NOT HARMING OTHER PEOPLE. This book, aside from the dryness in general, was simply not what I expected. I don't think that it fully captured the historical and symbolic significance of the withc trials and the impact htey had on American culture (as well as the Communist witch hunts occurring with the Red Scare that was occurring at the time of the book's publication!). No thank you.

[Katherine Addison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very dated, sometimes horrifically so*, but it has a couple of very valuable points to make. Hansen describes specifically and at length the correlations between the afflicted girls of Salem and the nineteenth century hysterics of Charcot and Janet; while his use of the diagnosis of hysteria is reductive and unsatisfactory (he treats it as if it answers questions rather than simply generating more), his analysis makes it clear that the nineteenth and the seventeenth century phenomena are the same, merely provided with a different explanatory framework.

The other very useful thing in Hansen is his insistence that witchcraft was, in fact, being practiced at Salem. And by that he means, clearly and explicitly, witchcraft as it was understood by both afflicted and accused, which was chiefly ill-wishing and the use of image magic ("puppets" or "poppets," what we today call "voodoo dolls"). He examines the workings of witchcraft in this sense (as best he could in 1970) and makes the vital point: witchcraft works because the practitioner and especially the victim believe it will.

Now, unfortunately, there are very few cases in Salem where we can trace the workings of seventeenth-century witchcraft. Bridget Bishop, the first person hanged, was one of the very few of the accused who had been alleged to be a witch before 1692. But there is no evidence (at least, no surviving evidence) of any correlation between Bishop's actions and the afflictions of the girls in Salem. No poppets were claimed to represent any of the girls, Bishop was not witnessed to have ill-wished any of the girls, etc. etc. The other example is that of Mercy Short, who was cursed by Sarah Good and promptly fell into afflictions. Sarah Good cursed lots of people, but this is the only incident with any cause and effect correlation (again, she was not witnessed to have cursed any of the afflicted girls), and it is significant that Mercy Short crossed Sarah Good only after she had been jailed as a witch. Short expected the curse to work, and it did.

To sum up, Hansen has a couple of excellent observations about the nature of the problem in Salem in 1692, but neither observation has the explanatory force he tries to give it. His account is also impeded by the fact that he is plainly partisan toward the authorities. His account is interested primarily in the actions and reactions of the powerful men of Massachusetts (not, let it be noted, the comparatively small potatoes of Salem Village--Samuel Parris barely gets a mention), and although he does not condone the judges, a significant sub-theme of the book is the rehabilitation of Cotton Mather. He isn't interested in the afflicted girls--except to exculpate them of any breath of fraud--and he isn't even particularly interested in the accused witches, except through the lens of the judicial machinery that was trying to figure out what to do with them. Thus the last chapter congratulates Massachusetts for its various public acts of contrition, as if apologizing for a mistake somehow vindicated the making of the mistake in the first place.

---
*And nowhere more so than in the back-cover copy of the edition I own, which proclaims in lurid red letters, "Witchcraft at Salem represents a bold new look at history, conventional wisdom--and above all, the uncanny extra-physical powers that human beings can wield over one another. The product of brilliant scholarship and searching intelligence, it takes you further than ever before into a hypnotically enthralling area of speculation and investigation." This is a gross misrepresentation of the book's agenda, which--although it mentions the inexplicable reports of levitation in the case of Margaret Rule (and then does nothing with them)--is mostly concerned with sociological and anthropological analysis. The "uncanny extra-physical powers" so touted are the powers of suggestion and mental illness.

[Frederick Heimbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

Almost shocking in its evenhanded treatment of the historical record. Gives strong evidence for these startling claims:

1. Some of the accused of Salem were practicing black magic.
2. The clergy tended to be the most cautious in handling evidence of witchcraft.
3. The people and certain judges drove the panic.
4. Witchcraft panics were common in the 17th century; there was nothing uniquely "Puritan" in the events at Salem.
5. Cotton Mather was generally on the reasonable side during the trials.
6. Some involved in the trials later made voluntary, public confessions of guilt. This was a rare display of self-awareness and contrition compared with panics in other places.
7. Viewing the Salem witch trials as unusually bad is simply anti-Puritan bigotry.

[Sam Ruddick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some heavy cultural bias (it is assumed that "we" and "our culture" means white and Western), but that aside it's an intriguing premise, well argued up to a point. It seems like a common problem, an inescapable one, presumably, that these Salem books are as shaky as the trials themselves. The evidence offered by any given book never seems sufficient to add up to that book's conclusions. This book is like that. But not for the reasons you might expect. There's plenty of compelling evidence for witchcraft, and the evidence that Abigail Williams was suffering from clinical hysteria is persuasive, too. The hysterical contagion thing stretches it a bit, but I'll admit that it makes a certain amount of sense. The problem is just that after a certain point it starts to get back into that cultural bias, only this time it's against people of the past, instead of people of non-European origin. The idea seems to be that, in olden timey days, people were just so different from us and, let's face it, just plain dumb and superstitious, the womenfolk just fell into hysterical fits at the drop of a pin. If that's true, I suspect it was because they were conditioned to think of themselves as sinful creatures, not because one girl's clinical hysteria was contagious. But, more to the point, I seriously doubt it's true. In fact, the author takes pain to show us that the menfolk, like Cotton Mather, were nowhere near as dumb as we might like to think. So why then the women? I don't know. Also, to be honest, hysteria doesn't even begin to explain everything.

You know what this was? It was like a 3rd rate version of Aldous Huxley's The Devils of Loudon. It got boring long before it was over. And it didn't take advantage of its opportunities to think about the world in larger ways. It's almost as though Hansen had this flash of insight, which he then used his historical training more to dismantle than explore. By the end, he had me more or less convinced that he was wrong.

[Leo Newton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing more than an apology for the behavior of the clergy and their criminally unethical actions. Overuses the naïve excuse of "hysteria" as a medical, not sociological, rationale. Makes the assertion--albeit a correct one--that true hysteria is quite rare; yet uses hysteria as the fulcrum upon which the entire episode rests. Also, after denying the idea of "mass hysteria", he says that the dozens of folks suffering from it are all unique, individual cases, a village of people individually suffering from a fantastically rare malady, but not in "a mass". Hansen loves his dime store psychology; there were a few people of the time who questioned the validity of the girls acts and the "good faith" of the magistrates, but these folks Hansen labels (and libels) as "paranoid". If you're a student of this incident and are reading--or have read--several books available then you might as well as this as a bizarre curiosity, a book version of "In Search of . .". But if you only have the time and interest to read one or two books, best to leave this one off your list.

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was dry...a very academic work. Quite old - published in 1969.

That being said, I've always been intrigued by the Salem Witch Trials. It seems to me, so very little has been written on the subject. At least so very little that I have come across. In that way, I found this book interesting as the author discussed the trials, using supporting documents written by clergy and others in Salem during the time period.

But now, I feel a desire to search for something published in more recent years to compare the belief of the newer author to this one.

[Nicole C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stuff. Makes good use of primary sources. I think it holds up well, given the fact it's over thirty years old.

[Michael Farley · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating book on a fascinating topic. Easy to read, written from an unbiased perspective and includes many primary sources.

An interesting reminder just what kind of creature mankind is. For any chronological snobs that wonder how people could be so backwards that they would excecute innocent people for witchcraft, just think - in 200 years, people will look back and wonder how we today could possibly think a man could become a woman, and they will recoil in horror at our allowance of the mutilation of men, women and even children who foolishly give in to our modern neurosis and pop culture and profess such a belief about themselves. The situations change, but our madness never changes.

[Äsruþr Cyneaþsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hansen here provides the definitive analysis of the events that took place in and around Salem Village. With an eye for psychology, Hansen delves into the motivations behind the accusations and the psychological aspects of both witchcraft and daemonic possession. Throughout the work, Hansen also correct many of the misconceptions that have perpetuated throughout history and popular culture -- concluding that amongst the injustice, there was in fact some degree of witchcraft present.

[Bri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps a bit dry, but even so this was a balanced recounting of events, with a committed effort of staying true to the views and beliefs of those officials, accusers, and accused. Great care has been taken not to skew the facts or buy into some of the great farces that originated in Salem in 1692. Not the detailed account I was expecting and yet, I feel as though I have gained a better understanding surrounding the existence of witchcraft and the response thereof in many places in the world.

[Kayleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting read and definitely details the time but I couldn't help feel the theory behind the book was 'there's not enough evidence to support this popular theory of what happened, but this one thing happened, so that should be enough evidence to go with my theory and stop discussing it any further.'

[Steve Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a "what you weren't told in history class" examination of the Salem Witch Trials that takes you into deeper detail. Well worth reading. A couple of non-spoiler pieces of trivia:

1. Two dogs were executed in connection with the trials.

2. One of the judges most zealous in convicting the accused witches went on later in life to write America's first widely published anti-slavery essay.

[Sarah Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read Witchcraft at Salem by Chadwick Hansen close to Halloween. I was expecting great things but was disappointed. I am sure that there are better books than this. It was very dry, very dated in its analysis but did give a lot of history around the trials and what happened.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

A refreshing look Salem's culture of hysteria and the legality of spectral evidence in a court of law.

[Jena | TheMoonlitPage · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giving it 3 stars for the first 1/2. Unfortunately it seemed to get very repetitive and dull so I DNF after 2/3.

[Carley Windorff · Rating 1 out of 5]

Author claims witchcraft trials were perpetuated by hysteria on part of victims. Poorly constructed narrative, useful for a listing of original sources, but not much beyond that.

[S.K.G. Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the 1st edition. It looks at what the others do not.

[☆.*:｡lauren｡:*.☆ · Rating 2 out of 5]

horribly inaccurate…

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

At its best, this book successfully reconstructs for the first time the understanding of the participants in the 1692 witch hysteria, something that 18th and 19th century commentators studiously avoided doing. Hansen accomplishes this, first, by asserting and documenting the general existence of witchcraft in 17th century Massachusetts as a loosely organized social practice and, second, by locating some of the symptoms displayed by "witchcraft victims" within the framework of mid-20th century psychiatric understanding of hysteria.

The author tends to over-defend his theory that witchcraft was a relatively widespread practice in Salem Village (modern Danvers) by jumping from evidence that a few of the accused might have been engaged in witchcraft practices (and definitely appeared to the court of Oyer et Terminer to have been engaged in them) to assertions that those persons definitely -were- engaged in witchcraft. This is particularly damaging in the case of the Rev. George Borroughs, against whom the author provides only very slight and circumstantial evidence.

Hansen also follows to an extreme the unfortunate tendency of 20th century historians to rehabilitate the reputation of Cotton Mather after his support of the trials and later attempts to instigate new ones. He does this even while discussing Robert Calef's 1700 expose on Mather's prolonged attempts to re-ignite the witch hysteria in the years following the 1692 trials. These attempts, by Mather and several of his fellow witch-hunters, extended to the swearing out and signing of impossible affidavits about witchcraft victims floating in mid-air for long periods of time -- testimony which was then obtained and published in Calef's book (needless to say, against Mather's wishes). Even while trying invert Mather into an honest reporter and Calef into an infamous scribbler, Hansen himself presents damning evidence (including the text of the affidavits themselves) that the perfectly-sane Mather, throughout the last decade of the 17th century, was semi-professionally involved in perjury and incitement of further public hysteria, long after the evaporation of any possible plea of ignorance on Mather's part as to the dangers associated with such incitement. This tendency in Hansen's analysis reaches its nadir in chapter 12 ("mauling one another in the dark"), which readers would do just as well to skip. As a result, Hansen creates a Cotton Mather who does not correspond to the historically-real person.

Notwithstanding the above, Hansen's book is, without close competition, the best single-volume interpretation of the witch trials as they were intellectually understood by the participants. His work demonstrates the process through which leaders whose previous and subsequent lives demonstrated high degrees of honesty, and in many cases mercy, none the less disastrously mislead themselves in 1692 and persisted in error over long periods of time.

In particular, the Reverend John Hale benefits from the perspective created by Hansen's research. Unlike Mather, Hale publicly retracted and repented of his mistakes once the truth had become inescapably clear to him, and further acknowledged that the just and orderly prosecution of witchcraft trials was effectively impossible. The importance of "Witchcraft at Salem" is that it illuminates the process -- to some extent, through Hansen's adopting that process himself -- through which an honest man like Hale came genuinely to believe in a Salem witch conspiracy. And there is no question that, for the first months of the hysteria, the large majority in Massachusetts certainly did, like Hale, believe in it. It is only through the understanding of this process that the modern reader can distinguish between the legitimate self-scrutiny that Hale published in 1697 as "A Modest Inquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft," and the self-serving, often recalcitrant, justifications of a Cotton Mather. In this way, Hansen finally clears the way for Hale to escape an unjust condemnation from history. This is arguably Hansen's greatest victory.

"Witchcraft at Salem" should be read alongside Starkey's "The Devil in Massachusetts." The latter adopts a novelistic mode and proceeds from the standard assumption that there was no significant practice of witchcraft in Salem in 1692. In counterpoint to Hansen's reconstruction of the theoretical and proto-scientific groundwork that enabled educated, informed and sober people to believe in a massive (and, as even Hansen admits, wholly non-existent) satanic conspiracy, Starkey's book provides the most organic account of how the participants experienced and felt the events as they unfolded. Between them, the two books provide what should be the standard introduction to the topic.

[Hailey Bowser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Throughout the ages there have been many ideas about whether or not witchcraft is real or just something that people made up. You will come to learn that when you read this book you can come to understand whether the rumors are true or not.
There have been many of cases of people that have acted strangely or said strange things. Many people didn’t know how to handle or deal with people with this problem, so most of the people that were accused were sentenced to death. Although some people believed they were innocent, that didn’t matter because the court had enough evidence against them that they were sentenced to death anyways.
The way they were sentenced to death varied. They could have been burned at the stake or drowned in a lake. There were many more ways of killing the witches, but these two ways were the most common.
Some people were being possessed by evil spirits. Others were watching the spirits take over their bodies and force them to do strange things. Some of the people were being treated and others were being blessed to get the evil spirits out of their bodies. People accused the devil of taking over their bodies.
The way these people acted was not normal. Friends, families, and random people watched in horror as these people had their bodies twisted and distorted by whatever was possessing them. These spirits were also making them speak in different tongues. They spoke languages they didn’t know or they were speaking with a voice that was not their own.
When these people were sentenced to death, it wasn’t just one person. Some families were accused of witchcraft, and were all punished. By punished I mean killed. They could have been innocent, but it didn’t matter if there is enough evidence to show that they are guilty.
There were some families who did not support each other. If someone truly believed they did something wrong, they would not stand up for them, but go against them in court.For example, Giles Corey testified against his wife. He went through with speaking against her. He may have had a few things that may have made him look bad, but he still spoke against her.
Back when witchcraft was still around, it was not very welcome. From reading this, clearly some people think that possessed people or witches should be killed, while others think they can or should be helped.

[Emily Bramley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had a lot of interesting facts about what happened to the girls of Salem; however I thought the story itself was bland. If the author spiced up the story more I believe I would have liked it a lot better. The story is about how the people of Salem believed that some of their girls were witches. They would use a charm to find their future husbands occupation and when they said the rime “rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief” they would conjure up a coffin. After the coffin was concurred up they would be followed with diabolical molestation of their death. The girls were also said to have used two different kinds of magic, black magic, and white magic. White magic was more commonly used then black magic. Black magic was said to be the devils calling, because whatever girl said that they had used the black magic also said “Satan will save me, Satan will come and save me”, and when Satan never saved her she cried out “you lied to me, you lied to me”. As I said at the beginning this book had a lot of interesting facts about what went on in Salem in the 1600, but I believe the author could have done a better job making the story more interesting for the readers. I would rate this book a three out of five.

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the study of the Salem Witchcraft incident that comes closest to representing a Christian viewpoint. Among other things, it compares the overall record on witchcraft of the New England Puritans with that of the authorities in Europe at the time and concludes that the New Englanders actually did rather well; it also makes clear that most of the clergy in Massachusetts opposed how the trials were conducted. Since this incident more than any other is used to attempt to discredit Puritanism in America, this is a book with which Christians who admire the godliness of the American Puritans should be familiar.

[Kressel Housman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got only halfway through this, which is pretty good for me with a history book. It taught me many of the finer details about the Salem witch trials that I didn't know. I've even discovered a favorite "character" among the accused - Rebecca West - and have developed a stronger interest for the period in general. Reading The Crucible and visiting the Salem witch museum in MA were certainly richer experiences after having read this book. I hope to try Shirley Jackson's book on the subject some time. I love her psychological fiction, so I'm sure she did a bang-up job on this.

[Patrick McFarland · Rating 5 out of 5]

When one considers that carrying a rabbit's foot or cursing a neighbor would brand you a follower of the occult in 17th century New England, it isn't such a stretch to believe that Puritan leaders at Salem in 1692 might be correct in assuming that they were indeed over run with witches. Hansen's book is meticulously researched and his conclusions more than plausible. This might be the best book I have ever read on the subject.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if some of the accused actually were practicing "witchcraft", at least the "white" variety? He then discusses evidence that strongly suggests that some of them were. Hansen also puts belief in witches in its proper historical context. Sort of like voodoo today, if you believed in witchcraft, it worked.

[Drew Darby · Rating 4 out of 5]

The focus on the original sources, along with a studied avoidance of the classic assumptions that had plagued virtually every treatment of the Salem phenomenon into the twentieth century are what really make this book worth reading. I'm not an expert on the topic, but I found the book to be informative, balanced, and interesting.

[Alaina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very readable work of scholarly non-fiction. Hansen has a strong thesis and supports it admirably with documentary evidence.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written and an in depth analysis of magic and psychology. Significantly better than any info found in a text book.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12050537

[Michael Mayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick, engaging read. A decent introduction to the subject.