# Were the witches in Salem real? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 10, 2010, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-witches-in-salem-real/535600 "2010-04-10T01:02:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-witches-in-salem-real/535600/21 "2010-04-11T02:17:26Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > or of their stomachs swelling up, This happens often with horses, when they are bored and swallow air. It’s called _cribbing_, and is generally considered a mild vice. Usually treated by getting them out of their stall, and grazing in a pasture. I never realized that we should have been watching for Satan having taken demonic possession of our horses, instead of the rather simple physical explanation! Ha! Sounds like some people are being pretty gullible here. ---
**Author:** ![valleyofthedolls](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/a4c791/32.png) [@valleyofthedolls](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/valleyofthedolls)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-witches-in-salem-real/535600/22 "2010-04-11T04:39:06Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Read accounts of the trials and tell me what you think (Hansen, among others, recounts them). A number of them are by people who have no obvioua reason to lie (that is, not by the girls, the accusers, or the accused). If you accept that people are recountinbg what they believe they saw you can understand the (non clinical) hysteria that gripped the village. But I do not believe it was all a put-on in the name of a power grab. I have read many books/documents/transcripts why would you think otherwise? I just don’t understand why you would give any credence to eyewitness accounts that: “the girls really do seem to have been afflicted with something. The descriptions of their afflictions goes far beyond them simply being wild-eyed and screaming – the accounts speak of them being contorted into odd positions so tightly that strong men couldn’t undo them, or of their stomacjhs swelling up, and other physical extremes.” IMHO, I don’t think this was an overt land grab. I think a lot of what happened occurred on a subconscious level or was justified because of a real belief that witchcraft was occurring but that doesn’t mean I think that the girls’s “stomachs were swelling up” or that the girls were “contorted into odd positions so tightly that strong men couldn’t undo them.” Eyewitness are notoriously unreliable no matter how unbiased they seem. To trust their accounts of how the girls behaved is foolish. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-witches-in-salem-real/535600/23 "2010-04-11T04:43:47Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > But the girls didn’t actually blame Satan. They blamed other people, in order to deflect the blame from themselves. Humans are very much alike in their reactions, now or four hundred years ago. > > The punishments the girls were facing were no doubt much more dire than grounding for a month. Witchcraft could lead to a death sentence, and fortune telling was considered, especially among Puritan types, flirting with the diabolic. > > Once the blame game got started, it became impossible to stop, and these girls must’ve been actresses of Oscar calibre. Of course, if I could get out of being pressed by heavy stones by twisting up like a human pretzel and screaming my head off, I’d probably twist and shout too. (Shake it up baby!) You just need to take the thought process a bit further: “It must have been Satan. But how could Satan affect me? It must be that scary old beggar woman or that other person who looks different than me. Yeah, she must be a witch!” ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-witches-in-salem-real/535600/24 "2010-04-11T05:18:15Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > You just need to take the thought process a bit further: > “It must have been Satan. But how could Satan affect me? It must be that scary old beggar woman or that other person who looks different than me. Yeah, she must be a witch!” I didn’t say the girls did not believe in the actual existance of Satan and that he could influence people. (I grew up a Jehovah’s Witness, I know what this kind of mindset is like.) What I said was the girls were blaming others for what they had done, and the whole thing got out of control. The girls, powerless all their lives, got a taste of power, and swiftly became drunk on it, when all of Salem hung breathless on their tantrums. But it started out as an act to escape punishment. That Minister Parris didn’t swiftly end their antics when they first began means the guy truly sucked as a parent. He wasn’t much of a minister either. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-the-witches-in-salem-real/535600.md?page=1)