Alexis Peck Blog

This week's reading from The Salem Witch Hunt: A Brief History with Documents focused on providing context for the Salem witch trials. As I was reading, I found a large connection between the Puritan beliefs of the seventeenth-century New Englanders and what went on in Salem. Puritan beliefs appeared to be at the root of the hysteria that was occurring during this time. I wanted to highlight three beliefs in the Puritan faith I witnessed throughout this reading that fueled this hysteria which eventually led to the Salem witch trials. The first belief was that God was constantly testing Puritans. The Puritans thought that nothing was accidental and that anything that occurred or happened to an individual whether that be good or bad was willed by God. This connected to what occurred in Salem because it allowed New Englanders to believe that being affected by witchcraft was a sign from God that they were being punished. This had the effect of increasing hysteria throughout New Eng...

This week in class we focused on the stories relating to two women convicted of witchcraft. One of these stories focused on the Goodwin children who appeared to be tortured by demonic forces. The Goodwin children had strange things occur to them including: their heads being nailed to the floor, coughing up a ball, riding a phantom horse, and even attempts to pull out their bowels. These events were not only downright weird, but they were also extremely specific. We spent some time in class discussing their behavior and how if it was not the result of witchcraft, what else it could have been caused by. Other reasons for the children’s behavior that we came up with included child abuse, mental illness, psychoactive plant or bacteria consumption, and that the behavior was made up by the parents and Reverand. I wanted to do some more research on this story to see what reasons besides witchcraft could be found regarding the Goodwin children’s behavior. One paper written about the medical ...