For my last blog I wanted to research the different ways to test whether or not someone was a witch. Throughout the semester, these had been brought up rather sporadically, and each time I thought to myself how impossible, crazy, and downright insane these methods were for testing if someone was a witch. Many of them were difficult to pass and their linkages to witchcraft seem fairly weak. Three tests I want to cover include the swimming test, the urine cake test, and the touch test. The following blog will explain each test in detail by highlighting why they predicted if someone was a witch, how the test occurred, and how the type of test came about.
The first test, the swimming test, is one of the most well known ways that individuals were historically tested for being a witch. The swimming test, explained in “A History of Magic, Witchcraft, and the Occult,” tied the accused witch up and threw them into water to see if they would sink or float. If the person floated, they were a witch and if they sank, they were not. Also important to note is that if they sunk they typically drowned but this was believed to be okay to the Puritans because that meant the person would be going to Heaven since they were conscience-free. The swimming test predicted if someone was a witch because witches “spurned the sacrament of baptism,” which meant the water would reject them and they would float. This test originated from an ancient Germanic rite to allow the water to determine one’s fate, and was not actually used in the Salem Witch Trials.
The second test, the urine cake test, was the test used to prove Tituba from the Salem Witch Trials was a witch. Tituba was the first and only person on record to bake a urine cake during the Salem Witch Trials. This test was conducted by the witch baking the urine of a victim of witchcraft into a cake and feeding the cake to a dog. If the dog suffered, it meant that the witch was the one afflicting the victim. However, since the dog was being fed a cake made of urine, the dog would end up suffering regardless so it ended up being another rigged test.
The third and final test was the touch test. The touch test was the simplest test of all and was conducted by simply having the witch touch an afflicted individual to see if their afflictions would disappear. It began during the Salem Witch Trials and was believed to be an accurate test because evil flys back to its source and would do so if the witch was the source. The touch test was used many times during the trials, but it is important to note that the afflicted individuals could just lie and say their afflictions disappeared especially if they were already lying about being afflicted so this had the possibility of being another rigged test.
If used today, all three of these tests would not hold up in a real court. They all had the potential to easily be rigged and if rigged, would convict an innocent person. The mere fact that they were allowed to be used as evidence against a person convicted of witchcraft speaks to the hysteria and fear occurring in Salem during the witch trials and during other witch trials throughout the ages. Although only the urine cake and touch test occurred during the Salem Witch Trials, it was still important to include the swimming test to further the picture of how absurd these tests were. I would like to believe that if they had not existed, there would be less evidence favoring witchcraft and more lives would have been saved, but the fact that these were created in the first case indicates that those conducting witch trials were already lacking in common sense and fairness.
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