The Salem Witch Trials stand out to be an infamous mark in the history of religion-centric persecution of those who ‘were led astray’. Between early 1692 and mid-1693, it took place in the imperial ages of Massachusetts. Twenty of the more than 200 persons who were charged with engaging in witchcraft—the devil's magic—were put to death. Though in 1711, the Government authorities pardoned groups that were indicted for the Trials and some families were financially and morally compensated, it was only as recently as in July 2022, that Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who was the last of the accused, had her name yet to be cleared and finally exonerated. Since this took place, this event along with this location has been subconsciously associated with xenophobia, iniquity, and megalomania. Driven by prejudice against foreigners, fatally radical extremism in religious beliefs, and long-standing societal unrest, the witch hunt still captivates the public's attention over three centuries later.
Even after 325 years, there persist several unanswered concerns regarding the Salem Witch Trials. The doubts and questions don't revolve around whether the 19 persons who were hanged and the single individual who was crushed to death in 1692 were, in fact, witches (as can be guessed by the layman, they weren't). Instead, it was pondering: what afflicted the juvenile girls whose outbursts of physical aggression led to the initial charges of witchcraft?
The 9-year-old daughter and 11-year-old niece of Samuel Parris, a Salem Puritan preacher, started to behave oddly and erratically, which sparked the deadly frenzy in 1692. The "fits" quickly caught on with other girls within the community. The girls were said to have been “possessed or tortured by witches” when healthcare providers were struggling to make an accurate diagnosis.
To this present day, it's not clear: Were those girls suffering? Or had they been pretending? This was encapsulated by Emerson Baker, who is a history professor at Salem State University and a principal authority on the witch trials, stating, "That's one of the big questions of Salem." At the same time, several contemporary ideas are narrowing what ailed the girls, from ergot-based intoxication to epilepsy to ennui. However, the majority of specialists concur that the girls' suffering cannot be explained by these factors alone. It has been claimed that while some of the accused have been faking it, the others could have been experiencing some severe psychological disorders or ‘maladies’ that were left unacknowledged and untreated.
The most common assumption has been that of mass conversion disorder, which has - ironically - made a comeback to the population in Salem 300 years later. Sigmund Freud coined the phrase "conversion disorder," previously recognized as "mass hysteria," and Baker admitted that it's "still kind of a controversial diagnosis today." The psychotropic illness, in which "psychological conflict and emotional distress morph into aches and pains that possess no exact physical origin," is what Dr. Robert Bartholomew, a medical sociologist in New Zealand, claims the Salem witch trials were "undoubtedly" a case of, after studying a compiled version of greater than 3,000 cases of conversion disorder stretching as far as 1566. According to Dr. Bartholomew, outbreaks develop gradually over several weeks or months and end when the triggering factor is "no longer believed to be a threat."
October 1692 saw the end of Salem's maladies, coinciding with the dissolution of the special court established to hear cases involving witchcraft. Highly restrictive and authoritarian family dynamics or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are two situations that Baker lists as potential triggers for the conversion disorder. He mentioned that a number of the affected females fled from King William's War, having lost both their houses and family members. According to Dr. Bartholomew, a large population of women were engaged in 99 percent of the cases he reviewed. Though a precise explanation is yet unknown, the newest surge in conversion disorders in the United States and other Western countries is thought to be related to social media's burgeoning influence.
Dr. Bartholomew stated that the individuals impacted have experienced the symptoms and that "they are not crazy", so it is not "all in their heads'', as most victims are generally healthy, normal individuals." Numerous women experiencing epilepsy or hysteria were found guilty and sentenced to be burned at the stake. The witch frenzy saw its end by the close of the eighteenth century. Gradually, as knowledge about epilepsy and hysteria increased, the rationalist perspective once again gained hold.
References:
Blumberg, J. (2022, October 24). A brief history of the Salem Witch trials. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/a-brief-history-of-the-salem-witch-trials-175162489/
DeCosta-Klipa, N. (2017, October 31). The theory that may explain what was tormenting the afflicted in Salem’s witch trials. Boston.com. https://www.boston.com/news/history/2017/10/31/the-theory-that-may-explain-what-was-tormenting-the-afflicted-in-salems-witch-trials/
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