Hi Dan! Thanks for doing this.

I'd love to hear about the transformation of the town of Salem into a tourist destination for everything witchcraft. How did this come about? When did this come about?

For someone visit Salem in the future, what would you recommend seeing that might be off the beaten tourist path that is related to the witch trials?

Hi Dan! Happy Halloween, and thanks for hosting this AMA!

As an historian of Scotland, my experience with witchcraft accusations and trials is couched within that sixteenth-century Calvinist, Scottish framework. In Scotland, you see a clear distinction between accusations of malfeasance and confessions with demonological elements; that is, the accusers tend to accuse a person because they claim that person has caused their cow to die or their crops to fail, etc., but the authorities rely upon a confession of making a pact with the Devil in order to secure a conviction. Do you see similar things in the Salem trials or was the malfeasance itself enough to convict the accused?

Also, in Scotland, sleep deprivation was used as the primary means of securing a confession from accused witches. Did the authorities in Salem use this or other similar methods of torture on a regular basis?

Hi! I was wondering if there were any actual witches in America at this time? By “actual witches” I mean did any women self-identify as Witches? Was there any type of coherent Witch culture that these people would have participated in? Is there any records of Witch’s communicating about their craft with one another?

Thanks!

Hi! Very appropriate day to ask about such questions. How were the Salem trials connected to the larger phenomenon of the European witch trials? Did the jurists involve draw on previous trials for how to do things?

This is the perfect AMA for today, so thank you for that.

You mention that one of the things you study is disability in Early America. Did having a disability make you more suspicious, or cause more paranoia?

How did early settlers deal with disability in the first place? I assume it would have been a fairly tough life as is.

Christopher Hill once said that it was impossible to separate religion from economics in the 17th c. Would you say the Salem witch trials were a good example of this? Explanations I have encountered before have attempted to pick one or the other,

Thanks so much for doing this, Dan! I'd love to hear more about children during the trials, especially children with disabilities. I can imagine the presentation of many childhood illnesses and congenital conditions could evoke particular fears in a community that is experiencing heightened awareness of physical differences between people (but also, that may be a gap in my understanding of the events related to the Trials.) I'd love to learn more! Thanks!

Especially in recent years, there seems to have been an explosion in popularity of narratives that frame the Salem trials as ultimately being caused by, or heavily involving, hallucinogenic contaminants in the town's grain supply. Irrespective of the veracity of such claims (and I'm sure the answer probably leans towards 'no what is wrong with you'), how does this trend fit into changing understandings of Salem in popular memory?

Hi Dan, I'm also in Northern Virginia -- cool to see a local expert on here.

Maybe this is question is somewhat peripheral to your studies, but here goes. Today, we see a lot of popular media using witchcraft and witches as feminist characters. To what extent did those involved in the Salem trials, whether accused or accusers, see themselves as explicitly addressing gender norms? When did the witch as a feminist icon first get started and how does that relate to the history of the Salem trials?

Thanks so much!

Hello, Dan! Thanks for joining us!

I'm interested in how race and identity influenced the Salem Witch Trials and how the story evolved. How would Tituba live and navigate life in Salem before the trails? Was her role in the trial overemphasized, a convenient "other" to accuse, in a time of emerging colonial identity? How did the perspective on Tituba change over time?

Thanks in advance!

Like many, as part of high school English I read The Crucible by Arthur Miller. How much an of impact did that play and the various Film and Television adaptations influence the presence of The Salem Witch Trials in pop culture? Was it a reference the average household would understand before the play or only after? Do you feel The Crucible left a net positive or net negative impact on Salem?

Hello! Thanks for answering our questions. Do you know if the Salem trials established any legal precedents in the colonies?

Hi Dan, thanks for the fantastic looking AMA!

I've always wondered, how did Salem, a place famous for burning witches, end up as a modern center for the occult and Wiccans? Was this a planned, organized thing, or did it just kind of attract a crowd?

Hi Dan, thanks for doing this AMA!

(Here's a link to his podcast episode if anyone is feeling lazy)

How do the Salem Witch Trials fit into the wider context of witchhunting in the Early Modern world? Did they and other American witch trials have similar causes and features to those on the other side of the Atlantic or was the American context different?

Looking at the victims, there is a strong imbalance, with the majority of victims being women, but there were still a half-dozen men executed.

At the time, how did accusers and the law conceptualize the gendered differences of witchcraft? i.e. what made a woman likely "a witch" versus a man? And how did might these differences have impacted the greater targeting of women with accusations?

I wonder if you can address the subject of belief and practice. Some historians of witches come down so hard and completely on the idea that there were no witches, they they threaten to extinguish innocent (or nearly innocent) efforts to manipulate the supernatural with magic during historical periods. While we can set aside as absurd the idea that any of the victims were consorting with Satan, people did - as they always do - engage in efforts to achieve things with magic. Often these practices served as the means to prosecute people who were simply engaged in relatively innocent magical practices, what their culture told them they could do to achieve certain ends.

How do you sort all of this out and where do you stand on what magical practices were really happening and how they affected accusations of consorting with the devil?

Thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to share your knowledge with the community (what a great focus area as well!).

If you could recommend one book for a comprehensive look at the Salem trials and the immediate times around them, which one would it be?

In what ways do you feel the Salem trials were unique from the less popular trials elsewhere in colonial America?

Thanks again!

I have a friend who’s a practicing Wiccan and was in The Crucible a few years ago. She told me that something she had to think about was that people practicing her religion weren’t the actual targets of witch hunts as her practice is totally unrelated to Christianity, and instead people were accused of practicing something that actively perverts or bastardizes Christianity. Was there some form of (proto-)Wicca or a similar religion going on in the area at the time, and if so how did it fit into the witch hunts?

To what degree was the Malleus Maleficarum cited in discussions at the time of the trials? Was it a known work? Were there any detractors who saw the manuscript as faulty or was it taken as facts about prosecuting witches? And as a part of that, were there any people involved at the time who thought the really terrible aspects of Malleus Maleficarum should be employed (e.g., torture)?

Hi Dan! Thank you for doing this AMA.

What would to say are the most important differences the Salem trials had when compared to other similar proceedings, like say the witch trials conducted by the Spanish Inquisición?

Hi Dan! Thanks so much for doing this. I'd like to ask two questions. The first is, what would you say is the biggest myth/ misconception about the witchcraze that's still out there among non-specialist circles/ general public? I'd also like to ask, what do you think of David Hackett Fisher's "Albion's Seed: four British folkways in America", and how has it been received by other specialists in Colonial America?

To what extent did the fear and paranoia surrounding Native American raids and the King William's War factor into the psychology of the Salem witch trails?

Hi Dan, I was wondering if you know anything about witchcraft in England during the English civil war? Did witch trials increase or decrease during the war? What part did the war play in the trials in East Anglia?

Edward Putnam and his wife Mary Hale were my 8th Great-grandparents. From your social network perspective how did these families fit into the larger picture?

Does it drive you crazy that witches are so linked with Salem when none of the accused were actually witches? (I’m descended from Andover constable John Ballard)

In your opinion, what are the chances that Entheogens were at play? Datura, amanita, psilocybes? Was this a silent part of the trials?

Do you listen to Giles Corey?