Essay on the Witches in Massachusetts by Lars Mllegaard Hansen (F) What evil spirit have you familiarity with? Have you made no contract with the devil? Why do you hurt these children? I scorn it.Who do you imploy then to do it?I imploy no body.What creature do you imploy then?No creature. I am falsely accused.Dialogue based on the examination of Sarah Good by Judges Hawthorne and Corwin Even though Sara Good claimed that she was wrongly accused, the judges did not take her word for it. Instead they trusted the testimony of children, children who had no proof or evidence of any kind. To understand why one must look into the society in which the trials took place. It was a society where Puritanism ruled. The extreme Protestant movement who sought a purification of the English church, which of curse meant a swift and thorough elimination of all that threatened their beliefs, including witches. One must also remember that the power of superstition and hearsay can distort the truth. And indeed it was a time of rumors and an almost unquestionable belief in the supernatural. For Salem Villagers, Satan was a living, supernatural being who could and did appear to people, either in his own form or that of another. He could converse with mortals, bargain with them, even enter into agreements with them. The witches who submitted to such devilish compacts bargained their souls in return for special powers or favors: money and good fortune, perhaps, or the ability to revenge themselves on others. Demons at that time was as real as TV is today, and maybe that was why the ministers was so quick to believe the testimony of the children. If the demons was real then just as real was the church, and of curse the ministers could not believe that the children would lie to the church. Leave out the possibility that real witchcraft was in fact what happened, and that the children did not lie to the ministers, then how could such a t...
