came easily convinced that the Devil was tampering with their society. Reverend A Mudge stated this when he said, "We know that there was a fearful kind of insanity possessing at the time the minds of the people, including those in authority, concerning what was a witch,…." This fanaticism destroyed the heart of the puritan community. Instead of unity, dissension and discontent were prevalent. Fear was so rampant that people named others as witches before they themselves could be branded. "To escape accusations, people turned accusers and thus lied against the lives of neighbours and friends. Attempting refuge from the wrath of the storm was afforded by confession,…" The ironic nature of falsely accusing neighbours and friends was that lying was a sin, and for a community which prides itself on its strict adherence to gods word so that its people may live forever in heaven, the same people were willing to sin and send others to their death in order to preserve their existence on earth. The trials were intended to control hysteria over witches, but instead escalated it because people could now use the trials as a means of controlling others. There was know belief of innocent until proven guilty in their laws, instead puritan law makers felt that even members of the church could be found guilty of witchcraft. To control the spread of witches, a community of vigilance was created to hunt down and prosecute all suspected witches. Not all villagers agreed with the vigilance approach, Cotton Mather was troubled by this Fanaticism. He believed that the people were to zealous in their pursuit of witches and in their beliefs, and thus they were Hysterical. He stated, "But that which most of all threaten us in our present Circumstances, is misunderstanding, and so the animosity whereunto the witchcraft now regain, has enchanted us." Cotton Mather realised how this irrational thinking spread the idea of witchcraft among the Puritans. T...
