19. History’s Most Infamous Witchcraft Craze
The Salem Witchcraft craze of 1692 – 1693 is probably history’s most famous – or infamous – case of mass hysteria. It took place against a cultural and religious background that was predisposed to believe in the supernatural. While witchcraft is laughable to most today, in seventeenth-century Colonial America, and especially in Salem and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, it was taken quite seriously.
The belief that Satan could grant witches extraordinary powers in return for their loyalty, and that witchcraft could be used to inflict harm on the good and godly, was taken for granted. The tragedy began in January 1692, when the nine-year-old old daughter and eleven-year-old niece of Salem’s reverend began to have screaming fits. As they shrieked, the girls contorted themselves into unnatural positions, threw things, and made weird noises.
