A Modern Witch at Amazon
|
The back cover of the edition of The Devil in Massachusetts I read stated that Ms. Starkey “applies innovative psychiatric noesis to the witchcraft hysteria” which plagued Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Although Starkey’s work is evidently well-researched and is with respect to history authentic, it is neither an enquiry nor a psychological evaluation with new perceptivities into the mass panic caused by assorted seriously troubled young girls. She poses question after question to the reader yet puts none of her own determinations or hypotheses to any of them. The Devil in Massachusetts is elegantly written based on Starkey’s exploration of actual trial transcripts, historical records and publications of the time. However her penchant for asking questions, double negatives and placing subordinate clauses at the beginning of sentences does cause the reader to double-back much of the time to re-read passages to perceive her message. The absence of any significant dissertation on the population may be a moot point in this post 9/11 world, whatsoever conclusions could be drawn in Starkey’s 1949 publication. Still it would be interesting to recognise what caused various young girls, ages eight to eighteen, to of a sudden fall into convulsing fits and assert they were being tortured by invisible imps. They ‘cried out’ members of the community, largely women, as their tormentors. Arrests were issued and carried out with frequency to fetch the accused before magistrates who with resolute determination believe in the existence of witches. More disturbing than the girls made-up hysterics was the courts’ finish buy-in of the ‘spectral evidence’, unseen witches and wizards observed ONLY by the afflicted girls. And they weren’t the only ones. Families of the accused disowned their relatives at the mere thought of being related to a witch, even if the woman had never shown any conduct remotely remindful of witchcraft. Others stood by their loved ones, bringing innumerable witnesses to testify on their behalf. Cooler minds did not prevail as the shrieks and howlings of pre-teen girls gave precedence over more welleducated and sane people. Other towns in the Salem area such as Andover and Ipswich came across similar sequences but by now sanity begun to take hold and these cases were dismissed as speedily as they began. The self-important Massachusetts preacher Cotton Mathers got caught up in the hysteria as well and through his own reticence and culpability, failed to rescue a man whom he concluded to be innocent. In later years, he managed to attach his name to saving the souls of condemned pirates, a crime with more tangible and concrete proof versus the accused. Despite the lack of any new perceptivities on the Salem witch trials, The Devil in Massachusetts is a outstanding glimpse into the mass confusion, terror and murder in pre-colonial New England. It does cause one to recall the old adage with regards to history repeating itself, but if Starkey did not shed light on us onto the psychological reasoning behind the panic, are we repeating it now? The days of hunting witches to hang them or burn them at the stakes are over. But what in regards to our current ‘witch hunts’ versus humans of divergence race, religion or sexual orientation? I guess the answer to the initial question is ‘yes’. |
