Witches didn't exist, and yet thousands of people were executed for the crime of witchcraft. Why? The belief in magic and witchcraft has existed in every recorded human culture; this podcast looks at how people explained the inexplicable, turned random acts of nature into conscious acts of mortal or supernatural beings, and how desperate communities took revenge against the suspected perpetrators.
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Witches didn't exist, and yet thousands of people were executed for the crime of witchcraft. Why? The belief in magic and witchcraft has existed in every recorded human culture; this podcast looks at how people explained the inexplicable, turned random acts of nature into conscious acts of mortal or supernatural beings, and how desperate communities took revenge against the suspected perpetrators.
If anyone has heard of a particular witch trial, they will have heard of Salem. It's an infamous part of early American history, and everywhere in popular culture. Today's episode will be explaining the main theories as to why the small village of Salem, Massachusetts began the greatest witch panic in American history.
This episode primarily made use of the following texts:
- Anderson, Virginia Dejohn, 'New England in the Seventeenth Century', in The Oxford History of the British Empire: Volume I: The Origins of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)
- Levack, Brian, ‘State-Building and Witch-Hunting’, in Oldridge, Darren (ed.), The Witchcraft Reader, (2002)
- Godbeer, Richard, ‘Witchcraft in British America’, in Levack, Brian (ed.),The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (2014)- Hansen, Chadwick, ‘Andover Witches and the Causes of the Salem Witchcraft Trials’, in Levack, Brian (ed.), Witchcraft in Colonial America, ed.
- Le Beau, Bryan F. The Story of the Salem Witch Trials, (1998)
Also included in today's episode is a brief announcement for a new podcast of mine, Pax Britannica, launching 10th February 2019. Keep up to date with the launch by following the social media pages below:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PodBritannica/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BritannicaPax
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The History of Witchcraft
Witches didn't exist, and yet thousands of people were executed for the crime of witchcraft. Why? The belief in magic and witchcraft has existed in every recorded human culture; this podcast looks at how people explained the inexplicable, turned random acts of nature into conscious acts of mortal or supernatural beings, and how desperate communities took revenge against the suspected perpetrators.
