Salem Possessed: Exploring Witchcraft & Its Social Impact - Essay Sample

Salem Possessed, written by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, dive deep to explore the pre-existing economic and social divisions in Essex County, Massachusetts, specifically in small community village, Salem, as an entry point to understand the notion, existence, and accusation of witchcraft in 1962. The book redefines several concepts in social-historical possibilities surrounding the idea of witchcraft and the effects on social, economic, and political spheres. For instance, the authors argue that witchcraft resulted in personal, social, and political differences among the villagers, which resulted in the division of the village. One faction led by Putman identifies itself with the traditional activities and supports the village minister Parris. The other faction led by Porter, who identifies either the mercantile town. On the same fault lines, a majority of the accused witches belong to Porter faction, and although the support the petition for the independent church, they show up on complaints of witchcraft incidents of 1962. Through such a reconstruction of the factional village of Salem, the book illustrates more profound episodes of Salem witchcraft from within the broader history of the transformation to modern capitalist society and the conflicts from this change.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

The Night Battles by Carlo Ginzburg combines several analytical perspectives of the folklore, popular tradition, and culture. In the Friuli region of Italy, “benandanti” translated as the “night battlers” who leave their villages on specific nights of the year to engage in spiritual fights with witches to protect their yields. The benandanti were born with the caul –a piece of amniotic sac on their necks - and often called themselves protectors. The title “agrarian cult” was born and is strongly associated with the German cult led by the goddess Diana. Benandanti believed to be warriors for the Christian God, and Christian themselves. However, a considerable conflict arises when they meet the Catholic Church in the form of the Inquisition. Moreover, the so-called Christian cult “benandanti “turns into a devilish coven of witches convening at a sabbat fighting against God, and therefore against the church.

Levack’s book The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe provides extensive analysis and cases of how the “diabolical” model of witchcraft, which was well known by the Europeans “maleficia,” which involved curses in causing injury. However, in Early Modern Europe, the elite and scholars in various fields surrounding sociology and spirituality incorporated ideas around those who practiced maleficia that they were associated with Satanism. They thus assembled with Satan on “witches’ Sabbaths.” As a result, the paranoia and mixed the religious foment of the period and the worldly ambition to create “Godly Societies,” the urge to ferret out Satanic collaborators, and the guilt of not being able to avoid sin largely contributed the overflow of the witch hunt. The author observes, “Support for witchcraft trials provided a means by which the members of European communities could acquire confidence in their moral sanctity and ultimate salvation.” (p. 150.)

References

Boyer, P., & Nissenbaum, S. (1974). Salem Possessed . Harvard University Press .

Ginzburg, C. (2011). The Night Battles Witchcraft & Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth & Seventeenth Centuries. (J. &. Tedeschi, Trans.) London & New York: Routledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

Levack, B. P. (2006). The Witch-Hunt In Early Modern Europe. Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Limited.