What harm were Salem's supposed witches actually accused of causing?

What Were Witches Actually Accused of Doing in Salem?Signing a mysterious book with blood. Attending midnight gatherings in the minister's pasture. Shape-shifting into wolves. Sending spirits through jail cell walls despite iron shackles. The accusations against Salem's alleged witches painted a picture of organized supernatural conspiracy that went far beyond what most people imagine.

But what did colonists actually believe witches were doing? How did the Devil supposedly recruit his servants? Why were investigators searching bodies for hidden marks? What made everyday misfortunes like spoiled milk or a bad dream transform into evidence of murder? And how did witnesses claim to see ghostly victims and impossible creatures with mixed animal parts?

The accusations reveal an elaborate belief system where witches weren't just casting spells. They were waging war against the Christian church itself, plotting to return New England to Satan's control one village at a time.

What's in This Episode:

• How Satan allegedly recruited and marked his followers • The role of spectral evidence in convicting the accused • Why metal shackles were believed necessary but didn't work • What investigators looked for during physical examinations • The supposed plot to establish the Devil's kingdom in Salem Village • How poppets, familiars, and fortune-telling became criminal evidence • Why witnesses testified to seeing ghosts in winding sheets

Key Topics:

Salem Witch Trials, witchcraft accusations 1692, spectral evidence, Devil's book, maleficium, witch marks and teats, familiars, poppets, Salem sabbats, Tituba confession, Bridget Bishop, Martha Carrier, George Burroughs, Rebecca Nurse, diabolical witchcraft, colonial New England, Samuel Parris, 17th century witch hunts

Discover the Answer:

What could transform your neighbor into a suspected servant of Satan? Join Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack to find out.

Links

Salem Witch Trials Daily Videos & Course

The Thing About Salem Website

⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts YouTube

⁠The Thing About Witch Hunts Website

Sign the Petition: MA Witch Hunt Justice Project

www.massachusettswitchtrials.org
Support the nonprofit End Witch Hunts Podcasts and Projects

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Those accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials
were said to have performed manydifferent wicked acts.
They partied with Satan. They flew, They cursed and
afflicted people. They transformed into beasts.
And worst of all, they murdered people who frequently were
reported to come back as ghosts and demand vengeance.

(00:22):
Welcome to the thing about Salem.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. I'm Sarah Jack.
Today we discuss the actions witches were believed to take.
Yeah, what exactly did the people of 17th century New
England accuse the witches of doing?
According to many accusers and confessors, witches were

(00:45):
recruited by Satan or by people he'd already made witches.
This belief in Satanic witchcraft dates back centuries
and was crystallized in Europe in the 15th century by the
development of a cumulative or elaborated theory of witchcraft.
According to this theory, all witchcraft was diabolical and

(01:07):
all powers granted to witches came from Satan.
Witches were believed to betray God by abandoning his church in
favor of Satan's church. Samuel Parris raged against the
supposed devils in the Salem Village church, the witches who
had signed the church covenant, only to turn around and put

(01:28):
their names in the Devil's book.Satan marked those he claimed as
his own, hiding a witch's markerteeth somewhere on the witch's
body. Upon physical inspection,
several of the Salem accused, including Rebecca Nurse, Bridget
Bishop, Elizabeth Proctor and George Jacobs Senior, were found
to have supposed teets or marks.When a recruit joined the

(01:53):
witches, they signed The Devil'sBook, which echoed the covenant
that new church members signed in Puritan New England.
On March 2nd, 1692, Tituba confessed to making a mark in
The Devil's Book with something red like blood.
Satan's recruits, in turn, lovedto recruit more witches for him.

(02:18):
And many witches were baptized by Satan.
Mary Lacey senior testified to witnessing the Devil baptized 6
witches at Falls River, and other confessors claimed to have
been baptized in the Shoshin River or at Newbury Falls.
Some were even baptized in Martha Carrier's Well.

(02:39):
Which is gathered at Sabbats where they drank blood wine and
ate red bread in a mockery of the Christian sacrament.
On April 19th, 1692, Magistrate John Hathorn asked accused witch
Abigail Hobbes if she'd been to any great meetings and she
denied it. The next day, though, facing new
questions, Abigail said she was at a great witch meeting in

(03:01):
Salem Village held right in the minister's pasture.
Abigail ate red bread and drank red wine at this meeting.
In New England, Satan's main purpose in recruiting witches
was said to be to tear down the Christian Church.
The witches in New England supposedly wanted to begin this

(03:23):
project in Salem Village, where strife and conflict were
rampant, particularly in relation to the controversial
pastor Samuel Paris on July 15th, 1692, and Foster said that
at the Salem Village witch meeting, the witches discussed
setting up the Devil's Kingdom. The witches intended to fan out

(03:43):
from Salem and spread their blight right across New England
to return the land to the devil.Richard Carrier told the
magistrates of this scheme to put the devil on his throat on
July 22nd, 1692. And Richard was one of Martha's
son, and he had been actually tortured into making that

(04:05):
confession. Witches attacked Christ's
Kingdom by creating chaos and discord among his people.
The witches did this in a variety of ways.
One method was to afflict peoplethrough harmful magic known as
maleficium, which is with sickened people like they

(04:25):
supposedly did with the afflicted people of the Salem
Witch Trials, the people like Betty Parris, Abigail Williams,
and Putnam Junior and Elizabeth Hubbard.
Also, many so-called murderers were pinned on those accused of
witchcraft. Witnesses reported seeing the
ghosts of murder victims who urged them to tell all to the

(04:48):
magistrates. Many of these ghosts were
dressed in winding sheets and during the examination of Martha
Carrier on May 31st, Afflicted Person said they saw 13 ghosts
in the courtroom representing 13people who had died in a
smallpox outbreak that was blamed on Martha.
And witches especially enjoyed harming children.

(05:10):
We see that with witchcraft persecutions today.
We've seen it throughout historythat if something goes wrong
with people's children, they worry about it and a witch hunt
can happen. Witches also spoiled food,
destroyed crops, and attacked livestock.
They caused milk to turn colors and have strange tastes.

(05:34):
They injured animals or made them sick, often killing them,
and they raised storms to pound fields with hailstones.
One key factor in the rapid growth of the sandwich house was
the acceptance of spectral evidence, which inspectors were
believed to be able to separate from their bodies.

(05:56):
These spirits could travel greatdistances to harm people,
animals and property, and those arrested for witchcraft were
shackled in jail because the colonists believe that metal
would prevent spectres from roaming free.
But this apparently did not work.
They could travel spectrally or physically upon poles.

(06:22):
There are tales of them flying upon poles to their sabbats and
the pole actually snapping and the witches struggling, even
falling to the ground on their way into the meeting.
Witches had familiar spirits, usually in the guise of animals,
but sometimes as strange amalgamations of different

(06:45):
animals. John Louder, for instance,
claimed to see Bridget Bishop's familiar, a monkey like creature
with rooster feet and a man's face.
These familiars assisted the witches in their misdeeds in
return for their services. Witches fit familiars through
devil marks or witches teeths. During the trials, committees

(07:08):
were appointed to search the suspected witches for teeths.
Rebecca Nurse contested the findings of the jury of midwives
who had inspected her and calledfor a new inspection by more
experienced women. Accusers love to report harsh
words as curses. Martha Carey reportedly told

(07:29):
Benjamin Abbott she would stick to him like bark to a tree and
told him he would regret a land deal she disapproved of before 7
years were up. When we mentioned that witches
could change weather to destroy crops, they could also raise
storms at sea to sink ships. Samuel Endicott testified that

(07:50):
Mary Bradbury cursed the ship that he was on, which was
damaged by a violent storm, and Mary Warren claimed that Alice
Parker had cast a ship away, resulting in the death of John
Labthorne. Witches knew what could happen
in the future, except for apparently not seeing the trials

(08:10):
coming. Samuel Wardell and Durkis Whore
were known as fortune tellers. Witches could even know what
people said in private. George Burroughs, former Salem
Village minister now preaching in Maine, was accused of
commenting on a conversation he could not have heard naturally

(08:31):
between his wife and her brother.
And accused witches. The Parsons and Margaret Jones
have these same types of accusations decades before.
Yes, back in 1650s and 1640s, even this accusation was going
around in Massachusetts. Witches could shape shift.

(08:52):
Sarah Good allegedly appeared asa wolf to Elizabeth Hubbard.
They stole. Bridget Bishop was accused of
making money disappear from people's pockets.
And witches likes to come into men's rooms at night and sit on
their chests, though these were really phantom visits brought on

(09:15):
by sleep paralysis. Bridget Bishop was one of the
men's favourites for this variation of the Hag Ride or the
original Nightmare. Records from the Salem
accusation show that witches were believed to brew potions
which made authority suspicious of ointments such as those found

(09:35):
in Martha Corey's house. And puppets were used by witches
to inflict pain upon enemies. A puppet could be poked,
squeezed, burnt, or otherwise abused in order to cause
injuries to the target. According to the remaining
records from the Salem Witch Trials, witches were busy

(09:57):
bodies. They undertook many activities
to disrupt the lives of their Christian neighbors.
In exchange for joining his army, the devil often promised
rewards like money and fashionable clothing.
Unfortunately for those recruited, the devil never
delivered on his promises and utterly failed to protect his

(10:18):
servants from trial and execution.