Salem Witch Trials | John Putnam Demos (essay date 1982)
John Putnam Demos (essay date 1982)
SOURCE: "Accusers, Victims, Bystanders: The Inner-life Dimension," in Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England, Oxford University Press, Inc., 1982, pp. 153–212.
[In the following excerpt, Demos explores the role of female autonomy, menopause, menarche, and anorexia nervosa in the Salem witchcraft crisis.]
"Every man is in certain respects: (a) like all other men, (b) like some other men, (c) like no other man."1
This simple yet profound observation, offered many years ago by two eminent social scientists, can be pressed into service in the present context. In certain respects the disposition of individual New Englanders toward witchcraft was quite idiosyncratic. In others it was common to particular groups, large or small. And in still others it touched matters of species-wide significance.
The present chapter deals with psychological issues at the...
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