Just because the witch trials ended, the suffering never ended

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
November 18, 2024

There are some things no one can take away from you. No enemy on this earth can take away your free will. No one has the power to remove your thoughts. No one can control what you believe. No one can force you to surrender all hope. You are the only one in control of all of that.

What you think can only be changed by you. Do you realize how much power you have to change other people's thoughts? If you dare to speak to those you disagree with, and both of you are willing to listen, you can stop seeing one another as the enemy.

Many things divide us because people seem too focused on our differences. Contemplate how some people use their free religious choice in an attempt to control what you make the free will choice to believe. That isn't new. Nothing we see is new.

I find myself shaking my head so many times during the day I need IcyHot to ease the pain in my neck.

Writing the First Witch of Salem, the fourth book in the Ministers Of The Mystery Series, it became clear how people used fear to gain power. Once they figured that out, the added hatred provided someone to blame for their miseries. 

Harsh winter; blame a witch. Crops fail; blame a witch. If someone gets sick or dies, blame a witch. It worked out so well for those in charge; they put 300 people in prison and took their possessions. They had an enemy list. When they couldn't get someone to point fingers at their enemies, they tortured and threatened people until they received the testimony they sought.

What a master plan! It twisted and corrupted the Puritans' faith, coupled with fear of retribution to prevent anyone from speaking the truth, and it worked.

One wonders what would have happened if the people of Salem Village and the town of Salem had stood up against all of it when the witch accusations began.

It wasn't as if they had no example of how wrong it was to do what they were doing. Connecticut beat them to it. They hung Alse Young in 1647. It took them until 1669 to change their minds.

John Winthrop Jr. became Connecticut's governor and chief magistrate in 1657 and a few years thereafter was given the critically important assignment of attaining an official royal charter from King Charles II. This charter established Connecticut as an independent colony and amongst other privileges, granted Winthrop the right to pardon offenders. Winthrop was able to overturn the conviction of Elizabeth Seager of Hartford at her third witchcraft trial in 1666 and save Katherine Harrison from a death sentence in 1669. Harrison's trial was notable in that it changed the way evidence is used in Connecticut, including determining that there should be a plurality of witnesses, at least two for every event. Additionally, Winthrop lead the way in determining that the burden of proof should be on the accusers rather than the accused and he lobbied to dismiss the use of spectral evidence (evidence based on dreams or visions). Over time Winthrop used his alchemist background to challenge the ideas of "diabolical magic".

Some courageous people in Massachusetts were willing to speak the truth, but there were so few that retaliation with accusations against them silenced others. Rev. Francis Dane was a preacher from Andover. His bravery in opposing the witch trials caused members of his family to be charged, and two of them were executed. The people of Salem should have considered what he said, especially since he preached against it long before it happened in Salem.

The sad truth about what happened in Salem was that none of it had to happen. If the people practiced their Christian faith and believed what they claimed they did, they would or should have been willing to do whatever it took to defend those wrongfully charged.

Many aspects of what occurred in Massachusetts over 300 years ago can be associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. One that never seems to be noticed is the guilt they felt when the trials stopped, and those held in prison were again among them. They would have spoken about the terror they experienced while being tortured, including children as young as four years old being terrorized.

You may ask how guilt can cause #PTSD. Some only associate it with survivor guilt, but there is a difference. It is also a moral injury. Remorse over what was done to others is powerful.

There is a great deal of overlap between moral injury and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Both begin with an event that is often life threatening or harmful to self or others. Guilt and shame are core features of moral injury and are also symptoms of PTSD. The betrayal and loss of trust that could be experienced with moral injury are also common features of PTSD. For example, someone who was assaulted by a loved one may feel betrayed and have difficulty trusting others, whether or not they also suffered moral injury or PTSD.

Think about what they went through watching 19 women and men hanging from ropes on Proctor's Ledge. Think about what they went through when they heard what happened to those who were forgotten while held in four different prisons. Then, think about what it was like for the accusers to have to see those they accused walking freely again while knowing the lies they told came back to haunt them. 

While some remained guilt-free because they had no conscience, many would have felt it in their guilt deeply in their spirits. It was too late to change what they allowed to happen. They made a lame attempt to atone for it by having a day of prayer and repentance. Still, no one was held accountable for what they did to so many innocent people.  Just because the witch trials ended, the suffering never ended.

Beware of the trickery this Halloween

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 30, 2024

Tomorrow is Halloween, and I'm dressing up as a witch. (No shocker there for those who know me.) All across the country, kids will show up saying "trick or treat," even though they never expect the trick. People will enjoy scary movies and eat whatever candy remains. No one expects a trick. Some people are getting ready to pull on us.

I keep hearing that some politicians are planning to toss out votes. This is a friendly reminder that voters must prove who they are no matter who they vote for. Once this is done, the ballots they fill out are anonymous. 

I've voted in every election since I was 18. Before voting, I had to prove who I was and where I lived to ensure I was voting in the proper precinct. Once I did that, I was handed a blank ballot. No one knew who I voted for, and the ballot was put into a machine without personal information.

I had to do an absentee ballot a few times in my life. I had to prove who I was, and the ballot was sealed without any of my information on it.

The ballots go into the same piles as everyone else's. Voting for the person you want in charge of this country's future is not only a treat but a privilege. When they win, you know you were part of putting them in office. When they lose, most of us accept it, but some will not be able to. They want to claim a trick was played on them, which was the only way the person they wanted received fewer votes. 

Politicians will then play a massive trick on their emotions and say they want to toss out ballots. It may sound good until you remember how the process works.

If you believe they can find the ballot they want to toss out, it just means it is the one they don't like. Don't let them pull a trick on you, or it will get a lot more frightening the next time you want to use the power of your vote!

I am retraumatized remembering what happened to me

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 28, 2024

I have heard too many people talking about being pro-life and pro-choice. The truth of what is behind all of the talk has been silenced. Once a choice is taken away from someone, it is taken away from all of us.

My heart breaks for all the people who have suffered because they had to go through horrifying medical emergencies. No one asked them if they wanted what they were forced to endure. It didn't matter if they wanted to be pregnant or not. It didn't matter if they were Republican or Democrat, Independent, or refused to vote for the people running for election. All that mattered was a female was pregnant and needed medical intervention.

Read Dozens of pregnant women, some bleeding or in labor, are turned away from ERs despite federal law from Associated Press to understand what has me re-traumatized.

The Biden administration says hospitals must offer abortions when needed to save a woman’s life, despite state bans enacted after the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion more than two years ago. Texas is challenging that guidance and, earlier this summer, the Supreme Court declined to resolve the issue.

More than 100 pregnant women in medical distress who sought help from emergency rooms were turned away or negligently treated since 2022, an Associated Press analysis of federal hospital investigations found.

Some people live in states where they feel as if voting to codify the choice over what to do with their own bodies has made them safe from those horror stories. They failed to wonder what would happen if the people running for office had already stated they wanted to ban abortions across the nation. More perplexing is they do not seem to wonder what would happen to them should they need what they voted for and what they voted to take away from everyone.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky when a pregnancy went wrong and nearly killed me, but laws protect my life. It was in the early 80s when I was carrying twins. My husband and I were thrilled. He went to every doctor's appointment with me. That thrill turned into a deadly nightmare when I started to bleed. Our doctor told me to get to the emergency room. I was hemorrhaging in the wheelchair while the nurse was checking me in. As I was wheeled away, I left a trail of blood behind me, and the seat was soaked. One of the twins came out. The doctor had to abort the other one to save my life.

As bad as that was, my husband blamed himself because of Agent Orange from Vietnam. It didn't matter that our doctor explained that the egg had split wrong. His mild #PTSD became full-blown because he lost the ability to fight it. I had nightmares because when it all happened, I was in the maternity ward and had to listen to babies crying and people celebrating the joy of a new life in the world after I lost the two I hoped would come too.

There was no debate over if the doctor could be arrested for doing it. My doctor didn't have to wait for the hospital administrator to approve the procedure. There was no judge or politician to make us wait for their power to choose what happened to me. My life was saved without delay because the law protected me.

No one else had the power to get involved. No one claiming to be pro-life had the power to let my life end because what they decided was right for them gave them the ability to make decisions for me. All of this is playing out across the country, and I am retraumatized remembering what happened to me so long ago. I wonder if any of them have contemplated it happening to them.

I know I didn't think it could happen to me until it did.

I wonder if they ever thought that once this right is taken away from everyone because that is what they wanted, what is the next right they will see gone. I am pro-choice because of what happened to me, and I don't want the power to choose for someone else.

They didn't see it coming or know how to stop it back then

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 18, 2024

"Perhaps Satan’s goal had been not to recruit witches but to trick the court into executing the innocent."

That was from The Bill Of Rights Institute, The Salem Witch Trials, Malcolm Gaskill, University of East Anglia. In 1692, the demon was very busy in Salem Village. People were suffering and wanted to blame someone. The influential people gave them witches, and hate gave them the targets.

Usually, I stay out of politics. These are not usual times. What is happening now is correlated with what happened in Massachusetts in 1692. I am surprised so few noticed it.

People have been conditioned to blame someone else for their problems. Too many are pointing fingers at what they consider easy targets. Fueling hatred against others with no power to cause or fix their misery deflects the absence of efforts on their part to solve problems. It happened in Salem because it was allowed to happen. Everyone going against the ridiculous claims made became another target, and they found themselves accused. It was a vicious circle designed to keep it going so that enemies were caught in the web of lies. It is happening again.

"Villagers were emboldened to voice their own suspicions of other witches, which led to more arrests. The accused were brought to the public meetinghouses and urged to confess so they could be brought back into the Christian fold. Most people gave credence to “spectral evidence”, evidence based on visions and dreams, in which the afflicted claimed they could see invisible spirits flying around the room and causing them pain. Even a four-year-old girl, the daughter of one of the accused, Sarah Good, was imprisoned for witchcraft. Before long, the witch hunt had spread to several neighboring communities."

None of it was real. None of the accusers experienced what they claimed. They did not have to prove a single word they said; all they had to do was claim they believed it happened.

Samuel Parris, a corrupt minister, fueled twisted religious beliefs. After children in his household made outrageous claims, they blamed witches, and the plot to use them began. Realizing they had the power to manipulate others, the seeds were sown in the minds of others, like the Putnam family.

"Thomas Putnam (Jr.) was from the third generation of Putnams in Salem Village. He was the eldest son of Thomas Putnam (Sr.), who himself was the eldest son of John Putnam, one of the founders of Salem Village who had arrived from England in the 1640s. The Putnams were a powerful and wealthy family, yet by the 1690s, Thomas Putnam was seeing his prospects diminish as property continued to be divided with each generation. He watched as neighbors like the Porters and the Nurses, who lived closer to Salem Town, became more prosperous. Thomas Putman had also aligned himself with the new village minister in 1689, Samuel Parris, a man who did not have everyone’s support. Disagreements about the minister’s wage, and firewood, and ownership of the parsonage caused ongoing division in the community."

None of those in charge had any power to change the harsh winter, grow crops that could not be grown, or eliminate illnesses. None of them had the power to stop the indigenous people from attacking towns and villages to take back their land. They used their power to deflect attention from them and place it where it didn't belong, on other citizens. After all, solving problems requires work and a lot of thought. Pointing fingers was easy and added to their power and wealth. They confiscated the property of those they charged with witchcraft and billed them for the time they spent in jail.

They ignored the 10 Commandments when they falsely made accusations against others and were willing to murder. They broke the rule of requiring evidence and then broke another rule of not torturing to achieve confessions and naming others.

Dozens suffered under inhumane conditions as they waited in jail for months without trials; many of the imprisoned were also tortured, and at least one died in jail before the hysteria abated in 1693.

So much of the tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials comes down to the failure of the court and the laws during that time: Laws that made such things as visions, dreams, and even the testimony of spirits permissible evidence. And a court that accepted accusations so flimsy they would seem laughable today if they weren’t so horrifyingly unjust…(New England Law)

The more I see what is happening today, the more I think about what happened in 1692. People claim to be Christian, much like the Puritans did. With real evidence, some claim it's nothing more than a witch hunt, which requires no proof. They want to control what other people believe and how they worship. They want to control how other people live while proving they don't care about them. They only care about themselves and how they can use their power for their gain and not for the sake of the people they claim they want to serve.

The rights we have today to protect us from what the people of Salem Town and Village endured are still under the 1st Amendment because of what people got away with. Read the list of Amendments to see what other rights we have and discover how many of them apply to what happened in Salem.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

The difference between us now and the residents of Massachusetts back then is that we see all the signs because of technology. They didn't see it coming or know how to stop it back then.

Kathie Costos

Author of The Scribe Of Salem, The Visionary Of Salem, and 13th Minister Of Salem.

They got away with murder in Salem Village

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 15, 2024

They got away with murder in Salem Village just by saying they believed someone was a witch!

The accusers were responsible for the murder of 19 people found guilty of witchcraft and one crushed to death without a trial. Reading the list of those who accused innocent people may make you wonder if any of them were put on trial. The answer is no because there was no way to prove what they claimed to believe were nothing more than lies from their lips. Imagine the trauma inflicted on the colony of Massachusetts because the accused came from all over it. 

The accusations ran their course in Salem Village but not in Andover, where 48 were accused compared with 23 in Salem Village, says Burns. “A lot of people were against spectral evidence, so confessions were now the gold standard to find people guilty. The confessions that came before were from people with no agency whatsoever, like little Dorothy. But when they got to Andover, the magistrates were really good at interrogating people in private. By September, they could coerce people like clockwork. There, a lot who confessed were children as young as six.” National Endowment For The Humanities

There were many reasons for what happened there and what was behind it.

Evidence points to several factors that may have contributed to the mass hysteria: “An influx of refugees from King William’s War with French colonists, a recent smallpox epidemic, the threat of attack from Native Americans, a growing rivalry with the neighboring seaport of Salem Town, and the simmering tensions between leading families in the community created the perfect storm of suspicion and resentment.” Many historians believe the “witches” were also victims of scapegoating, personal vendettas, and social mores against outspoken, strong women.

But it didn't just happen in the colony of Massachusetts. The following is from New England Law.

The Salem Witch Trials occurred just as Europe’s “witchcraft craze’’ from the 14th to 17th centuries was winding down, where an estimated tens of thousands of European witches, mostly women, were executed.

The Puritans believed physical realities had spiritual causes. For example, if the crops failed, the Devil may have played a role. With this worldview, it was not a stretch for them to accept 'spectral evidence' of spirits and visions—which was the primary evidence used as proof of guilt during the Salem Witch Trials.

The thought of bad things happening as acts of God goes back to Biblical times. If people suffered, it was God judging them. If they prospered, then it was God's reward. This begs the question, if God was doing it to them, then how did they place blame on the Devil and witchcraft? How did they come full circle and again set their miseries on God and not the Devil? When the trials were over, they had a "Day of Atonement" to ask God to forgive them; that is precisely what they were led to believe instead of continuing to blame witches and the devil.

Whatever reason the accusers needed, it was provided. The list included torture, which made them very good at getting accusations "in private."

Aftermath of the Salem Trials
After the prisoners awaiting trial on charges of practicing witchcraft were granted amnesty (pardoned) in 1693, the accusers and judges showed hardly any remorse for executing twenty people and causing others to languish in jails. Instead, they placed the blame on the "trickery of Satan," thus freeing themselves from any sense of guilt. Jurors and townspeople also managed to maintain a clear conscience by claiming that, after all, many victims had confessed to their "crimes" and that the Salem, Massachusetts, community had been tricked by the devil. Yet families who had lost loved ones and property during the trials were expected to go on with their lives as if nothing had happened. Their attempts to regain social standing and receive financial compensation through formal legal channels took several years.

But we know the "clear conscience" they claimed wasn't real. Shame caused them to rename Salem Village. It became Danvers.

After the Witch Trials: Welcome to Danvers
By September of 1692, the peak of the witch hysteria was over and 25 innocent people were dead. 19 people were hanged. Five people had died in prison, and one elderly man was pressed to death. The vast majority of those executed came from rural areas, the majority from Salem Village.

After the trials, “in both Salem and Danvers, there was shame over what had happened here and a reluctance to deal with the trauma of the trials,” says Dan Lipcan, a library director and curator of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

Slowly, Salem Village—the epicenter of the hysteria—began to move on, building a new meeting house in 1701 and abandoning the bad memories of the former. In 1706, Ann Putnam made a public apology, stating, “As I was a chief instrument of accusing Goodwife Nurse and her two sisters, I desire to lie in the dust and to be humbled for it.”

Putnam made her confession simply to be admitted back into the church, the same faith that supported the lies that caused so much suffering. She didn't list all the other people she falsely accused. Could it be that she couldn't be bothered enough to remember all of their names? According to Dr. John Howard Smith, there were 300 accused.

During that one year, 20 people were executed as witches, which Smith suggested “indicates a certain degree of restraint, considering that nearly 300 people were accused.”

But we also know that it didn't just happen in Salem. It happened in Connecticut, too.

Between 1647 and 1697, about three dozen people (the exact number is disputed, as many court records have been lost) were charged with witchcraft in Connecticut. Eleven were executed, all by hanging. Nine of the 11 were women. The two men executed were hanged along with their wives. Of those who weren’t executed, some fled their community; others were banished.

Having PTSD, we don't need to guess what all of this did to the people involved as victims, nor do we have to imagine what it did to the rest of the people in the area. They knew it could happen to them at any moment. They also knew the truly guilty got away with it once, and nothing could stop them the next time. No one was held to account for anything, and they were "free" to move on from what they did. Those who suffered were never free to move on.

Imagine knowing the accusers were free to continue their lives as if nothing had happened, and there was no reason to feel guilty. Imagine knowing the judges were rewarded for their actions instead of held accountable. This is from the History of Massachusetts Blog.

According to Emerson W. Baker in his book, A Storm of Witchcraft, these nine judges were considered the elite of the Massachusetts Bay Colony:

“As a group, the judges represented the proverbial 1 percent – the merchant elite who were wealthy, intermarried, and exercised power in social, political, and military circles. In short, they were the superrich of Massachusetts. Simply calling them ‘merchants’ shortchanges them…Most had considerable political experience, having served as deputies and assistants in the General Court.”

Look at the site and see what happened to the judges like William Stoughton, Chief Magistrate.

From 1694 to 1699 and again from 1700 to 1701, Stoughton served as acting governor of Massachusetts after Governor William Phips was recalled to England. He also continued to serve as chief justice of the Massachusetts courts until his death on July 7, 1701.

In 1697, Samuel Sewall was the only one to apologize for his part in horrific events. The others simply signed a letter.

And then there was Judge John Hathorne, who "was one of the most vocal participants during the Salem witchcraft trials."

Hathorne’s great-great grandson was Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose works reveal Hawthorne’s guilt over the sins of his ancestor. It is speculated that Nathaniel Hawthorne added the “w” to the family name as a means of distancing himself from the wrongdoing of his great-great-grandfather. It is equally possible this change was merely the result of a fashion of the period, as many families were altering their names to reflect the original English spelling. It is interesting to note that Hawthorne did hold particular disdain for his ancestor, as Judge Hathorne appears as the antagonist Judge Pyncheon in Hawthorne’s 1851 novel The House of the Seven Gables.

When you consider what was done to those accused of witchcraft, imagine being afraid of being the next one to be wrongfully charged, imprisoned, tortured, and held in horrid conditions. At the same time, they not only took what you owned, but they made you pay money for what was done to you before they would release you. Then imagine living the rest of your life while discovering none of them were held accountable for what they did to you.

You don't have to use much energy imagining if you were the victim of a crime and they got away with it. You don't have to imagine it if you saw your day in court and the guilty got away with it because of a technicality. You don't have to if you suffered from medical malpractice, but lawyers said it would cost them too much money to pursue the evidence.

No matter what caused PTSD to strike you after you survived it, it should be easy enough to understand what the people of Salem Town and village, now called Danvers, had to endure. When you read what they went through before the accusations were made, you'll see what we now know as traumas that can produce PTSD.

We are not only aware of what PTSD does to us, we are aware of what our families go through while we suffer.

This research showed that Vietnam Veterans have more marital problems and family violence. Their partners have more distress. Their children have more behavior problems than do those of Veterans without PTSD. Veterans with the most severe symptoms had families with the worst functioning.

We also know that none of it had to happen. As for Vietnam veterans, the research was left out a detail. While it wasn't easy, my husband and I have been married for 40 years. He got help to heal, and so did I. We believed in God, but we also believed in science. Ironically, that's how the people of Salem stopped blaming God and each other when other bad things happened to them.

Kathie Costos author of The Scribe Of Salem, The Visionary Of Salem and 13th Minister Of Salem