I was in Second Life the other evening when I came across an entry in the destination guide;  a small memorial to those who died, falsely accused of withcraft, in the town of Salem.   I must admit to having found the time to pause there and reflect as I read the names on the stone plaques around the central square.  This small area is part of a much larger pagan themed sim, click on any of the thumbnails here to get a screenshot of the memorial area itself.  If you have a Second Life client installed, you can click the following link to teleport directly there: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Primrose/170/218/88

For those who don’t know, Salem is a town in the US state of Massachusetts, whose name was given to an infamous series of Witchcraft trials in 1692 and 1693.  The trials didn’t just take place in Salem, but the two best known trials did.

26 people were tried for witchcraft and executed in these two trials alone and considering some of the “proofs” of being a witch, they really didn’t stand a chance.  Consider that simply expressing doubts about the trials was enough to put you in danger!

Salem is infamous, but it’s by no means the only place that witch trial happened.  Europe had it’s own infamy and here in the UK, we didn’t escape.  Many people died at the hands of Witch Hunters and the Pendle Witch Trials[1] in 1612 are part of English history.  In truth nobody knows the exact death toll, but it is certainly horrific.

As I intimated above, the witch craze was international and in Europe the Catholic Church produced the “Malleus Maleficarum” or “The Hammer of Witches”, which basically said that if you were accused then you were a witch and detailed many torture methods. There was no right of the defendant, no opportunity to confront accusers and torture was considered an “infallible method” of determining guilt. [2]  The whole thing was a scam and innocent people were framed left right and centre, often people would name others just to get the torturers to stop.  When being hanged, one English witch hunter confessed to having sent over 220 women to their deaths![3]  In one small town in Germany there were 24 public burnings with an average of 4-6 victims each in one year. [4]

For me, seeing a place such as this was a stark reminder of why we must rally to fight superstition and ignorance, it was these things that were the breeding grounds that this horror arose from.   This is why scientific education and the promotion of critical thought and the teaching of the scientific method itself are so important.

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References

1 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendle_witches

Source – “The Demon Haunted World” – Carl Sagan – ISBN 0-7472-5156-8

2 – page 113.

3 – page 114.

4 – page 116.