The Witch Trials in Salem
Two of the most common theories of the witch hunts are basically medical interpretations,
attributing the the witch witch craze to unexplainable outbreaks of mass hysteria. One version has it
that the peasantry went mad. According to this, the witch-craze was an epidemic of mass hatred and
panic cast in image of a blood-lusty peasant mob bearing flaming torches. Another psychiatric
interpretation holds that witches themselves were isane. One authoritative psychiatric historian,
Gregory Zilboorg, wrote that:
...millions of of witches, sorcereres, possessed and obsessed were an enormous mass of severe
neurotics [and] psychotics ... for many years the world looked like a veritable isane asylum..
But, in fact, the witch-craze was neither a lynching party nor a mass suicide by hysterical
women. Rather, it followed well-ordered, legalistic procedures. The witch-hunts were well-organized
campaigns, initiated, financed and executed by Church and State
annaabi.ee 
