Witch Trial Mentality

Seems like everybody is already getting ready for Halloween, and it’s only the end of August! I thought I’d share this article now and save some of my October blogging for the fun, crafty stuff I like to do!

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On a flight home from Indiana a few years ago, I realized I had forgotten to bring something with me to read, so I grabbed a special issue of LIFE magazine at the airport newsstand. This particular edition was dedicated to The Salem Witch Trials. The first several articles focused on the historical origins of Witch Hunts, many of which were fueled by superstition, power/control, and the Church leadership on the European continent during the 15th and 16th centuries. I’m sure most of us can agree the acts associated with this time were abominable.

What I wasn’t familiar with was the background behind the book Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch’s Hammer), the guidebook by which these witch hunts and executions were performed. This book, which stoked many of these atrocities, was written by two men commissioned by the Pope, and became second only in sales to the Bible for a very long time. In other words, this book was literally one of the core books of an entire continent for several centuries, shaping and informing their ideas and actions. The witch trials at Salem were a late-stage extension of the Great European witch hunt hysteria that swept Europe for more than two centuries. Twenty people were executed in Massachusetts, but an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft over three centuries in Europe. In fact, in some small German principalities, entire villages were decimated and hundreds of people were burned at the stake in single-year panics.

It really makes you think about the power of words and the choices we all have when we encounter information. I thank God every day that I can educate myself on almost any topic, that I can dig in and ask questions and find the truth to ideas I come across, especially upsetting ones. With this privilege (that anyone with access to the internet has) why would I just believe everything I’m told without finding out for myself if it’s true?! Jumping on to ideas and causes without first scrutinizing them for truth, without seeing if they align with my deepest values, without questioning the source of information, without examining opposing beliefs, can be naive at best and dangerous at worst. Thinking is hard work, but worth the autonomy, freedom, and true integrous influence that results from educating the mind through the hard work of thinking things out for ourselves.

It can be easy to simply share information without checking sources or verifying legitimacy. I know I’ve done it before. We all have! But this kind of unchecked sharing, or tendency to believe what we see online as true, without verification, can leave us in a state similar to the people who lived during the witch trials—passing around here say, condemning, and even harming others because we didn’t take the time to understand and consider the consequences, or our opportunity for responsible action. We all have the power to ask questions. If we’re not asking questions, and paying the price to educate ourselves and get our own answers, we are robbing ourselves. And it makes me wonder…

Will our descendants look back at us and shake their heads at the beliefs we swallowed without first checking to see if there was any poison in them?

Misleading ideologies, nuanced fallacies, and subtle errors abound all around us. Nothing is untouched in this high-tech, rapidly evolving world. And there is no safety in ignorance. Let’s be worthy stewards of our minds. Let’s read, think, apply, live, and wrestle for earned understanding that shapes values and beauty and freedom–not just within ourselves, but the world around us.