Science and Specters at Salem

Science and Specters at Salem PDF Author: Matt Goldish
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040118518
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 137

Get Book Here

Book Description
Most studies of the Salem witch trials focus on social history and the dynamics between accused and accusers. Science and Specters at Salem turns instead to the intellectual background of the judges to understand why they accepted controversial types of evidence. The role of judges in a witch trial was central. Goldish argues that in Salem the judges' acceptance of questionable touch tests and spectral evidence was a result of their intellectual commitments. Several of the Salem judges were highly educated, and some of them were adherents of a particular philosophical school in England led by Henry More and Joseph Glanvill which Goldish calls "the anti-Sadducees." He demonstrates how the ideas of these leading thinkers, friends of Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton, could have led to the deaths of twenty accused witches in Salem. This book will interest students and scholars of witch trials, American colonial history, Atlantic history, legal history and early modern Europe, as well as lay readers wanting a better understanding of Salem.

Science and Specters at Salem

Science and Specters at Salem PDF Author: Matt Goldish
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040118518
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 137

Get Book Here

Book Description
Most studies of the Salem witch trials focus on social history and the dynamics between accused and accusers. Science and Specters at Salem turns instead to the intellectual background of the judges to understand why they accepted controversial types of evidence. The role of judges in a witch trial was central. Goldish argues that in Salem the judges' acceptance of questionable touch tests and spectral evidence was a result of their intellectual commitments. Several of the Salem judges were highly educated, and some of them were adherents of a particular philosophical school in England led by Henry More and Joseph Glanvill which Goldish calls "the anti-Sadducees." He demonstrates how the ideas of these leading thinkers, friends of Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton, could have led to the deaths of twenty accused witches in Salem. This book will interest students and scholars of witch trials, American colonial history, Atlantic history, legal history and early modern Europe, as well as lay readers wanting a better understanding of Salem.

The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England

The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England PDF Author: Sarah Rivett
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 0807838705
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Science of the Soul challenges long-standing notions of Puritan provincialism as antithetical to the Enlightenment. Sarah Rivett demonstrates that, instead, empiricism and natural philosophy combined with Puritanism to transform the scope of religious activity in colonial New England from the 1630s to the Great Awakening of the 1740s. In an unprecedented move, Puritan ministers from Thomas Shepard and John Eliot to Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards studied the human soul using the same systematic methods that philosophers applied to the study of nature. In particular, they considered the testimonies of tortured adolescent girls at the center of the Salem witch trials, Native American converts, and dying women as a source of material insight into the divine. Conversions and deathbed speeches were thus scrutinized for evidence of grace in a way that bridged the material and the spiritual, the visible and the invisible, the worldly and the divine. In this way, the "science of the soul" was as much a part of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century natural philosophy as it was part of post-Reformation theology. Rivett's account restores the unity of religion and science in the early modern world and highlights the role and importance of both to transatlantic circuits of knowledge formation.

Legal Alchemy

Legal Alchemy PDF Author: David L. Faigman
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1429926422
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 391

Get Book Here

Book Description
Is scientific information misused by this country's court system and lawmakers? Today more than ever before, lawyers, politicians, and government administrators are forced to wrestle with scientific research and to employ scientific thinking. The results are often less than enlightened. In Legal Alchemy, David Faigman explores the ways the American legal system incorporates scientific knowledge into its decision making. Praised by both legal and scientific communities when it first appeared in hardcover, Legal Alchemy shows how science has been used and misused in a variety of settings, including • The Courtroom—from the O. J. Simpson trial to the Dow Corning silicone breast implant lawsuit to landmark cases such as Roe v. Wade. • The Legislature—where Congress uses scientific information to help enact legislation about clean air, cloning, and government science projects like the space station and the superconducting super collider. • Government Agencies—who use science to determine policy on a variety of topics, from regulating sport utility vehicles to reintroducing gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park. As Faigman describes these and other important cases, he provides disturbing evidence that many judges, juries, and members of Congress simply don't understand the science behind their decisions. Finally, he offers suggestions on how the science and legal professions can overcome their miscommunication and work together more effectively.

A Storm of Witchcraft

A Storm of Witchcraft PDF Author: Emerson W. Baker
Publisher: Pivotal Moments in American Hi
ISBN: 019989034X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 415

Get Book Here

Book Description
Presents an historical analysis of the Salem witch trials, examining the factors that may have led to the mass hysteria, including a possible occurrence of ergot poisoning, a frontier war in Maine, and local political rivalries.

Judaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton

Judaism in the Theology of Sir Isaac Newton PDF Author: M. Goldish
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401720142
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book is based on my doctoral dissertation from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1996) of the same title. As a master's student, working on an entirely different project, I was well aware that many of Newton's theological manuscripts were located in our own Jewish National and University Library, but I was under the mistaken assumption that scores of highly qualified scholars must be assiduously scouring them and publishing their results. It never occurred to me to look at them at all until, having fmished my master's, I spoke to Professor David Katz at Tel-Aviv University about an idea I had for doctoral research. Professor Katz informed me that the project I had suggested was one which he himself had just fmished, but that I might be interested in working on the famous Newton manuscripts in the context of a project being organized by him, Richard Popkin, James Force, and the late Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs, to study and publish Newton's theological material. I asked him whether he was not sending me into the shark-infested waters of highly competitive scholarship, and learned that in fact there were only a handful of scholars in the world who actively studied and published on Newton's theology. At the time the group consisted mainly of Popkin, Force, Dobbs, Frank Manuel, Kenneth Knoespel, and David Castillejo.

Ghosts of Salem

Ghosts of Salem PDF Author: Sam Baltrusis
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1625849281
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 142

Get Book Here

Book Description
Beyond the witch trials . . . The paranormal expert and author of Ghosts of Boston “explores the cursed history underlying Salem’s supernatural beings” (Neighborhood View). Nestled on the rocky coast of Massachusetts, Salem is a city steeped in history and legend. Famous for its witch trials, the storied North Shore seaport also has a dark history of smugglers and deadly fires. It is considered one of New England's most haunted destinations. Inside Howard Street Cemetery, the ghost of accused witch Giles Corey wanders among the gravestones. Outside the Ropes Mansion, the ghost of Abigail Ropes can be seen peeking out of the windows. The Gardner-Pingree House on Essex Street is host to the spirit of sea captain Joseph White, a man whose murder in 1830 inspired literary giants like Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Join author and paranormal journalist Sam Baltrusis on a chilling journey through the streets of Salem as he chronicles the historic haunts of the Witch City. Includes photos!

Witchcraft, Demonology and Magic

Witchcraft, Demonology and Magic PDF Author: Marina Montesano
Publisher: MDPI
ISBN: 3039289594
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book Here

Book Description
Witchcraft and magic are topics of enduring interest for many reasons. The main one lies in their extraordinary interdisciplinarity: anthropologists, folklorists, historians, and more have contributed to build a body of work of extreme variety and consistence. Of course, this also means that the subjects themselves are not easy to assess. In a very general way, we can define witchcraft as a supernatural means to cause harm, death, or misfortune, while magic also belongs to the field of supernatural, or at least esoteric knowledge, but can be used to less dangerous effects (e.g., divination and astrology). In Western civilization, however, the witch hunt has set a very peculiar perspective in which diabolical witchcraft, the invention of the Sabbat, the persecution of many thousands of (mostly) female and (sometimes) male presumed witches gave way to a phenomenon that is fundamentally different from traditional witchcraft. This Special Issue of Religions dedicated to Witchcraft, Demonology, and Magic features nine articles that deal with four different regions of Europe (England, Germany, Hungary, and Italy) between Late Medieval and Modern times in different contexts and social milieus. Far from pretending to offer a complete picture, they focus on some topics that are central to the research in those fields and fit well in the current “cumulative concept of Western witchcraft” that rules out all mono-causality theories, investigating a plurality of causes.

The Devil in Massachusetts

The Devil in Massachusetts PDF Author: Marion L. Starkey
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 1789125626
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 436

Get Book Here

Book Description
This dramatic and deeply moving book combines a narrative that has the pace and excitement of a novel, a timeless portrait of bigotry and a self-righteousness, and an authentic history of the Salem witch trials. It stands alone in applying modern psychiatric knowledge to the witchcraft hysteria. Nearly three hundred years ago the fate of Massachusetts was delivered into the hands of a pack of young girls. Because of the fantasies and hysterical antics of unbalanced teenagers, decent men and women were sent to the gallows. Medical science that day had no better explanation than “the evil eye”; and so Massachusetts was precipitated into a reign of terror that did not end until the highest in the land had been accused of witchcraft—ministers, a judge, the Governor’s lady. One by one were brought to the gallows such diverse personalities as a decent grandmother; a rakish, pipe-smoking female tramp; a plain farmer who thought only to save his wife from molestation; a lame old man whose toothless gums did not deny expression to a very salty vocabulary. But from the very beginning some fought the hysteria, pitting sanity against insanity, and eventually forced the community to atone for its tragic error. Written with sly humor, much of the book reads like a novel. In the end, one is pretty sure what was wrong with Cotton Mather, the august judges, and the tormented young girls. “The Devil in Massachusetts is a vivid and compassionate reconstruction of the Salem witchcraft hysteria. Marion Starkey has written history which illustrates the past and at the same time packs and important contemporary moral.”—Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. “It is certainly a ‘one sitting’ sort of book, with the dramatic appeal of the well-told story and the significances of good human history.”—Gerald Warner Brace “A fresh and full narration...of one of the most lurid, pitiful and deeply significant episodes in American history....”—Odell Shepard

The Science of Demons

The Science of Demons PDF Author: Jan Machielsen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135133364X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 302

Get Book Here

Book Description
Witches, ghosts, fairies. Premodern Europe was filled with strange creatures, with the devil lurking behind them all. But were his powers real? Did his powers have limits? Or were tales of the demonic all one grand illusion? Physicians, lawyers, and theologians at different times and places answered these questions differently and disagreed bitterly. The demonic took many forms in medieval and early modern Europe. By examining individual authors from across the continent, this book reveals the many purposes to which the devil could be put, both during the late medieval fight against heresy and during the age of Reformations. It explores what it was like to live with demons, and how careers and identities were constructed out of battles against them – or against those who granted them too much power. Together, contributors chart the history of the devil from his emergence during the 1300s as a threatening figure – who made pacts with human allies and appeared bodily – through to the comprehensive but controversial demonologies of the turn of the seventeenth century, when European witch-hunting entered its deadliest phase. This book is essential reading for all students and researchers of the history of the supernatural in medieval and early modern Europe.

The History and Haunting of Salem

The History and Haunting of Salem PDF Author: Rebecca F. Pittman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998369228
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 648

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 1692, a small village in Salem, Massachusetts, was suddenly attacked by the specters of flying witches and all manner of evil. A group of young girls began "crying out" against their neighbors and family members. By the time it was over, nineteen people were hanged, one man crushed to death, and five succumbed to the ordeal of imprisonment. Today, despite the plague of witchcraft that had inflicted England, we still look at this one isolated incident of hysteria and madness, and ask "How did this happen?" This book offers answers to that question, along with exclusive interviews with the Salem Witch Trials top experts. A focus on the paranormal activity happening in Salem is offered in The Haunting Section. You will also find a nod to Hocus Pocus and other movies. Rebecca F. Pittman is a best-selling author of 13 books, including The History & Haunting of Lizzie Borden, The History and Haunting of Salem, and many more. Her love of mysteries has found her on multiple TV and radio programs.Her website is www.rebeccafpittmanbooks.com .