Did Hysteria Itself Cause The Salem Witch Trials?
Wikimedia CommonsIn reality, authorities scrambled to find “evidence” that alleged witches had powers.
While mass hysteria is usually associated with the time that the trials were happening, some have proposed that it may have caused them as well.
Mass hysteria has been defined as the “rapid spread of conversion disorder, a condition involving the appearance of bodily complaints for which there is no organic basis. In such episodes, psychological distress is converted or channeled into physical symptoms.”
Some have argued that this is exactly what the girls who were first “bewitched” were experiencing. The stress of living in such a rigid and religious society on the dangerous wilderness frontier may have led these girls to convert this stress into physical symptoms.
The hysteria experienced by the girls may then, in turn, have triggered a collective delusion among the villagers that witches were in their midst. If pretty much everyone was feeling the same way, this could’ve certainly paved the way for a witch hunt.
Mass hysteria was clearly at work, but how much of a feedback loop these delusions created can probably never be known. Regardless, it’s a compelling theory that can’t easily be discounted as a rational explanation for what caused the Salem witch trials.
