New research blames LSD, not the devil TV Reviews By ANN HODGES Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle TV Critic PBS' Secrets of the Dead II revisits the infamous Salem witch trials, to prove that the devil didn't make them do it. It was LSD. Secrets of the Dead II is another go-round for the series that, with the help of today's scientific advances and experts, seeks to solve historic events that have intrigued and mystified the ages. On "Witches' Curse," behavioral psychologist Dr. Linnda Caporael makes a painstaking and ultimately convincing case that the frightening illness that afflicted the Puritan settlement of Salem in 1691-1692, was the result of a fungus that infested the colony's rye crop. The Puritans were convinced by eight teen-age girls that the convulsive fits, prickly skin and horrific visions of wild animals were caused by witchcraft. Before that illness ran its course, 150 people in Salem were arrested and 19 were hanged as witches. Caporael grew up in San Francisco during the '60s, and she was struck by the similarity of those symptoms to bad acid trips. Caporael continued her search when the Swiss scientist who found the fungus ergot -- from which LSD is made -- agreed with her. The trail that started with the journals and court records from the infamous Salem witch trials led her back to a prehistoric murder, the Middle Ages' tales of epidemics and to a modern-day village in France. It's a fascinating speculation and a worthy effort of dogged scientific detection. -- interesting, care to discuss?
For some reason this reminds me of the theory that people who claim to have been abducted by aliens (who under hypnosis, etc, will claim to have been placed on tables, probed, seeing bright lights etc...) are really just people who are remembering their birth experience... Heh... who knows... ------------------ "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and STATISTICS..." - Mark Twain -
I've actually heard of that theory too. Feasible, but unlikely. But it's fun to imagine, isn't it ? ------------------ Newbiehad... coming to a bbs near you, October 31st.
The way I heard in in college History was that they used spores as part of the bread. When the spores spoil, a part of it creates an LSD effect. So, these spoiled spores were used to make a batch of bread. These girls ate some bad bread and started trippin'. I still think it was a hoax. Not LSD. One of the first women accused was the wife of a guy one girl had a mad crush on. The whole thing ended when they accused the Governor's wife. ------------------ PS - This is what part of the alphabet would look like if there were no Q and R. Six West
Reminds me of working in a boulangerie. We used to get so baked. (get it? baked? get it? did you get it? 'baked', get it?)
It doesn't do much to explain why why the town went along with the program and hanged all those people. ------------------ RealGM Gafford Art Artisan Cakes
The stupid thing was that if they admitted to being a witch they wouldn't have died. You see, a witch can't admit that they're a witch so if you admitted you were a witch you really weren't one. OK? I think only one or two people admitted to being witches and thus weren't killed. I guess the others would rather die than say there were something they weren't. If I remember correctly, one of the girls was the preachers daughter. She accused her father of being a witch. When they were about to hang him he started praying the Lord's Prayer. This shocked people because demons and demon-possesed people couldn't recite the word of God. Somebody got upset and they hung him before he could finish. ------------------ PS - This is what part of the alphabet would look like if there were no Q and R. Six West
I remember spending like a month or so discussing this in a college history class. My prof...and his subsequent lectures...reading material, etc all focused on the issue of demographics being the biggest cause for most of the accusations and trials. City slickers vs. country hicks.....I think most of the people hung were country folk. ------------------
