"Ruchlis, Hyman - True" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ruchlis Hyman)

of being witches and executed if a girl's convulsive fit stopped when touched by the
person on trial. (Drawing by Albert Sarney)

The judges tried to be merciful. They spared the lives of
convicted "witches" if they confessed to the crime of witchcraft.
As you might expect, many of the innocent people who were
convicted, "confessed" to save their lives. Nineteen of them,
however, refused to lie and paid for their honesty and bravery
with death by hanging.
This terrible tragedy occurred only because people believed
in the false superstition of witchcraft. Witches were imagined
to be making people sick by using magical ceremonies, perhaps


The Nature of Superstition 17

by uttering special words to cast evil spells on people.
Today, physicians know far more about the causes of disease
than in 1692. Several possible explanations have been proposed
for the strange illness that afflicted the eight girls.
They might have had a disease known today as "convulsive
ergotism." It is caused by a poisonous substance in a micro-
scopic plant, a "fungus" known as "ergot." This fungus grows
on crops such as rye, used for making bread. Eating bread con-
taining ergot might have caused the girls to have those fits
and hallucinations.
Another possible explanation is that the events in Salem
were caused by "mass hysteria." There are examples today of
large groups of children, and sometimes adults, who become
so anxious and fearful about some reported illness that they
imagine they have it, too. The eight girls might have seen or
heard about others having fits and their vivid imaginations
might have caused them to behave the same way.
It is possible that some, or all the girls, were playing a
monstrous trick on grownups by pretending to have fits and
hallucinations. Perhaps they enjoyed having the power of life
and death over all those innocent grownups.

SUPERSTITIONS TODAY

A superstition is a belief that is held despite evidence that it
is not true.
Superstitions are based on the belief that some people,
plants, animals, planets, stars, words, numbers, or special things
have magical powers. They are supposed to be able to do aston-
ishing things that no one truly observes happening anywhere,
although many people imagine they are happening. These su-
perstitions contradict what we know about the real world.
Superstitions are examples of fairy-tale thinking. But, unlike
fairy tales, which people know are imaginative fiction, super-