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I remember hearing about this theory maybe 10, 15 years ago. More or less, the grain became moldy due to the high level of rain they had that year and they were not able to dry it out before storing it. As such, (and I am not 100% sure of the science behind this), the mold contained the main ingredient for LSD. So, in other words, the girls could have been on a strange, long trip
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A plague that killed entire towns in Europe. People went crazy and died.
It was a rye sickness that produced LSD.
Horn rye.
I believe, not sure, that Hoffman extracted LSD from horn rye.
The grain explanation doesn't hold up. If the grain were affected by ergot, which is possible enough on the face of it, then one must believe there was one special batch/type of grain fed only to teenage girls, and only to certain teenage girls at that, that happened to contain the ergot mold. I do not think that is plausible. I think entire families would have eaten food based on the same grain storage, which poses the question of why everyone else in their family wasn't also going wacko. I do not know why none of the sources that blame ergot mold pose this most basic question, but they should be sjambokked for not doing so.
I know of no evidence that teenage girls are particularly susceptible to ergot mold. I know of significant evidence that teenage girls are particularly susceptible to a desire for disproportionate attention, and to copy one another.
I remember hearing about this theory maybe 10, 15 years ago. More or less, the grain became moldy due to the high level of rain they had that year and they were not able to dry it out before storing it. As such, (and I am not 100% sure of the science behind this), the mold contained the main ingredient for LSD. So, in other words, the girls could have been on a strange, long trip
I think that the Salem trials was a pale reflection of massive "witch burning" in Protestant Europe during the XVIIth Century. There were many prejudices against spinsters, widows and women that lived alone with cats, or that prepared concoctions and were healers (quite common until recently).
The best study about the phenomena was carried by the Spanish Inquisition during the XVIth Century. After the Spanish Inquisition burned a few thousand women, they concluded that those women were just neurotic and lonely women, or young women that loved to dance in the wild (because dancing was prohibited during certain periods).
Afterwards, the Spanish Inquisition ignored "witches" and placed all their attention on Protestants, Jews and "heterodoxes" in general, but in Northern Europe it was different.
i love these black magic posts. the great accomplishment of satan in this age has been to convince people he does not exist.
What is the difference between saying that about Satan and saying that about Hercules or Robin Hood?
Think about what you are presenting here. "The proof that something exists is the absense of belief that it exists."
That makes sense to you? Would you accept that sort of reasoning in any other situation? If I sold you a car and when you came to pick it up, there was no car, would you embrace my explanation that your inability to see, touch or smell the car proves that the car is really there?
The grain explanation doesn't hold up. If the grain were affected by ergot, which is possible enough on the face of it, then one must believe there was one special batch/type of grain fed only to teenage girls,................ I know of significant evidence that teenage girls are particularly susceptible to a desire for disproportionate attention, and to copy one another.
Very sensible post.
From what I understand ergot infections caused entire neighborhoods and towns to act loony.
From what I understand ergot infections caused entire neighborhoods and towns to act loony.
Which would make sense. Some people bought or traded for grain rather than growing their own, naturally, urban specialization being what it was. If a batch of grain was tainted in storage, so would the flour be, and many households would partake of it. Now, if we had records of Salem with a widespread outbreak (from toddlerhood to dodderhood) of wacko behavior, then I'd begin to think there was something to it. But I've never read that, and I still don't know why people have been so quick to jump on the ergotism explanation as though it somehow explains everything.
It's kind of like the Rudolf Hess conspiracy people who buy into the theory of a double in Spandau. Have they none of them ever asked themselves how it could be that his wife and son would be fooled by a double with absolutely no access to early family anecdotes and memories? Sometimes there's a theory that gets a lot of traction, even though a little reason shows that the particular ship of perspective was launched with a great hole below the waterline. Salem, to me, is one of these. Occam's Razor does a fine job on it.
Weren't the girls told wild stories from the woman from Haiti? Maybe that is why there were more loony than the town folks. They all had the bad grain but the girls put a story to their feelings.
lots of witchcraft in salem. africans have been doing to 1000's of years. used to make people sick and die. why do you doubt. we are so funny. we affirm witchcraft laud it glamorize it and disneyland it, and then we ridicule those who oppose it.
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