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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>One problem with this ergotism theory is that, given any non-trivial doses of the ergot fungus, other side effects include severe constriction of the peripheral arteries. This often results in fairly fast loss of limbs such as toes and fingers, other tissue necrosis (gangrene), convusions, etc. An entire village in the Limousin region of France was afflicted with the ‘St. Anthony’s Fire’ ergotism due to contaminated wheat flour. Many people died, jumped out of windows, widespread insanity. I read a book on that incident. Awful. But nothing like that was reported in the Salem accounts that I know of.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'>Bob Dickow, troublemaker.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:#1F497D'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>From:</span></b><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'> vision2020-bounces@moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces@moscow.com] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Nicholas Gier<br><b>Sent:</b> Thursday, March 05, 2015 9:00 AM<br><b>To:</b> vision2020<br><b>Subject:</b> [Vision2020] Moscow Neo-Puritans Re-Write Witchcraft Trial History<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'>Good Morning Visionaries:</span><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;outline:0px'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'>The main source of my column was Eve LaPlante highly praised book "Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall" (2007). In stark contrast to Cotton Mather, who wrote a book-length defense of the trials, Sewall wore sack cloth for the rest of his life to repent for his sins for participating as a judge in the trials.</span><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:13.5pt;outline:0px'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'>There is two corrections I need to make: 1) the teenage girls did testify that "specters" (hence "spectral" evidence) told them that the ones they accused were witches and from the Devil; and 2) the adjective "hysterical" is now ill-advised (as anti-woman) and there may have been natural causes for their hallucinations. </span><span style='color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;outline:0px'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'>The following is just one of several theories about what may have caused the girls' strange behavior:</span><o:p></o:p></p><p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;outline:0px'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:#222222'>A widely known theory about the cause of the reported afflictions attributes the cause to the ingestion of bread that had been made from rye grain that had been infected by a fungus, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claviceps_purpurea" title="Claviceps purpurea">Claviceps purpurea</a></i>, commonly known as </span><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot" title=Ergot><span style='color:black'>ergot</span></a><span style='color:#222222'>. This fungus contains chemicals similar to those used in the synthetic </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_drug" title="Psychedelic drug"><span style='color:black'>psychedelic drug</span></a><span style='color:#222222'> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSD" title=LSD><span style='color:black'>LSD</span></a><span style='color:#222222'>. Convulsive </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergotism" title=Ergotism><span style='color:black'>ergotism</span></a><span style='color:#222222'> causes a variety of symptoms, including nervous dysfunction.</span><span style='color:black'>will now check the web to verify what the leading theories are about their "visions." (Wikipedia)</span></span><o:p></o:p></p><p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;outline:0px'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'>By the way, NSA Fellow of History Christopher Schlect is listed on the college website as having a "Ph.D." and also being "ABD" (All But Dissertation). Of course most of us know that a student must write a dissertation to receive a Ph.D. at WSU. NSA now has more Ph.D.s on its roster, but, embarrassingly so, Schlect is not one of them.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p style='margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;outline:0px'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif";color:black'>nfg</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:center;line-height:150%'><b><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>MOSCOW’S NEO-PURITANS REWRITE WITCH TRIAL HISTORY</span></b><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:center;line-height:150%'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:center;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>By Nick Gier, The Palouse Pundit</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-align:center;line-height:150%'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>On the 10<sup>th</sup> day of this month 322 years ago, Lydia Dustin, found not guilty of witchcraft but unable to pay her jail fees, died in prison in Salem, Massachusetts. The witch hunting frenzy culminated with 185 people accused and 19 hanged. One man Giles Corey was slowly crushed to death between two doors because he would not enter a plea. Presumably the punishment is designed to “press” a confession out of the accused!</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>On October 29, 1692, Governor William Phips terminated the witchcraft court and dismissed the judges. His own wife had been accused, and the general fear was that soon everyone would be charged with a crime of the dark arts. Even the great Rev. Cotton Mather’s wife was targeted as a witch after giving birth to a deformed child.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Christopher Schlect, a Fellow of History at Moscow’s New Andrews College, has written a reinterpretation of the witch trials in the Christ Church journal <i>Credenda Agenda</i> (vol. 7:2,3). Schlect claims if it had not been "sober minded clergy" reaffirming Puritan standards of justice, there would have been far more executions. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>The Puritan ministers, however, were concerned only about “spectral” evidence, and apart from that reservation, they urged the trials to continue. Historian Edmund S. Morgan states that a sermon preached by Salem minister Deodat Lawson in March 1692 was “an important factor in the widening of the Salem scare.” The publication of this sermon was endorsed by five major Puritan divines, including Increase and Cotton Mather.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Ironically, Schlect resorts to the separation of church and state in his defense of the Puritan clergy. The witch court was a civil not a religious body, and Schlect praises the pastors for their “godly virtue of submission to authority.” Insisting that the trials be stopped would have made them guilty of the sin of “humanistic individualism.”</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Schlect ignores the fact that the clergy were intimately involved in identifying alleged witches and then recommending the accused for trial. With regard to the alleged witch Mary Glover, hanged in 1688, the “sober minded” Cotton Mather declared that she was “a scandalous old Irishwoman, a Roman Catholic, and obstinate in idolatry.” Martha Carrier’s sons were tortured into testifying against her, and as she was led to the gallows, the good Rev. Mather yelled out that she was a “rampant hag.” It was Thomas Barnard, the assistant minister at her church, who had arranged for the brutal interrogation of Carrier’s sons.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>At the hanging of the Rev. George Burroughs, the condemned was able to recite the Lord’s Prayer flawlessly, a widely accepted sign that Burroughs was innocent of the charge of witchcraft. The crowd was amazed and clamored for his release, but Cotton Mather asserted his pastoral authority and insisted that the execution proceed.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Schlect states that there is a “glaring need in our own society for a resurgence of stalwart Puritanism.” In <i>Credenda Agenda </i>(3:9,11, now removed from the internet) Greg Dickison declares that "if we could have it our way,” then there would be capital punishment for “kidnapping, sorcery, bestiality, adultery, homosexuality, and cursing one’s parents.” </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>As their theocratic vision is unlikely to be fulfilled, I would recommend that Schlect and Dickison express their godly virtue and submit to secular authority, which is based on the “humanistic individualism” of our Founding Fathers. This allows free men and women to criticize anyone who would make ancient religious laws the laws of the land. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Fourteen of those hung for witchcraft were women living at the margins of society. Appealing to our secular Constitution, dozens of sober minded appellate court judges have ruled that all citizens, including our GLBT brothers and sisters no longer in the closet, should marry whom they love and be free from harassment and discrimination. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;text-indent:.5in;line-height:150%'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'>Nick Gier taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. </span><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;line-height:150%;outline:0px'><span style='font-family:"Georgia","serif"'> </span><o:p></o:p></p></div></div></body></html>