Rejecting facts and embracing an exciting lie has always held an almost magical allure for some people. There's the intoxicating sense of being privy to secret knowledge, the heady illusion of closeness to some inner circle of power, importance. The desire burrows to the bone and grows; primal, compelling, entirely impervious to reason. And it all too often ends in unspeakable atrocities.
One of the earliest incarnations in our country of this insidious, mundane, form of evil famously reared its head in early Massachusetts. Like so much of what we think of as history, the truth has been blurred over time, the edges softened, new details embroidered, until it feels ancient, remote, not quite real--more like a fairy tale than the very relevant cautionary tale it actually is.
Among the various beliefs and theories that have accreted around the horror that was Salem Village is the idea that the entire town was so primitive and uneducated that they all feared, and believed, that witches lived among them. Others have suggested that ergot fungus could have affected the whole town with LSD-like hallucinations. Still others blame old-fashioned greed or misogyny.
The reality, though, is far worse. And far more frightening. It's that perfectly sensible people (with all their underlying faults and virtues) can be dragged into hell on earth the minute that facts and reason cease to matter.
In truth, a good percentage of Salem Village's residents first scoffed at the claims of the girls (whose "bewitched" antics came and went as convenient) essentially laying the blame on not witchcraft but bad parenting. Then, as the relatively well-to-do and well-educated people they were, they responded as rational people would, with detailed, signed testimonials in defense of the accused, with reason, and with facts. And, no doubt, they expected that to be that.
But, instead, as always happens when people embrace willful ignorance, reason was trampled underfoot. Facts no longer mattered. Defending the accused became "evidence" of evil. And the inflamed mob self-righteously congratulated itself as neighbors were dragged off to be tortured into confessions and denouncements of their own family and friends.
Of course, by the time all that happened, the frenzy was as unstoppable as a wildfire already treetop-tall. If only it had never begun. There is always a pivotal moment when a tiny spark can be either extinguished or fanned into flames--and which one happens all depends on the character of the most powerful, charismatic, or most-determined person nearby.
In Salem Village, that man was Rev. Samuel Parris. He'd dropped out of Harvard to run the Barbadoes sugar planation he'd inherited when his father died. After it was ravaged in a hurricane, he tried, and failed,to be a sugar merchant; then he moved his family to Boston where, unable to get established as a merchant, he struck out in an entirely new direction and managed to land the post of minister of the sometimes fractious, but typical, town of Salem Village.
Although not everyone in his new congregation approved of his hardline stance, and he bitterly complained that he wasn't paid what he was worth, Parris clearly liked his increased status, however tenuous his hold on the position, which he took as his due. And then, with talk of witches, came his opportunity to strengthen both.
After a lifetime of mediocrity and failure, Parris seems to have leapt at the chance reinvent himself as a powerful leader, doing the work of God. Instead of leading his people to sensible peace, he fanned the flames that had (ironically, or fortuitously) first been sparked in his own household by the fantastical lies of his daughter and niece.
It's quite possible that Parris truly believed in his righteousness (or at least convinced himself he did.) Or maybe he just craved the power and respect his campaign against witches cloaked him with. But, in all honesty, it doesn't really matter. The only thing that does is that, pied piper-like, he led and lured his followers down the darkest of paths--at the end of which lay only fear and hate and pain and betrayal...and a community turned against itself.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes."
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