With all these rules and regulations the mindset of a woman in this particular time period was most likely in a state of depression. Two different topics seem to meld at this point: witchcraft and mental illness. Both come together in the Salem story as well as many other historical events. For Christianity, mental illness posed a dilemma. It was difficult to incorporate the mentally ill into the faith because many of those with problems were highly religious, though visibly abnormal. The idea that physical illnesses were natural and that mental illnesses were supernatural gradually became more entrenched in society. Although the scientific understanding of mental disorders remained minimal, the legal system found it necessary to define parameters of witchcraft, possession, and insanity. (Carlson 98) Courts justified their examinations of potential witches through the long-held beliefs put forth in a book, Malleus Maleficarum—known as the “Witches’ Hammer” –a 1489 guide written by German Dominican fathers and approved for publication by Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire. It became the authority for witch identification. So popular it went through ten editions in the next 150 years, it widely influenced people because it identified behaviors that could be brought to court for prosecution. (Kallen 76)

When champagne was developed in the seventeenth century it was called the "Devil's Wine" because no one knew how the bubbles came to be, therefore they were assumed to be the work of the Devil. --John G. Howells, World History of Psychiatry

Historical explanation of witchcraft dwell on what Thomas Szasz calls the “scapegoat theory of witchcraft,” Scapegoat theory points out that this “human tendency to embrace collective error- especially error that threatens harm and commands specific protective action-seems to be an integral part of man’s social nature.” (Carlson 45)This attempt at which explores who was accused and why in the context of larger societal issues. Inevitably they fail to examine the accusers or the "afflicted," who themselves were often tried for witchcraft.

Salem Witch Trials

The Accused