Linda:<br><br>I have done no study of it but I have read a book by Chadwick Hansen who is an unbelieving historian who never the less does a fairly objective secular analysis of the situation. While his views on the actual spiritual phenomena involved are of course incorrect, he does bring out some interesting points from the public records of the trials which are a matter of public record. <br><br>There were simply too many phenomena observed in open courtrooms to be made up. I'm talking about gross changes in physical tissues that cannot be accounted for by hysterical physiology which is what the unbeliever wants to attribute these things to, and Hansen does, for the most part, but you could tell that even he was having a hard time making this stick in some cases. <br><br>There are also some interesting quotes from Cotton Mather who observed some of the phenomena in some of the people involved. As you know, Cotton Mather was a puritan pastor of the time who had also studied medicine, so his accounts are particularly credible in my view. I would suggest anyone interested in the reality of Satan and his minions read what Cotton Mather had to say. There is also an interesting analysis of the politics of the time and how the religious men of the day were also politically connected and I agree with the author that situation could have been handled better from a Biblical perspective, and my own view after reading this account was that some of the errors made by the religious leaders of the time, and they did mishandle the situation it seems, was due in part to ignorance and some was due to mixed motives, but that is my own view having read only one account of what I believe to be a fairly "objective" secular analyis. I would like to read an account by a true believer of some maturity who has gone back and studied the original records of the trials as this man did.<br><br>As to the TV account, I sometimes watch these but usually don't for I have learned that the agenda is invariably twisted to present scripture and God in the most blasphemous fashion, but as you said, one can often pick up interesting facts about ancillary issues such as the number of witches currently practicing in Salem, all or most "good" or "white" witches of course.<br><br>Gerry
