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The websites categorized here as "religious" are sites that view and analyze the Salem Witchcraft Trial through a spiritual lens. Good religious sites will both provide information about the Puritan beliefs and rituals of Salem inhabitants in 1692 as well as information about the "witchcraft" accused persons were said to practice. A good religious website might also examine the interplay between religion and politics that heavily shaped the events and outcome of the trials.
To many, references to the Salem Witchcraft Trials evoke images of screaming girls, desperate Puritans, and, inevitably, witchcraft. The term "witchcraft trials" itself alludes to spiritual warfare, good versus evil, the Satanic meets the Divine. Unbeknownst to the majority, however, is the fact that the Salem Witchcraft Trials actually involved no real "witches" and that those accused of witchcraft were inherently no more ungodly than those who accused them. Regardless, modern popular culture tends to frequently capitalize on the misconception that something supernatural influenced the events that took place in Salem in 1692. Particularly, multiple internet sites approach the trials with a sense of intrigue and suspicion (www.discovery.com/stories/history/witches.html, www.members.aol.com/warlock92/, www.witchdungeon.com/witch/witch.html). Other websites attempt to clear the names of accused witches but do so without disassociating them with witchcraft itself. For example, xXLady_DarknessXx's Home Page (www.angelfire.com/ma/shellyspagewitches/) juxtaposes pictures of Bridget Bishop, Sarah Good, and Rebecca Nurse's memorial stones with graphics of the Satanic symbol and a rendition of "the Witch's Chant." This site offers a brief overview of Salem Witchcraft Trial history and asserts the innocence of the accused witches but at the same time supports the media's incorrect, yet understandable, assumption that the trials spawned from actual witchcraft.
Surprisingly, no websites that critically delve into the role played by religion in the trials presently exists. This may be due to a general lack of knowledge among website creators or a lack of interest in the witchtrials by scholars of Puritanism. Undoubtedly, though, Puritanism's unrelenting fear of the devil and its doctrinal dedication to both personal and communal salvation certainly fueled the fire started simply by child's play in the Salem Witchcraft Trials. Perhaps with time multimedia will come to better represent why witchcraft developed as the driving force both inside and behind Salem's hysteria and the function of religion in the process.
