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The symptoms include seizures, diarrhea, parenthesis, and mental effects. This could have been misconstrued as being “bewitched” because the doctor of the village had never seen seizures and psychotic break so he assumed that they were the work of evil and diagnosed them as such. During the Salem Witch Trials, there were more than 200 trials that took place. (Video, 2012) Out of the many trials that took place, 20 people were tried and found guilty and executed. However, 4 others who awaited trial died while waiting in jail.
People who were on trial for being a witch was not allowed to have a lawyer represent them and were forced to represent themselves. Spectral evidence was allowed when determining if people were considered “bewitched”. (Video, 2012) There were multiple ways to determine if people ere in fact witches. Some of them were the swimming test, prayer test, and the touch test. The swimming test was considered one of the most famous tests to be used when convicting someone of being “bewitched”.
It was a pass/fail type of test but you never could actually pass the test. They stripped the convicted person down to the underclothes, dragged to the nearest river, and tossed in. If they floated, they were a witch and were to be executed and if they drowned then they knew that they were not a witch, but you still lost your life. So really, where’s the win? If you did not die by drowning, you were kook to the stake and burned alive. Another well-known test to determine if someone was “bewitched” was the prayer test.
The prayer test consisted of having the accused recite selections from the bible because it was believed that people who were “bewitched” could not recite them without getting a nervous tick because Of the demonic evil that was living inside Of them. This test alone was enough to be used as evidence and to convict them. An example of this test being used to convict someone of being “bewitched” was in 1 712 on Jane Wham. She was accused of being “bewitched” and when asked to recite the Lord’s Prayer, she struggled getting out the words “forgive us our trespassers” and “lead us not into temptation”.
Even though she recited the whole prayer as asked, because she struggled saying just nine words, she was not acquitted of the charges against her. The final test that was used to determine if a person was “bewitched” was the touch test. The touch test was designed to test if a person was “bewitched” by having them enter a room and laying a hand on a person who is not considered to be “bewitched”. If the person who is being touched has no reaction to the touch f the accused, then this is a clear sign of innocence.
However, this method was not used very much because there could be a false negative or positive reaction from the touch of the “bewitched”. There was a famous case for considering if a person was “bewitched” in 1662. Two older ladies were being convicted of “bewitching’ two young girls and their names were Rose Cudgeller and Amy Denny. The girls were touched at first by the two women and had a reaction to the touch. However, to prove that the girls were not lying about being “bewitched” by the judge had the girls blindfolded and couched by not only the accused but also the jurors as well.