The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World

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I’m absolutely delighted – it really was a great surprise. There’s been so much going on in the build up to it, so it’s been incredibly exciting. I’m very honoured and grateful. The superstition, hypocrisy and despair in Mary in particulars tale was both tragic and eye opening at the same time. Gaskill brings all of this to pulsating life – and is clear that we should not look down on these people. We, who have suffered the delusions of global warming deniers, 5G phone mast conspiracies and vaccine microchip babble, could, in fact, learn a lesson or two.

In the stark, harsh and unforgiving climate of New England, colonists sought to build a new life for themselves away from the religious persecution and dogmatic rule of Old England. Your research drew on the Springfield city archives. What did you learn about the city in your time there? Author and professor Malcolm Gaskill is considered one of Britain’s leading experts in the history of witches and witchcraft, and here he turns his knowledge and research skills to the history of a specific time and place.W itchcraft in the New England colonies is almost entirely associated in the public imagination with the craze in Salem, Massachusetts, that erupted at the end of the 17th century. Yet on both sides of the Atlantic, prosecutions rarely reached epidemic proportions, with a scattering of cases making it to the courts every few years as long-simmering accusations finally became substantive enough to require the attention of early modern officialdom. Ideas about witchcraft provided answers to the causes of disease and death, flood, and famine. Such untoward events were attributed the agents of Satan who must be hunted down. It is only partly true that science would dispel such foolish notions in the age of reason. What emerges from his account, however, is that it was not real tragedy which impelled persecution but trivial arguments, crossed words, refused favours and angry curses. Puritan ideology about a shining city on the hill was flawed from the outset. The loving community was a place of spite, distrust, and envy. Some did better than others – how could that be God’s design? The devil must be at work. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by

It's so easy to see how mental illness, illness and disease, superstition, jealousy, greed and hypocrisy paid such a part in the death of so many women (and men in some cases) In 1967 on the Chantry estate in Ipswich. When I was three, we moved to Gillingham, Kent, so that’s where I spent my youth. He highlights the failure of community leaders, especially Springfield’s founder, William Pynchon, who controlled every aspect of town life. Curiously he was himself prosecuted for heresy and his books burnt. His belief in a loving, tolerant God cut little ice with the puritans who defended their wrathful deity against such false thinking. Exactly how events unravelled is related in detail. We follow Mary, Hugh and William to their deaths and then their ancestors as far as records allow. The historical detail, the retelling of their daily lives, the events that ran up to this tragic event was quite simply brilliant. And tragically heartbreaking. A gripping story of a family tragedy brought about by witch-hunting in Puritan New England that combines history, anthropology, sociology, politics, theology and psychology.Springfield, New England 1651, and strange and frightening things have started to happen, with suspicions firmly centring on young couple, Hugh and Mary Parsons. October reads wrapped up with The ruin of all witches and it was definitely a read that will linger with me for a long time. Gaskill presents a compassionate, measured view dispelling several myths along the way. - Independent on Sunday Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’