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History geek detangling errors in the recent Bones episode
As I said, the history bits irked me a lot more than the Wiccan bits in this, though while I'm at it, I might as well detangle the errors in that.
I'm a relatively recent Bones watcher (I started this summer), and it is, I admit, the show (of the three I watch reliably) that I am most ambivalent about. However, I'm a cheerful cheesy forensic anthropology mystery reader, and I like the character-driven bits (well, I can mostly leave aside the shipping, but the other interactions make me smile.)
The following stuff below the cut is all about the history (and the religious issues and the practice of magic issues) in the "Witch in the Wardrobe" episode and does not mention any regular character interactions, so you can judge for yourself if you want to read spoilers.
[ETA 5/14/12: I've turned off comments on this post (despite the fact there are some awesome ones) because this particular entry is getting persistent spam (to the tune of 15-20 comments a day). I'm experimenting with seeing what disabling comments for a week or two will do.]
The first thing you should know about me, in writing this, is that I did my 10th grade US history research paper on the Salem Witchcraft trials. This is not uncommon: we get at least a paper a year and sometimes two or three or four on the topic at the school I work at. I chose the topic in large part because (in the pre-Internet age), we lived about 40 minute drive from Salem, and I could go to the Essex Institute to play with real documents and do my research. (Which was way fun.)
I did a very good paper, by all accounts: it went onto the State level in History Day competition.
There's some good reasons for why so many people pick this topic.
- The trials are extremely interesting.
- There's *lots* of primary source documentation out there, and it's incredibly easy to get at (and these days, as you'll see below, it's readily accessible online)
- There's also lots and lots of secondary source research out there which presents a range of fascinating theories. (Everything from Boyer and Nissenbaum's socio-economic argument for the trials to the arguments about ergot or some other hallucinogens, to the argument that it was an outlet for suppressed emotion in a very restrictive society.) And of course, there's enough "Oooh, witchcraft!" to make it an enticing topic for teenagers who want to do something a little out there, but still produce a good paper.
This episode
In this episode, they find a skeleton of a woman who they say:
- is old (48 years old, but described in ways that make it clear this is seen as very elderly)
- has isotope markers indicating that she lived in Salem
- was killed by being pressed to death
- sometime in November of 1692
- is identified as being Emily Quimby
- had her skeleton stolen from a cemetery.
All but the second is remarkably implausible to flat-out impossible, for reasons below. (Salem was founded in 1626, so it is in fact plausible for a 48 year old woman to have bone markers indicating that she only lived in that one area.) I'm leaving aside the fact that many of the Salem trials involved people in what is now Danvers, because it's actually not relevant.
We'll come back to the 48 being old problem in a moment.
1)The problem of pressing
Peine forte et dure was an English method - discarded in England 20 years before the Salem Trials though the last actual use was in 1741 - designed to get the accused to make a plea of either guilty or not guilty. The idea was that they put you on your back on the ground, with a board on your chest, and kept piling large stones on until you made your plea. Or died. Of course, once you make a plea, you are either guilty (and all your property was likely forfeit) or you went to trial (where you stood a decent chance or being found guilty). It was not, directly, a form of punishment, except in as much as you did it to make people do something you wanted. (Torture is, however, an excellent description.)
Only one person died from pressing in Salem: Giles Corey, an 80 year old farmer.
He was pressed for two days before dying on September 19th, 1692. Folklore has long suggested that he refused to plea to protect his property and pass it down to his heirs (his wife had also been charged as a witch, and was hanged on September 22) but Wikipedia tells me that more recent historians note that he made a will in jail, and was protesting the trials and methods themselves, as much as anything else. (Either way, the property did pass to their sons-in-law.)
I've been a Giles Corey fan for a long time. There's nothing else like his protest - for whatever reason he did it (and both reasons go far beyond his own life) - in New England history, nothing else like the strength of will to take incredible pain and misery for two days, saying nothing other than "More weight".
So I said very nasty words at this episode for inventing whole cloth someone else who was pressed to death, and *especially* since there's no necessary reason for it in the story that they couldn't have worked around.
2) The problem of timing
I actually picked up on this one very quickly, because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elisem showed me the Salem-related episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" on Monday, because she thought I'd be amused by it. (Pssst: Elise, I was right: the nice colonial house she visits is in fact the Rebecca Nurse homestead.)
One thing that reminded me of, though, is that September 22nd, 1692, is the last date of deliberate deaths in Salem. But the show keeps mentioning this theoretical woman's death on November 1692. By then, the court had adjourned, and no more convictions (or hearings) took place.
There were 19 hangings, the death of Giles Corey, and the deaths of at least 5 and maybe as many as 18 others either in jail or as a direct result of their jail time. (Records vary, also how you define 'as a direct result'). You can see the names here: http://salem.essexcountyma.net/salem_witchcraft.htm .
3) The problem of the name
Emily is not a common Puritan name. In fact, it doesn't become common as a name in English until the 18th century, as a nickname for Aemilia. More to the point, the Early Massachusetts birth, death, and marriage records are online, and "Emily Quimby" doesn't appear anywhere. (You can see for yourself here: http://ma-vitalrecords.org/VRSI_Q1.shtml). Not only that, but I checked all the other vaguely similar last names. (I didn't do a rigorous search, but I also didn't spot any Emilys while I was scanning the last names).
It's worth noting that Quinby, or Quenby or Quimby or whatever alternate spelling you want wasn't exactly a common name in the 1600s, either. The earliest reference I spotted was a Lidia Quinby, born in Salisbury in 1657 (her parents married right around then too). (This would have made her 35 in 1692). And she was born in Salisbury, nearly up into Maine, more than a day's ride from Salem/Danvers. All the others were 1700s or later.
4) The problem with the skeleton
There's two problems with this skeleton. First, a number of the bodies from those convicted in the trials were buried in a shallow grave. Some were retrieved by the families, and buried on family land. This does not reliably lead to being able to find enough of the small bones of the body to create a fully re-articulated skeleton three hundred years later. Or a skull with hair (I'd buy the long bones and skull, but that bit of Massachusetts has lots of rivers, periodic floods, frost heaves, and other things that can disrupt bones. And hair.)
The memorials in the Burying Ground at Salem are mostly cenotaphs, without actual bones buried (because they've become lost over the years). But even without that, it's a relatively common site for potential vandalism, and it's hard to imagine that people wouldn't notice and publicise that the skeleton had disappeared.
5) The problem of age
I also disliked that the show played into a really common misassumption about age and earlier historical periods. Here, we must digress into a brief bit of statistics.
The average life expectancy includes everyone who is born and then dies (as people do) for a given time range. This means that eras with high infant mortality tend to have a pretty low life expectancy. Plimoth Plantation (which is a re-creation of early colonial life in the 1600s, though south of Boston) has a lovely page on this particular myth here: http://www.plimoth.org/discover/myth/dead-at-40.php
They point out several things. First, the average life expectancy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s was actually in the 60s (compared to either London or the Chesapeake colonies.) Fewer people than London (hence fewer things like cholera or infections getting passed along), and fewer insect vectors than the south. If you made it to adulthood, you would likely live into your 70s or later. (And in other places, into your 60s.)
This is also born out by looking at the ages of the convicted and executed in the trials:
Bridget Bishop: 60
Sarah Good: 35
Rebecca Nurse: 71
Susannah Martin: 71
Sarah Wildes: 65
Elizabeth Howe : 55
Martha Carrier: Probably born around 1660, so 32
John Willard : in his 20s. (He's principled, too)
Rev. George Burroughs : 42
George Jacobs, Sr: 70
John Proctor: 60
Mary Eastey: 58
Martha Corey: about 70
Ann Pudeator: in her 70s
Samuel Wardwell: 49
Mary Parker : 55
Alice Parker: unknown - there's several people with similar names in the area.
Wilmot Redd: (birth date given as early 1600s) Probably in her 70s or 80s, therefore.
Margaret Scott: 77
and Giles Corey: 80
Of these 20 people, we have
1 unknown age
1 in their 20s (and something of a special case)
2 in their 30s
2 in their 40s
3 in their 50s
2 in their 60s
8 in their 70s
and 1 in his 80s
So, yeah. I'm not buying that "48 was elderly" bit. At all. It's pretty clear that most of the older people on this list were also in decent health - they were still actively participating in farm life, which is not exactly easy going.
They also mention that the skeleton shows signs of kyphosis (often called 'dowager's hump' historically) which generally occurs due to osteoporosis. Not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but Salem and surrounding areas actually had a decent chance of limiting this - hardy cows and other dairy animals do well there, and dairy would have been relatively widely available to people working on farms. Not a total surety, but a lot more so than, say, the middle of London. I'd buy it a lot more easily in someone in their 60s or 70s than someone in their later 40s.
[ETA: since this got brought up in comments on 1/5/11: like I said, I'm not a doctor. I have done some pretty extensive reading into colonial Boston in particular, however - due to an entirely unrelated project, actually - and the evidence does suggest that most people were significantly active and in good health with good mobility well into their 60s if they lived to that age in the first place. As I said, I'd buy it much more in someone in their 60s or 70s than late 40s. I'm open to evidence to the contrary that I can check out, however.]
ETA: The question of witches
I didn't add this bit originally, because I always forget that other people forget this one, but there is no evidence that *anyone* in the Salem Trials was actually a witch of any kind. (There's some plausibility about Tituba, but even that is sort of shaky evidence).
Many of those who were decried and executed had, up until that point, been pillars of their local church, and in ways that weren't just 'going along to make nice'. It's pretty clear from various records they took their Christianity seriously, and in a way compatible with the Puritan heritage of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (Those who didn't, tended to move to Connecticut, or sometimes Rhode Island, in the 17th century.)
[end addition]
The problem of religious depiction
Ok. I do not expect mainstream TV to get my religion (or things reasonably close) to my religion right. Gods know they rarely get Catholicism right, and that's a lot more common.
Plus, Jason and commentors over at his blog, The Wild Hunt, have done an excellent job of basic commentary. (Note that if you want to avoid regular character storyline spoilers, you should avoid Jason's post, and especially the comments.)
But since we're here, the basic issues:
What they're describing as Wicca is not Wicca.
Much more clearly some other form of witchcraft, and there's no particular indication it's even *religious* witchcraft (unless I've missed a mention of a deity name in the two times I've now watched it.) There's also no functional ritual altar.
The coven they show is all women - which is really not Wiccan in a traditional sense of the term. (If you want a good guideline, go read my intro-to-religion posts. Part 2 is the most relevant here). There are all female groups out there, but they generally use other approaches to both magic and ritual.
Now, going in sequence:
What the heck is this 'waning moon' ceremony?
Full moon, yes. New moon, yes. Sabbat, yes. Waning moon? One can do rituals at any particular point they're relevant - but waning moon doesn't make sense.
Privacy:
Also, what kind of Craft group gives out info to private rituals without better checks than that? (Public rituals, yes. Private ones, no.)
The difficulty of ritual names
I actually found it really interesting that this episode also brought out issues of names among regular characters: when you count it up, the majority of characters go by something other than what their legal name would suggest, or than their parents or teachers almost certainly called them.
Me, my legal name is getting less and less use all the time - these days, at work, and in legal settings, and that's about it. That said, Jenett, while starting as a public Craft name, is not a particularly weird name (it's arguably got a better history of widespread historical use in England than Jennifer does until the early 70s).
But I also agree with the various comments on Jason's blog about the affected speech. Ugh. No. (Though it was sort of nice to see the witches portrayed as adults with hair/skin/clothing cues that indicated they were reasonably self-sustaining in the terms of the modern world.)
Amber
The amber *is* a common magical item in many sections of the Craft: amber is considered to have particular energetic properties because it's a fossil of a living creation (resin), rather than being pure mineral. The episode glosses over this, but I figured it'd be nice to mention. (I have a fair collection of it myself, though I mostly wear it when I want to reinforce being in priestess-mindset but the formal ritual jewelry isn't appropriate for whatever reason.)
Speaking of jewelry: Jason mentions it being weird to have them all with the same necklace. Eh on that one: initiates in my tradition all get the same pendant as part of a recognition that they're part of the tradition. Most of us don't wear it outside of circle or circumstances where that connection is particularly relevant, though. I'd only consider it weirdly cultish if you *had* to wear it.
The magical systems they're talking about?
Are... funky. Not just that they're implausible, but they're implausible in ways that don't make sense in common magical theory. They are a bit more common in some of the older English and southern European folklore. But they're not in common practice, and the specifics are still really funky.
The ritual itself
Makes no sense as a 'sending someone on'. What it *does* make sense as is an expiation ritual - burning an effigy of someone you've wronged shows up in a lot of folk traditions. (It's not the only reason you might burn an effigy or representation, though.) This actually fits with the episode, but they totally gloss over it.
I kept going "But *why* do they care about bat bones?"
It's not that I entirely oppose the idea of animal parts in the right circumstances (which for me includes the ethical acquisition of same). But in good magical theory, the stuff you use has some direct relationship to what you're trying to accomplish. Bats just don't fit here. (Neither does the 'dressing up a skeleton in a wedding dress' while we're at it.) Is it too much to ask for some basic magical theory?
And in what religion are they integral?
Yes, witches often use ritual knives. But.
Most commonly, these are not used to actually cut anything - they're used to represent the will and intention. Some people use sharp blades, but a lot of people don't.
Basically, there's a huge mismatch between the group's "We are goodness and peacefulness and light and bunnies and rainbows" language, and using sharp blades. Generally, the rainbow bunny types go for dull blades (or no blades at all), while the folk witches tend to go for useful physical tools for things like harvesting herbs or inscribing candles, but don't talk about the universe as a kind and loving place. (Traditional Wicca and its immediate offshoots are much closer to the latter, but use two different kinds of knives: one for energy work only that's straight and usually double-edged, and a curved blade, usually smaller, for herbs/candles/other physical tasks.)
Rye flour
I agree with Jason's comments about the rye flour not being common in witchcraft practice.
However, I'll note that I've been at group rituals a few times that used wheat flour to draw an outside circle on the grass (i.e. to give some visual distinction). That said, flour is not a great medium: if it gets wet, it turns into paste, which is a pain. Cornmeal is better. (Salt theoretically works, but is lousy for plants) There's no particular reason you couldn't use rye instead of wheat, but also no particular reason you would.
But on the ergot poisoning? It's not a "You take some, you have hallucinations" thing. It's a "You eat a little bit of rye flour containing the mold (which requires some specific growing and harvest conditions) over a longish period of time, and you have all sorts of continuing symptoms." You are not killing someone one night, and having clear and articulate conversations in the FBI office a few days later. More at Wikipedia.
[Side note, since we hit this point in the episode: that is a *lousy* fake 17th century engraving. The artistic lines are all wrong.]
"Ancient Wiccan Symbol"
Wicca is not ancient in its current form. And the pentagram goes *way* back, to the Greeks. Wikipedia is a good start in this case.
Wiccans do not consume any form of consciousness altering substance
Pah. Classic ritual practice includes wine. Also, most of us drink caffine and chocolate. And other alcohol in moderation. Some smoke. Enough said.
(Those of us who take the mind-altering stuff seriously pay attention to what we're consuming and why. We just do it intentionally, including the caffeine and chocolate.)
Research sources
Now, ok, I started this one with a head start, because I know about a number of resources. But I managed to write up this commentary over the course of about 90 minutes, including rewatching the episode. It's not like the resources aren't widely available out there. (And about 25 minutes of that time were skimming the Vital Records of Early Massachusetts files.)
But information about the Salem Trials is especially easy to find on the web these days: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm is an excellent place to start. The rest of this was mostly just putting the relevant names into Google.
I'm a relatively recent Bones watcher (I started this summer), and it is, I admit, the show (of the three I watch reliably) that I am most ambivalent about. However, I'm a cheerful cheesy forensic anthropology mystery reader, and I like the character-driven bits (well, I can mostly leave aside the shipping, but the other interactions make me smile.)
The following stuff below the cut is all about the history (and the religious issues and the practice of magic issues) in the "Witch in the Wardrobe" episode and does not mention any regular character interactions, so you can judge for yourself if you want to read spoilers.
[ETA 5/14/12: I've turned off comments on this post (despite the fact there are some awesome ones) because this particular entry is getting persistent spam (to the tune of 15-20 comments a day). I'm experimenting with seeing what disabling comments for a week or two will do.]
The first thing you should know about me, in writing this, is that I did my 10th grade US history research paper on the Salem Witchcraft trials. This is not uncommon: we get at least a paper a year and sometimes two or three or four on the topic at the school I work at. I chose the topic in large part because (in the pre-Internet age), we lived about 40 minute drive from Salem, and I could go to the Essex Institute to play with real documents and do my research. (Which was way fun.)
I did a very good paper, by all accounts: it went onto the State level in History Day competition.
There's some good reasons for why so many people pick this topic.
- The trials are extremely interesting.
- There's *lots* of primary source documentation out there, and it's incredibly easy to get at (and these days, as you'll see below, it's readily accessible online)
- There's also lots and lots of secondary source research out there which presents a range of fascinating theories. (Everything from Boyer and Nissenbaum's socio-economic argument for the trials to the arguments about ergot or some other hallucinogens, to the argument that it was an outlet for suppressed emotion in a very restrictive society.) And of course, there's enough "Oooh, witchcraft!" to make it an enticing topic for teenagers who want to do something a little out there, but still produce a good paper.
This episode
In this episode, they find a skeleton of a woman who they say:
- is old (48 years old, but described in ways that make it clear this is seen as very elderly)
- has isotope markers indicating that she lived in Salem
- was killed by being pressed to death
- sometime in November of 1692
- is identified as being Emily Quimby
- had her skeleton stolen from a cemetery.
All but the second is remarkably implausible to flat-out impossible, for reasons below. (Salem was founded in 1626, so it is in fact plausible for a 48 year old woman to have bone markers indicating that she only lived in that one area.) I'm leaving aside the fact that many of the Salem trials involved people in what is now Danvers, because it's actually not relevant.
We'll come back to the 48 being old problem in a moment.
1)The problem of pressing
Peine forte et dure was an English method - discarded in England 20 years before the Salem Trials though the last actual use was in 1741 - designed to get the accused to make a plea of either guilty or not guilty. The idea was that they put you on your back on the ground, with a board on your chest, and kept piling large stones on until you made your plea. Or died. Of course, once you make a plea, you are either guilty (and all your property was likely forfeit) or you went to trial (where you stood a decent chance or being found guilty). It was not, directly, a form of punishment, except in as much as you did it to make people do something you wanted. (Torture is, however, an excellent description.)
Only one person died from pressing in Salem: Giles Corey, an 80 year old farmer.
He was pressed for two days before dying on September 19th, 1692. Folklore has long suggested that he refused to plea to protect his property and pass it down to his heirs (his wife had also been charged as a witch, and was hanged on September 22) but Wikipedia tells me that more recent historians note that he made a will in jail, and was protesting the trials and methods themselves, as much as anything else. (Either way, the property did pass to their sons-in-law.)
I've been a Giles Corey fan for a long time. There's nothing else like his protest - for whatever reason he did it (and both reasons go far beyond his own life) - in New England history, nothing else like the strength of will to take incredible pain and misery for two days, saying nothing other than "More weight".
So I said very nasty words at this episode for inventing whole cloth someone else who was pressed to death, and *especially* since there's no necessary reason for it in the story that they couldn't have worked around.
2) The problem of timing
I actually picked up on this one very quickly, because
elisem showed me the Salem-related episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" on Monday, because she thought I'd be amused by it. (Pssst: Elise, I was right: the nice colonial house she visits is in fact the Rebecca Nurse homestead.)One thing that reminded me of, though, is that September 22nd, 1692, is the last date of deliberate deaths in Salem. But the show keeps mentioning this theoretical woman's death on November 1692. By then, the court had adjourned, and no more convictions (or hearings) took place.
There were 19 hangings, the death of Giles Corey, and the deaths of at least 5 and maybe as many as 18 others either in jail or as a direct result of their jail time. (Records vary, also how you define 'as a direct result'). You can see the names here: http://salem.essexcountyma.net/salem_witchcraft.htm .
3) The problem of the name
Emily is not a common Puritan name. In fact, it doesn't become common as a name in English until the 18th century, as a nickname for Aemilia. More to the point, the Early Massachusetts birth, death, and marriage records are online, and "Emily Quimby" doesn't appear anywhere. (You can see for yourself here: http://ma-vitalrecords.org/VRSI_Q1.shtml). Not only that, but I checked all the other vaguely similar last names. (I didn't do a rigorous search, but I also didn't spot any Emilys while I was scanning the last names).
It's worth noting that Quinby, or Quenby or Quimby or whatever alternate spelling you want wasn't exactly a common name in the 1600s, either. The earliest reference I spotted was a Lidia Quinby, born in Salisbury in 1657 (her parents married right around then too). (This would have made her 35 in 1692). And she was born in Salisbury, nearly up into Maine, more than a day's ride from Salem/Danvers. All the others were 1700s or later.
4) The problem with the skeleton
There's two problems with this skeleton. First, a number of the bodies from those convicted in the trials were buried in a shallow grave. Some were retrieved by the families, and buried on family land. This does not reliably lead to being able to find enough of the small bones of the body to create a fully re-articulated skeleton three hundred years later. Or a skull with hair (I'd buy the long bones and skull, but that bit of Massachusetts has lots of rivers, periodic floods, frost heaves, and other things that can disrupt bones. And hair.)
The memorials in the Burying Ground at Salem are mostly cenotaphs, without actual bones buried (because they've become lost over the years). But even without that, it's a relatively common site for potential vandalism, and it's hard to imagine that people wouldn't notice and publicise that the skeleton had disappeared.
5) The problem of age
I also disliked that the show played into a really common misassumption about age and earlier historical periods. Here, we must digress into a brief bit of statistics.
The average life expectancy includes everyone who is born and then dies (as people do) for a given time range. This means that eras with high infant mortality tend to have a pretty low life expectancy. Plimoth Plantation (which is a re-creation of early colonial life in the 1600s, though south of Boston) has a lovely page on this particular myth here: http://www.plimoth.org/discover/myth/dead-at-40.php
They point out several things. First, the average life expectancy in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s was actually in the 60s (compared to either London or the Chesapeake colonies.) Fewer people than London (hence fewer things like cholera or infections getting passed along), and fewer insect vectors than the south. If you made it to adulthood, you would likely live into your 70s or later. (And in other places, into your 60s.)
This is also born out by looking at the ages of the convicted and executed in the trials:
Bridget Bishop: 60
Sarah Good: 35
Rebecca Nurse: 71
Susannah Martin: 71
Sarah Wildes: 65
Elizabeth Howe : 55
Martha Carrier: Probably born around 1660, so 32
John Willard : in his 20s. (He's principled, too)
Rev. George Burroughs : 42
George Jacobs, Sr: 70
John Proctor: 60
Mary Eastey: 58
Martha Corey: about 70
Ann Pudeator: in her 70s
Samuel Wardwell: 49
Mary Parker : 55
Alice Parker: unknown - there's several people with similar names in the area.
Wilmot Redd: (birth date given as early 1600s) Probably in her 70s or 80s, therefore.
Margaret Scott: 77
and Giles Corey: 80
Of these 20 people, we have
1 unknown age
1 in their 20s (and something of a special case)
2 in their 30s
2 in their 40s
3 in their 50s
2 in their 60s
8 in their 70s
and 1 in his 80s
So, yeah. I'm not buying that "48 was elderly" bit. At all. It's pretty clear that most of the older people on this list were also in decent health - they were still actively participating in farm life, which is not exactly easy going.
They also mention that the skeleton shows signs of kyphosis (often called 'dowager's hump' historically) which generally occurs due to osteoporosis. Not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but Salem and surrounding areas actually had a decent chance of limiting this - hardy cows and other dairy animals do well there, and dairy would have been relatively widely available to people working on farms. Not a total surety, but a lot more so than, say, the middle of London. I'd buy it a lot more easily in someone in their 60s or 70s than someone in their later 40s.
[ETA: since this got brought up in comments on 1/5/11: like I said, I'm not a doctor. I have done some pretty extensive reading into colonial Boston in particular, however - due to an entirely unrelated project, actually - and the evidence does suggest that most people were significantly active and in good health with good mobility well into their 60s if they lived to that age in the first place. As I said, I'd buy it much more in someone in their 60s or 70s than late 40s. I'm open to evidence to the contrary that I can check out, however.]
ETA: The question of witches
I didn't add this bit originally, because I always forget that other people forget this one, but there is no evidence that *anyone* in the Salem Trials was actually a witch of any kind. (There's some plausibility about Tituba, but even that is sort of shaky evidence).
Many of those who were decried and executed had, up until that point, been pillars of their local church, and in ways that weren't just 'going along to make nice'. It's pretty clear from various records they took their Christianity seriously, and in a way compatible with the Puritan heritage of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (Those who didn't, tended to move to Connecticut, or sometimes Rhode Island, in the 17th century.)
[end addition]
The problem of religious depiction
Ok. I do not expect mainstream TV to get my religion (or things reasonably close) to my religion right. Gods know they rarely get Catholicism right, and that's a lot more common.
Plus, Jason and commentors over at his blog, The Wild Hunt, have done an excellent job of basic commentary. (Note that if you want to avoid regular character storyline spoilers, you should avoid Jason's post, and especially the comments.)
But since we're here, the basic issues:
What they're describing as Wicca is not Wicca.
Much more clearly some other form of witchcraft, and there's no particular indication it's even *religious* witchcraft (unless I've missed a mention of a deity name in the two times I've now watched it.) There's also no functional ritual altar.
The coven they show is all women - which is really not Wiccan in a traditional sense of the term. (If you want a good guideline, go read my intro-to-religion posts. Part 2 is the most relevant here). There are all female groups out there, but they generally use other approaches to both magic and ritual.
Now, going in sequence:
What the heck is this 'waning moon' ceremony?
Full moon, yes. New moon, yes. Sabbat, yes. Waning moon? One can do rituals at any particular point they're relevant - but waning moon doesn't make sense.
Privacy:
Also, what kind of Craft group gives out info to private rituals without better checks than that? (Public rituals, yes. Private ones, no.)
The difficulty of ritual names
I actually found it really interesting that this episode also brought out issues of names among regular characters: when you count it up, the majority of characters go by something other than what their legal name would suggest, or than their parents or teachers almost certainly called them.
Me, my legal name is getting less and less use all the time - these days, at work, and in legal settings, and that's about it. That said, Jenett, while starting as a public Craft name, is not a particularly weird name (it's arguably got a better history of widespread historical use in England than Jennifer does until the early 70s).
But I also agree with the various comments on Jason's blog about the affected speech. Ugh. No. (Though it was sort of nice to see the witches portrayed as adults with hair/skin/clothing cues that indicated they were reasonably self-sustaining in the terms of the modern world.)
Amber
The amber *is* a common magical item in many sections of the Craft: amber is considered to have particular energetic properties because it's a fossil of a living creation (resin), rather than being pure mineral. The episode glosses over this, but I figured it'd be nice to mention. (I have a fair collection of it myself, though I mostly wear it when I want to reinforce being in priestess-mindset but the formal ritual jewelry isn't appropriate for whatever reason.)
Speaking of jewelry: Jason mentions it being weird to have them all with the same necklace. Eh on that one: initiates in my tradition all get the same pendant as part of a recognition that they're part of the tradition. Most of us don't wear it outside of circle or circumstances where that connection is particularly relevant, though. I'd only consider it weirdly cultish if you *had* to wear it.
The magical systems they're talking about?
Are... funky. Not just that they're implausible, but they're implausible in ways that don't make sense in common magical theory. They are a bit more common in some of the older English and southern European folklore. But they're not in common practice, and the specifics are still really funky.
The ritual itself
Makes no sense as a 'sending someone on'. What it *does* make sense as is an expiation ritual - burning an effigy of someone you've wronged shows up in a lot of folk traditions. (It's not the only reason you might burn an effigy or representation, though.) This actually fits with the episode, but they totally gloss over it.
I kept going "But *why* do they care about bat bones?"
It's not that I entirely oppose the idea of animal parts in the right circumstances (which for me includes the ethical acquisition of same). But in good magical theory, the stuff you use has some direct relationship to what you're trying to accomplish. Bats just don't fit here. (Neither does the 'dressing up a skeleton in a wedding dress' while we're at it.) Is it too much to ask for some basic magical theory?
And in what religion are they integral?
Yes, witches often use ritual knives. But.
Most commonly, these are not used to actually cut anything - they're used to represent the will and intention. Some people use sharp blades, but a lot of people don't.
Basically, there's a huge mismatch between the group's "We are goodness and peacefulness and light and bunnies and rainbows" language, and using sharp blades. Generally, the rainbow bunny types go for dull blades (or no blades at all), while the folk witches tend to go for useful physical tools for things like harvesting herbs or inscribing candles, but don't talk about the universe as a kind and loving place. (Traditional Wicca and its immediate offshoots are much closer to the latter, but use two different kinds of knives: one for energy work only that's straight and usually double-edged, and a curved blade, usually smaller, for herbs/candles/other physical tasks.)
Rye flour
I agree with Jason's comments about the rye flour not being common in witchcraft practice.
However, I'll note that I've been at group rituals a few times that used wheat flour to draw an outside circle on the grass (i.e. to give some visual distinction). That said, flour is not a great medium: if it gets wet, it turns into paste, which is a pain. Cornmeal is better. (Salt theoretically works, but is lousy for plants) There's no particular reason you couldn't use rye instead of wheat, but also no particular reason you would.
But on the ergot poisoning? It's not a "You take some, you have hallucinations" thing. It's a "You eat a little bit of rye flour containing the mold (which requires some specific growing and harvest conditions) over a longish period of time, and you have all sorts of continuing symptoms." You are not killing someone one night, and having clear and articulate conversations in the FBI office a few days later. More at Wikipedia.
[Side note, since we hit this point in the episode: that is a *lousy* fake 17th century engraving. The artistic lines are all wrong.]
"Ancient Wiccan Symbol"
Wicca is not ancient in its current form. And the pentagram goes *way* back, to the Greeks. Wikipedia is a good start in this case.
Wiccans do not consume any form of consciousness altering substance
Pah. Classic ritual practice includes wine. Also, most of us drink caffine and chocolate. And other alcohol in moderation. Some smoke. Enough said.
(Those of us who take the mind-altering stuff seriously pay attention to what we're consuming and why. We just do it intentionally, including the caffeine and chocolate.)
Research sources
Now, ok, I started this one with a head start, because I know about a number of resources. But I managed to write up this commentary over the course of about 90 minutes, including rewatching the episode. It's not like the resources aren't widely available out there. (And about 25 minutes of that time were skimming the Vital Records of Early Massachusetts files.)
But information about the Salem Trials is especially easy to find on the web these days: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm is an excellent place to start. The rest of this was mostly just putting the relevant names into Google.