By Mr. G. Richard
Starting about October 1st, if you were on Twitter you may have noticed people referencing the spooky szn and come across tweets about #spookyszn. Well kids, spooky season is here. For many of us, autumn is our favorite time of year, and one of the highlights of the fall season is Halloween. Of the many groovy Ghoulies that shine during the spooky szn, perhaps none delights us more in the Halloween hall of fame than witches.
They are everywhere. In movies, you have the all-time classic Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. There is The Blair Witch Project, Hocus Pocus, the musical Into the Woods, all the way down to The Conjuring. On TV you have the classic 60’s era comedy Bewitched with a suburban housewife witch, the more recent shows Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Once Upon a Time, Supernatural, all the way down to American Horror Story, and the Red Witch in Game of Thrones.
In music you have Frank Sinatra singing the song “Witchcraft” which was most recently featured in the film Fifty Shades of Gray. In 1939 you had the Munchkins singing “Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead.” In 1956 Screamin’ Jay Hawkins belted out the unforgettable song “I Put a Spell on You.” In the early 70’s the band the Eagles sang about “Witchy Woman” and Carlos Santana sang about a “Black Magic Woman.”
They are everywhere. There are even witches in school. But before you start thinking about any of your teachers, let’s be clear. There are witches in the classroom.
If you take AP European History you will learn about the Witchcraft Craze and the Witch Hunts which raged across Early Modern Europe from the 14th through the 18th centuries. You will learn how traditional practices were transformed into a combination of sorcery and heresy, going against God and the Church. In an age of religious division and religious warfare in Europe so-called witches are accused of all manner of things from ruining crops and killing livestock, to eating babies and orgies with the devil. Elements of religious uncertainty, changing social and economic attitudes at the village level, scapegoating and misogyny all play into this extraordinary phenomenon. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 100,000 people were executed for witchcraft with 12,000 trials for which it is known for certain that they ended in executions.
In your American History class during your junior year you explore the case of the Salem Witch Trials in colonial Massachusetts. Between 1692-1693 more than 200 people will be accused of witchcraft, 19 people will be hanged, and one man will be “pressed” meaning a board was placed over him then stones and boulders were piled on his chest until he was crushed to death. The Salem Witch trials will be one of most disturbing cases of mass hysteria and injustice in our nation’s history.
In your senior year you might again encounter witches. If you take AP Lit you might read Arthur Miller’s Play “The Crucible” which dramatizes the events of the Salem Witch Trials. You will learn that this historical case of hysteria, paranoia, and scapegoating is presented as metaphor for the “Red Scare” of the 1950’s in which Americans were threatened, prosecuted and persecuted for being suspected communists and agents of the Soviet Union.
Have a frightfully good spooky szn. Watch out for those Witches. Consider yourself warned. They are everywhere.
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