Talk:Medical explanations of bewitchment

message: This article needs more citations on the academic historians who refute these theories. Ogram 14:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I have opted to remove references to the theory of Huntington's Chorea.  The only source I can find making this claim (See http://www.stanford.edu/group/hopes/sttools/print/p_r_timeline.pdf) only states "1692 The Salem Witch Trials occur in Salem, Massachusetts. Many of the "witches" are now believed to have had HD. Their choreic movements and odd behavior, likely caused by HD, were seen as possession by the devil." This article has no citations ("believed" by whom?), and the author of the document is unknown. Ogram 15:02, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Huntington's Chorea 

message: I am looking for a citation to support the possible inclusion of Sleep paralysis in this article.  See the testimony of Richard Coman v. Bridget Bishop, in which Coman states "And [she] lay upon my Brest or body and soe oppressed him that he could not speake nor stur noe not soe much as to awake his wife althow he Endeavered much soe to do itt;" (Salem Witchcraft Papers, Boyer & Nissenbaum, Vol. 1, pp. 101-102.   Ogram 15:21, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sleep paralysis 

message: Transfered from Talk:Salem witch trials
I just read a fascinating article about the witch trials that describes a 1979 study showing the girls who did the accusing were suffering from ergot poisoning. Ergot comes from rye and when bad produces LSD-like symptoms. This wiki article addresses just the accused, not the accusers, which I'd like to change. Can I put quotes into the article from a previously-published source as long as I include the citation?—Preceding unsigned comment added by Estreya (talk • contribs) 15:59, 3 December 2005
Never-mind my query, I've made the update I was asking about. Woo hoo! Now I'm a Wikipedian!  :) Estreya 15:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, Ergot poisoning cannot be used as a catch-all in this case. Encephalitis or Ergot could have been the foundation, and Conversion Syndrome could have spawned from it. A combination of causes is more likely in this case. But to form your own conclusions, i sugest Laurie Winn Carlson's A Feaver In Salem. My personal oppinion (bare with me, it takes some explaining):
1) Land feuds, Rev. Parris hungry for power, influence, and respect in the community, tension caused by these as well as the Indian wars taking place at the same time. Many of the prominant figures in the Trials were involved in ongoing land feuds between two families which turned into most of the village on one side and the Salem Towne-supported fraction as well as the Towne on the other side. Reverand Parris had lost much of his control over the Congragationalist community and wanted to regain his influence over the Village.
2) Reverand Parris as well as others could have influenced his daughter and niece to behave strangely to give him proof to rear his congragation back under his thumb. This is highly probable in my oppinion because the two girls were young (9 and 11) and very easily persuaded. It is also very likely because their personal symptoms started out as throwing bibles and cursing the Lord and refusing to pray. These symptoms did not increase to the expected symptoms until they were given attention for it.
3) Once these strange things began to happen in the Parris household and it was made known to the rest of the village, it was only THEN that more girls began behaving strangely. This could have resulted from Conversion Syndrome (basically mass hysteria.) 
4) Another of my oppinions is that because the Parris family was "worldy" so to speak, they were exposed to the goings on of neighboring settlements such as Andover and Boston, where an Encephalitis or Ergot epademic could have been going on and the Parris girls found that mimickable. Another possibility is that Select few girls got a disease or virus and from there came Conversion Syndrome. 
but these are my oppinions. i have deducted them from 11 months of research and interviews with archavists and historians from the area as well as authors of SWT literature.--Gingerseymour 03:36, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The root cause: Ergot Theory 

message: I'm not really satisfied with this sentence "A new study has shown that a primitive form of LSD was infecting the wheat supply on one side of the village. "  First off, what study? There is no reference cited so this could be some wackos study or it could be something reputable. Also, the sources I've cited in the rest of this section were all discussing RYE not wheat. This is the lone sentence about wheat and I have no idea whether ergot (which I assume is what is meant by "a primitive form of LSD") on wheat does the same as ergot on rye.  I propose the sentence be edited out unless it can be expanded by citing some verifiable study. Estreya 18:56, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentence in "Ergot Theory" 

message: I really did not appreciate your revert to a previous version after my well-researched additions to the Ergot Theory and sources sections, Originalbigj.  What did you mean, "everything afterward seems to be worse"?  I specifically asked for dialogue on this page and got no response. Now you're saying my corrections suck? Why? I documented everything I wrote and have referenced every statement. How can this not be appropriate for inclusion in this article? I would appreciate an explanation of your actions.  In the mean time I have restored just the sections I wrote which your revert decimated. Estreya 20:21, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Originalbigj's revert 

message: It's sort of lame that the long debunked Ergot Theory is the only one that is mentioned as a possible explanation -- I'll hunt down the debunking from the time the article was published when I have a minute. Any theory based on hallucinatory substances has to explain why only the people that had visions actually had visions, and not the whole village. For example, in the Parris household only the two young girls Betty and Abigail had visions; in the Putnam household, Ann Jr (12) and Ann Sr (31) did. So it was not something peculiar to young people (if it had been, that would still leave the question why the boys in the families did not get anything). The socio-economic theories a la Boyer & Nissenbaum and the post-traumatic stress theory a la Mary Beth Norton are much more likely to be correct.
--Rck 04:16, 15 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, Ergot poisoning cannot be used as a catch-all in this case. Encephalitis or Ergot could have been the foundation, and Conversion Syndrome could have spawned from it. A combination of causes is more likely in this case. But to form your own conclusions, i sugest Laurie Winn Carlson's A Feaver In Salem. My personal oppinion (bare with me, it takes some explaining):
1) Land feuds, Rev. Parris hungry for power, influence, and respect in the community, tension caused by these as well as the Indian wars taking place at the same time. Many of the prominant figures in the Trials were involved in ongoing land feuds between two families which turned into most of the village on one side and the Salem Towne-supported fraction as well as the Towne on the other side. Reverand Parris had lost much of his control over the Congragationalist community and wanted to regain his influence over the Village.
2) Reverand Parris as well as others could have influenced his daughter and niece to behave strangely to give him proof to rear his congragation back under his thumb. This is highly probable in my oppinion because the two girls were young (9 and 11) and very easily persuaded. It is also very likely because their personal symptoms started out as throwing bibles and cursing the Lord and refusing to pray. These symptoms did not increase to the expected symptoms until they were given attention for it.
3) Once these strange things began to happen in the Parris household and it was made known to the rest of the village, it was only THEN that more girls began behaving strangely. This could have resulted from Conversion Syndrome (basically mass hysteria.) 
4) Another of my oppinions is that because the Parris family was "worldy" so to speak, they were exposed to the goings on of neighboring settlements such as Andover and Boston, where an Encephalitis or Ergot epademic could have been going on and the Parris girls found that mimickable. Another possibility is that Select few girls got a disease or virus and from there came Conversion Syndrome. 
but these are my oppinions. i have deducted them from 11 months of research and interviews with archavists and historians from the area as well as authors of SWT literature.--Gingerseymour 03:36, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Critiques of Ergot Theory 

message: I was thinking about adding a section of a possible anxiety disorder.  From reading what Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum say about the internal conflict with the Puritan community and the divided factions it seems as though the girls were suffering from anxiety.  I do not know if it should be added because they do not neccessarily say anxiety but allude to it when saying the girls," were experiencing with particular intensity the consequences of social dislocation.  The girls' divinations were a specific reaction to urgent fears which obessed their own families and which to a degree preoccupied the entire comminuty.  After all, the identity of their future husbands...would determine their own future status." (page 199).  It seems to be that the girls were anxious about their roles in society and where they fit into the larger meaning of a Puritan world, which could be a sign of existential anxiety.  Marion Starkey also discusses the impact of the girls obession over where they fit in and who their husbands would be...let me know if you think it would be a good section to have or if there is not enough scholarly support to argue this...  
Biggs05 (talk) 21:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anxiety 

message: I have combined hysteria and psychosomatic disorders because they are essentially synonyms. Hysteria was used to first explain a state of mind of unmanageable fear or emotion, but it was too vague and has been replaced with names like psychosomatic disorder. Essentially it is the same thing of suffering from symptoms caused from mental processes.  If anyone believes they should be seperate by all means change it back, but I would maybe include a sentence or two at the beginning of the psychosomatic section mentioning the similarities.
Biggs05 (talk) 00:01, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Combine Hysteria and Psychosomatic Disorders 

message: I don't know about elsewhere, but in Canada First Nations people do not like to be referred to as Indians, so I'm going to change that to Natives.  Just a note if you're going to continue making similar references in other articles.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.253.80.69 (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As a brief aside: Beware that native is also a word that, absurdly, is often consider "evil" by the politically correct. 88.77.136.245 (talk) 08:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

text: Understand that Salem witchtrial has nothing to do with Canada - Canada's official term for indigenous people are "indians" according to the Canadian Federal Law  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.198.148.45 (talk) 02:04, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of the term "Indian" 

message: I've moved a section here as it is from a self-published, and therefore unreliable, source, which is in addition a work of fiction. It additionally was added here by the author of that work of fiction (see <http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-devils-trumpet>.  The jimsonweed theory shouldn't be added back until it is found in a reliable source. - Nunh-huh 14:40, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be possible to recast this sourced to The Morning News (online magazine) itself, which is a professional magazine published for 13 years. It is only presenting the publication of a theory, which is factual. --Dhartung | Talk 23:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It's presenting the publication of a work of fiction! Witten's theory becomes reportable here only after a secondary source reports it as a theory that's attracted the notice of those who are experts in the field. - Nunh-huh 03:34, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unreliable source, conflict of interest 

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