Tuesday...

reached home safe and sound and happy last nite at 11.30pm...
Boston is AWESOME! dat's the first word dat comes to my mind...it's juz so beautiful...the centuries of history, the rich culture and heritage, the beautiful buildings and parks, the friendly ppl...
everything abt it juz takes away my breath...
in todae and tmr's post at least, i'll be telling stories abt Boston and Salem....both in the State of Massachusetts...
first up...the witching past of Salem...those who have 'The Crucible' before might/might not find this familiar...
here goes....

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The Story Behind Salem's Sad Past -- The Witching Haunts
Centuries before all of us were born, in the year of 1692, a terrible and extremely unfortunate dark episode befell the residents of Salem Village in Massachusetts. In those days when medicine and science were less trusted than religion and when oftentimes, the words of a single important person carried more weight than everyone else, rumour-spreading was rife. In fact, this was essentially the crux of the entire episode that would be inconceivable to people like you and I today.

Salem Village, like many others in those days, had a highly respected reverend. In 1692, this particular reverend and his family were all puritans. Puritans are a branch of Christianity which base their beliefs on very simple values in life and are content with the bare necessities in everyday lives. They lived to work and take care of their families and while the men would go out to the farms to work everyday, women were expected to stay indoors to cook, wash and complete household chores.
This lifestyle was especially harsh on girls and young women who were barred from mixing with men their ages as they would then appear frivolous, thereby tarnishing the reputations of their families and religion.

Unfortunately, the stress and boredom of such a lifestyle took its toll on a girl called Ann (the Reverend’s daughter) and her cousin and it led to unimaginable consequences.

When they got bored, the girls would bug their family’s slave from Barbados, Tituba to tell them stories and perform what they would eventually call ‘Black Magic’.
Not much was known about Tituba but she is thought to be a slave with dark or black skin. She had been to many places before becoming their slave as the slave owners brought them everywhere to try to sell them. And so, she was knowledgeable and knew many stories and magic ‘spells’ from various lands. Well, all those were simple fiction but to the superstitious villagers, they certainly weren’t when weird incidents began to occur.

Out of the sudden, Ann and her cousin, for no reason, fell sick. They started to cower in fear, mumble weird sentences, vomited and fell into trances. This quickly spread to young girls all around town. People got really scared and consulted the local physician, Dr. Griggs. Ignorant Dr. Griggs could treat no ailments more than the typical fever, cough and flu and so in order to save his own reputation when he couldn’t diagnose the illness, he said that they have been touched by the Black Devil.

And so, trials to uncover the evil source went on for a long time. Initially, the girls were inconsolable and were incoherent but in between their insane periods, some of them gave accounts of hallucinations and images they had seen...and these soon became known as 'Spectral Evidence' in court trials against the accused who were mostly innocent....

At this point, one should probable be already fuming mad....How can people be persecuted, jailed, hanged, executed or tortured based on evidence which no one can see except the 'bewitched'?!!!
Totally ridiculous....

To cut a long story short, the girls who were the first to be bewitched became famous all over the country as their tales spread far and wide while many innocent were killed or died in jail....
Poor souls...and it was onli 300yrs later, in 1992, when the innocent were declared by the Massachusetts Govt to be free from any accusations....

Well, as one can see, conspiracy theories are not something new....
From this sad episode 300+ yrs ago...many theories were formed...which i won't elaborate here...but it's easy to think of them once you know the full story....
go google it if you are interested....Salem MA....and u'll find many stories and accounts of it....

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as usual, missing everyone lotz....

and Sujun, sorry i couldn't reali catch up with u dat dae...was reali busy in the office!
catch up soon...and all the best for ur fyp leh....jiayou!

Life is full of ups and downs...

face the downs bravely if any....anyone...my dears....