Kevin Alan Wells

This past week in 1692 the Salem witch trials began. What started as an attempt to stop the contorted fits of three young girls ended in 150 people accused of witchcraft. Fifteen women and five men were executed. Others died in jail, and even after the trials ended, those found innocent were kept in prison until their jail fees were paid.

Within a decade, the Salem Village community began to realize their mistakes. Some who had testified against their neighbors asked for public forgiveness. The excommunications of convicted church members were slowly reversed. Finally, twenty years after the trials, the government reversed the convictions and compensated the accused and their families.

The remorse shows something important about this community. The citizens of Salem weren’t on a pillaging hunt like bloody Herod ransacking Bethlehem for the baby Jesus. These were well-meaning people fumbling to find the best for their society. But though they were well-meaning, though they intended the best, still, the actions they chose were wrong. Their 317-year-old mistake echoes a message for our modern lives:

Sometimes an entire community can be mistaken.

Driven by a certainty in skewed perceptions, well-meaning people can commit monstrous errors. And they will keep on committing those errors one after another until enough of the community’s members step out of the crowd and voice dissent. Those first few risk their popularity, social ranks, and sometimes even their lives. Yet they also chance saving their community from its darkest mistakes. With time, their collective voice can break the spell of popular choice.

But in a society led astray by its own beliefs, where would one find such persons with the sense and courage to speak? The answer is illustrated well in this painting:

The Witches by Walter McEwan (1892)

The original is about 6×10 feet in size. It’s big. The focal point of this scene is the ‘witch’ with the red cloak. Her mother begs her to confess her sins of witchcraft to the magistrates waiting at the door – perhaps they will then be lenient. In front of these village leaders, another accused woman looks with scorn upon her younger social superior. Her posture shows a readiness to condemn the witch, herself. Then there’s the slump at the back of the cell—faceless, oblivious, useless. It’s hard to tell in this poor image of the painting, but the eyes of the red-caped woman are painted in such a way that they follow you everywhere in the room. Wherever you stand, she’s looking at you.

And in that detail is the answer. Surrounded by a community of misguided love, uncaring apathy, blind zealotry, and baseless hate, this symbol of innocence and truth looks to the only person in the room that may still offer her help; she looks to you.

Photo by dhammza. Salem witch trials.