Did Moldy Grain Cause The Salem Witch Trials?

I think most people agree on the facts of the Salem witch trials. In 1692, nineteen people were executed for witchcraft, one died while being tortured, and several died in prison. More than 150 people from Massachusetts and Maine were accused. The trials ended as soon as they began, and were the last major witchcraft trials in New England.

There had been other witchcraft trials in 17th century New England, but none as large and deadly as the Salem trials. Historians have argued for years over what caused this terrifying social anomaly. Proposed explanations include mass hysteria, greed, Puritan misogyny, discord among neighbors, and stress caused by Indian attacks. There is probably some truth in all of these, but what if the cause was not social but biological? What if the Salem witch trials were caused by a fungus that grows on moldy grain?

The moldy grain theory first appeared in the April 2, 1976 issue of Science magazine in an article by Linnda R. Caporael titled "Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem?" Caporael was a biology grad student at UC Santa Barbara, and she hypothesized that the Salem trials had been caused by ergot, a fungus that grows on grains, particularly rye.

Caporael's article explains that ergot (claviceps purpura) often grows on rye (and sometimes other grains) when the weather is warm and wet. Rye was the most widely planted Old World grain among the Puritans, and the spring and summer of 1691 were hot and humid in Massachusetts. The rye harvested that year would have been consumed in 1692. She theorizes that it was infected with ergot.

Barley infected with ergot, from Wikipedia

People who eat ergot-infected grains can develop a disease called ergotism. It comes in two varieties. Gangrenous ergotism causes an infected person's extremities to die and rot away. Fingers, toes and ears develop gangrene and fall off. Picture leprosy, but caused by grain. Scary! The second variety is called convulsive ergotism, which has very different symptoms, including the following:

• Tingling sensations in the skin and fingers
• Vertigo
• Headaches
• Ringing in the ears
• Vomiting and diarrhea
• Hallucinations
• Bodily convulsions

Ergot contains the alkaloid isoergine, aka lysergic acid amine, a molecule similar to that found in LSD, which can cause hallucinations. Perhaps all those Puritans were just having a really bad trip?

Caporael's article goes on to explain how some of the behaviors seen in the Salem witch trials might be caused by convulsive ergotism.

Accusations of choking, pinching, pricking with pins, and biting by the specter of the accused formed the standard testimony of the afflicted in almost all the examinations and trials. The choking suggests the involvement of the involuntary muscular fibers that is typical of ergot poisoning; the biting, pinching, and pricking may allude to the crawling and tingling sensations under the skin experienced by ergotism victims. Complaints of vomiting and "bowels pulled out" are common in the deposition of the accusers. The physical symptoms of the afflicted and many of the other accusers are those induced by convulsive ergot poisoning. (Linnda R. Caporael, "Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem?", Science, vol. 192, April 2, 1976) 

The article also suggests that the demons people saw were just hallucinations, such as the thing with a monkey's body and bird's feet that choked John Londer while he slept, as were the spectral witches that people saw inside their homes or roaming the landscape. The Puritans didn't have a scientific understanding of ergotism so they explained away the strange symptoms as evil magic sent by witches.

Caporael's article really struck a chord when it was published. It received quite a bit of publicity, and even made the front page of The New York Times in an article titled "Salem Witch Hunts in 1692 Linked to LSD-Like Agent." LSD was a widely used drug in the 1970s and the link with contemporary drug culture made sense to a society dealing with its own hallucinating kids.

The ergot theory still remains popular, even though most people now don't know where it came from. I often see commenters online mention ergotism when discussing the Salem trials, and it comes up sometimes when I talk with people about New England witchcraft. Just a few weeks ago I was leading a tour in Boston and when I mentioned witchcraft someone asked about ergotism.

People still remember Caporaels' theory, but they don't remember the rebuttal that two psychologists published a few months later. Nicholas Spanos and Jack Gottlieb published an article titled "Ergotism and the Salem Village Witch Trials" in the December 24, 1976 issue of Science. The two authors outline some compelling reasons why ergotism did not cause the Salem trials.

First, only people suffering from Vitamin A deficiency contract convulsive ergotism; people with healthy vitamin A intake get the gangrenous variety. Vitamin A is found in dairy products and fish. Salem Village was a successful farming community with lots of cows and Salem Town was a seaport with lots of fishing activity. It seems unlikely that anyone had a Vitamin A deficiency.

Further, ergotism usually strikes entire families (since everyone is eating the same grain). That did not happen in Salem, where only a few members of families were afflicted by witchcraft. The afflicted girls also did not report diarrhea or vomiting, and more importantly they did not die or develop permanent dementia, which happens in severe cases of ergotism. Their skin also did not turn a livid color, which is another symptom of the disease.

The afflicted girls did not actually suffer convulsions or pain in a way that was consistent with ergotism. They would suffer fits and convulsions when a suspected witch was brought into the courtroom for them to see, but their symptoms would subside when the suspect confessed, when passages were read from the Bible, or when the suspect touched them. Their convulsion were clearly not the symptoms of a disease. As Spanos and Gottlieb write:

The afflicted girls were responsive to social cues from each other as well as from the accused and were therefor able to predict the occurrence of each other's fits. In such cases one of the girls would cry out that she saw the specter of an accused witch about to attack another of the afflicted. The other girl would then immediately fall into a fit.... 

... Taken together, these facts indicate that the afflicted girls were enacting the role demoniacs as that role was commonly understood in their day. (Nicholas Spanos and Jack Gottlieb, "Ergotism and the Salem Village Witch Trials, " Science, December 24, 1976)

Spanos and Gottlieb also point out that the afflicted girls were only a small subset of all the witnesses in the Salem witch trials. Dozens of people testified against the accused witches, and most of them showed no symptoms of ergotism at all.

So it seems extremely unlikely that ergotism caused the Salem witch trials or even played any role at all. It's too bad, because modern science is great at treating physical disease, but not so great at dealing with psycho-social eruptions. We can probably prevent outbreaks of ergotism, but that won't help us prevent future witch hunts. Witch hunts still occur around the world, and we've even seen seen similar phenomena within the last few decades in the United States, like the Satanic panic of the 1980s or the evil clown scare of 2016. If only they were as easy to treat as a troublesome fungus.

Bradford College: The Necronomicon, Strange Lights, and Ghosts

What is it about colleges and ghost stories? It seems like most colleges have at least one restless spirit wandering their hallowed halls. Maybe it's because young people are more perceptive of the supernatural, or maybe it's just that young people like a good scary story. Either way, if you want to find a ghost college campuses are a good place to look.

I grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts. When I lived there it was home to two colleges: Northern Essex Community College (NECCO to the locals) and Bradford College. I've never heard any ghost stories about NECCO, and Renee Mallett, author Haunted Colleges and Universities of Massachusetts, writes that "...it's not haunted in the slightest, at least as far as anyone has come forward to say." It's not a residential campus so that might be the reason why.

Bradford College, on the other hand, is the setting for many ghostly encounters and paranormal legends. Perhaps this is because it was home to thousands of young people for nearly two centuries. Bradford was founded as an academy for girls back in 1803, became a junior college in 1932 and then a four-year co-ed college in 1971. Bradford College closed in 2000 for financial reasons, and it's campus is now home to Northpoint Bible College.

Photo by Stephen Muise (my brother!)

My favorite story about Bradford College is that the Necronomicon, a legendary book of malevolent magic, is hidden somewhere in the tunnels beneath the campus. The tunnels are quite real, and a colleague of mine who attended Bradford said they were originally built so the wealthy young ladies of Bradford Academy didn't need to go outside in inclement weather. According to the legend, horror author H.P. Lovecraft was dating one of these young ladies in the 1920s and decided to hide the Necronomicon below the campus to keep it safely hidden away.

There are a couple reasons why this story is almost certainly just a legend. First, the fabled Necronomicon is not real. This mythical book was a fictional creation  Lovecraft used in many of his tales but it did not exist outside the pages of his stories. After his death several authors published their own versions of the Necronomicon, which you can still buy from Amazon or your local bookstore. I can't vouch for their magical efficacy, but they certainly aren't hidden under Bradford College.

The second reason this is just a legend? Lovecraft never dated anyone. There's no record of him having romantic feelings for anyone until he met his wife, and even then she talked him into their short-lived marriage. Lovecraft dating someone is more unbelievable than the Necronomicon.

Photo: Stephen Muise

A weirder and somehow more believable ghost story about Bradford was sent to me by someone who reads my blog. I'll call him Greg for the sake of anonymity. Greg was a freshman at Bradford College in 1980. One night in late September or early October of that year, Greg and some other freshmen were carrying a case of beer into their dorm when a sophomore named Larry stopped them in the hall. He explained that he didn't want to be alone that night. It was the one-year anniversary of something strange that happened.

He told them the following story. One year ago, Larry, his roommate Ray, and a couple other students decided to take LSD on a Friday afternoon after class. They had planned to take it outside on the beautiful campus, but rainy weather confined them to Larry and Ray's room. Things went poorly. As the acid kicked in Ray became extremely paranoid, and began to rant about a flashing red light in the corner of the room. No one else could see it. Ray started to scream accusingly at his friends so they left him alone (and tripping) in his room. Hours later Ray was still screaming about the flashing red light and was taken to the school medical facility. He never came back to his room, and several days later his father came and collected his belongings. No one ever learned what happened to Ray.

That was the end of Larry's story. Greg and the other freshmen kind of laughed at it, but a few weeks later Greg experienced something that made him reconsider the story. Greg had been hanging out in Larry's room and as he left he saw the words "WELCOME BACK RAY" appear on the door. They vanished as soon as he read them. This freaked Greg out but he didn't say anything.

The appearance of those words was the start of some weird occurrences in the dormitory. One night Greg was awakened by someone screaming in the room next to him. He listened through the wall but couldn't make out what was causing the commotion. Several days later he learned that one of the boys in that room had left Bradford College and gone back to live at his parents' house. The boy was upset because he kept seeing a flashing red light.

Greg also started to see a flashing red light, often out of the corner of his eye. Greg wrote, "I thought that either it was just my imagination or this dorm was really haunted and I was going to be its victim in some way." He had trouble concentrating and his grades began to fall. During this time Greg learned that another student had also supposedly seen a red flashing light, this time in the bathroom while he was drunk.

Hearing this did nothing to settle Greg's nerves. He continued to see the red light, his grades continued to fall, and he became deeply depressed. In the spring of 1981 he finally hitchhiked home and never returned to Bradford.

That's the end of Greg's story. I find it really fascinating and don't quite know what to make of it. Greg seems to think that "WELCOME BACK RAY" was a premonition that like Ray he too would eventually drop out of Bradford. If that's the case it came true. And did Ray's initial bad acid trip accidentally open a doorway for something uncanny to come through?

Photo: Stephen Muise

That story about the flashing red light is just one of many told about Bradford College. The most famous ghost story is that the campus is haunted by a spirit called Amy, who was a young woman who had an affair with a priest. When she became pregnant she either killed herself or was murdered by the priest. The college is also said to be haunted by the ghost of a drama professor who was murdered by student who impregnated her. Yikes! That's a lot of sex and violence for such a small college.

Are any of these stories true? I can't really say, but the folks at Ghost Encounters have investigated Bradford College and you can read their results here. Sometimes when you to college you learn things you didn't expect.