In 1692 witchcraft was an indisputable fact of life in Massachusetts. Those accused faced felony charges. The Salem Witch Trials were the result of a rational worldview shared by well-reasoned people who saw witchcraft as the devil incarnate and a threat to daily life. But how did they get there? What can we learn from the trials about access to power and how social dynamics shape legal systems?Here to help answer all of these questions is New York Times Best Selling and award-winning writer of historical fiction, Katherine Howe. She edited The Penguin Book of Witches for Penguin Classics and authored The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane - a historical fiction novel that travels between witch trials of the 1690s and modern life. She has also collaborated with Anderson Cooper on not one, but two books.What's In This Episode?

Who is Katherine Howe and what is her family connection to the Salem Witch Trials?

Why have witches held such a prominent space in our collective imagination for centuries?

What was real and rational about witchcraft in the 1600s?

What did the world of 1692 look like for the people who lived through the trials?

What does power have to do with WHO gets accused?

Why were women both at the center of the trials and the primary accusers?

Why would the accused sue for slander?

Why did the trials come to an end?