0:00

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

0:02

Exodus 22:18 Welcome

0:26

to another episode of Thou Shalt Not Suffer:

0:28

The Witch Trial Podcast. I'm Josh

0:30

Hutchinson.

0:32

And I'm Sarah Jack.

0:34

Today we're talking to Annika Hylmo

0:36

and Cassandra Roberts Hesseltine. Their

0:39

documentary, The Last Witch, covers

0:42

the exoneration of Elizabeth Johnson

0:44

Jr., the "Last Witch"

0:46

of Salem to have her name cleared.

0:49

Because you like the show, please share it with your

0:52

friends, family, and followers.

0:54

I'm looking forward to today's episode.

0:57

I think we'll have a deep,

1:00

powerful conversation with

1:03

Annika and Cassandra, and

1:06

looking forward to diving into

1:09

how and why we hunt witches with

1:11

them, what they've learned from doing

1:14

their documentary.

1:16

Yeah, I'm really excited to get

1:18

to talk to them directly. I've really

1:20

enjoyed their Facebook Live updates

1:23

on their work, but we're

1:25

gonna get so much more tonight.

1:28

We are, and speaking of getting more, Thanksgiving

1:30

is next week.

1:32

I have my turkey. It's not thawed

1:34

yet, but I have it.

1:36

Yeah, don't thaw a week ahead of time.

1:38

I wouldn't wanna eat a week old Turkey.

1:41

There's this movie that I watch

1:44

every Thanksgiving if I can get

1:46

it. It's Home for the

1:48

Holidays with Holly Hunter

1:51

and Dylan McDermott and Robert

1:53

Downey Jr. Have you seen it?

1:55

I think I've seen that. I don't remember

1:57

it though.

1:59

Love that movie. And it's all

2:01

about frustrating family dynamics,

2:04

and the sister

2:08

brings a Neutra bird.

2:10

What is a Neutra bird?

2:11

I I have no idea, but it was like a special health.

2:13

They called it a Neutra bird or Neutry bird,

2:16

and she ends up wearing it.

2:18

Oh, like Joey and the turkey in

2:20

Friends?

2:21

Oh yeah. See that's what we should talk

2:23

about is Friends.

2:25

I wanna talk about Planes, Trains, and

2:27

Automobiles. That's my favorite Thanksgiving

2:30

movie.

2:32

That is up there. That is up there.

2:34

That's the classic Thanksgiving

2:37

movie.

2:38

Josh, let's hear some history about Elizabeth

2:40

Johnson Jr.

2:42

Elizabeth Johnson, Jr. was an

2:44

unfortunate victim of the Salem

2:46

Witch Trials. Elizabeth Johnson

2:48

Jr. was the granddaughter of Reverend

2:51

Francis Dane of Andover, but, more

2:53

importantly, she was the first cousin, once

2:55

removed of Martha Carrier, who

2:58

Cotton Mather described as the Queen

3:00

of Hell and whose family

3:03

were basically all

3:06

arrested during the Salem Witch Trials.

3:09

Elizabeth Johnson, Jr. was

3:11

22 at the time of her arrest.

3:14

Her father Steven Johnson had died

3:16

in 1690, due to a smallpox

3:18

outbreak that was blamed on Martha

3:21

Carrier. Elizabeth Johnson,

3:23

Jr. was arrested shortly before August

3:26

10th, 1692, along

3:28

with her second cousins, Sarah

3:30

and Thomas Carrier, children

3:32

of Martha. Elizabeth

3:35

was examined by magistrate Dudley

3:37

Bradstreet on August 10,

3:40

and she did confess. She

3:43

was alleged to have afflicted

3:45

Sarah Phelps with

3:47

the help of Sarah and Thomas Carrier.

3:50

Sarah Phelps was the daughter of Samuel

3:53

Phelps and the niece of recently

3:55

deceased Elizabeth Phelps Ballard,

3:58

the woman for whom the

4:01

Andover witch-hunt really started, when

4:04

her husband invited afflicted

4:06

girls from Salem Village to

4:08

come up and detect witches. Elizabeth

4:12

confessed to afflicting Sarah Phelps,

4:14

Ann Putnam, Mary Walcott,

4:17

Lawrence Lacey, Benjamin Abbott,

4:19

a child of Ephraim Davis, two

4:22

children of James Fry, the children

4:24

of Abraham Foster, and

4:26

Elizabeth Phelps Ballard, who died. Elizabeth

4:29

stated that she had been a witch for four years.

4:32

She became a witch at her cousin Martha Carrier's

4:34

house, and in 1689

4:36

she was baptized by the devil by

4:39

having her head dipped in Martha Carrier's

4:41

well. She also scratched the

4:43

devil's book with her finger to

4:46

sign the covenant with him. She

4:48

was present at a witch sacrament,

4:51

where red bread and

4:54

blood wine were served. All

4:56

the witches there pledged to pull down

4:58

the Kingdom of Christ and set up the Devil's

5:01

Kingdom. While she confessed,

5:03

she also accused Martha

5:05

Carrier, George Burroughs, Martha

5:08

Toothaker's two children, Richard

5:10

Carrier, Sarah Carrier, Mary

5:12

Lacey, Sr., Mary Lacey, Jr.,

5:15

John Floyd, and Daniel Eames.

5:17

She confessed to using puppets and

5:20

she showed a place on

5:22

her knuckle, where her familiar

5:24

suckled her and

5:27

said that there were two more places

5:29

that she couldn't reveal. So

5:31

women searched her body, and they found one

5:33

behind her arm, but didn't mention

5:36

any other. And now after

5:39

330 years, her name

5:41

has finally been cleared, the

5:43

last of the convicted Salem

5:45

witches to have that done.

5:48

Thank you for all of that information on

5:50

Elizabeth Johnson, Jr.'s life and for

5:52

making her experience

5:56

something that we know about.

5:59

You're welcome, and I forgot

6:01

one detail. She sold

6:03

her soul to the Devil

6:06

for one shilling, which

6:09

is just a bunch of pennies, 5

6:11

cents worth, a nickel. She sold

6:13

herself to the devil. And

6:16

she never got paid. The devil never paid

6:18

up anybody who confessed

6:20

to covenanting with him during the Salem

6:22

witch trials. Never

6:24

once did the guy actually do

6:26

what he said he would do.

6:29

That sounds like him.

6:30

Yeah, he's a rascal.

6:33

Yeah, he's a liar.

6:35

The Prince of Liars.

6:37

Welcome to Annika Hylmo and Cassandra

6:39

Roberts Hesseltine of The Last Witch,

6:41

a documentary about the work of

6:43

a middle school teacher and her students to exonerate

6:46

Elizabeth Johnson Jr., the last

6:48

person convicted during the Salem

6:51

Witch Trials to be cleared. We

6:53

would like to start out by finding

6:55

out who was the last witch.

6:58

The last witch, it depends on how you see

7:00

it, depends on what you consider to be a witch.

7:03

But the last convicted witch

7:05

from the Salem Witch Trials was

7:07

Elizabeth Johnson Jr., who was

7:10

just exonerated on

7:12

July 28th, 2022,

7:15

three hundred and twenty-nine years

7:18

after she was convicted. So

7:21

with that, I guess you could say that she was the

7:23

last witch from the Salem Witch Trials,

7:25

and that kind of ended the Salem Witch Trials.

7:28

When I saw how you listed that

7:31

on your social media, the end of

7:33

them, I thought that's really a strong

7:36

statement and thought, and that's a wrap.

7:39

So that's really powerful.

7:41

Yeah, we felt that way too. I think Annika

7:43

came up with it first, and she said that, and it was

7:45

like, "wait, you're right." Oh my gosh. It's,

7:47

it made history and it like closed a chapter

7:50

in history. Not all the way, there's still more obviously

7:52

other people that haven't been exonerated, like in Connecticut

7:55

and other places around the world, but

7:57

also and still the lasting effects of it. But

7:59

definitely that particular chapter

8:02

felt like it had come to a close.

8:04

It's incredible when you start to think about it

8:06

that it's been almost

8:08

330 years, right? And

8:12

that for all this time that

8:14

somebody could be considered to be a

8:16

witch. And it raises,

8:19

I think, a lot of questions about

8:21

what we believe to be a witch, who is a witch,

8:23

who isn't a witch, who's culpable,

8:26

and how we treat people,

8:28

as well as all the issues that

8:30

you can trace back to the Salem Witch Trials.

8:33

History and present are so

8:35

intertwined, and we tend to forget

8:37

that history is, it's happening

8:39

now, and we're a part of all of this. So

8:42

the fact that this took 330

8:44

years for simplicity to

8:47

get taken care of makes me wonder

8:50

sometimes what things we're dealing with now

8:52

that it will take 330 years

8:54

to clear and set

8:56

things right.

8:58

None of us are gonna allow that. Are we

9:01

Let's hope not.

9:02

Can you tell us a little bit about where

9:04

she lived, how old she was,

9:07

how long she was in prison, a little bit about her

9:09

experience?

9:10

We don't know an awful lot about her, to

9:12

be honest. We have snippets

9:15

of information about her. We

9:17

know that she lived in what is today, North

9:19

Andover, Massachusetts, which is

9:21

outside of Salem. We

9:24

know that she was about 22

9:26

at the time of the witch trials,

9:28

and we know that she was not married.

9:31

She did not have children. And

9:33

we know that she may have been a little

9:35

bit different. There was talk of her

9:37

being simplish. She, there was talk of

9:39

her being simple-minded, and

9:41

that came up on a couple of occasions

9:44

in some of the documents. We also

9:46

know that she was the granddaughter of

9:49

Reverend Dane, of

9:51

Reverend Francis Dane, who was the elder

9:53

clergyman in town at the time.

9:56

But as far as any other specifics,

9:59

we know very little. We can assume

10:01

things. We can assume that she probably lived

10:03

with family, for example.

10:05

We do know that she was examined,

10:08

and that's another word of being like

10:11

really threatened, because

10:13

these were very threatening circumstances. In

10:16

1692, early fall of

10:18

1692, she was

10:21

then in prison, we

10:23

assume, but we don't know because some of them were

10:25

let out temporarily, so we don't know

10:27

the exact circumstances, but

10:30

until January

10:32

of 1693,

10:34

when her grandfather wrote a

10:36

letter where he stated that she

10:38

was simplish at best, but about a week

10:41

after that she was convicted

10:43

and sentenced to hang. At the

10:45

time, the governor

10:47

of Massachusetts had already

10:49

pardoned everybody, so she wasn't

10:52

going to actually hang, but

10:54

she was imprisoned, from what

10:56

we understand, a little bit longer. We

10:59

do have a sense that she was supposed to

11:01

hang early February. That did

11:03

not happen because of the pardon, but it wasn't

11:05

like people let go of this thing about

11:08

witch hunts and witch trials

11:10

and witchcraft. It was just that the governor had said

11:12

no, and there's an end to it. From

11:14

there, we don't know much about her. We

11:16

know that she probably owned some property. She tried

11:19

to get restitution for the time that she

11:21

was in prison. Basically, people

11:23

had to pay their own way, and she tried to get

11:25

that money back at one point. We know

11:27

that she sold some property at one point

11:30

and that she probably died

11:32

when she was, I think, in her seventies.

11:35

But we know very little about her circumstances

11:37

after the trials, before the trials. She

11:39

was, in many ways, one

11:42

of us. Most of us, you

11:44

don't know exactly who we are, what

11:46

we do, even with social media, That's our

11:48

modern day version of gossip, but you

11:50

don't really know that much about each one of

11:52

us. And for many of us, once

11:54

we are gone, we're gone, as

11:57

much as we'd like to think otherwise. So

11:59

she's somebody that could

12:02

be anyone of us at the time

12:04

and now, and that's what

12:06

makes her so compelling. One of many reasons.

12:09

That reputation sticks with

12:11

the person through the rest of their life

12:13

and well beyond.

12:16

And the interesting thing about that is that the

12:18

whole connection to the witch trials

12:21

is profound. When you look at people

12:23

that have some kind of connection and

12:25

who you are related to, there's a

12:28

big difference when you talk to people who

12:30

consider themselves to be related to somebody

12:32

who was a witch compared to somebody

12:34

who was an accuser compared to somebody

12:37

who was a judge. That still

12:39

is part of modern

12:41

day community, and

12:44

that has not let go.

12:46

And, unfortunately, I'm related to

12:48

all three so I'm confused with

12:51

my feelings. But yeah, it is true. When

12:53

we met descendants who were descendants

12:55

or relatives of people that were accused

12:57

or witches that were actually executed, the

13:00

pain is still pretty strongly, especially

13:02

with ones that grew up on the east coast,

13:04

knew about their heritage their whole life.

13:06

And then you have the accusers. I'm a direct descendant

13:08

actually of an accuser, joseph

13:11

Ballard, who actually, because of him

13:13

and his wife, who was ill at the time,

13:15

is why the Salem girls were brought over to

13:17

Andover and why people were then accused

13:19

in Andover's from my grandfather. And I'm actually

13:22

a cousin through marriage of Elizabeth,

13:24

as well. So I'm related, and then I'm related

13:27

to a few that were executed, and I'm related to Judge

13:29

John Hathorne, which he wasn't the

13:31

nicest of people. And it

13:33

can be confusing and also feel, wow,

13:35

what a timeframe of what went

13:38

through with all these people. I can't imagine

13:40

being a direct descendant of someone who

13:42

accused and caused more people to be

13:45

accused than in Salem itself.

13:47

There is a guilt that came on when

13:49

I first learned about it, but I wasn't raised with this.

13:51

I had to learn about it about ten years ago.

13:53

Until then, it was a story that happened to someone

13:55

else. But yeah, as Annika says it's interesting

13:58

when we've talked to other descendants, relatives

14:00

of what that has carried on for

14:03

them.

14:04

Sarah and I are both descendants.

14:07

Sarah's a descendant of Rebecca Nurse

14:09

and her sister Mary Esty. I'm

14:11

a descendant of Mary Esty and

14:15

found family connections to

14:17

several dozen people involved.

14:19

So I have that thing of being related

14:21

to judges and jury

14:24

and accusers and everyone,

14:26

and it brings up

14:28

conflicting feelings. You

14:30

try to understand what each

14:33

of those people was thinking and

14:35

what their experience was, and

14:38

that fear of witches was so real

14:40

back then that kind

14:43

of understand where they were coming from, but

14:46

it still doesn't make it better.

14:48

Josh, when we first started our project, it was

14:50

actually a narrative feature film that we were

14:53

working on, a story of about Andover and

14:55

what happened there. A lot of people have done stories

14:57

on Salem, so we were wanting to make

14:59

a movie about a different version or

15:01

portion of what happened. And Annika

15:03

had actually brought that up, and I thought that was really lovely

15:06

of seeing the humanity, cuz I had the guilt

15:08

of, oh no, my grandfather, did

15:10

this horrible thing. And she's, but he was in love with his wife

15:13

and she knew, and they had real fears

15:15

and this was their religion and their beliefs". And

15:17

that really actually helped me. So thank you, Annika.

15:19

With that portion. At the time as

15:21

well, when we started, I didn't realize actually I was related

15:24

to so many other people at the time.

15:26

I only thought it was related to the accuser. But

15:28

as Annika says, they all, they all had to marry

15:30

each other and everything. It was such a small town. And

15:32

and so you end up, if you're related to one, you're

15:34

probably related to a few.

15:35

Does the film explain

15:38

why she was overlooked?

15:40

That's one of the big questions why

15:42

she was overlooked, and there's really no

15:45

good answer, except that it makes for really good

15:47

drama, because once

15:49

we discovered this story, it

15:51

came about because there was an article

15:54

about school teacher Carrie

15:56

LaPierre and her middle school students

15:58

who were working to study

16:01

the case of Elizabeth Johnson Junior and

16:03

to exonerate her from the witch trials

16:05

and working together with Senator Dizoglio to

16:07

get that. So in

16:10

digging into this story and

16:12

asking people who were in

16:14

some way connected to Salem,

16:16

in some way connected to the witch trials

16:18

and go, "so why do you think

16:21

that she was not cleared?"

16:23

Because there were others who have been exonerated

16:26

various phases as we know. The last

16:28

group before her was in 2001.

16:31

And so the question is, why was she

16:33

left out and why is there only one? Why

16:35

is she the last one? And

16:37

the response that inevitably came up

16:40

was that they just forgot about her, and

16:42

it became an echo. They just forgot about her. They

16:45

just forgot about her. They just forgot

16:47

about her. And it

16:49

got to be a little bit eerie. Almost there's

16:51

a conspiracy theory around this,

16:53

which opens up a number

16:56

of questions, right? So why would you

16:58

forget somebody who was a member of

17:00

your family? Why would you forget

17:02

somebody who was convicted of witchcraft

17:05

during such an important time

17:07

and that's been studied so much. And

17:10

there are probably a number of reasons

17:12

why she was forgotten,

17:16

overlooked, and ultimately

17:18

considered to be unimportant, which

17:20

is a critical part of this when

17:23

we're gonna be going into some of this, during

17:25

the story, during the documentary, and

17:28

obviously dig deeper. But for

17:30

our purposes today, and remembering

17:32

the contemporary side of this

17:35

is that she did not have kids.

17:37

She was a single woman who

17:40

was a little bit different

17:42

in some way. We don't wanna go

17:44

back and give her a diagnosis because

17:47

that's not fair to her. It's not fair to

17:49

history. And back in the day,

17:51

people did not have

17:53

psychiatrists and other people to help them

17:55

out, but she was different in

17:57

some way. And you take

17:59

all of those elements, plus the fact

18:01

that this was a big, dark

18:04

shadow that was cast over the communities.

18:06

Nobody really wanted to talk about it. Nobody

18:09

really wanted to talk about the Salem

18:11

witch trials. People tried to figure out

18:13

how to move on through marriage,

18:16

in some cases by moving away,

18:18

in some cases by running away.

18:20

We have a lot of people that disappeared after

18:22

the witch trials. And

18:24

for Elizabeth, she probably lived

18:26

with her family afterwards for a while,

18:28

but she didn't have descendants. And when

18:31

you don't have descendants, you're much

18:33

easier to forget. It's like society

18:35

is saying that you don't matter if

18:37

you don't have descendants. So

18:39

that's a really big and important

18:42

thing for us to look at is when

18:44

do you stop mattering? And if you

18:46

don't have kids, do single people

18:48

matter less than people who are married

18:51

or people who have kids? We know

18:53

that women then and

18:55

now are still more likely

18:57

to be struggling financially, economically,

18:59

for example. So some

19:02

of those issues that she would've been dealing with

19:04

then that would make her

19:06

less important to people

19:08

around her are probably the reasons

19:11

for why she kept being forgotten. All

19:13

the people that have been exonerated

19:16

since have had family members that have

19:18

been speaking for them. We know Rebecca, Nurse's

19:20

family, for example, have been integral

19:23

in making sure that she was never forgotten.

19:26

Some of the other families tried to move on and

19:28

just forget, but Elizabeth didn't have anybody speaking

19:31

up for her, and to

19:33

me that is one

19:36

really important question and lesson to

19:38

be taken away from this is

19:40

who are we as individuals

19:43

today when we are overlooking

19:45

people, where we're not paying attention to that

19:47

one person who's alone by themselves,

19:50

when we walk by somebody who is not

19:53

connected, who doesn't have a family,

19:55

the same way, somebody who

19:57

doesn't have kids, who might

20:00

need a little bit of support, and how often

20:02

do we do that without stopping to think about

20:04

it? Because that's probably what

20:06

happened to Elizabeth back then.

20:09

Yeah, that is very powerful.

20:12

I just think about how unfortunate

20:14

for her experience that the

20:16

exoneration didn't happen for her

20:19

and during her lifetime or

20:21

even in a quick amount

20:23

of time, but it's really giving

20:26

us a lot of power today to do

20:28

something with it for these

20:30

people that are getting looked

20:32

over. And also,

20:35

when I saw the exoneration

20:38

news popping up, it was right

20:40

before the anniversary of Alice

20:42

Young's hanging. And

20:45

I like anything you guys

20:47

put out, I pushed out and talked about Alice,

20:49

and I feel like it really

20:52

was important during the very beginning of

20:55

the exoneration for the Connecticut

20:57

witch trials, when that group was forming this

20:59

spring, what you guys were doing,

21:02

about sharing what was happening

21:04

with Elizabeth with the legislator. That's

21:07

like another powerful thing. This is one of those

21:09

things that it was,

21:11

a grave oversight, but it's also something

21:14

very powerful today.

21:15

Yeah, it's very much something that's holding up

21:17

a mirror to us. And

21:19

for me, that's why it's important to tell

21:22

this story, because it's asking us to

21:24

take a look at a lot of the same

21:26

questions that were happening back

21:28

then that are happening again

21:30

today. Historically, we know

21:32

that Massachusetts didn't have a charter at the time.

21:35

We know that people were coming

21:37

out of war. There was a lot of war

21:39

going on at the same time. They just had a

21:41

smallpox. This was a community

21:44

that was settling, and so economically,

21:46

there was a lot of instability and it was a community

21:49

that had a lot of young people

21:51

and not so many elder people,

21:54

older people. So it was like a pyramid

21:56

if you look at it that way, in terms of the numbers

21:58

of people. And again,

22:01

a very unstable time when

22:03

people were trying to figure things out.

22:06

People were trying to build a new community,

22:08

and people were trying to recover

22:10

from famine, from

22:13

misfortune when it came to crops

22:16

and trying to find a way

22:18

to create a new society. And

22:21

in some ways did, and

22:23

in some ways they failed. And

22:26

if we look at what's going on around us right

22:28

now, we're very much at that precipice

22:30

again, that we can either

22:33

do what people have

22:35

done over and over in time, right? Which is

22:37

to look around and blame somebody else, and

22:40

point a finger at somebody else, and continue

22:42

with this black and white thinking where

22:45

whatever is wrong in the world is somebody else's

22:47

fault, while we watch and we look

22:49

around and we see war, we

22:52

see climate change, we see

22:54

all sorts of destruction going on around

22:56

us, we see families being torn apart,

22:59

we see death and dying and

23:01

pandemics taking over regardless

23:04

of what you think may or may not be.

23:07

We are seeing a lot of lot similar

23:09

changes as we're taking place back

23:11

then. And the question

23:14

for us is really what can we learn

23:16

from what happened in 1692

23:19

so that we don't push ourselves

23:21

toward the same kind of apocalypse

23:23

that happened for them at that time?

23:26

And so that we can really think about

23:28

what kind of world do we want to live

23:30

in and create that world, as

23:33

opposed to jumping on the bandwagon

23:35

of the latest rumors and misfortune

23:39

and catastrophe.

23:41

So what do we wanna do as individuals

23:43

and as our society? And I think that's a big lesson

23:46

to think about, because otherwise

23:48

we're gonna land in the same kind of apocalyptic

23:51

underworld that they felt like they were

23:53

in at the time.

23:55

Were you surprised at the

23:57

impact your work is having,

24:00

even in the stage, like your

24:02

research stage and now in a new stage

24:04

of the film? Has the power of your work

24:07

been a surprise? Was

24:09

it your hope to get things

24:12

rolling in people's minds now

24:14

at this point of your project?

24:15

That's part of the fun, isn't it? To shake people

24:17

up a little bit and to get people to think a little bit,

24:20

and obviously this story

24:22

is about a story that was already in motion.

24:26

Carrie LaPierre was already working

24:28

on this based on the work

24:30

of Richard Hite, who was the one

24:32

who discovered that Elizabeth was still

24:35

not exonerated and

24:37

the wonderful Diana Dizoglio state

24:39

senator, who pushed this through

24:42

the Massachusetts Senate. And

24:44

as you start to look at the story, obviously

24:47

there's a reason for why we picked doing this.

24:49

It's like this, there's curiosity behind

24:51

this. This is crazy. There's this, how

24:53

could this be? And

24:55

how could this be that there is somebody that's still

24:58

convicted as a witch from 1692?

25:01

And that became the impetus.

25:03

But as you start to

25:05

pull at it and things happening

25:08

in real time, then you start

25:10

to realize how much

25:12

there is to this story. So then it becomes,

25:15

how can we have fun with this

25:17

and challenge people to be a part of it? Because

25:20

that's, it's fun to challenge people to be a part

25:22

of it and to listen to people

25:24

and hear their stories. It's a lot

25:26

of fun to do that. But

25:28

as we went on, this, the

25:30

bill, the initial bill

25:33

went through this Massachusetts State

25:35

Senate and then it stalled. So

25:37

there are these moments that you come up against

25:39

where you go, "this is crazy. Why would

25:41

they not just sign up on this?" So

25:44

when other people are starting to step up

25:46

and saying, "yeah, we also think this

25:48

is crazy, this is nuts," then

25:51

you start to feel that community, and

25:53

when you start having that community that's

25:55

doing something good or starting to

25:57

realize that there's something good about this, then

25:59

you go, "okay, this is fun." And

26:02

filming the kids, and even seeing the

26:05

kids in the classroom go from, "yeah,

26:07

this sucks. We gotta do the school project,"

26:10

which we expected because they're eighth graders.

26:12

If they weren't like that, then I'd be really worried. But

26:15

they went from that to go, "yeah, I guess

26:17

this kind of maybe important." And then

26:19

you realize that they go, "yeah,

26:22

we're doing something that adults aren't

26:24

doing. This is cool."

26:26

So it shifts along the way,

26:28

and seeing them and seeing

26:31

everybody else take on and

26:33

let it grow, I think

26:36

has been affirming more than anything

26:38

else. This is something

26:41

that matters. It's, beyond

26:43

just the surface level of the story,

26:46

which is great, like teacher

26:49

kids exonerating, but

26:51

the impact, seeing

26:54

all those accounts start to pop up. This

26:56

was especially in July, when we were doing

26:58

a ton of social media outreach,

27:00

and I know you were both part of that and

27:02

then responding and answering and everything like

27:05

that. We did a ton of social media outreach

27:07

in July, and seeing

27:09

more and more accounts pop up and

27:11

more and literally around the world

27:14

and say, "yeah, we too."

27:16

So it went from me too to we too when it came

27:18

to the witches. Was

27:20

incredible power, incredibly powerful,

27:23

seeing the story spread,

27:26

not just here in the US

27:28

but literally spread around the world,

27:31

which the original story had

27:33

as well, when Carrie first

27:36

started with the project, or when the first

27:38

articles came out about it that also went

27:40

around the world, but nothing like this. But

27:43

it's also, I think, giving

27:45

us hope that we

27:47

can come together as a community and

27:49

do the right thing when it comes to

27:52

many of the people who were convicted

27:55

back in the day, but also to

27:57

move forward and really ask those

28:00

profound questions about what

28:02

does this tell us about who we are,

28:04

about what we need to do? Because

28:06

we can't stop. If we stop

28:08

here, we will

28:11

have more tragedy. And that's what

28:13

the witch trials, I think, can teach

28:15

us and tell us.

28:16

You've touched basically on the central

28:19

premise of why we're doing

28:21

this show and our

28:23

questions that we're looking to have answered

28:26

as we do this, which are

28:29

how do we witch-hunt? Why

28:31

do we hunt witches? And

28:33

how can we possibly stop this behavior

28:36

because it does continue today. So

28:39

I thank you for getting into

28:41

so much detail on that. That was wonder.

28:44

And I think, in a way you just want everyone to look

28:46

at your movie and support it, right? We wanted to be able to

28:48

make the movie. We loved it. We loved the topic.

28:51

We were already working on a project prior to it.

28:53

When Annika had discovered what was going on, I said,

28:55

"oh my gosh, let's work on this." So

28:57

we absolutely were honored when people started

28:59

paying attention and when you, yourself, when

29:01

both of you started paying attention to our project

29:04

and then it connected us to other witch

29:06

trials, that was such an honor. I think

29:08

that's how I look at it now. And as Annika

29:10

said, the community of building everybody and coming

29:12

together. And I think also one more

29:14

part that I wanted to mention from earlier, your question earlier

29:16

was just that, and Annika's mentioned this as well.

29:19

She, as the director, she points out a lot of these things,

29:21

and so that's why I keep referring to her, which is great.

29:23

I'm so honored to have her be able to be

29:25

so intelligent about it. But the middle

29:28

school news often

29:31

nowadays is a school shooting. And

29:34

how amazing is it that this is not that,

29:36

that this is success, that this is them

29:38

standing up for someone's rights? This is changing

29:41

history. Even if they were bored

29:43

and didn't understand it at times, they did

29:45

get it at times, and especially, when the

29:47

senator came to visit them and getting when

29:49

they were able to do it. And one of the young girls even

29:52

actually ran into the governor before he even

29:54

signed off and was like, "you should do this." So

29:56

it was pretty amazing, to have them fight

29:59

for something like this.

30:00

It's definitely planting very

30:02

important seeds.

30:04

And that's how you stop it.

30:05

Josh is saying, "how do you stop some of this?"

30:08

And it's I think we do have to start young with this.

30:10

And inspiring others. Annika's talked about,

30:12

that the movie being an inspiration to get you

30:14

to see how can you help, how can

30:16

you be part of changing history or the story

30:19

or what story do we wanna write, because if it happened

30:21

then, and it's echoing now and paralleling,

30:24

then where are we going? Are

30:26

we going to a second apocalypse? Are we going

30:28

to have a situation where

30:31

people are gonna be collected and told

30:34

they're witches and hanged? That's seems

30:36

so unimaginable, but it must have been very

30:38

odd then too.

30:40

Stop to think about it a little bit, though, this whole

30:42

thing about witches and witchcraft, which

30:44

there's a whole question of who is a witch and who isn't

30:47

a witch. And I think witches

30:49

are something. We've always had witches

30:52

around us in some way, whatever,

30:54

because we designate, we put a label on people,

30:56

and they happen to be the witches of the time. Even

30:59

the Bible has stories about witches, and

31:01

those, the Bible is based on oral traditions.

31:03

I think it's something that we've always had

31:06

with us. And it's something

31:08

that's morphed at that community.

31:11

It's a community that's morphed in different ways,

31:13

and we can go into whole conversation

31:15

around the connection to theology

31:17

and spirituality and religion.

31:20

But it is a very interesting

31:22

phenomenon to look at. Back in

31:24

the day, in the 1600s, they

31:27

were superstitious, just

31:29

like we are superstitious today.

31:31

So I think that's one place to start really

31:33

considering how close are we to this? They

31:36

were very superstitious. They used an almanac,

31:38

which is basically astrology, and

31:41

anybody that's ever read their astrological

31:44

horoscope or something like that, that

31:46

could have been you. They would do little rituals,

31:48

they will do things and they would have sayings

31:51

just like we have now. There were

31:53

some stories of people dying

31:55

very suddenly and nobody understanding

31:57

why, and so people came up with an explanation.

32:00

So there's a whole range of

32:02

what that might be. There were, they would sell little

32:04

booklets about palmistry,

32:06

about how to read somebody's hand to

32:08

tell their fortune, that kind of thing. During

32:10

the pandemic, I saw

32:13

some statistics about Tarot cards,

32:16

and apparently the sale of

32:18

Tarot cards went way up during the

32:20

pandemic. So I would say

32:22

that anyone who's listening to

32:24

this, who's got a deck of Tarot cards

32:26

at home, if we consider

32:28

that to be your local poppet

32:30

or your local whatever

32:32

it might have been back in 1692, this

32:35

is how close it is. Little things

32:37

that we say and do,

32:40

little superstitions that we all

32:42

have in different ways, like throwing

32:44

salt over your shoulder for one

32:46

thing what, whatever it might be,

32:49

everyone's got something that we do. That

32:51

could potentially mark us as

32:54

a witch. Somebody that's really intuitive

32:57

could be marked as a witch.

32:59

It happens easier than we think,

33:02

so that's when it comes to the

33:04

whole idea of witches, and of course

33:06

people go into see a psychic, which

33:08

Salem is these days, very famous

33:11

for that. It's become a safe haven for

33:13

people who are psychics and who

33:15

are spiritually minded, and it's wonderful

33:17

that it is a safe space in many ways,

33:20

but it's also telling us how easily

33:22

this could be potentially be repeated,

33:25

if we look just at spirituality

33:28

and women's spirituality in some way. And

33:30

we take the same thing, and we can look at any

33:33

other community that's different in

33:35

some way, and how easy

33:37

it is to say that's you, not me.

33:39

And then we start to build those walls,

33:42

and the same challenge comes up. We

33:44

just had it during this entire pandemic

33:47

where we had people say,

33:50

"I believe there's a pandemic. I believe there's

33:52

a virus." And we had people who said, "no

33:54

way there is a virus, absolutely not."

33:57

People are saying that, "of course

33:59

I'm gonna get vaccinated and

34:01

it's the right thing to do." And then people are saying,

34:03

"no. It's almost like it's the devil's work,

34:06

right?" It's closer to us

34:08

than we think, and we can take that

34:10

image and place it on so

34:12

many different social issues,

34:14

so many different circumstances that are very

34:16

close to us. So the

34:19

whole idea about witch

34:21

hunts, it's here.

34:24

That's the thing that, witch hunts are

34:26

here. Look at politics. Every

34:29

single time there's an election, somebody's

34:31

gonna say something and be called a witch

34:33

or being called a witch hunter, or something

34:36

along those lines. There's a witch-hunt on this, there's a

34:38

witch-hunt on that. It happens consistently,

34:41

and we're all a part of it. The question

34:44

is, what are we gonna do about it? And

34:46

then I think another question is, are we

34:48

doomed For want of a better word, are we

34:50

doomed to constantly repeat this? Because

34:53

if we've done this for thousands

34:55

and thousands of years, is

34:57

this something that's just by nature,

35:00

a part of humanity? And

35:03

that I don't know the answer to,

35:05

and I don't know that I want to know the answer

35:07

to it either, to be honest.

35:10

We've been looking more and more

35:12

at the modern witch

35:15

killings that are happening in other

35:17

parts of the world, and

35:19

there is a very strong

35:21

religious superstition tied

35:23

to it. And so

35:27

not every community in the world is

35:29

in the same place

35:31

as far as the

35:34

understanding or the tools they have

35:37

to start changing that next

35:39

generation. So I just

35:41

really hope that these

35:43

powerful words that you're saying today,

35:46

the power of your documentary

35:48

the historical part of the documentary

35:50

is so important. It's interesting

35:52

cuz you brought up the safe, the safeness

35:55

of Salem today for those that

35:57

are practicing, and

36:00

it's so how does this

36:02

all come together without

36:05

the fear? I just, I

36:07

want the fear to be. dissipated

36:10

and yeah, I just really

36:12

thinking, I've just been really thinking.

36:14

We haven't in many ways

36:16

changed very much, but we're

36:19

hoping that somehow

36:22

a way to intervene can be found,

36:25

and these witch hunting behaviors can be stopped.

36:27

They have been going on since

36:30

basically the beginning of humanity

36:33

in various forms. Labeling

36:36

the other, the one you want to

36:38

scapegoat for all your problems.

36:40

We saw that with World War

36:43

II. We've seen that so many times

36:45

in our own lifetimes. I

36:48

wanted to thank you for bringing that up.

36:51

It's very real. Yeah. I

36:54

think we all have superstitions and I think

36:56

it's it's a big part of psychology

36:58

and our superstitions

37:01

and our fears. They're there

37:03

for a reason as well. They're there to

37:05

protect us, so it's not like we want

37:07

to get rid of it altogether, but

37:10

to learn to question it and to

37:12

learn to take action. Too

37:15

often do we look at something

37:17

further away, as opposed to

37:19

looking at what's really close at hand

37:21

and even how we're talking to each other,

37:23

how we're expressing things. I've

37:26

been called a witch. I've been called witchy,

37:28

and there's probably some truth to that. Do

37:31

I identify myself as a witch? Not

37:33

particularly, but depending on

37:35

what the other person sees in me, then

37:38

I may well be a witch. I think the

37:40

question though, of how

37:42

it's expressed and how we're talking

37:45

to each other, how we're talking

37:47

about one another, not just

37:49

when we're in the room, but also when

37:52

we're not in the room with one another. How

37:54

do we express respect for

37:57

somebody else? How do we talk

37:59

about, again, going back to

38:01

that person who's alone, but talk

38:03

about that person in a respectful

38:05

way to a point where

38:08

it feels like, "oh my gosh, that's somebody

38:10

that I want to invite into my world,"

38:12

as opposed to, "poor so and

38:14

so that are by themselves." So

38:16

instead talking about something amazing

38:19

that they're doing or great

38:21

sense of humor or whatever it is that

38:23

person has. It's often

38:25

those little things that where

38:27

it starts. And that's

38:29

a personal responsibility that we have,

38:32

I think each one of us. And

38:34

probably should find something that really

38:36

matters to us and

38:38

stand for that and stand

38:40

up for it, not be afraid to express

38:43

an opinion. But would that also

38:45

take the responsibility of learning about

38:47

it? So it's not just because somebody

38:49

said or because you picked it up

38:51

on the news or social media or something,

38:54

but really take the time to

38:56

discover different sides to it. Be

38:58

curious about that issue, and

39:01

then stand up and speak for it, and

39:03

find somebody that you're going to protect

39:05

when you're doing it, somebody who might not

39:08

be as good at speaking about it as you are,

39:11

but bring them into your fold. So

39:13

it's certainly, I think, a lot about personal

39:15

responsibility in this that

39:18

needs to come out. What can we do

39:20

as individuals? How can

39:22

we talk about questions in ways that

39:24

we might not feel comfortable talking about?

39:27

And to speak to that, Dr. Samuel

39:29

Oliner, who I was very fortunate

39:31

to get to meet. He taught here locally at the

39:33

university. He really helped

39:36

foster and coin the phrase of altruism.

39:38

And he was a teenage boy and during World

39:40

War II and had to pretend to

39:42

be German on a, at a ranch

39:45

that he stumbled upon after his whole family

39:47

was killed in a mass grave. And he,

39:50

the woman he found out later had always known

39:52

he really actually was Jewish and saved

39:54

him and didn't turn him in. And

39:57

so he studied. Instead of studying the

39:59

negative side, which we've been talking about, that energy

40:01

of that happening, he studied the

40:03

opposite, which is the answer, some of the answers,

40:06

I won't say it's the answer, but what Annika

40:08

was saying of us taking responsibility

40:10

and caring about someone else. So he

40:12

studied altruism, and he

40:15

created a whole facility. He wrote a

40:17

plethora of books on it. And what he

40:19

found was that it was a lot of times somebody

40:21

who, people had more empathy

40:24

and were more altruistic the more

40:27

that they were able to see outside their little

40:29

world. So if they traveled, they

40:31

were the person that was gonna come to a bridge. If

40:34

they saw a car go over the bridge, they would be

40:36

the person who would jump into the water to go save someone,

40:38

versus the spectators who stood and watch.

40:40

And what made that difference? How do we get more

40:42

of those people who jump in the water, or who write

40:44

the letter and say, "no, this is ridiculous?

40:46

We're not gonna hang or burn

40:49

people for playing with Tarot cards,

40:51

things like that." And it basically

40:53

came down to just be more worldly and

40:55

be more experienced so that you would have more empathy

40:58

and realize there's people that do things different than

41:00

you. And that's okay. They

41:02

can still exist and we can still coexist

41:04

and not have to feel so threatened and blame

41:07

them for the things that we are confused

41:09

about or don't understand. But

41:11

how do you teach that to everybody? And some

41:13

people don't have that, they're not in the space, the

41:15

mindset, I think, as Annika said, psychology,

41:17

they're going through a tough time.

41:20

It brings to mind somebody that I met

41:22

when I was working on my PhD. And my PhD

41:24

is in communication, which is basically storytelling.

41:26

That's the simplest way of explaining

41:29

it to everybody. But I met

41:31

a researcher back then, his

41:33

name was George Gerbner, and

41:35

he studied the impact of

41:37

mass media, and people who are always

41:39

watching a lot of news, taking in a lot

41:42

of the bad news, often

41:44

feel like it's a very dangerous world of life,

41:46

bad living in, and as

41:48

a result, refusing to interact

41:50

with other people, refusing to

41:54

make contact with other people and thinking

41:56

that the world is a lot worse than it actually

41:58

is. And it

42:00

strikes me that we had another

42:03

event, just 2020,

42:06

and that was the Black Lives Matter

42:08

movement, which came up very suddenly

42:11

and not suddenly. It was

42:13

interesting to talk to people who

42:16

are very different. I'm very pale

42:18

skinned in comparison to the vast majority

42:20

of this world. I have blue

42:22

eyes, I've got brown hair, and

42:26

I found that I had such

42:28

rich conversations with people who

42:30

didn't look like me and with people

42:33

who looked like me, and I

42:35

learned so much about myself and

42:37

about the world through those conversations.

42:40

That's something that's open to anyone to

42:42

have those conversations, to do that outreach.

42:45

And that's also where a

42:47

lot of this is going to start.

42:49

It's dared to have a conversation

42:51

who isn't like you, who

42:54

doesn't have the same belief system as

42:56

you, who might

42:59

be different, whether it's economically,

43:01

it's spiritually, it's

43:04

sexually, it's ethnically,

43:07

whatever it might be. Those conversations

43:09

are so powerful because they teach

43:11

you something about you at the same

43:14

time as it opens up to the rest of

43:16

the world. So I think,

43:18

just like what Cassandra was saying, it's that

43:20

really that connecting and

43:23

seeing how you can connect with other people.

43:26

There's a lot of psychology in this

43:28

and a lot of opportunity

43:30

for us to step across those boundaries, to

43:32

step outside of that fear zone a little

43:35

bit and go, "hey, this

43:37

is fun. I like hanging out with you. Let's

43:40

do this."

43:41

Yeah, that's such an excellent point about

43:44

connecting with people who

43:47

could alternatively be seen

43:49

as the other and avoided. One

43:52

thing, one big step towards

43:55

getting rid of this witch hunting behavior

43:57

is exactly that, embracing

43:59

people with different beliefs, different

44:02

appearances, different backgrounds

44:05

and connecting. But it's

44:08

still the problem of how do we get everyone

44:10

to embrace that?

44:12

I think that we need to open up to curiosity

44:14

a lot more in this world compared

44:16

to where we might have been.

44:18

And I actually think that's a lesson, too, that

44:20

we have to learn from the 1600s,

44:23

because their experience was

44:25

very different with the world compared to ours.

44:27

Theirs was one of all the senses,

44:30

and we are not using

44:32

all of our senses anymore. And

44:35

with that, we've lost some curiosity. And

44:37

I think this is actually a really important

44:39

point that we need to not just go, "oh, we

44:41

don't wanna be at all like the 1600s"

44:43

But there are some ways, at least for me, that

44:46

I wanna be more like the 1600s

44:49

and that use of all the senses,

44:51

to me it's really tied to curiosity.

44:54

It's like it's stepping outside,

44:56

being outdoors a little bit and just check in

44:58

with your senses. Being curious about that.

45:00

What does it feel like? Is it warm? Is it cold?

45:03

Is it windy? What am I tasting?

45:05

And sometimes if

45:07

you're lucky enough that you come across something

45:09

that you could get a bite of along the way,

45:11

or that experience that you're touching

45:14

something touch is so

45:16

incredible. I love walking up and down the street,

45:18

and sometimes I'll just grab a bit of rosemary, and I'll

45:20

smell it, and I'll touch it, and it feels

45:22

a little bit oily, and it smells really good,

45:25

and it just pops me, wakes me up a

45:27

little bit. That sense of curiosity

45:30

with the natural world is

45:32

something that people had

45:34

back in the 1600s, because that was

45:36

part of their life. They didn't have streetlights

45:39

the way that we do, and so they had to be

45:41

curious about the

45:43

shadows at night. They had to be curious

45:46

about how to grow their crops, about

45:48

all of those things. And I think

45:50

that kind of curiosity at

45:52

a very basic level is something that

45:55

we've lost. But it's

45:57

a step toward connecting,

46:00

cuz that lets us connect with ourself and then

46:02

connecting with other people as well. That,

46:05

and that's something that we all have. That's something

46:07

that people, you're never gonna be able to take that away

46:09

from us, but as long as all we do is look

46:11

at a screen all day long, then we'll

46:14

forget how to do that.

46:15

I think that there is that connecting, like what she

46:17

said. And then there's also not labeling

46:19

too, so there's a thing that we should be doing and something

46:22

maybe we need to also stop doing. I had to

46:24

take a whole class as part of my degree on labels

46:26

and what it does to a society when we

46:28

label. Besides being, through

46:31

my mother's side being related to the witch

46:33

trials, I'm also half Mexican through

46:35

my biological father's side,

46:38

but a lot of people look at me and think, You're not Mexican.

46:40

Where's your accent? I've actually been told, "where's your accent?

46:42

Were you born in Mexico?" And I

46:45

giggle, and I'm like, "no, I read white,

46:47

I appear white, but I am Mexican

46:49

too." And stop having these labels

46:52

and then be curious, as Annika said. Be

46:54

able to wonder what's going on

46:56

and inquire. And those

46:59

same exact elements that she was talking about with

47:01

nature. We could do with people too. Find out

47:03

more about them. Find out what makes them,

47:05

instead of labeling them as this thing, and then that

47:07

thing becomes bad.

47:08

The labeling thing is actually a really good

47:10

thing to look at, and it's an opportunity

47:13

to look at a little bit for each

47:15

one of us as individuals, because there's

47:18

a whole movement now that lets people

47:20

self identify and self label,

47:22

right? So do you want, what pronouns

47:24

do you wanna use? And

47:27

how you react to that

47:29

has a lot to do with, or tells you

47:31

a lot about how comfortable

47:34

you are in a world that isn't

47:36

so clear, so specific. Again,

47:38

this is what happened in 1692, that

47:40

things were not clear, crystal clear to people,

47:43

something as small

47:45

or big, depending on your worldview

47:48

and how, what your comfort level is as

47:50

having people label

47:52

themselves, self-identify, and/or

47:55

asking you what your pronouns

47:57

are and/or getting comfortable

48:00

using those pronouns when

48:02

you're not comfortable, you've never

48:04

done it before. It's something completely new to

48:06

you in a small

48:08

way. That encapsulates

48:11

what people were dealing with back in 1692,

48:13

because there was so much ambiguity

48:16

around them. And taking

48:19

that opportunity to

48:21

really think about that and then

48:24

to act on it to say,

48:26

"maybe I am gonna be making it a little bit

48:28

more effort to step up and

48:30

use the pronouns that someone else wants

48:32

me to use and embrace."

48:35

That's a really small,

48:37

large step that everybody

48:39

can take. And that's

48:42

the kind of thing that I think we need to look for.

48:44

It's what are the small things that

48:46

we can do as individuals and

48:49

hold ourselves personally accountable

48:51

for.

48:52

And when everybody

48:54

goes out and does these very important

48:56

things that Annika and Cassandra

48:59

are recommending, talk about

49:01

that experience. I think that once

49:04

you've had a new experience, be

49:06

brave enough to talk about it with

49:08

other people.

49:09

And if you feel like you wanna go to church,

49:11

if you wanna go to synagogue, you wanna go to mosque,

49:14

please do. If you wanna be out in

49:16

nature, if that's where you find your spirituality,

49:18

please do. If you find that

49:20

doing something creative, artistic is your

49:23

spirituality, please do. Whatever

49:25

it is, talk to animals, go

49:28

for a long walk, sit on the beach,

49:30

yoga. Whatever it is, take

49:32

the time to experience spirituality

49:36

every day. That will help us a lot

49:38

too.

49:39

I personally, I just wanna say I love

49:41

talking to animals. I find

49:43

that to be very therapeutic, if nothing

49:45

else, engaging with them

49:48

and I love engaging with nature in general.

49:50

So I'm glad you brought that up and

49:53

the curiosity with our senses

49:55

that we need to engage all

49:58

five again. That's a good point. I

50:01

think what you're doing with the film

50:03

and what you've done with the conversation so

50:05

far today is just so

50:07

important in so many ways.

50:10

How can people support the

50:13

documentary?

50:14

There's a couple different ways they can. As

50:16

Annika said, definitely, reach

50:18

out to us, tell us their stories. It helps

50:20

educate us, helps us know more of what's

50:23

going on. We can't be everywhere at all times. We

50:25

weren't fully aware of everything that was going on in Connecticut

50:27

until you reached out to us, so helpful.

50:29

That is so helpful. So that's one way. Following

50:32

us on all the social medias. If people do

50:34

that, obviously we hope that everyone uses

50:36

it for the right reasons, but following where the

50:38

project is, commenting participating.

50:40

Facebook, Instagram, we do a little Twitter.

50:43

And then we have a website. People can,

50:45

stop and check out and see where

50:47

we are with the project. And then, if inclined,

50:50

we always understand this is the awkward part, but

50:52

we are self-funding as of right now

50:54

and the contributions and we're working

50:56

on our funding for the bigger project.

50:59

So that's obviously a big

51:01

way would be help us get it made, help us get

51:03

the word out by helping contribute to actually

51:05

the process of making the film.

51:08

And I would add to that, that if there are

51:10

nonprofits out there that would be interested

51:12

in learning more about this project

51:15

and to see where there is a cause,

51:18

where there might be an overlay, reach

51:20

out to us because this

51:23

is a community effort and

51:25

there may well be a way that we could partner

51:27

on this.

51:28

Great. And we'll have links in

51:30

the show notes to your website

51:33

and to your contact

51:35

form on there, as well.

51:37

Thank you, and a huge shout out to

51:39

these kids in Massachusetts. They

51:41

are incredible, amazing.

51:43

Were it not for these middle school kids,

51:46

two years worth of middle schoolers

51:48

from North Andover Middle School. If

51:51

it weren't for them and the work that they

51:53

did together with our teacher, Carrie LaPierre,

51:55

we would not be sitting here today. We

51:57

would not be making the documentary, and we wouldn't

51:59

be having this conversation. So

52:02

guys, thank you to North

52:05

and over Middle School, cuz you guys are

52:07

amazing.

52:07

This has been such a great

52:10

conversation. In many ways

52:12

don't want it to end. I thank

52:14

you both for your powerful insights

52:17

into humanity and the

52:19

things that we can be working on to

52:22

improve ourselves. Thank you for

52:24

that.

52:25

Welcome to this episode's Witchcraft Fear

52:28

Victim Advocacy Report, sponsored by

52:30

End Witch Hunts News. You

52:32

have been hearing Witch Hunt Happenings in Your World

52:34

from me. Who has heard about these crimes

52:36

from you? Have you looked up any news?

52:39

Have you checked out the Africa advocacy links

52:41

in our episode show notes? Who did

52:43

you say you have mentioned it to? This

52:46

week I attended the Colorado Podcaster's Meetup

52:48

events sponsored by Podfest Expo

52:50

and others at the Great Divide Brewery in Denver.

52:53

I enjoyed meeting other creative conversors

52:55

out here in the West who run various podcasts

52:58

of their own. Check Thou Shalt

53:00

Not Suffer's podcast social media to see

53:02

all of us. I had the chance to tell

53:04

these podcasters that witch hunts are a very

53:06

relevant conversation. I talked

53:08

about the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration

53:11

Project, and that Alice Young, the

53:13

first accused Witch, executed in the

53:15

American colonies, died in Hartford

53:18

375 years ago and

53:20

is still waiting for her good name to be restored.

53:23

She was not using witchcraft to harm others.

53:25

Neither were the dozens of others accused in the

53:28

Connecticut colony. If she

53:30

and the other 10 hanged for witchcraft

53:32

are exonerated by the state of Connecticut,

53:34

it will be because we advocated for them. Also,

53:37

those who have been cleared and memorialized by Massachusetts

53:40

were not harming others with witchcraft. This

53:43

week, our episode was about Elizabeth

53:45

Johnson, Jr. of Andover, Massachusetts,

53:48

and how she was finally advocated for after

53:50

she remained overlooked in previous Salem

53:52

Witch Trial exoneration efforts. Each of

53:54

these exoneration efforts happened because

53:56

of advocacy from humans like you. It

53:59

didn't just occur for Elizabeth because she was

54:01

actually not a harmful Witch, but it happened

54:03

because a mighty, collaborative effort

54:05

from the community spanning young and old

54:08

came together to make it happen. Likewise,

54:11

efforts to stop the witch attacks in Asia

54:13

and Africa must come from other people,

54:16

people who can use their voice to talk

54:18

about it and to stand against it. This

54:21

month, a woman lost her life due to superstition

54:23

fears in the Gaia District of Bihar

54:26

in the Jarkhand state of India. She

54:29

was burned alive at her home after

54:31

neighbors accused her of being a witch. She

54:33

was 45. You can find a news

54:36

link in our episode notes. Pre-pandemic,

54:39

Global Journalist reported this, "for

54:41

many, witch trials may seem like a

54:43

relic of early colonial America.

54:46

But in fact witch-hunting is still a

54:48

feature of rural life today around

54:50

the world. One place where it's prevalent

54:53

is India. On average, an Indian

54:55

woman is killed every other day after

54:57

being accused of witchcraft, according to government

54:59

statistics. Many are tortured

55:02

or publicly humiliated before being burned,

55:04

stabbed or beaten to death." I

55:07

will be researching and reporting more in India. While

55:10

we watch and wait, let's support the victims in India

55:12

and across the world where innocent people are being

55:14

targeted by superstitious fear.

55:17

Support them by acknowledging and sharing

55:19

their stories. Please use all your communication

55:22

channels to be an intervener and stand

55:24

with them. The world must stop hunting witches.

55:26

Please follow our End Witch Hunts movement

55:29

on Twitter @_endwitchhunts.

55:31

And visit our website, endwitchhunts.org.

55:35

Thank you, Sarah, for that moving

55:37

and powerful update.

55:40

You're welcome.

55:41

And thank you for listening to Thou Shalt

55:43

Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.

55:45

Join us next week for

55:48

our guest, Greg Houle, an author

55:50

writing a book about the Salem Putnams.

55:53

Subscribe or follow wherever you get your

55:55

podcasts.

55:56

Visit thoushaltnotsuffer.com

55:59

often.

56:00

And join our Discord for discussion

56:03

of our episodes. Link

56:05

in the show notes.

56:07

Follow us on social media, links

56:09

in description.

56:11

And remember to tell your friends and family

56:13

and coworkers, and

56:16

shout it from a mountaintop, about

56:19

Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast.

56:22

So long for now.

56:24

Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.