[vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/1″][vc_custom_heading heading_semantic=”h1″ text_size=”h1″ text_font=”font-148802″]Salem, USA – July 2017[\/vc_custom_heading][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n
Salem. <\/span><\/p>\n Just the name of this town conjures up such great fascination. <\/span><\/p>\n A historic town that has swum around in my imagination since I was a child, and now I find myself here.<\/span><\/p>\n I am not sure what I was hoping to find, after all the whole point of the Salem \u2018witch\u2019 trials is hysteria not witchcraft. <\/span><\/p>\n What I did find was a wonderful irony and a beautiful culture that has grown out of a dreadful persecution.<\/span><\/p>\n How can you not love the very narrative where fanatical religious hysteria leads to the murder of 20 townspeople, on no evidence, in order to \u2018drive out\u2019 an imagined threat of witches and what then leads to the town, 300yrs later being renamed \u2018City of Witches\u2019 and becoming a mecca for witches around the world to live in and visit!<\/span><\/p>\n Nathaniel Hawthorn was a resident author who was hounded our of Salem after writing a scandalous novel set in his home town, centuries later there are streets named after him and museums dedicated to him!<\/span><\/p>\n Is this another case of \u201cTreason be just a matter of dates\u201d and cynically, nothing being more important than the almighty dollar or is this how we respond to out-of-touch ideologies and honouring the unjustly persecuted?<\/span><\/p>\n The clear message the town of Salem wishes its visitor’s to take home is be very careful of mass hysteria and witch hunts whether your witch is a communist, a person of the LGBTQ community, a muslim, a catholic or anything else as it is the persecutors who always end up on the wrong side of history. <\/span><\/p>\n [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Salem. I am not sure what I was hoping to find, after all the whole point of the Salem \u2018witch\u2019 trials is hysteria not witchcraft. Is this another case of \u201cTreason be just a matter of dates\u201d and cynically, nothing being more important than the almighty dollar or is this how we respond to out-of-touch ideologies and honouring the unjustly persecuted?<\/p>\n The clear message the town of Salem wishes its visitor’s to take home is be very careful of mass hysteria and witch hunts whether your witch is a communist, a person of the LGBTQ community, a muslim, a catholic or anything else as it is the persecutors who always end up on the wrong side of history. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nThis is the similar story for the other great draw of Salem. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nJust the name of this town conjures up such great fascination.
\nA historic town that has swum around in my imagination since I was a child, and now I find myself here.<\/p>\n
\nWhat I did find was a wonderful irony and a beautiful culture that has grown out of a dreadful persecution.
\nHow can you not love the very narrative where fanatical religious hysteria leads to the murder of 20 townspeople, on no evidence, in order to \u2018drive out\u2019 an imagined threat of witches and what then leads to the town, 300yrs later being renamed \u2018City of Witches\u2019 and becoming a mecca for witches around the world to live in and visit!
\n\u2028This is the similar story for the other great draw of Salem.
\nNathaniel Hawthorn was a resident author who was hounded our of Salem after writing a scandalous novel set in his home town, centuries later there are streets named after him and museums dedicated to him!<\/p>\n