As the witch hunts got worse is when they started to execute them. In the middle 1400s to the mid-1600s, witchcraft trials became popular, sending death rates up. From 50,000 to 80,000 people were executed throughout Europe. From the 80,000 people roughly “80% were women” (Grace Z. 2007). This shows how mostly women were the ones that were giving up their life to the devil in order for them to have power and be able to proceed rituals. Later in the late 1600’s like around 1650-1670 people's behavior got worse. They started to act differently because they started to accuse people that everybody was bad. The church were the ones that made them believe that because they wanted the people to believe in god and that everybody who did not go to church …show more content…
There are many different theories on what provoked the girls to act the way they did. There were three girls whose behavior sparked the Salem Witch Trials. Their names were Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, and Ann Putnam Jr. Their strange behaviors included hallucinations, shouting out in church, having fits, making strange sounds, and feeling as if they were being pricked and poked. There are many different theories as to why the girls behaved this way. One theory scholars suggest is that it was mental illnesses that caused the girls to go crazy. The illnesses that caused the girls to act out are mass hysteria, mass hypnosis, or delusions. The definition of hysteria is an uncontrollable outburst of emotion or fear, often characterized by irrationality, laughter, or weeping. The definition of hysteria fits the behavior of the girls extremely well. The mass hypnosis is a possibility of the cause, as the girls could have been being hypnotized by Tituba in the beginning, but it is less likely this was the cause. Also, not everyone is affected by hypnosis, and many people are skeptical if it even works. The delusions might explain the afflictions of the girls, but is also not very