We introduce the early events that sparked the Salem witch trials, focusing on January and February 1692 in Reverend Samuel Parris’s Salem Village household. Parris’s 9-year-old daughter Betty and 11-year-old niece Abigail began exhibiting alarming, inexplicable behaviors and violent physical afflictions. The family has tried prayer, fasting, and medical treatment without relief, and around February 24 a local physician (widely believed to be Dr. William Griggs) examines the girls and finds no natural cause, concluding they are under an “evil hand.” We focus on later accounts by ministers John Hale and Deodat Lawson describing preternatural fits, invisible biting and pinching, contorted movements, choking, and apparent conversations with unseen “appearances.” With the community quickly concluding the girls are bewitched, the episode turns toward how this diagnosis shifts attention from medicine to the question of who was responsible. We originally shared this episode on our podcast, The Thing About the Salem Witch Trials. Also check out The Thing About Witch Hunts for expert interviews and analysis of witch hunts past and present.

00:00 Mysterious Afflictions Begin

00:18 Bizarre Symptoms in Parris Home

01:01 Prayer and Medicine Fail

01:07 Doctor Declares Evil Hand

01:34 Hale Describes Torments

02:15 Lawson Witnesses the Fits

03:10 Meaning of Bewitchment

03:39 Who Is Responsible

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Salem Witch Trials Daily Course Week 7: Families, Geography, and the Machinery of Accusation, February 9-15, 2026

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