The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

3.5. The Deceptive Cycle
Why were the trials at Salem characterized by an explosion of denunciations, when previous
witch trials were not? Why did they instead follow the patterns set by the mass executions in Europe?
In other words, what was it that transformed the witch trials into witch hunts? The answer is the use of
coerced interrogation. The Court of Oyer and Terminer, by forcing the accused to either confess and
name others or face execution, created a strategic environment that would guarantee the
commencement of a deceptive cycle. Similarly, the lack of any countervailing investigative apparatus
ensured that false confessions (and accusations) would not be recognized. But how was it that the
accused (and accusers) had so many names to offer? If the accused were not being chosen on the basis
of witchcraft, then how were they chosen?
Many interpretations of the choice of victims have been put forward by observers in the past,
including by those who witnessed the trials themselves. Robert Calef, in his scalding attack on Cotton
Mather and the Court entitled “More Wonders of the Invisible World,” attributed the business to “a
parcel of possessed, distracted, or lying Wenches (sic),” while the Rev. Charles Upham, in his two
volume study of the trials, attributed it to power-hungry ministers. (Calef, p. 298; Upham, 1976)
Others have argued that the trials' character resulted from the Puritan fear and distrust of female
sexuality, the political tumult of the years following the Glorious Revolution, the collapse of theocratic
governance in favor of imperial government, and the massive and long-lived tensions bubbling just
below the surface of Salem village in particular. Certainly, misogyny plays a role in any process that
threatens with execution four women for every man. (Hall, p. 6) The Massachusetts colony had
entered a period of profound flux even before the Revolution - James II had revoked the New English
charter, and had combined Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, Plymouth Bay, and New Hampshire
colonies into a single unit known as New England – and how the accession of William and Mary would
affect the colonies was very much an open question. Perhaps the afflicted really did feel bewitched as a
result of hallucinogenic ergot that appeared on the wheat, or from the psychological pressures inherent
in a highly stratified and closed society? (Caporeal, 1976; Harley, 2006) Or perhaps the social tensions
resulting from the creation of an imperial/global market simply finally boiled over into intra-communal
violence? (Boyer and Nissenbaum, 1974)
Nonetheless, none of these arguments can explain why the deceptive cycle occurred, or why it
57