Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

Salvation 237
William Phips established a Court of Oyer and
Terminer to try the witches. During the course of
the trials, 141 people were arrested as suspects, 19
were hanged, and one was pressed to death. The
bodies of the sentenced witches were casually
placed in shallow graves on Salem’s Gallows Hills
because, it was believed, witches did not deserve
Christian burial. According to the legend, the
ghosts of the victims still haunt the area. Soon
neighboring communities such as the town of
Andover requested that the girls find the witches
responsible for a number of problems, including
illness, poor crops, and dead livestock. The causes
of the Salem witchcraft trial, which have been
examined by a number of studies, have variously
been attributed to the political and social problems
of Salem village.
See also Mather, Cotton
For Further Reading:
Cahill, Robert Ellis. The Horrors of Salem’s Witch
Dungeon. Peabody, MA: Chandler-Smith, 1986.
Demos, John Putnam. Entertaining Satan. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Salt
Salt has long been used as a symbol of purity and
as a substance to ward away evil spirits. In
Christianity, salt is associated with eternity and
divine protection. Salt and holy water are used in
baptisms and to bless church sites, as well as to
protect unbaptized babies prior to baptism and
the dead in their journey from earth to the next
world. Witches and demons were traditionally
said to be repelled by the presence of salt. It is thus
used as protection against witchcraft, the evil eye,
and it has the power to break evil spells. When
trying to conjure demons or spirits, it is recommended
that one avoid salt as it can interfere with
the connection. Salt has been utilized in regard to
those accused or suspected of being witches. It was
a form of torture to feed the accused heavy doses
of salt. Women have been suspected of being
witches on the mere fact that they complained of
their food being overly salted. When one spills,
borrows, or runs out of salt, it is considered
unlucky and is said to make one susceptible to the
powers of the Devil. It is possible to negate this
situation by pinching salt in the right hand and
tossing it over the left shoulder.
See also Amulet; Demons
For Further Reading:
Chevalier, Jean, and Alain Gheerbrant. The Penguin
Dictionary of Symbols. London: Penguin, 1996.
Cooper,J.C.An Illustrated Encyclopedia of
Traditional Symbols. 1978. London: Thames and
Hudson, 1992.
Salvation
In Christianity, salvation was traditionally conceptualized
as salvation from hell—God’s “sentence”
for all human souls as a result of original sin.
Though most religions include a scheme of salvation
as part of their belief system, there are many
variations on what constitutes salvation and on
the ways of achieving it. More generally, salvation
implies a state of happiness or well-being that is
identified typically as the individual achievement
of a paradisiacal dimension (in the Judeo-
Christian-Islamic tradition), as liberation from
the karmic cycle of rebirths to final enlightenment
(in South Asian systems), or as the redemption of
humankind and the final victory of good over evil
(in Christianity and in Zoroastrianism).
While in general the core of a religious belief
system is built around individual salvation, a
scheme of corporate or group salvation is also
included in Western religions. Corporate salvation
is often achieved by the coming of the savior (the
Messiah or the Mahdi). Within these traditions
community participation and belonging in the
religious institution become an important
component in the salvation scheme.
In some religious traditions, such as in the
Judeo-Christian tradition, salvation carries with it
the idea of redemption (redemere, to buy back);
that is, the acknowledgment of the divine sacrifice
necessary for human salvation, which calls for
repentance and asks for forgiveness on the side of
humankind. Christ’s death especially is viewed as
manifestation of the divine scheme of salvation.
Christ’s sacrifice and death on behalf of humanity
recalls pre-Christian myths of vegetation divinities
that, through sacrifice, insure fertility and
salvation. A prominent pre-Christian example is