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Watch these video clips with your students. The questions that accompany them can be discussed in class or printed out and answered individually by your students.
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Meet Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, a time when a mysterious illness took over the town. The doctors at the time could only describe it as the result of witchcraft.
 Play Video Clip 1
Questions:
- What were the symptoms of "bewitchment"?
- Why were there no scientific explanations for the affliction?
- Discuss the pros and cons of confessing to be a witch.
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Linnda Caporael, behavior psychologist, has an idea that might explain the bizarre behavior that started the Salem Witch Trials.
Play Video Clip 2
Questions:
- What effects does LSD have on a person?
- What is ergot?
- How did Albert Hoffmann discover the effects of ergot's extracts?
- How do you think the residents of Salem could have come in contact with ergot?
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An outbreak of bizarre behavior similar to that which sparked the Salem witch trials occurred much more recently, in 1951. Except this time, witchcraft was not to blame.
Play Video Clip 3
Questions:
- How was this incident similar to what happened in Salem?
- What was different this time?
- Do you think that the evidence presented by Linnda Caporael is proof that the illness that prompted the witch trials was caused by a fungus? Explain.
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