Hi all! This has been an interesting thread to follow! Bear in mind that the "mischief" witches caused was called "maleficium" because it was aided by the Devil. On Wednesday, November 6, 2002, at 11:20 PM, among other things, Joan < Jma8763@aol.com > wrote: > It certainly seems to me that witchcraft was one of the easiest > crimes to prove, since it was impossible to defend against!! Wouldn't > it be easier to CLAIM that you saw someone's spectral being committing > a crime, than to actually PROVE, through REAL physical evidence, that > some OTHER crime had been committed?? It may seem that way, but according to Mary Beth Norton's book, it was not. The magistrates spent a great deal of time and care researching English law on the subject. In fact, it was more common for accusations of witchcraft to boomerang on an accuser with a countersuit of libel. And one feature of the trials that made Salem truly unusual was that the magistrates ignored the precedent that spectral evidence alone could not be enough to convict someone. Cheers, Margo Margo Burns, List Owner of the Salem-Witch List at rootsweb.com margo@ogram.org