Today on The Grave Talks, a conversation about One Night in Salem, The Hidden History of the American Witch, a new book by Troy Taylor.

In his new book, One Night in Salem, The Hidden History of the American Witch, Troy Taylor takes us back to when witchcraft first came to America with the European settlers.

They had fled at a time when thousands were being accused, tortured, hanged, and burned

for being witches.

They arrived in America looking for a fresh start and brought that fear of witches with

them. That fear and dread became hysteria when evil came to Salem Village, fueling hostility,

distrust, and religious fanaticism that claimed the lives of innocent people on the gallows.

But Salem was not the end of America's obsession with witchcraft.

I'm Carol Hughes, and on this episode of The Grave Talks, we continue our conversation about

the hidden history of the American Witch with author Troy Taylor.

When we think of witches, I think so often people associate witches with devil worshiping.

This entire conversation that we've had up to this point, there's nothing that has anything

to do with devil worshiping. No. Not even the folk magic that is meant to do with devil worshipping.

No, not even the folk magic that is meant to be harmful.

Even that doesn't have anything to do with the devil.

You know, I mean, it just doesn't.

That's an old, that's an old school belief that rooted in Europe and was brought here by

the Puritans, you know, they believed that the witches were in,

you know, some kind of league with the devil. They had to sign the devil's book. They had to

make a deal with the devil. But that all kind of faded away. And we still, but not completely,

of course, because find a person who's even just semi-religious. Let's say they go to church on Sundays, but they're not devout or fanatic or anything.

And if you bring up witchcraft, they immediately think it has something to do with the devil because that's what organized religion has painted witchcraft with when it doesn't.

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