{"id":9206,"date":"2018-04-04T18:33:30","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T00:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9206"},"modified":"2018-04-04T19:24:17","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T01:24:17","slug":"witches-sea-captains-and-art-we-go-back-to-salem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9206","title":{"rendered":"Witches, Sea Captains, and Art \u2014\u00a0We Go Back to Salem"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

I am sipping this as I write.<\/p><\/div>\n

Last November, during the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Boston, I made a quick trip to Salem, Mass., with some fellow Pagan studies scholars<\/a>. It was only one afternoon\u2014long enough to visit some of the witchy shops, a magickal temple, the Charter Street\u00a0cemetery<\/a>, and a few other sites.<\/p>\n

No time for the maritime history or<\/a> the highly regarded Peabody-Essex Museum<\/a> or even all of the historic sites connected with the witch trials or other cultural history, such as the House of the Seven Gables<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So back I go in two weeks, and M. is going with me \u2014 a trip celebrating a wedding anniversary that ends in zero. We have lots of Amtrak reward points to spend, and it’s too early for gardening here. A rented apartment awaits us. Granted, winter is hanging on grimly in New England, but we will take our chances.<\/p>\n

Our guidebook is J. W. Ocker’s recent A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

We have been preparing ourselves with a series of movies \u2014 more on that soon \u2014 and I actually read all of The House of the Seven Gables,<\/a> with more of Hawthorne waiting on the bedside table, to put myself in a mood of dark Romanticism and decay.<\/p>\n

Like Ocker, I wonder, “Why Salem did attract today’s witches? Why in the 1970s?” He has some ideas, which I will share later.<\/p>\n

So consider this to be the first of a series of travel-related posts that will appear between now and Beltane, more or less.<\/p>\n

A personal note:<\/strong> Despite her French surname, M. on her father’s side is New England Yankee all the way down. According to family tradition, the name came from some French Huguenot<\/a> (Protestant Christian) who fled across the Channel<\/a> in the 17th or early 18th century to escape Catholic persecution, the family transforming gradually into English Puritans.<\/p>\n

Although they moved on to northeastern Vermont, they presumably came through Massachusetts. “So,” I tell her, “you might pass by an ancestor’s grave. Perhaps even one of the witch-hunters. . .”<\/p>\n

And at that point she starts shouting at me.<\/p>\n

What can I say? The Cliftons were Virginians who probably spent their Sundays sipping rum and betting on cockfights, not listening to two-hour sermons and hanging so-called witches.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, she is willing to make the trip!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last November, during the American Academy of Religion annual meeting in Boston, I made a quick trip to Salem, Mass., with some fellow Pagan studies scholars. It was only one afternoon\u2014long enough to visit some of the witchy shops, a magickal temple, the Charter Street\u00a0cemetery, and a few other sites. No time for the maritime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[10,103,325,13,29],"class_list":["post-9206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-american-religion","tag-massachusetts","tag-salem","tag-travel","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2ou","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8868,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8868","url_meta":{"origin":9206,"position":0},"title":"They Were Not Witches \u2014\u00a0They Are Our Martyrs","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the memorial created in 1992 for the victims of the Salem trials in Salem, Mass. Each \"bench\" contains the name of an accused person: \"Margaret Scott. Hanged. September 22, 1692.\" Walk there, and you know that it has become a shrine. Then you realize that you are walking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/red-coat-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/red-coat-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/red-coat-3.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9327,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9327","url_meta":{"origin":9206,"position":1},"title":"The Best New Book about the Salem Witch Trials","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 24, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Wouldn't you like to live in an enchanted world, where everything in nature brought messages from gods and spirits? The New England Puritans did so, but with a smaller cast of characters: their God and their Devil. But there were lots of messages all the same: If your cow died,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/the-witches.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9349,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9349","url_meta":{"origin":9206,"position":2},"title":"The Southwest Follows Us to Salem & Salem Follows Us Home","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Before M. and I left on this trip, someone mentioned a Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at the big Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. As it happened, the exhibit ended just before we arrived, but that's all right \u2014 we can visit a whole museum devoted to her painting in Santa Fe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/georgia-okeefe.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/georgia-okeefe.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/georgia-okeefe.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11842,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11842","url_meta":{"origin":9206,"position":3},"title":"Salem Museum Gives In, Exhibits 1692 Witch-Trial Materials","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 26, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2017, Donna Seger, a history professor at Salem State University (Massachusetts) wrote an open letter to the leadership of the Peabody Essex Museum, a big, rich institution in downtown Salem that along with being a major art museum, controls (and usually hides) the town's historical archives. Her letter stated,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Massachusetts\"","block_context":{"text":"Massachusetts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=massachusetts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/sewall-256x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9386,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9386","url_meta":{"origin":9206,"position":4},"title":"Where Were the Witches Hanged in Salem? (Part 2)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Read Part 1 here. Once there was a dirt road, the \"Boston road,\" that ran beside a pond on the way out of Salem.\u00a0 (Now it is called Boston Street.) Then there came a railroad, and a shoe factory, and today a Walgreens drugstore with the actual witch execution site\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/proctors-ledgewalgreens.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/proctors-ledgewalgreens.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/proctors-ledgewalgreens.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9456,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9456","url_meta":{"origin":9206,"position":5},"title":"Witchy Cultural Tourists Do Exist","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"In J. W. Ocker\u2019s book A Season with the Witch: The Magic and Mayhem of Halloween in Salem, Massachusetts, Jay Finney, chief marketing officer of the big Peabody Essex Museum, tells Ocker that \u201ccultural tourists\u201d who visit the museum are a different crowd than those who come to Salem for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/PEM-and-witchy-stuff.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9206"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9231,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9206\/revisions\/9231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}