The hidden persistence of witchcraft

Today, we have come full circle from the Salem Witchcraft Trials—accusations of deviant behaviour; an ever-widening investigation conducted in an atmosphere of increasing hysteria; investigation procedures that assume the outcome and encourage accusations, leading to accusations of increasing numbers of individuals for a growing and ever more varied pattern of deviant behaviour; collapse, either before or after the initiation of the criminal process, of the ensuing web of accusations; and, finally, the emotional, financial, or reputational ruin of the accused with no possibility of redress.Underlying the legal conundrum that these Satanic abuse episodes pose is the problem of power—the power to make our world that is an attribute of our social existence, and the potentially corrupting influence of that power. The problem of power is that it threatens the autonomy the hierarchical structure toward which society inevitably tends (in however fluid a manner) and from the power exercised by the loose and shifting majoritarian consensus that often dominates a community.The dilemmas inherent in our legal world arise from two paradoxical circumstances—that we, as politically autonomous, liberty-endowed individuals, are nevertheless socially constructed, and that the law, though it must be autonomous of collective values in order for individual freedom to be possible, must nevertheless reflect who we are in order to command our assent. The problem of false accusations expresses these dilemmas in an especially acute way, and the law must address these dilemmas more carefully if individual rights and collective power are to be maintained in tolerable tension.The Frances Lewis Law Centre of Washington & Lee Law School generously provided support for the research that underlies this essay. The author gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of David Caudill, Alison Kitch, and Judith McMorrow.