Rating: 
Summary: Riveting account of the Salem witch trials.
Review: A Delusion of Satan provides a complete, meticulously researched and riveting acccount of the Salem witch trials. Frances Hill demonstrates that the trials were motivated by greed, a lust for power and control and revenge rather than any spiritual concerns of the community leaders and clergy. The accounts of the mass hysteria that swept through Salem and the surrounding areas is fascinating . This is an excellent account of a sad and infamous episode in American history. Highly recommended
Rating: 
Summary: interesting, long read
Review: Alright. This is an interesting book. No, highly interesting. It tells you all you've ever wanted to know about the Salem Witch Trials and more. Things you never would have thought to ask. I would have to say this book gives an excellant overview of what *really* happened in Salem, dispelling rumors and stating the whole truth. On the other hand, however, it can be a long read. Not that it is uninteresting - not in the least - but this is a highly detailed book and you may find you're pressing yourself to read at some points [or maybe that's just me, seeing as how I read the book as a summer reading assignment]. The vocabulary was also a little over my head at times, so I was sure to read with a dictionary nearby [I have your average high school freshman's vocabulary]. All in all, i would say this is a highly reccommended read for anyone even remotely interested in the Salem Witch trials; early American colonial government; or clearing up rumors about Wicca, Puritanism, or the trials in general.
Rating:
Summary: A Delusion of Satan
Review: Events leading up to the Salem witch trials began innocently enough to modern eyes. A few girls crack an egg white into a glass to learn one of the girl's future husband's occupation. Unfortunately it occurred in 17th Puritan New England, and innocence was defined a little differently back then. By the way, after settling on the bottom of the glass the egg white assumed the shape of a coffin.
Soon after the girls' experiment with clairvoyance all hell broke loose. Hundreds were imprisoned. Four prisoners died in jail. Nineteen were hanged as witches and one was pressed to death. In A DELUSION OF SATAN Frances Hill details the horrifying madness.
Hill is convincing when describing the religious, social and psychological forces at work. She is a little less so when discussing later day witch hunts. Hill fashions the Salem experience as the first wave. Joe McCarthy represents the second wave. The third wave occurred in the 1990s when vast numbers of children falsely accused adults of abuse after their memories were `recovered'. The fourth wave, she warns, may come about after the events of 9/11 and how America responds to a perceived, invisible threat.
For the most part Hill sticks to Salem and drops mention of succeeding waves after the preface, and this reader was grateful for it. Although well written and clearly presented, it's enough of an uphill climb sorting out the all the players without having to attend to modern controversies.
The Salem witch hunts occurred in a society that presented a vivid image of hell and brimstone to transgressors and offered precious little avenues of self expression or tender emotions. As Hill has it, it was an environment ripe for clinical hysteria. The frontline troops, the accusing girls, were motivated by a `mixture of hysteria, vengeful fury, evil mischief, and longing.' The forces behind the girls were members of the Puritan theocracy who were threatened by an emerging mercantile class. The accused were, for the most part, anyone who threatened the girls or the established order - particularly John Putnam.
A DELUSION OF SATAN is well written and well researched. It explained a complicated topic in terms I could understand and feel make sense. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A Delusion of Satan
Review: Events leading up to the Salem witch trials began innocently enough to modern eyes. A few girls crack an egg white into a glass to learn one of the girl's future husband's occupation. Unfortunately it occurred in 17th Puritan New England, and innocence was defined a little differently back then. By the way, after settling on the bottom of the glass the egg white assumed the shape of a coffin.
Soon after the girls' experiment with clairvoyance all hell broke loose. Hundreds were imprisoned. Four prisoners died in jail. Nineteen were hanged as witches and one was pressed to death. In A DELUSION OF SATAN Frances Hill details the horrifying madness.
Hill is convincing when describing the religious, social and psychological forces at work. She is a little less so when discussing later day witch hunts. Hill fashions the Salem experience as the first wave. Joe McCarthy represents the second wave. The third wave occurred in the 1990s when vast numbers of children falsely accused adults of abuse after their memories were 'recovered'. The fourth wave, she warns, may come about after the events of 9/11 and how America responds to a perceived, invisible threat.
For the most part Hill sticks to Salem and drops mention of succeeding waves after the preface, and this reader was grateful for it. Although well written and clearly presented, it's enough of an uphill climb sorting out the all the players without having to attend to modern controversies.
The Salem witch hunts occurred in a society that presented a vivid image of hell and brimstone to transgressors and offered precious little avenues of self expression or tender emotions. As Hill has it, it was an environment ripe for clinical hysteria. The frontline troops, the accusing girls, were motivated by a 'mixture of hysteria, vengeful fury, evil mischief, and longing.' The forces behind the girls were members of the Puritan theocracy who were threatened by an emerging mercantile class. The accused were, for the most part, anyone who threatened the girls or the established order - particularly John Putnam.
A DELUSION OF SATAN is well written and well researched. It explained a complicated topic in terms I could understand and feel make sense. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Detailed, informative, disgusting
Review: For those of you who have always asked "Why?" when reading or discussing the Salem Witch Trials, this book is a paved road to your answers. Ms. Hill explores, in depth, the financial, political, and social motivations behind the chief accusers actions. The "distinguised citizenry", led by Reverend Samuel Parris and the Putnam family are exposed at last by well-documented and researched accounts that will shock and dismay you. Of course we have always known mankinds' propensity for inhumanity toward man, but this book brings those horrifying aspects into a much more clear and disturbing light.
Rating:
Summary: Detailed, informative, disgusting
Review: For those of you who have always asked "Why?" when reading or discussing the Salem Witch Trials, this book is a paved road to your answers. Ms. Hill explores, in depth, the financial, political, and social motivations behind the chief accusers actions. The "distinguised citizenry", led by Reverend Samuel Parris and the Putnam family are exposed at last by well-documented and researched accounts that will shock and dismay you. Of course we have always known mankinds' propensity for inhumanity toward man, but this book brings those horrifying aspects into a much more clear and disturbing light.
Rating:
Summary: A Straight Ahead, Recommended Narrative Account
Review: Frances Hill does what her subtitle (A Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials) promises. In a Delusion of Satan, the author tells the grippping and horrifying story from beginning to end in a fast-paced narrative that takes the reader through every pertinent detail. Along the way, she discusses motives, both psychological and material, that may have influenced the participants, as well as briefly glancing at the number of theories that have arisen in our more modern times. The author does not provide a large historical context in which to slide the events into, perhpas, but she does give just enough details to keep this story comprehensible and fascinating. The book does not dwell on modern analogies (they are too painfully obvious, at any rate). A recommended look at this terrible time.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Writing
Review: Frances Hill is extrodinary in this depiction and overview of the Salem Witch Trials. The title A Delusion of Satan depicts and puts into a sentence the entirety of this book. Frances Hill takes the human imagination and fills it with thoughts and vivid pictures. It seems as if the trials happened just days ago. She brings each character to life giving each of them their own distinct character and personalities. The book brings back to life the reality of the trials and the outcome of the accused. Frances Hill's extroadinary writing jumps at you with her vivid words depicting every word and step that the accusers took. The way the accusers accused each of their victims and the results of the so called spells that were cast. This author is very compelling very vivid and very drawn to the imagination. I rater her 5 stars for her excellent writing and depiction of the Salem Witch trials.
Rating: 
Summary: Look elsewhere for history of Salem witch trials.
Review: Frances Hill presents a mildly entertaining but historically deficient analysis of the Salem witch scare of 1692. Focusing primarily on factional and familial conflict as the cause of the devastating craze, Hill neglects to give adequate attention to other, more plausible, explanations.
Rating: 
Summary: An author with a more than obvious ulterior motive
Review: Francis Hill gives us a backlash attack on childhood incest and abuse in the guise of a book on the Salem Witch trials. She fails to stick to her stated topic and comes back again and again to her feebly argued case. She bases much of her analysis of the witch trials on guesswork that she calls common sense. She argues Tituba's morals are lax on the basis of the fact that Tituba was not a Puritan and not on any first hand accounts of her that have come down to us, for example. Her research is sparce, her thesis unproven. She fails to cite evidence for her claims. The main thrust of this book, on the rare occasions the author stays to her stated thrust, is a psychological analysis of the persons involved in and events leading to the Salem witch craze. Not only is the author not a psychologist, psychoanalyst or psychologist, she fails to consult such an expert relying instead on supposition and hunches. This book isn't worth reading.
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