A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials

In searching for the truth about the devils of Salem we shall investigate the demons in all human societies and all human souls," writes Frances Hill in A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trails (Doubleday, $23.95, 269 pp). It is a lofty ambition, aiming to extend spiritual knowledge into historical writing, and Hill pursues it without pause.
Hill holds Samuel Parris, pastor of Salem Village in 1692, most responsible for the hysteria that sent 19 men and women to the hanging tree and caused several other deaths. Parris used Puritanism's "terrifying absolutes of good and evil" to reduce life in his parsonage to a daily trauma of fear, guilt and suspicion.