1. Strong belief that Satan is acting in the world.
---------"The invisible world": disease, natural catastophes, and bad fortune attributed to work of the devil
2. A belief that Satan recruits witches and wizards to work for him.
---------Prior witchcraft cases in New England (and Europe before)
3. A belief that a person afflicted by witchcraft exhibits certain symptoms.
---------Cotton Mather's Memorable Providences
---------Most symptoms can be feigned
4. A time of troubles, making it seem likely that Satan was active.
---------Smallpox
---------Congregational strife in Salem Village
---------Frontier wars with Indians
5. Stimulation of imaginations by Tituba.
6. Convulsive ergotism, a disease caused by eating infecting rye that can produce hallucinations, causing strange behavior? (Interesting theory, but unlikely.)
7. Teenage boredom.
---------No television, no CDs, and lots of Bible reading
---------Strict and humorless Parris household
8. Magistrates and judges receptive to accusations of witchcraft.
---------See as way to shift blame for their own wartime failures
---------Admission of spectral evidence
9. Confessing "witches" adding credibility to earlier charges.
10. Old feuds (disputes within congregation, property disputes) between the accusers and the accused spurring charges of witchcraft.