WitchHunt photos on Flickr

1947. With the end of World War II, a re-energized House Committee on Un-American Activities, HUAC, turned its sights on Hollywood. Without the assurances of a court of law--the right to face and cross-examine your accusers, for example--witnesses were convicted by mere accusation in sensationalized headlines that followed the Committee's proceedings. It was the onset of the witchhunt that was later to be known as McCarthyism. The first to be subpoenaed were the Hollywood Ten, screenwriters who resisted the Committee's intrusions by refusing to answer HUAC's questions about their union membership or political affiliations on the grounds of the First Amendment. Ring Lardner, Jr., who had won an Academy Award for "Woman of the Year" in 1942, was jailed and blacklisted for his refusal. It would be 1970 before he'd win his second Oscar for "M*A*S*H."

From the set: "Portraits: Social Activists of the Last Century."

Pentagon by wstera2

"A watch the world go by" pavement cafe in the market place, Oudewater, Holland by North Yorkshire Cameraman

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Oudewater is famous for the Heksenwaag (Witches' scales). This Weighing house, an official town building, became famous during the 16th century because people accused of witchcraft were offered an honest chance of proving their innocence. In many cities and countries such trials were usually rigged, resulting in the burning or drowning of hundreds of innocent people.

Many people accused of witchcraft from all over Europe (or at least, those who could afford the trip) made a head-over-heels trip to Oudewater to avoid being burned at a stake. After the weighing, they received an official certificate proclaiming them not a witch. Although nobody was ever found to be an actual witch in Oudewater, the weighings were still a public spectacle. Even today you can get a certificate that "your body weight is in proportion to your build." The reasoning behind this is the old belief that a witch has no soul and therefore weighs significantly less than an ordinary person; this distinction allows the witch to fly on a broomstick.

So in medieval times when accusations of witchcraft (and resultant burnings) were prevalent, the town of Oudewater offered the accused a chance of proving his or her innocence. This was more special than it sounds. It is a sign of the growing power of a third force next to church and nobility, i.e. citizens. In a bid for total domination, the witchhunts were sanctioned by the church to break the power of the local herb doctors (especially the females). The citizens of Oudewater therefore were, simply by being honest, defying the church.

The Waag is still open as a tourist attraction, and official certificates are available. It next door to the pavement café where this photograph was taken.

The town hall dates from 1588 and features a stork's nest. Oudewater has a monumental protected city centre with more than 250 protected houses. The church, now Protestant, dates from the 15th century. Its tower is from about 1300. During the religious wars, until the sacking of Oudewater, both Roman Catholics and Protestants used this church. Thereafter Catholics were still tolerated (the Spanish occupators being Catholic) but more in low profile.

How much do you "weigh"? by Sasja Milenkovic

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Oudewater is famous for the Heksenwaag (Witches' scales). This Weighing house, an official town building, became famous during the 16th century because people accused of witchcraft were offered an honest chance of proving their innocence. In many cities and countries such trials were usually rigged, resulting in the burning or drowning of hundreds of innocent people.

Many people accused of witchcraft from all over Europe (or at least, those who could afford the trip) made a head-over-heels trip to Oudewater to avoid being burned at a stake. After the weighing, they received an official certificate proclaiming them not a witch. Although nobody was ever found to be an actual witch in Oudewater, the weighings were still public spectacle. Even today you can get a certificate that "your body weight is in proportion to your build." The reasoning behind this is the old belief that a witch has no soul and therefore weighs significantly less than an ordinary person; this distinction allows the witch to fly on a broomstick.

So in medieval times when accusations of witchcraft (and resultant burnings) were prevalent, the town of Oudewater offered the accused a chance of proving his or her innocence. This was more special than it sounds. It is a sign of the growing power of a third force next to church and nobility, i.e. citizens. In a bid for total domination, the witchhunts were sanctioned by the church to break the power of the local herb doctors (especially the females). The citizens of Oudewater therefore were, simply by being honest, defying the church.

The Waag is still open as a tourist attraction, and official certificates are available.

Will God give up on Kidderminster? by Jason Antoniewicz

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During my years in the mental health system, at one stage I chiselled into my bedroom wall the phrase 'End this Witchhunt'. I scrubbed it out years later. I should've left it.

One day, when I was in town, a few months back, the mother of a local mental health 'patient' had a chat with me. She genuinely cares about people, but has many ideas and an overall approach which are detrimental to her aims, but she has no accessible way of even beginning to question that.

She asked me if I was still on 'my' medication. I said no. We had a talk. She was like a religious nut, claiming she'd read stuff she hadn't, but that didn't matter because it didn't, her daughter was doing well, even though she's doing anything but, and I should take 'my' meds. I told her I disagreed and that we'd better shut up or we'd end up arguing. Some chats are doomed from the first few seconds.

According to some local officials, Kidderminster is a town with a mindset that hasn't developed in 500 years. Apparently, there's senior members of the local religious community who are in some sort of despair, wanting to do something about the deep-rooted issues in the town, but not really having any idea what they could do. They're on the verge of giving up. I suppose if Hollywood were to make one of those small town horror movies about the town, the type they specialise in, they could call it 'Kidderminster: the town where God gave up.' Occasionally, the place reveals itself to me in ways that suggest that I'm some sort of folk devil within a archaic moral panic - about as big a suburban myth as you can imagine. It's at times like that where I can see why anyone in their right mind would give up on this place, even a supreme being, like me.

I know pretty much everything that took place around my life during the period from 1996 to 2012. That said, because of the culture of Kidderminster, including its breathtakingly expert ability at gutter politics in many sections of the community, there's some things I'm fully aware of which I can only suggest, here, even if I do that. This process of piecing things together has been taking shape for a while, as memories come back to me and the relationships between fragments of information become clearer, reshaping the past, the present and potentially the future. I've been gradually coming back to a fuller consciousness after a very long time.

The social construction of madness that took root in my mind in 2000, thanks to a hefty dose of psychiatric medication and a significant amount of persuation, with local gossip then being official in the process, showed itself to me yesterday, just as it had at Kidderminster's Weavers Wharf, where there were attempts, as I've seen before, to engineer scenarios to establish a storyline with all the characterizations in place to set the scene for another socially engineered stint in the local psychiatric ward. I saw it coming and so it didn't hit. That's when the Police were brought in in another costume drama that they didn't stand a chance of seeing. As far as I know, what took place in and around that scene was illegal, but this is Kidderminster, so maybe it isn't.

Had the Police not given the costume drama a denouement it so desperately needed and was programmed to bring about (hinting at an issue with fantasy and reality), there would probably have been another set of staged events, leading to another denouement, possibly involving violence (always an option, here), where, had I defended myself, the implications could have been quite severe in terms of my physical liberty - maybe my psychological one, too. Maybe it's good that my time in town ended the way it did at the time it did. I'd got the core of what makes the place tick and that's good knowledge to have.

What I wrote yesterday about what sections of the community could consider doing via the Internet is actually true, trying to impose Kidderminster's bizarre cultural practices on the technological interconnected network of networks. Kidderminster's pretty much an interconnected network of networks, held together by what Filthy Clint called 'negative energy'. Such an attempt, though unlikely, would be illuminating for how things should be done as opposed to how things are unfortunately done in this place. It'd make great TV for most of the townspeople, but great science for technologists.

For example, I write about open source ideas. The mindset of Kidderminster which, according to some local officials, hasn't progressed in about 500 years, would mean that whatever happened with information - whatever the layers of surface appearance suggested - it would all be about about gutter politics (they'd even use gutter politics to protect themselves against me saying that) and a mentality that speaks volumes about the self-awareness and world view of the archaic, bizarre and disturbing culture of this town, a place that's just a cultural and psychosocial mess, a disaster of a town so many ways, including for the very people that often seek to protect and promote themselves and its distorted image.

What I witnessed locally yesterday was the prelude to a series of windups that were around town back in 2000 and were then blatantly designed to socially engineer me into psychiatric detention. Know your place, sort of thing, because, if you don't, we'll damn well show you what your place is. If that's their bag - and, mark my words, it is - well, that's their bag. It's not the way modern society's supposed to work, but this is Kidderminster and that's the way it is. Not for me, ta.

The townspeople can be quite funny in their costume dramas, at times. Because the town is run on influence, with nothing much beyond that, except acting up to the local costume drama underpinning it, most of the townspeople here can go to quite bizarre and often comical lengths to get one up on anyone they see as a potential threat to, or diversion from, the costume drama - that's essentially the main measurement of intelligence in Kidderminster: one-upmanship, usually based on poor ideas and information (suggesting why I got so much attitude not only after I got my Masters, but also when I got my bachelors degree). But I know full well that these people can be quite unsettling in the lengths they're prepared to go to, when the superficial smiles fade into some sort of reality when no-one's looking.

Like I say, I know pretty much everything that happened between 1996 and 2012 and I'm highly aware of what could happen in the future, considering the 'potential', if that's what you really want to call it, of what too many people in this town are capable of. That said, with the costume drama in place, it's equally likely that nothing will happen. If it does, it's more likely to be in tune with old practices and approaches to information and problem-solving, with similar processes to gossip and gutter politics, that have a track record of failure. Even if they open up information, it'll be in ways that make it difficult or impossible to do anything constructive with it. It'd almost certainly be done in a way that replicates the processes behind how all this started, became distorted and amplified over time.

What West Mercia Police walked into at Weavers Wharf, recently, when I was banned from a local coffee shop, was a multi-layered set of costume dramas, initially triggered off and developed by an obsessed, territorial sadist, a probable psychopath.

The majority of the participants - the baristas, many of the regulars, along with other people around Weavers Wharf - had, over time, descended into the probable psychopath's ability to tap into the worst instincts of people along with the worst elements of the local culture. I witnessed that taking shape for a very long time. It was no mistake that I reacted to it at times - it's virtually possible to do anything but. The reality to these people, though, was that they had every right to manipulate the Police because, as a psychiatric nurse who'd occasionally walk by said, I was suffering from 'badness'. That's the vibe they'd been whipped up into over quite a long period, with a number of people distorting information, following the essential framework being put in place by the character I've identified as the ringleader. The people there believed, therefore, that they were entirely morally justified in manipulating the Police. The Police may have uncovered this and gone along with the moral justification these people would have argued they had and left it at that.

Beyond this costume drama was key character within Weavers Wharf, the probable psychopath, attracting and setting the scene for snowballing the process he'd originally put in place, gradually bringing in a number of costume dramas, triggered by unchallengeable gossip from 1996, gossip that compounded the problem in similar ways before, during and after the initial processes set in place that year, leading to poor information being made official by the local hospital's psychiatric unit in 2000. The similarities are pretty interesting.

In 2000, there was a psychiatrist at the hospital, a locum, sort of a junior shrink. I got quite a lot of information out of him. I had little choice, even though I desperately tried to get him to open up records I knew existed, but which everyone blocked me off from accessing, denying there were any such records. He was extremely nervous, at times, battling with an ethical dilemma, saying that I was right about 'almost everything'. He was scared about the potential implications of the records on my psychological state, records that supposedly didn't exist. 'They'd kill you'.

It's not gossip or gutter politics that have the potential to 'kill' people or destroy minds and lives. It's how you deal with that information. Negative consequences are more likely with a lack of knowledge about gossip in context, along with what people (who, for whatever reason, don't understand much about information, the processes involved in it and their motivations around it) can be prepared to do, especially in trying to protect their version of events, not least with some of the motivations that can affect all that.

My argument to the hospital, in 2000, based on a lot of things - including what I knew had taken place from 1996 until then - things I only really openly told my Mom - was that no matter how unhealthy that gossip appeared, it was ultimately only gossip, and the only way to deal with it effectively was to neutralise the power it had over me (again, power) by having been deliberately withheld from day one (a typical method of malicious gossips) and instead get on top of it by understanding it and the motivations behind it. Then, the original processes, motivations and distortions from day one would have ceased to have their ability to function even to the extent that psychiatric services were brought to their knees.

With me, a lesson from the 12 wilderness years that I spent in the mental health system, was that by not addressing information directly, effectively and constructively, I lived in a confused state, existing with an often heavily medicated and 'supported' false surface 'reality' (and didn't it look real), while my subconscious refused to accept that way of life because it retained, deep in me, the essential information I needed to regain some form of effective functioning. It just needed time and space The battle between the two would never have been resolved had I not broken away from most of the damaging ideas and motivations behind the local costume drama, psychiatry and mainstream culture, along with the ability to assess my background and its relationships and influences.

I was apparently 'psychotic', i.e. detached from 'reality', when I was first dragged, in such a civilised manner, into Kidderminster Hospital. They were in a heightened state of emotion. I know how that worked. I'd already sussed and only learned more from within their psychiatric unit. There were clues all over the place, especially when they were stupid enough to open their mouths, telling me everything I pretty much knew already: they were vulnerable to further abuses of information essentially because they didn't know how to handle information.

There'd been a mass of poor quality information that'd hyped up them and the people they'd conferred with. Not a good environment for producing good quality information and results. They came at me with a caricature which, like so much of the costume drama, say so many things about them, their processes and motivations. It said a lot about power, control and how people can make assessments about people and their environment influenced by their world view and emotional state. They came at me like I was a complete idiot, a characterisation that still does the rounds, maintained and protected by Kidderminster's measurement of intelligence. They gave themselves away and they panicked, showing the reality behind the caricature. As ever, though, it didn't take much for the lunacy of it - the poor methods, the ineffective core ideas of psychiatry, the lack of insight into self and context - to sweep them up into it all again. Total Hollywood: simplistic, incompetent crap, with all the contextual awareness, insight and depth of a 'Made for TV' B-Movie, with an approach that said so much about so many things.

Clinical Psychiatry makes much use of third party statements in assessing potential and existing patients. In theory, the idea of the competent, professional shrink makes this approach sound reasonable, while it's wide open to manipulation and abuse. Ultimately there were no adequate safeguards against what happened. None. Faced with the wrong motivations, the wrong approach, the wrong application of that approach, the wrong core ideas, the wrong emotional state, the wrong information, I was blocked off at every angle with a set of ill-informed ideas, based on faulty information about me and my environment, from what's supposed to be a basic human right: the right to self-determination.

A deeply conservative and limiting social environment - Kidderminster - having such an ability to influence and manipulate a deeply conservative and limiting societal mechanism - psychiatry - meant that it was almost inevitable that I'd end up with a psychiatric diagnosis based, essentially, on what sections of the local community wanted, and maybe needed, in a twisted sense.

In terms of information, 'paranoid personality disorder' is just about the most powerful formal limiting device you impose on an individual. I think it's the ultimate conservative mechanism against the ability to think independently on the basis of good quality information, partly because it can give unscupulous people the ability to block understanding with false charges of paranoia. It makes you powerless and dependent in any way other than if you comply with it and you want to see the stunts people aee prepared to pull if you aren't prepared to do that. Looking back, it was pretty inevitable that I'd be given that diagnosis because of all the processes in and consequences of Day One in 1996. It made as official as possible all the bogus information there was, along with framing medical treatment according to a false characterisation, and wrapped it all up in a power relationship where key contextualising information was made to seem like it didn't even exist, based on a false version of events that plunged me into a 12 year costume drama.

It's easy in that context to cynically criticise the psychiatrists involved, caricaturing them in simplistic terms, but these people actually believed they were doing the right thing. The gossip, which they took on board initially and were pretty much destined to run with, in the end, was thought too damaging, a threat to my psychological well-being.

But the damage was done by these people in not understanding self, context and issues around information. They knew nothing of the key personalities, their motivations, their beliefs and the delusional impression they gave off on the basis of those things, when fooling themselves in many ways. They knew little, if anything, about what such people can trigger off and tap into in themselves and the environment around them.

There's been quite a few clues in the environment that point to the processes that led up to the social construction of madness in 2000 and maintained it in the intervening years. Members of my family, along with their associates, for example, are almost completely locked into costume dramas which represent their reality, now, which they were possibly always vulnerable to, but which were psychosocially engineered over time to almost completely reframe our lives according to traditional local values and mainsteam ideas on the basis of bad information and a failed approach, an approach that was never going to yield good long-term results because it wasn't grounded in a realistic assessment of people and the environment. It didn't have a clue who we really were.

A community that pretty much applied the conveniently decontextualised idea for so long - that it was all in my mind - has failed to pull it off. For now. Judging from what I've seen, even key members of the local community would be prepared, in the 'right' circumstances, to go to the extremes they did up to, and around, 2000, in an attempt to engineer some form of psychosocial and official pressure to result in compliance with essentially all the same crap from 96. If what can happen when you get close to the core of anything, let alone something like this, is anything to go by, even me getting this utter psychosocially toxic bullshit nightmare experience out online, could represent, to these people, an opportunity to seize their moment yet again.

My own Mom shares the logic many of these people have. Yesterday she warned me about using my phone in public, especially in the town centre and even outside the front of my house. Her argument was that if I use my phone and anything 'happens', I'll have brought it all on myself. What's more, when I use my phone and publish content online, I'm really doing it to bring 'it all' 'back' on myself. That's the essentially logic, with all the ideas it entails, many people, including psychiatric services, have applied to me in maintaining my involvement with the mental health system and my compliance with a 16 year costume drama. What I've learned over the past 16 years about all this, though, is that there'll always be a way make such processes work, look rational and maintain their legitimacy, I'm the face of overwhelming evidence of a damaged environment, failed processes and ideas, I'm leaving them to it.

Mainstream culture has failed. How obvious is that? I see it everywhere, even when people try to pull that same old decontextualising stunt to say that's 'all in the mind'. Psychiatry, one of its key mechanisms, is a disaster, in practical terms, and seriously flawed theoretically. To have such a so-called 'profession' at such a central place in our healthcare system and culture, a 'profession' which is hardly better than a cultist religion, means that core issues in society are less likely to be addressed, despite the fact that that's in everyone's interests.

Psychiatry has a poor grasp of context, of how the world really works. Why would it? It's a conservative and limiting mechanism designed to make the whatever the world is work by moulding individual's (who often give us significant clues that the world is actually failing), according to the wishes, needs and demands of the environment. Psychiatry will almost certainly never adequately question that, with consequences for ideas about the self, the mind and the environment, lessening the revelation that it doesn't work and hampering attempts at finding solutions that stand a better chance of substantial success.

In other words, it's a 'profession' that isn't ever going to work, because it offers a distorted sense of self, the mind and the environment - bad ideas, which contribute to bad health across society, along with poor information to keep it all in place. Just like Mom's theory, it's delusional and almost destined to compound problems rather than adequately address them. Like with my Mom, though, the mechanisms and influences that maintain their ideas and approach, mean that I can't do anything, but leave them to it.

Similar basic processes have played out time and again and I think they say some quite interesting things. When I went to an appointment at Kidderminster Hospital on 20 June, following a change in health authorities, I was interviewed by a social worker, with another social worker taking notes. At the time I didn't record it because I didn't expect what was about to take place. It was clear they were up to something dodgy and I'd later realise that they'd almost certainly, as usual, been fed suspect information about me. That set off a sequence of events that suggest quite strongly an unsettling scenario, which is what I'm writing about. One of those things is that once people are given bad information and they lack the skills to deal with that, they're capable of some quite extreme reactions, which can have something of a chain reaction. Of course, institutions are well known to cover up dodgy practises, for all manner of reasons that don't often make them question why they're doing it. That's an important question to ask. But we're talking about a supposed medical approach where, to maintain a position based on false information, people in positions of supposed authority can be more than willing to further distort information, with potentially short and long-term health consequences. How mad is that?

Over the past 16 years, there's been many, many tough times. Recent events, including what happened over quite a long time in Kidderminster's town centre, the local medical community, the local police, sections of the local community, certain disturbing individuals and the final realisation that my family life has come to a pretty irreversible end, haven't exactly been easy.

But is that it? No. With all this I've come to realise that much of the work on social and digital inclusion, for example, along with ideas about reintegration, are misguided. I have very little in common with most of the town of Kidderminster. I wouldn't want to be included in its community, even if you paid me, partly because it's detrimental to people's health, something I've got ample evidence of, and also limits people's potential. It's common for many people to keep themselves to themselves and I'm sure many of these people also look around at their social environment and think 'no, ta', but my guess is that this sort of information isn't as prominently discussed as it perhaps should be for many bogus reasons.

I think all this also points to flaws in the work on 'third places' I've come across and also on the ideas around 'reputation' in open source thinking, but I've dealt with those elsewhere.

Although the conservative and limiting mechanisms are thought essential for a successfully functioning and productive society, that's hardly the result we've got. Show me the statistics that suggest that a stressed workforce is more productive than a well-balanced one and I'll have a think about it. Show me the significant contribution a university makes of people's potential by focusing on the economy way more than the individual, and I'll have a think about that, too. But I'd love to see how anyone's ever, with current approaches, going to successfully tackle issues of inclusion, community, civic, civil and cultural life, without starting out helping individuals connect with themselves and their environment and letting them take things from there.

What could be done about these failures of mainstream culture, its institutions, practises and ideas? A significant rethink would be an idea, but how do you that and make it accessible for people to join in effectively, people who wouldn't ordinarily bother? I think it all boils down to this idea I keep mentioning: the importance of understanding self and context. I've spoken with, written to and met so many people whose potential contribution to their environment is constrained by their limited awareness and sense of self and context, in an environment of many similar people, so that everyone's thinking can be in danger of not addressing what may be crucial with regards to what they're concerned with and their own functioning. That's a start, I think. It opens up the possibility of improved communication, relationships, information, thinking, lifestyles, and so on. Get people grounded in those senses and they'll be better able to contribute in sorting out the rest. As for Kidderminster, though, I think it's only a matter of time before even God and his squad pack their bags. Whether of not that happens, for me, it's probably best to leave the town to its devices.

Paula Alonso, Clemmie Sveaas, Franklyn Lee by DanceTabs

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Bern Ballet performing Cathy Marston's 'Witch-hunt'

see www.dancetabs.com

photo - © Dave Morgan

Doggy in the window, Rootstraat, Oudewater, Holland by North Yorkshire Cameraman

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Oudewater is famous for the Heksenwaag (Witches' scales). This Weighing house, an official town building, became famous during the 16th century because people accused of witchcraft were offered an honest chance of proving their innocence. In many cities and countries such trials were usually rigged, resulting in the burning or drowning of hundreds of innocent people.

Many people accused of witchcraft from all over Europe (or at least, those who could afford the trip) made a head-over-heels trip to Oudewater to avoid being burned at a stake. After the weighing, they received an official certificate proclaiming them not a witch. Although nobody was ever found to be an actual witch in Oudewater, the weighings were still a public spectacle. Even today you can get a certificate that "your body weight is in proportion to your build." The reasoning behind this is the old belief that a witch has no soul and therefore weighs significantly less than an ordinary person; this distinction allows the witch to fly on a broomstick.

So in medieval times when accusations of witchcraft (and resultant burnings) were prevalent, the town of Oudewater offered the accused a chance of proving his or her innocence. This was more special than it sounds. It is a sign of the growing power of a third force next to church and nobility, i.e. citizens. In a bid for total domination, the witchhunts were sanctioned by the church to break the power of the local herb doctors (especially the females). The citizens of Oudewater therefore were, simply by being honest, defying the church.

The Waag is still open as a tourist attraction, and official certificates are available.

The town hall dates from 1588 and features a stork's nest. Oudewater has a monumental protected city centre with more than 250 protected houses. The church, now Protestant, dates from the 15th century. Its tower is from about 1300. During the religious wars, until the sacking of Oudewater, both Roman Catholics and Protestants used this church. Thereafter Catholics were still tolerated (the Spanish occupators being Catholic) but more in low profile.

Never Forget__ by wstera2

2

Dramatic images of World Trade Centre collapse on 9/11 released for first time

By Mail Foreign Service

St. Mary's Cemetery in Salem Massachusetts USA by RyanReporting

Salem, Massachusetts, USA

The City of Salem is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States and the location of Salem witch trials.

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693.

Salem is located approximately 25 miles from Boston and is available via public transportation:

From North Station, take Ipswich or Rockport trains. At Salem station, exit up stairs to Washington St.

Salem Witch Museum

19 1/2 N Washington Square,

Salem, MA 01970

(978) 744-1692

www.salemwitchmuseum.com/

For more information on:

Salem Haunted Happenings

Destination Salem

Salem City Hall

93 Washington Street

PO Box 630

Salem, MA 01970

978-744-3663

hauntedhappenings.org/

For more information of visiting

Salem, Massachusetts

www.salem.com/Pages/index

3-Day Acadia National Park, Maine Coast, Head Light House Tour from New YorkTour Code: 755-131

www.taketours.com/new-york-ny/3-day-new-york-to-acadia-na...

August 30,31, September 1st 2014

About this day of the trip:

New York - Boston - Salem - Portland (334 miles)

Guests will be picked up in New York in the early morning. then arrive at Boston to take the Boston Harbor Cruise. In the afternoon, we will visit the Salem Witch Museum. Finally, we move to Portland Head Light in Portland, ME

Boston, MA Boston is a city as beautiful as it is historically significant. Visitors can walk the Freedom Trail and see where the seeds of the American Revolution were sown or visit the North End and look out over the harbor.

Boston Harbor Cruise See the famous Boston skyline like never before with a cruise of Boston Harbor. From the peak of the Prudential tower to the quaint North End, this beautiful and historic city is best viewed from the bay!

Salem, MA

Salem Witch Museum This kitschy show in historic Salem, Massachusetts uses wax figures to give visitors an overview of the Salem Witch Trials. Its fun gift shop and unique presentation make is a tourist favorite. It may be scary for young children.

South Portland, ME

Portland Head Light For more than 200 years, the lighthouse known as the Portland Head Light has been a beacon for ships off the coast of New England. Construction on the lighthouse began in 1787 under the direction of not-yet-president George Washington.

Fore more information on Take Tours visit:

www.taketours.com/

Hashtag metadata tag

#Salem #SalemMA #SalemMas #SalemMass #SalemMassachusetts #SalemCity #SalemTown #SalemVillage #SalemCommonwealthofMassachusetts #SalemWitch #SalemWitches #SalemWitchMuseum #SalemWitchTrial #SalemWitchTrials #HauntedHappenings #SalemHauntedHappenings #HauntedHappeningsSalem #WitchTrial #WitchHunt #Halloween #HalloweenTown #HalloweenCity #1692 #Witchcraft #Massachusetts #CommonwealthofMassachusetts #AmericanHistory

Photo

Salem city, Essex county, Commonwealth of Massachusetts state, USA The United States of America country, North America continent

August 30th 2014

Pentagon by wstera2

salem's haunted past by trip*my*wire

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october was indeed the best month to visit boston but the spirit of halloween took me further north on a 30-minute train ride to salem, famous for the 1692 witch-hunts. not surprisingly, i didn't get sun in salem but somehow it was befitting to a place with such a haunted past. the rustling autumn leaves swept gently across the burial grounds (where hanging judge from the salem witch trials john hathorne laid close by) but couldn't distract me from the eeriness that blanketed the whole area.

Maggie Wall Cairn by B4bees

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Inscription on monument says "Maggie Wall burnt here 1657 as a witch".

But historians find no trace of her in the local records of the women who were burned to death in Dunning in those times of religious unrest in Scotland. Yet the inscription is painted regularly and a wreath is placed at the foot of it. No one knows by who and why.

Witchhunt Snowden by Ton Zijlstra

1

In Kreuzberg (Drei Schwestern)

www.witchhunt.eu/811e

Beverly harbor as seen from the Salem Willows in Salem Town, "Witch City", Massachusetts Bay Colony, New England, USA by RyanReporting

Salem Town, Massachusetts Bay Colony, location of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692

Happy Halloween October 31st, The Blessed Samhain Festival, Witch's New Year, All Hallow's Eve, Wiccan Sabbat, Pagan Holiday, Fall Foliage season, Autumn Harvest, Autumnal Equinox, Blessed Mabon, Lammas / Lughnasadh, Haunted Happenings celebrations in Salem Town, Massachusetts Bay Colony, New England, USA

The City of Salem is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, in the United States and the location of The Salem witch trials of 1692.

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693.

Salem Town is approximatley 5 miles from Salem Village which is now known as Danvers, Massachusetts

Salem is located approximately 25 miles from Boston and is available via public transportation:

From North Station, take Ipswich or Rockport trains. At Salem station, exit up stairs to Washington St.

For more information on the month of October Haunted Happenings celebrations and parade visit:

Salem Haunted Happenings

Destination Salem

Salem City Hall

93 Washington Street

PO Box 630

Salem, MA 01970

978-744-3663

Salem Witch Museum

19 1/2 N Washington Square,

Salem, MA 01970

(978) 744-1692

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SALEM ZOMBIE WALK WEEKEND 2016

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Salem Zombie Walk 2016

October 1 @ 3:30 pm - 5:30 pm

The Salem Zombiewalk has been an annual event for a number of years. This is a great family-friendly event of a genre that incorporates all aspects of life, or rather, undead that takes place in Halloweentown, USA during Halloween Season. Prior to the Zombiewalk, participants gather at Collins Cove park for some field day activities, last minute costume tweaks and alterations, and of course to admire other lovers of the Zombie theme. Pets are welcome, so long as they are crowd friendly and well-behaved. Details are on the official flyer, please look for it on Facebook, and share the event. More info available via darqsalem

3:30 pm: Zombie Kickball begins, 4:30 pm: walk begins.

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Hosted by DARQ SALEM

Saturday, October 1 at 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM

Collins Cove Park

59 E Collins St, Salem, Massachusetts 01970

The Annual Salem Zombiewalk occurs on October 1, 2016!

Come one, come all to show off your awesomely creative under outfits and shuffle through the streets of Salem, Massachusetts!

Face painting/kickball/gathering starts at 3:30pm, and the Walk commences at 4:30!

This is a FAMILY event!

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Photo

Salem city, Essex county, Commonwealth of Massachusetts state, USA The United States of America country, North America continent

October 1st 2016

Ryan Janek Wolowski, Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha Stephens from Bewitched statue from TV Land in Lappin Park, Salem Town, "Witch City", Massachusetts Bay Colony, New England, USA by RyanReporting

Elizabeth Montgomery as

Samantha Stephens

Hair of gold, eyes that twinkle

A nose that neatly twitched,

Clever charming and enchanting

Samantha left is all Bewitched

Presented by the people of

TV

Land

TV Land spent $75,000 to install a bronze statue of "Samantha" in Salem, Mass' Lappin Park on June 15, 2005. The statue was sculpted by StudioEIS under the direction of brothers Elliott and Ivan Schwartz.

Bewitched is an American television sitcom fantasy series, originally broadcast for eight seasons on ABC from September 17, 1964 to March 25, 1972. It was created by Sol Saks under executive director Harry Ackerman, and starred Elizabeth Montgomery, Dick York (1964–1969), Agnes Moorehead, and David White.