For readers seeking to understand how false accusations take on a “life of their own”, Arthur Miller’s Millennium essay “The Crucible in History” (pub Methuen) is well worth a read.

It was reprinted (abridged) by Guardian Newspapers during the summer of the Millennium year and is available online.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,333006,00.html

“Anyone standing up in the Salem of 1692 and denying that witches existed would have faced immediate arrest, the hardest interrogation and possibly the rope. Every authority not only confirmed the existence of witches but never questioned the necessity of executing them. It became obvious that to dismiss witchcraft was to forgo any understanding of how it came to pass that tens of thousands had been murdered as witches in Europe. To dismiss any relation between that episode and the hunt for subversives was to shut down an insight into not only the similar emotions but also the identical practices of both officials and victims…….”

“…..And for people wherever the play is performed on any of the five continents, there is always a certain amazement that the same terror that is happening to them or that is threatening them, has happened before to others. It is all very strange. But then, the Devil is known to lure people into forgetting what it is vital for them to remember - how else could his endless reappearances always come as such a marvellous surprise?”

© 2000 Arthur Miller

“The Crucible in History” and Other Essays by Arthur Miller was published by Methuen on 13 July 2000 @ £10.00