HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you think that Annie Lennox would have been made into a witch?
BEN KISSEL
Ooh I love Annie Lennox!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was listening to Here Comes The Rain Again today looking at her and she's just so fun and out there with it.
BEN KISSEL
You're listening to Here Comes The Rain, not Walking On Broken Glass? Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do like that song too. But Here Comes The Rain Again which is on the radio currently and I listened to that and I was just like ooh, Annie Lennox, that's a cool witch. And she would've been right there in the middle of it and they all started twitching and then she'd go up there and be like (singing) here comes the rain again. And then they'd all be like (wailing).
BEN KISSEL
Love Annie Lennox.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fucking shirts coming off and everybody's being like let's fuck instead! Let's fuck!
BEN KISSEL
And I just realized how upset I am that Walking On Broken Glass wasn't in the movie Home Alone.
MARCUS PARKS
Is Here Comes The Rain, is that (singing) here comes the rain... Is it that one?
BEN KISSEL
No!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. (singing) Here comes the rain again, washing over me like a memory.
BEN KISSEL
She was in the rain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, she's wet.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh okay. (singing) Here comes the rain again.
BEN KISSEL
But when you're in the rain Marcus, you don't think of songs, you're just like I'm wet, I gotta get inside.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm wet.
BEN KISSEL
But Annie Lennox was like let me bring out my notepad. Isn't that nice? Welcome to Last Podcast on the Left everyone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) Here comes the rain again.
BEN KISSEL
Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. That's Judge Judy. I am Ben hanging out with Henry and Marcus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
And we are on to the Salem Witch Trials Part 4!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're at the end. Can you feel yourself in the cart as you go towards your early grave knowing that no matter what your innocence has been tainted forever? Forever! You are a specimen of the devil and that's how you'll ever be known.
BEN KISSEL
Cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But today, today-
BEN KISSEL
Yes?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We exonerate these women.
BEN KISSEL
Oh good. And some men?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Not the men, even though they were also innocent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're fucked.
BEN KISSEL
Great. As always.
MARCUS PARKS
So when we last left Salem the establishment had sent the second round of accused witches to their deaths, hanging five women in a single day on the say so of a group of young girls collectively known as the afflicted.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh yeah, and that's not with a K and the black metal writing.
BEN KISSEL
I know what you're talking about.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while one might think that seeing five people horrifically hung in the manner which we described last episode might tamp down the furor surrounding the witch hunt, things only got worse once the people of Salem dunked their head in the bucket of blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was like an aperitif for them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As soon as they saw that first round. Cause I do think on some level they were kind of hoping, they're like all right, because we've talked about before that lull in the paranormal activity after the first round of hangings.
MARCUS PARKS
It wasn't even the first round, just one person, it was one person and then five after that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but there were there was a kind of a lull, right. They're kind of feeling well maybe we've done it, maybe we'd done it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But guess what? The fake law keeps rolling on. (singing) Rolling, rolling, rolling.
BEN KISSEL
Do not do Limp Bizkit, not today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hard Bizkit.
MARCUS PARKS
As a consequence, people in Salem were quickly realizing that getting captured and examined was an almost guaranteed fast track to conviction and public execution.
BEN KISSEL
No!
MARCUS PARKS
However while most of the people who knew this still played the game, there were others who tackled accusations from a different angle. In Cambridge a woman named Elizabeth Carey was accused and imprisoned, so her husband, a military man named Nathaniel, decided to actually do something about it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a movie. I feel like this little segment right here because what it comes down to is like, 'I've got a certain set of skills. I could turn wheat into the shape of a woman. And they don't know, they don't know that it's not you in there, it's actually just wheat.'
BEN KISSEL
All right. So we have a Liam Neeson Taken situation, is this about to be a superhero tale?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's Tooken.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Knowing that she would hang if she went to trial, Carey worked with an accomplice to break his wife out of prison. They were successful!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They did it!
BEN KISSEL
Nice!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's called witch prison break.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
What were prisons back then? Just a whole series of different kinds of sticks? How did they hold people? I mean they're not like today, you can't break people out anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There actually was several versions of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There was kind of shitty, kind of impromptu put up jails, right. They had to do stuff like that. There was also just the courthouse where the constables were, they'd have a holding cell or two that were essentially just shacks attached to the building. But also I do believe there were and I might be wrong, sidestorieslpotl@gmail.com if you know because I'd love to know, I believe that they also dug ditches and had put people inside of ditches and then had sort of gratings put on top of them.
BEN KISSEL
Either way not the most difficult prisons to break out of perhaps.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's not supermax but it's going to be somewhat difficult. It's not gonna be the easiest day, although sometimes you could just break someone out with an axe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
With an axe!
BEN KISSEL
Sweet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's fucking sweet.
BEN KISSEL
We broke him out with a sick guitar riff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
After Nathaniel stayed behind to take the heat for a couple of days while his wife got clear, the daring couple fled to New York City where nobody gave a shit about witches because witches were bad for every business except rope. Meanwhile though, those who didn't have a bold military husband to arrange a jailbreak were left to face the music in Salem. On August 2nd the Court of Oyer and Terminer reconvened to hear the third round of witch trials, beginning with the so-called queen of hell Martha Carrier.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now that's a big title.
BEN KISSEL
It is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because you got all these fucking witches, how'd she get to be the queen of hell? Why is she in charge? Because she's last?
BEN KISSEL
I think she has the most amount of soot on her feet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dirty ass feet. But some people like that.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Unclear.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Unclear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you think that it was because she was like, 'Quain', like that style? And everyone's being like, wow girl, you go girl. It was like that where she was like a fashion icon or something?
MARCUS PARKS
I think it was a lot like everything else where someone just said it and it stuck.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe she wore Prada.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe it's Maybelline.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Carrier had been the woman whose sons had flipped after being tortured, discussed at the end of the last episode. But so many people testified against Carrier that the testimonies of her sons weren't even heard in court.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Damn.
MARCUS PARKS
Most notably influential Minister Cotton Mather used an oddly John Waters-esque insult when he referred to Martha Carrier as a quote "rampant hag".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whatever dog. That just means she's on that grind. She's on that grind culture out there being the queen of hell, being herself, supporting herself, being her own quain, right. Because when it comes down to it, quain is without anybody, she don't need a kang.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
Can one person be rampant?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think so, that's the idea. That's why I feel like we'll put it to our listeners, be the rampant hag you know you can be.
BEN KISSEL
I agree with that, sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because you're undeniable. Because you're just a hag who is everywhere, anywhere at all times.
BEN KISSEL
If you're a man be a herg. It's the male version of a hag, I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think it's asshole.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah, that's true too.
MARCUS PARKS
Well partly people turned against Martha because she showed a seeming lack of empathy for the afflicted while the rest of the community was bending over backward to take care of these poor put upon girls.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh it's kind of like how my mom did the thing when the Michael Jackson news like fully hit and she was like oh when I got molested no one took me to an amusement park. It's just that, she's just being like yeah, these fucking other bitches ain't doing shit, all right. I'm a rampant hag. I'm everywhere, I don't take a day off from being a bitch.
BEN KISSEL
I love that your mom has the same ideas as Sam Kinison.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. It reminds me very much of Birdcage when Nathan Lane's character was like, 'Why don't they just let the babies die and they'll take the mother's down with the ship?' about abortions. And then Gene Hackman is like, 'That's exactly what Rush Limbaugh said.'
MARCUS PARKS
However again like it was with the fucking farm animals in the last episode, many of the people that testified against Martha Carrier did so because of petty disputes over property lines. And those subsequent arguments had ended in specific and somewhat witchy threats. The year previous, a neighbor named Abbott had gotten into a dispute over property boundaries with Martha Carrier and she got so angry that she said she would quote "stick as close to Abbott as bark to a tree."
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's Abbott, there's me! There's Abbott, there's me. I'm a rampant fucking hag.
BEN KISSEL
Why would someone want to be around someone like bark on a tree that they hated?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they could fucking eyeball you, dog.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, eyeballing you. They're making sure you ain't gonna fuck up nowhere, nohow, not without this rampant hag fucking seeing it and calling you on your shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm the queen of fucking hell! I hate your fence.
BEN KISSEL
Right, okay. I mean it just seems like she would be making her own life miserable also.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, quain's gonna quain.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
I think that's sort of the story of Salem right there is everyone making everyone else miserable at the expense of their own happiness.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nothing but net.
MARCUS PARKS
Now that threat wasn't too bad but when she very cryptically said that Abbott would be sorry for causing trouble before seven years were through, she added that not even the most talented doctor and all the land would be able to save him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm liking her, man. I'm liking her, man. Don't you fucking dare to say anything about her grass.
BEN KISSEL
I'm not messing with her.
MARCUS PARKS
Soon after of course many of Abbott's cows fell ill and died, he was struck with severe pain on his side, his foot became infected and allegedly gushed several gallons of pus when it was lanced, and a series of sores on his groin also became filled with enough pus to need regular lansing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sounds like his body was trying to make another farmer.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it sounds like he got monkeypox which by the way I've done a deep dive on that. You want to avoid it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Really good advice.
BEN KISSEL
Oh mamacita.
MARCUS PARKS
Well supposedly though once Carrier was arrested, her neighbor's groin sores began to heal and no further lansing of the boils was required. And so for the crime of coincidence, Martha Carrier was convicted and sentenced to hang.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's gonna take four ropes to hang me.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so. So this guy got genital warts and they blamed it on this poor woman?
MARCUS PARKS
It sounds a lot more like herpes than genital warts but not every sore in your groin has to be an STD.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, absolutely. He could really just be, it could be a wasting disease, it could be a form of rampant psoriasis.
MARCUS PARKS
It could just be bad pants.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Bad pants. At the time bad pants was the cause of like 5% of deaths because they just ground you down.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yes, the old asbestos Levi's.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why I switched up all my underwear to softer stuff because I really got sick of putting all this like cheap ass course Haines dollar store fabric up against my most precious jewels.
BEN KISSEL
Your asshole, yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a good idea. But while seemingly everyone was convinced of Martha Carrier's guilt, the next on the docket, John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth, were two of the accused whose possible guilt split the community. See Proctor had garnered 51 signatures on two separate petitions from people attesting to his good character. This was just like Rebecca Nurse, she had also gotten a lot of signatures and I think Elizabeth Howe had also gotten signatures. But Proctor was different from Rebecca for one reason. He not only had the respect of the community like she had but he was also a landowning businessman, man being the operative word here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
As someone who has had to petition before and get signatures, I would rather be hung.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is very scary.
BEN KISSEL
I hated it so much.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, being hanged is much better than doing cold calls.
BEN KISSEL
What's your address? Can you fill it out? Make sure it's clean and I can see it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God, you just over them just being like, 'Use the pencil! Use the pencil, ma'am!'
BEN KISSEL
Ugh.
MARCUS PARKS
Well therefore since they were killing or at least trying to kill a highly respected man, a fair amount of mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance had to be done to accept the guilt of such a person. And this was the first of many that would eventually come to be too much for the people of Salem to accept long term. Nevertheless John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth were found guilty and sentenced to death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not Daniel Day!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Daniel Day, sentenced to death.
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
66. Although his wife's execution was delayed until she gave birth to the child she was carrying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man that must've been a fun day. It must've been a night. It would be like oh congrats!
MARCUS PARKS
Which day was fun? The day she got pregnant, the day she was sentenced to death, or the day she eventually gave birth to the baby or the day that she hung?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hopefully the only day she ever smiled was the day she conceived.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hopefully. I don't know if pleasure was involved but hopefully that's the one time she ever, like when John Proctor gave the (grunting) all right, that should do, that should be a son. I think that might have been nice. But it was giving birth in the cell, in the Salem Town, Danvers, or Boston cell, wherever they were, and watching that flop out into the dirt-covered hay and they're all like, 'That's good. Now you get to be hanged.' She had like two seconds of like (moaning). Unless she had postpartum depression which actually might have helped.
BEN KISSEL
That baby could have been Jesus Christ himself.
MARCUS PARKS
He wasn't. Because he survived and he was just a guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, just a fucking guy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Could also just see her. Well nevermind. The image, you get it. Well nevermind.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Are you just talking about her open birthing vagina is what you're talking about?
BEN KISSEL
No, her hanging and then the baby...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, flopping out of her?
MARCUS PARKS
Flopping out.
BEN KISSEL
But also hanging.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a great detour.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm glad we're here.
MARCUS PARKS
Well partly the Proctors had been condemned by the testimony of their servant Mary Warren who had flipped from afflicted to accused and back to afflicted, a switch that certainly didn't help the Proctors.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. Fucking Kevin Durant trying to get out of the Nets.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow. That's an interesting observation coming from you.
BEN KISSEL
He read a headline.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is how I talk to straight men.
MARCUS PARKS
Now John Proctor's conviction would have been a big deal anywhere in the western world owing to his status and gender. But his trial and conviction would pale in comparison to that of the man who faced the judges in Salem next, the reverend George Burroughs.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is the only guy I'm proud they hung. They got him, man.
BEN KISSEL
He sounds like an asshole.
MARCUS PARKS
Just because he was a reverend?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, dude.
MARCUS PARKS
You can't just go around killing people for being assholes!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're correct. But this is kind of the crux of all of these trials is the fact that when he is convicted, that's when shit blows up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because you crossed the line, you finally did the thing. What was it? They're using the line now, someone crossed the Rubicon. That's what it is.
MARCUS PARKS
They've been using that line since Napoleon crossed the Rubicon hundreds of years ago. Not even, that wasn't Napoleon, that was fucking Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon! People have been saying that for thousands of years!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everybody that was crossing through the Rubicon, why does nobody just enjoy it? Smell the flowers, enjoy yourself.
MARCUS PARKS
After Julius Caesar returned from his campaign in Gaul, sir!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Rubicon actually sounds kinda nice.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know. All I know is I think someone crossed the Rubicon. That's for sure.
MARCUS PARKS
You crossed the Rubicon on just making shit up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, hey. I'm just a funny guy.
BEN KISSEL
What the fuck is a Rubicon?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
It's a river.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a river.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who cares?
BEN KISSEL
So they crossed the river? That's what a Rubicon is?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
If you want me to explain it to you I will.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We'll do it after.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. We'll do it in Vegas.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the audience for Burroughs' trial was the hot ticket for the entire proceedings. See Burroughs was a man of god which was far worse than your run of the mill witch because he had the power to eat the church from the inside out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Supposedly Burroughs was the ringleader of the entire operation, the so-called aspirant king of hell.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool!
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Martha Carrier was the queen of hell and Reverend Burroughs was the king of hell. Burroughs made sense because he was the pastor, well he was the witch who was masquerading as the pastor which was the biggest sin of all therefore he would be the king of hell.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude, that's the most metal you could be.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's like the most fucking awesome shit.
BEN KISSEL
So on this entire water marble that we live on, in Salem was both the king and queen of hell.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like a coincidence.
BEN KISSEL
It just so happened.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's like if you go to any sort of mental hospital and you find like five Napoleons.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But also remember the world was much smaller back then.
BEN KISSEL
I mean it wasn't.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well the world was the same size but the population was smaller.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah and our perception of the world was far, far smaller. We had no idea that all the rest of America was out there. Well the Spanish had gone over a while back but still.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We knew it was there.
MARCUS PARKS
We didn't know it was that big.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we didn't have the internet.
BEN KISSEL
We have enough content for the episode, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now this trial was one of the most dramatic of all. To start, the afflicted claimed that four ghosts, his two wives and the deceased family of another reverend, had shown up on the day of his trial specifically to accuse him of murder.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's how it is.
MARCUS PARKS
Which was believed by damn near everybody in the room. Everybody's like fuck yeah, the ghosts are here. Ah shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh dip. Yep, it's the Haunted Mansion the ride. Yep. Whoa, there he is right there.
BEN KISSEL
Damn.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Burroughs' power was supposedly so strong the afflicted weren't able to even testify against him because they claimed that he and the devil working together choked the words from their throats before they could get specific.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They thought he was that powerful. They literally couldn't speak, they had to go (croaking).
BEN KISSEL
At some point do you think that Joe Burroughs wished that he was that powerful?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
George Burroughs. Joe Burroughs is his great, great, great, great grandson who currently has a sports podcast. I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
Joe Burrow, Cincinnati.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh is that that child?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, kind of. They're all children really. As you get older you realize all athletes are just children.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Luckily for the prosecution in the George Burroughs case though, 30 other people gave depositions attesting to Burroughs' guilt. See while being a reverend would have insulated him from the accusations in any other witch trial, it targeted him in Salem because he was the infernal body that most of the other false accusers orbited around. Everything kept coming back to him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And technically he was competition to somebody like Parris, right. He was technically competition.
MARCUS PARKS
Kinda sorta. He'd already left reverending behind.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but because of that actually probably is a thing that helped put a target on his back because at this point and time period if you wanted to be a puritan, puritan was a 24/7 deal, right. You don't get to just take off from being puritan, you gotta fucking go back into it every day, you gotta put your puritan time in.
BEN KISSEL
It's 23/45/7 because there are 15 minutes when you're taking a violent dump you can't be a puritan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hope that god ain't there too.
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this guy, he had separated himself from the church and I think in a way it kind of took that protection away from him as well where he had separated himself, he had accepted the half covenant, he was trying to be a like a normal dude, he was trying to be kind of whatever, just like a normal ass reverend and they didn't want that.
MARCUS PARKS
Well I think part of it was that he was also not very good at being a reverend and people had always looked at him sort of sideways.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But that was also how Salem looked at every person who tried to tell them to not be a bunch of assholes. They looked at all of them sideways.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
During his trial, 8 confessed witches described how Burroughs lured them into joining Satan's army, vividly painting pictures of well attended witch meetings and forced poppet making in the pursuit of torturing the afflicted for no good reason. Poppet sweatshops.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was there and I was already knitting, it was incredible color ways on some of these poppets that we were doing there.
BEN KISSEL
Beautiful, yeah. Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Black cement which is really awesome, you had banana ding dong cream pie was an amazing color way of poppet.
BEN KISSEL
Love that, yeah. Googled that before, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was really, really good. But most of the time the way Burroughs got these witches was through Call of Duty.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that nice?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's insidious.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
The cherry on top in those testimonies was that most self confessed witches ended their testimony with the telltale seizures.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm seizing out here, man!
MARCUS PARKS
Convincing almost everyone there that bewitchment was indeed real.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God, this trial must have been such a show.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Honestly. Seriously.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like there is an element, you can see how they all kind of got into it too in a way especially this point in his point of the trial. That's the top of the fucking heap.
BEN KISSEL
Well we have 6, 7 hung, 9 hung? 8?
MARCUS PARKS
6, you have 6 hung at this point.
BEN KISSEL
All the world is a stage.
MARCUS PARKS
6 hung, 8 dead.
BEN KISSEL
This is the greatest performance without a doubt maybe in American theatrical history.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. At this point.
MARCUS PARKS
Possibly. Burroughs meanwhile could do nothing to prove his innocence beyond weak excuses and things were only made worse when he became flustered and his answers contradicted each other. This however was easy to do during the Salem Witch Trials because as Henry said last episode, the rules were made up and the points didn't matter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. How do you weakly just be like, 'I'm not the king of hell.' Like that's every day, like how do I explain this? Oh god, I'm not the king of hell.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I mean if he was the king of hell-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Would I be here?
BEN KISSEL
No, everyone would be burning around me. I'd be like you're all on fire now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I read a really interesting point of okay, so Satan is more powerful than he has ever been but his armies are slowly but surely allowing themselves to insinuate themselves in the religious communities of the entire world and will slowly turn everybody and flip everybody to this cabal of worshippers of his great power and blood drinkers and all this kind of shit.
BEN KISSEL
You have to kiss his butthole.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure. But wouldn't he be like, 'Hey guys, why don't we chill on telling everybody what we're doing right now?' Why would he be like why are we yelling from the rooftop? The plan isn't completed yet, it's not supposed to be I and the former Barack Obama arrive and flip this whole country into a gigantic military unit, right, a prison planet. That was the idea. But now you guys are all like, why are you doing this? Shut up, shut the fuck up.
MARCUS PARKS
Well what I'd always thought about is that why did these people continue to torment the afflicted while they were sitting right in front of them? It didn't make any sense. None of it makes any sense at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
There is some logic to some of it but there's no logic to most of it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, you're right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The only person who kinda sorta came out on Reverend Burroughs' side was his granddaughter Margaret Jacobs who had inadvertently given testimony during the examinations that led to the execution of five people.
BEN KISSEL
Did I do that?
MARCUS PARKS
She recanted about her grandfather at the last second but all that did was make the judges more suspicious of Margaret Jacobs who only avoided conviction because her trial was postponed due to a nasty head boil.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. No one wanted to see it. They're all like okay, can we put a sack on her head? No cause then we don't know if the devil's eyes show. All right, we'll wait til it goes down because I'm sick of her second nose.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, you gotta go Friday the 13th Part 1 on that one or Part 2 when he has the sack on his head. But why wouldn't they just flip it and make the boil a sign that the devil has inflicted her?
MARCUS PARKS
Unclear.
BEN KISSEL
They just didn't want to see it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They just didn't wanna look at it. (gagging)
BEN KISSEL
(gagging)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ew!
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS
By the end of the third round though the judges had produced five convictions and four immediate orders of execution with the fifth to come after Elizabeth Proctor gave birth. Besides Proctor and Burroughs though, the court had sentenced two more men of lower profile but still high status to their deaths, meaning that the August 19th public execution was set to be an all male revue.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Woo! Yeah girls!
BEN KISSEL
Thunder down under. I've seen that before.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come on, legs up boys!
BEN KISSEL
Come on now!
MARCUS PARKS
Now like the trial, the execution that was co-headlined by the reverend George Burroughs and John Proctor drew the biggest crowd yet. And neither the reverend nor Proctor disappointed the crowd with their showmanship. This was like a Monsters of Rock of fucking witch executions.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man. They're all in there, dude. One room and one night only.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, that man's pants fell down, he's double hung.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ooh look at me!
MARCUS PARKS
Just before his execution, the reverend George Burroughs stepped forth and recited a perfect rendition of the lord's prayer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right guys, let me see if I can do this.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Drop that beat! (beatboxing) He does a full fucking rap.
BEN KISSEL
I'm so disappointed in you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(rapping) Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name! Everyone's just like whoa shit, god does rock.
BEN KISSEL
I'm disappointed in everything. I think it was pretty good though.
MARCUS PARKS
It wasn't bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pull out the cardboard. He's starts spinning on his head. That'd be fucking sweet. Only the devil can be that funky!
BEN KISSEL
That's very true.
MARCUS PARKS
As we discussed last episode, reciting the lord's prayer perfectly was supposed to be impossible for a witch.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But similarly John Proctor in an act of passive defiance, specifically asked the reverend Nicholas Noyes to pray with him. Noyes however refused, citing exasperation that all of the people being hung kept insisting that they were innocent even when faced with imminent death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's like a thing, it's like they all keep saying like don't hang me, I'm not a witch. And it's like that's exactly what a witch would say.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know if that's true.
MARCUS PARKS
But to calm the uneasiness in the crowd that came from the seemingly sincere shows of Christian faith, Cotton Mather, remember we talked about him, he was the puritan leader that we brought up last episode, he was there to witness his first witch execution. He's finally come and he's showing up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he's like it's time to get that wig dirty.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I mean he is the closest thing to a celebrity that New England has. So it's a big fucking deal that Cotton Mather is showing up for this.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But he stepped forward to once again play both sides. Somewhat drawing on his insistence that the devil could impersonate the innocent but not really going all the way in front of a crowd baying for blood, Mathers explained the perfect lord's prayer by saying that the devil has often been transformed into a quote "angel of light".
BEN KISSEL
They changed the rules!
MARCUS PARKS
They did not change the rules, not really. He cited Corinthians 11:14. Actually yeah, I agree with you, the rules are made up and points don't matter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's almost like the bible is made up. Ugh god.
BEN KISSEL
He did it right! He got the words right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just getting so many flashbacks to when I did the Dune series and how many times people would be like, 'Actually that's incorrect if you actually look at...' And they open up some old arcane chapter from one of the Brian Herbert books that I didn't read. Like actually he corrected there the record in this thing... And I love it but it's made up, Dune was not real, it's not real.
BEN KISSEL
That's a hell of your own making, my friend.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love it though.
BEN KISSEL
Also do you know what they didn't do in Dune? Crossed the Rubicon. No water.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's no water.
BEN KISSEL
Mostly desert.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe if they were on Caladan.
BEN KISSEL
(sighs) You rapped, you mentioned Paladan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Caladan.
BEN KISSEL
Caladan?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Paladan is what you are to me, my friend.
MARCUS PARKS
And so after the crowd was sated and the executions were over and done with, the bodies were haphazardly tossed in a shallow common grave nearby, so hastily buried that the chin and hand of the reverend George Burroughs stuck out from under the dirt along with the foot of another victim.
BEN KISSEL
Was he Bruce Campbell? How big was his chin?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just was at the top of the pile.
BEN KISSEL
Oh man. And that.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe he was the last one killed. No, he would have been the first one killed. It's like the baggage on the plane, the first bag to go in is the last one to come out.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
He was probably the first killed because he was the first on the pile.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually do believe weirdly I think it was the opposite. I do believe that he was last because that was the point that he was the most important.
MARCUS PARKS
The headliner.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So his job was to watch, he was the headliner.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And his job was to watch them all get punished because the idea is you wait for the most important ones to be at the end of the line because you kind of give them a constant opportunity to confess.
MARCUS PARKS
Right.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Well while one might think that this hasty burial might have something to do with the gravediggers being afraid that the devil might come for his acolytes, it had more to do with the rank smell of the corpses because the executions had taken place in the middle of a heatwave.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a heatwave!
MARCUS PARKS
And don't forget, everyone upon hanging voids their bowels.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh god.
MARCUS PARKS
So it is 4 fully grown men covered in their own shit and blood and piss and it's about 95 outside in a humid ass Massachusetts day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man. When in Massachusetts.
BEN KISSEL
That's the subway car that has no one in it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
And you're like it's my lucky day! And then you get in it and you're like oh I get it now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Always, always.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
I will say here in the city it's getting to be where that's just sort of the permanent smell. No matter what car you're getting into, that's just the way it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nah.
MARCUS PARKS
That's just the way it is all the time. I think it's just because it's August and that's when urine really bakes into a car.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. That's the stinkiest month in New York by far.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But regardless of the stench, the sons of the reverend George Burroughs dug up his corpse in the middle of the night, transported it to family land by boat, and discreetly reburied it in an unmarked grave. I think now there's a parking lot there or maybe a school.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. That'd be cool, that makes sense.
BEN KISSEL
Just like Hitler's bunker.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, which is underneath the affordable housing units.
BEN KISSEL
Is that right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's underneath the parking lot in front of the affordable housing units.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, that's actually Candyman.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but they finally put up a sign saying that it was there. But yeah, I'd feel weird going to school everyday, just living there as a kid and just being like, (German accent) 'Yeah, Hitler's bunker was right here. It was right here!' And everyone just being like great, cool, good.
BEN KISSEL
Did they put up like a Reserved For Hitler sign?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They do have a little one, there's a little parking spot for him for forever. A VW bug is allowed to park there for free any day of the week.
BEN KISSEL
Aw, him and Ted Bundy.
MARCUS PARKS
Meanwhile more people were fleeing to New York City, although it was only the people who had the means to do so. In Boston, Philip English the Frenchman and his wife Mary had posted bond to get out of prison at the cost of £4000, the rough equivalent of $1.2 million in today's money.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They just paid out. They're like all right fuck this, we got the money, we're going to New York where it's not illegal to be French.
BEN KISSEL
My name is Tommy German from Italy. As you can tell my name is Stephanie Canada and you won't believe it, I'm from Mexico.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is an incredible bit.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, you get it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes I do.
BEN KISSEL
I can do this with every-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's different countries since the man has a different country name than where he's from.
BEN KISSEL
My name is Scott Portugal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From where?
BEN KISSEL
I'm from Uruguay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just really glad you know those countries.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that nice?
MARCUS PARKS
Well Mary and Philip fled to New York City and nothing was done to capture them. But in a telling example of the sort of tit for tat happening during the trial, the English's goods were confiscated by the state at a modern profit of $350,000 for the colony of Massachusetts.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's layers of that within all of these accused. So it was kind of a rule up to a point that if you were murdered by the state, again I believe that this was correct, is that your shit would go to the state, that if you were executed the state would come and grab all your shit, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
That went back and forth in Massachusetts depending on the charter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And so there was a certain period of time where they had fixed that. They're like no, it should go to the immediate family, the people who own it.
BEN KISSEL
They kill you and take your shit?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The original sheriff that was going through the accused, basically what he was doing the very top was ganking everybody's shit.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As soon as you were hung, as soon as you were hanged, they would've went and he'd go and grab your stuff and be like it's mine now!
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is also kind of interesting, like don't you think that a witch's items would be actually incredibly dangerous to own?
BEN KISSEL
Cursed objects.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cursed objects.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's also strange because they just jump right on it, sleeping in the witch's bed and shit.
BEN KISSEL
They just wanted to watch people die, they didn't believe any of this shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa! No way!
MARCUS PARKS
I truly do believe that some of them did and some of them didn't. I don't think the sheriff was all that concerned with it, the people who were profiting from it certainly weren't concerned with it. But I think the vast majority of people did believe their own bullshit .
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
At the same time, the association game was resulting in even more charges even after 10 people had been hung. Or excuse me, 10 people had been hanged.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
You're welcome. Yeah, I don't want to get the fucking DMs, you know?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Unfortunately if we don't say it, they won't listen to a single other word we say on the podcast.
BEN KISSEL
So they were hanged.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were hanged.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
They were hanged, yes. The examinations continued between trials and a man named John Jackson was put in the jackpot after six afflicted girls accused him of witchcraft. The association was John Jackson's aunt Elizabeth Howe who had already been hanged. But what really turned up the volume on the whole affair when it came to association was the fact that many of the accused were now confessing instead of protesting their innocence and every time that was done, the number of witches had to be increased to make room.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So if you confessed, you did have a better outcome. Were you hung if you confessed?
MARCUS PARKS
We'll get to that here in a bit.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Accused witch Ann Foster claimed on July 15th that there were 25 witches.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Had to be. Had to be at least 25.
BEN KISSEL
At least 25. Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But a week later another accused said that there were 77.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We had a big run off, you would be surprised. Honestly, I don't really know how we got so many witches at once, it's a lot of subs.
BEN KISSEL
Now 77.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A lot of subs in one day.
BEN KISSEL
That's a lot of subs, okay.
MARCUS PARKS
By the end of August there were three confessors saying there were 200 witches.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
And the afflicted were also fueling rumors that there were over 300 witches in a colony wide population of about 50,000 people.
BEN KISSEL
My name is Cordial Indiana, I'm from Michigan. And I am telling you one thing, we need to do something about this witch inflation. It's an inflation joke.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, very good.
BEN KISSEL
I combined two jokes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I learning.
BEN KISSEL
Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
Tellingly though, accusations had not yet hit the main population center of Boston. And at this point things had not gone past the small rural communities where life was harder, things sucked more, and no one could stand anyone else.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
But speaking of Boston, some people already imprisoned in Boston jail were confessing to even more crimes after being harassed by other people who had also made false confessions.
BEN KISSEL
What is going on?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's full lunacy. The wheels have fallen off of the entire society.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds like it.
MARCUS PARKS
This is insane, listen to this. The troll Abigail Hobbs convinced a woman named Rebecca Eames that Eames had been a witch for 26 years and that her son had been a wizard for 13 and that they'd both tormented people together. This woman fully believed this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey there Rebecca, it's me, Abigail Hobbs. Just got done being with my best friend Mr. J.
BEN KISSEL
Okay I hate your Polish Harley Quinn, don't even mix these streams for me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you see my happy trail goes all the way up to my neck?
BEN KISSEL
Don't lift up your shirt! There's no reason for you to lift up your shirt. Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just amazing, the swirls of hair around my perfect breasts. But listen, hey Rebecca, you know how everybody fucking hates you?
BEN KISSEL
She's the sexiest woman in superhero lore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah but now it's me, I'm Harley Quinn. I'm like hey Rebecca, you know how like everybody hates you and they have hated you your whole fucking life since the last 26 years?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What if I told you...
BEN KISSEL
Yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're a witch.
BEN KISSEL
Is that good?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Yeah it is. It's fun.
BEN KISSEL
Yass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, there you go girl. Yass!
BEN KISSEL
Yass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, come on! Be a bitch with it. Come on, act like it! Act like a witch. Be one.
BEN KISSEL
Yass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come on, Rebecca. Be fun with it!
BEN KISSEL
We live in fucking hell.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yass.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the incredible thing about this is that like modern false confessions, for example like Jessie Misskelley of the West Memphis Three or five of the Beatrice Six, these confessors convinced themselves that what they had falsely confessed to was in fact what really happened.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause at some point, you're in jail, right. You're already there, it's already happened to you, you've been brought into the fold. At some point I think that it might help your reality to be like well I have to be here for a reason.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If I'm not here for a reason then everything is fucked and life is really hard.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it turns out I'm going to be rolled over by the justice no matter what. So now your brain can start to, I believe it puts you in a place where you're at already so that you don't... Like the cognitive dissonance is too much.
BEN KISSEL
What a fucking nightmare when you're innocent and you're incarcerated. I mean my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very scary.
BEN KISSEL
So yeah, maybe flipping your brain and being like I deserve to be here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
It's crazy though.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean Rebecca Eames, she was so distraught with her false belief that she was a witch that she unsuccessfully tried to hang herself in her jail cell right after she cut her own throat with a razor.
BEN KISSEL
Jeez. How'd she failed at both of those?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's not a very good witch.
BEN KISSEL
I guess not.
MARCUS PARKS
However this flurry of accusations along with the fact that community leaders were starting to swing, this was slowly turning the tide on public support for the trials, especially when it became obvious that convictions were mostly coming as a result of spectral evidence. But even though support was waning or possibly because support was waning, the Court of Oyer and Terminer geared up for the largest round of trials yet, this time trying eight of the accused who were still protesting their innocence. This time you had Dorcas Hoar and a woman with another unfortunate surname called Ann Pudeator.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, Ann Pud-a-tor? Pud-e-ter?
MARCUS PARKS
Any way you pronounce it, it's a bad name. Pud-e-a-tor, Pood-eater, Pud-eater, Pud-e-ater.
BEN KISSEL
That's my wife!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's my wife!
BEN KISSEL
Pudeator.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what I actually found out is that Dorcas Hoar is actually the long, long time relative of the actress Jean Smart.
BEN KISSEL
We did learn that. We learned that on Wikipedia when a fan sent it to us. I saw the same Tweet. We were @ on it. But isn't that interesting? I'm happy that you took that information and pretended like you did research.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People like that show Hacks. And maybe it's because I am one.
BEN KISSEL
Dorcas Hoar.
MARCUS PARKS
Now five were convicted right off the bat but Dorcas Hoar confessed after her conviction and started naming names. For that the law seized her estate but granted her a reprieve from execution to see how many more names they could get.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely, we got Morcas Slut, we got Forkas Bitch. I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love Forkas. Forkas Bitch is actually very sweet. A lovely woman.
BEN KISSEL
Wonderful, wonderful.
MARCUS PARKS
Well amongst the convicted in this round was Mary Bradbury, a well respected woman of high class in her 70s who was the wife of a military man. She actually had more signers than anyone on her petition at 118.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
But seeing how much good signatures had done in the past, Mary Bradbury was broken out of jail by supporters and hidden away.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the one thing about back in the day is that if you did have 100 people that believed in you, they can all just come and just pull you out of the jail. They're more than all the cops.
BEN KISSEL
That's very nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They'd just be like all right, we want that guy. Like remember what happened with Joseph Smith? It was like the same shit.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was bad news for him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah a little bit.
BEN KISSEL
Reminds me a little bit of the early Bonnie and Clyde as well, right. Did they do a series of jailbreaks and things like that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He remembers.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He does remember, it's nice. That was like three years, four years ago.
BEN KISSEL
Is that right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Maybe five.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was when we were in Australia.
BEN KISSEL
I wanna cut myself in half and just count the rings.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
One ring is going to be all tincture. You know.
BEN KISSEL
I know, I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Well meanwhile nine more cases of witchcraft were tried and nine more were sentenced to hang. Four of those however, including the troll Abigail Hobbs, had pled guilty during their examinations. But at this point, possibly because the judges felt that the fun was almost over, people were being sentenced to death seemingly just for the crime of being accused. A woman named Margaret Scott was convicted because she asked her neighbors for corn and the neighbor refused.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh. You know how it is.
BEN KISSEL
No, I don't. I don't know how it is.
MARCUS PARKS
Afterward the neighbor's oxen refused to move all night and this was seen as evidence of witchcraft.
BEN KISSEL
These fucking ox have no idea how important it is for them to move.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They don't know.
BEN KISSEL
All these animals are just like I didn't do it, I'm just an animal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just hanging out, I'm just having a bad day myself.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
Another argument over 10 shillings worth of wood was added to the evidence and Scott was thereby sentenced to hang. However while most of the accused were either falsely confessing or steadfastly protesting their innocence, there was one man in particular who refused to participate either way.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My boy!
MARCUS PARKS
That man was Giles Corey.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's Jiles.
MARCUS PARKS
It's Jiles, really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's Jiles.
BEN KISSEL
No, let's go Giles. Giles is cooler than Jiles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is Jiles.
BEN KISSEL
No, Jiles sounds like a lubricant-filled jelly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just trying to save us five emails.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure. Five emails.
BEN KISSEL
Let's go with Giles. All names are made up so we're just going to make it up as Giles.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually wouldn't be Gilles if we're doing that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's two Ls.
MARCUS PARKS
Like Gilles de Rais?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's two Ls, you fucking asshole. You're the asshole today.
MARCUS PARKS
Gilles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're the asshole, I'm the academic.
BEN KISSEL
What? Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Now in the old English way of doing things - I'm just gonna call him Corey. Fuck you.
BEN KISSEL
Great. Giles Corey sounds so much cooler than Jiles Corey because Jiles sounds like he doesn't have any teeth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But Jiles is kind of an old time butler name.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now in the old English way of doing things in court, the accused answered to the charges first with his plea then he was asked if he was quote "willing to be tried by god and country", that is by a jury.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the stock answer to that was by god and by country, which was that eras version of answering do you swear to tell the truth with I do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I never do!
MARCUS PARKS
But while Corey pled not guilty to all the witchcraft charges read against him, he refused to answer the follow up question because if he didn't answer, Ben this sounds like something you would do, then the trial couldn't proceed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's not wrong, technically in a way.
BEN KISSEL
I could sit here all fucking day in silence.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well in English law this tactic of refusing the answer was called standing mute. But standing mute was not an advisable way of avoiding a trial. Standing mute was met with something called 'peine forte et dure' which translates to strong and hard punishment.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay, so make me watch the fucking Jojo from Magnolia Farms' cooking show for a certain period of time.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And so when Giles Corey - shit. And so when Corey was brought before the court three times and refused to answer how he would be tried every time, the Court of Oyer and Terminer sentenced him to be pressed to death for his stubbornness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't think I can't handle the weight, I'm a straight bastard.
BEN KISSEL
Come on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You want to make me talk? I'll show you. You want me to talk? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. That's what you want?
BEN KISSEL
I mean at some point you can't handle the weight. It just keeps on coming down.
MARCUS PARKS
Essentially being pressed to death involved placing the stubborn person on a large board while another board was laid on top of their body. Then rocks of increasing size would be stacked on top of said board.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Simple yet effective.
BEN KISSEL
So how do you actually... I would assume it's suffocation?
MARCUS PARKS
No, you'd get crushed to death. Your internal get crushed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You get squished to death.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not pleasant.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Because they say that there's actually a certain point where you're still alive as you're getting crushed, you're still alive but even if you do say, okay, okay, okay, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it, you're already dead because your internal organs have all been crushed. You're gonna die eventually at a certain point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You were just made jelly and it's the 1690s which means it's not like you could have flown in a helicopter to a fancy hospital where they could hook you up and shit. No, you die of long term infection or bleeding, internal bleeding.
MARCUS PARKS
Internal bleeding helps you die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you just become a giant bruised sack. And yeah, you just expire in pain and probably feverishly die hallucinating and screaming.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the idea was that the weight would cause the defendant to acquiesce to answering the question before he was crushed. But that is not at all what happened with Corey. See after Corey was sentenced but before he was pressed, Ann Putnam Jr, chief accuser, said that his specter visited her and told her that he would quote "press her to death before the law pressed him".
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you're like all right, let's see what happens.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Full court press, here we go.
MARCUS PARKS
After that, Putnam Jr was visited by another spirit. But this one said that Corey had pressed him to death with his feet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That doesn't make any sense.
BEN KISSEL
Big feet.
MARCUS PARKS
See while the stories about other accused witches committing murder most foul were almost certainly false, Corey had indeed killed a man by beating him to death almost 20 years before the trials.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll fucking beat anybody to death.
BEN KISSEL
But that wasn't the problem.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no, no, no. Back in the day it was a misunderstanding.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so.
MARCUS PARKS
In 1675 Corey had hired a guy described as quote unquote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"Almost a natural fool."
MARCUS PARKS
Almost a natural fool. Almost.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What does that mean?
BEN KISSEL
What does that mean?
MARCUS PARKS
That means he's a Rudy Ruettiger type. Almost a natural fool.
BEN KISSEL
I know. Rudy came to talk at our school as I've said before and he is a fool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But no, he's not a clinical fool.
BEN KISSEL
He is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's not medically a fool.
BEN KISSEL
He is, he is. Yeah, none of that story is true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, they let him play one play.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah and the game was already over and they carried him off the field being sarcastic.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No it's nice technically. The movie was nice.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The movie was nice. Apparently Corey was not satisfied with the job that this man had done so Corey beat him to death with a stick. For this he received heavy fines.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll pay what I owe!
BEN KISSEL
Wait, okay. So you can beat a dude to death with a stick but the idea of spectral evidence gets you killed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. This is also a time period when-
BEN KISSEL
This is the founding of our country.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this is someone who was below somebody who is a moneyed landowner. So when it comes down to it they are of a different law. He beat a lesser to death.
BEN KISSEL
I see.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And so sort of like Dorcas Hoar, nobody was really surprised nor all that concerned when Corey was accused of being a witch. And absolutely nobody as far as I know came forward to defend him when he was brought out for his pressing. This is what I mean when you say you can't murder someone just because they're an asshole.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
True. Because again eventually maybe in some way, shape, or form, maybe some way you do get punished for it. This is kind of his punishment for that.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
On that day Corey was taken before the public and placed between the boards.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Look, I'm a sandwich! You fucking assholes.
MARCUS PARKS
Then rock after rock was stacked on top. And according to legend, Corey only said two words before he was crushed to death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"More weight." (squelching sounds)
BEN KISSEL
Jesus Christ man. Bro, you're liking this way too much to make it fun for me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
MARCUS PARKS
Reportedly his tongue then lolled out of his mouth and Sheriff George Corwin took his walking stick and pushed the tongue back inside as either a final show of just how little Cory was regarded or in an attempt to lessen the morbidity of the situation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now that's just rude.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so. My god.
MARCUS PARKS
This thankfully was the first and last pressing in Massachusetts history.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And according to records, Corey was buried in the crossroads by a place called Butts Brook as a final indignity because Butts Brook was where they normally buried people who died by suicide.
BEN KISSEL
And of course usually you bury someone six feet under but in this case two feet will do. He's pressed.
MARCUS PARKS
He's pressed, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was gonna say it's because he's a panini now.
BEN KISSEL
He's thin.
MARCUS PARKS
So with Google's Corey pressed to death, all that was left was to hang the next round of witches.
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS
But where the first round was one hanging, the second was five, and the third was four, the hanging day held on September 22, 1692 featured eight executions.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
They're about to adopt a duck. This is like season five.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, this is the crossover episode with the other shows on TGIF all showing up at once.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the eight executed that day held steadfast to their innocence until the final drop just like all the rest. But what's most interesting about this round was who hadn't been executed, namely the confessed witches.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
The total number of convictions on the last round had been 15 but seven of those had confessed and pled guilty. Therefore those seven were spared the hangman's noose. See in a move contrary to damn near every witch trial that I've ever researched, not a single person who actually confessed to being a witch in the Salem Witch Trials was executed, including the troll Abigail Hobbs.
BEN KISSEL
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude, Abigail fucking, she just got to go cause mayhem in a bunch of other people's lives after this shit.
BEN KISSEL
What? They just flipped it and reversed it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well the confession was more important than anything else because that's legally-
BEN KISSEL
Then just confess!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's what they had, right. Legally that's where they got you. And there was a religious hook to this. We'll go into it a little deeper.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now it's said that the choice to not execute any confessed witches is a puzzling one but I think it's actually pretty cut and dry. See for the first three rounds a plea of not guilty was met with a trial, a conviction, and an execution in short order, usually within a couple of weeks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
What became quite clear to the people of Salem by the third round was that those who had confessed were not being executed, instead they were being held in jail where they were naming more witches and testifying against those who pled innocent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the more you distance yourself away from the day that you're supposed to get hanged, the more you think I got some wiggle room here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And so you just keep naming witches because what that does is it allows you to sit.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it's not a great jail, you're not having a great time, but you're not dancing on the end of a rope.
BEN KISSEL
They just turned state evidence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Therefore while 19 out of 19 people who pled not guilty to witchcraft in Salem were executed, absolutely none of the 52 people who confessed were hanged, although two of them did die in jail. Now it is believed that had the witch trials continued for much longer, the magistrates would have eventually gotten around to setting dates for the executions of the confessed witches.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There were IOUs for it.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's as good as a trial.
BEN KISSEL
It is.
MARCUS PARKS
But another reason why the confessed witches survived might be that people were following the same logic used to condemn the use of spectral evidence while also maintaining that the devil was still out there trying to jam everyone up. After 19 people had been executed, Cotton Mather wrote to one of the judges saying that it was actually better to keep a confessed witch alive so that they might repent and bring glory to god. This was, he claimed to believe, the best way to ultimately defeat Satan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because now you have these definite witches, right. You have these straight up witches that are saying that they're witches.
BEN KISSEL
I mean they're not witches.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But what we're gonna do is that through this process of the trial and them confessing and holding and showing all these other non recalcitrant witches, right-
MARCUS PARKS
Recalcitrant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Recalcitrant?
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Rubicon. Have you ever played Rubicon? It's incredible, love that fucking game. I hate this, I hate the word. And I'm upset I did this.
BEN KISSEL
Very wet, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But because you're flipping the devil harder if you got a confessed witch because then it actually works from a PR standpoint, it works for everybody.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because then after the trials all the confessed witches can be like, 'See I was saved by god!' And then it's a great commercial for puritanism.
BEN KISSEL
Crossing over the Rubicon.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the last round of witch trials had only lasted two weeks, meaning that those 15 people going on trial for capital crimes, they averaged less than a day each because of course you had two days break for the two sabbaths.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And that was nuts even by 17th century standards.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
Besides what many felt was a rush to judgment, the public also began to notice that the evidence in the last 15 cases wasn't quite as strong as the ones that came before even with the confessions. Furthermore the fact that the confessed witches were all still alive while everyone who protested their innocence was dead, it introduced just a shade of doubt in everyone's mind as to whether or not they were really doing the right thing here.
BEN KISSEL
I believe it, I believe it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everyone's like eugh.
BEN KISSEL
What are we doing here?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think we might have, eugh, things are getting a little icky, eugh.
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And so Cotton Mather's father Increase Mather finally weighed in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, old Pappy got in there.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
See Increase Mather was just as influential to the colony as Cotton. Mather. But while Cotton had been wishy washy on the issue of spectral evidence, Increase came out against it, albeit far too late.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it's almost like he came out against it once he wasn't worried that like they'll all rise up and accuse me of being a witch.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like now that maybe some of the heat is lessening.
BEN KISSEL
They got the bloodlust out maybe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, maybe. Who knows?
MARCUS PARKS
Kinda sorta. He was one of those guys that I think believe, not believe. And the name Increase by the way, because I know you're all thinking about it, it's a literal translation of the Hebrew name Yosef or Joseph. Joseph translates to 'increase' because he was supposed to increase the amount of Christ in this sinful world.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow. I just thought he was a big fat asshole. That's funny.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's so funny, I didn't know.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, Joseph was lied to.
MARCUS PARKS
Now part of the reason why Increase waited so long to involve himself in the trials was that he was a friend of Massachusetts Governor William Phips and Increase couldn't be seen coming out against the judges and by extension the colonial government.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you know that Phips was also close to being accused of witchcraft before all of this? Him and his wife, the same thing. That's a part of the ickiness, a part of why they didn't want to involve themselves is because they had already went through a series, his wife went through a series of accusations in the past and he pulled her out of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he used a little bit of magic himself.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
He did treasure divining, that was his whole thing. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They did Joseph Smith shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They all did the same stuff.
MARCUS PARKS
But when public pressure against spectral evidence began to grow, Increase published a short book called 'Cases of Conscience and Concerning Evil Spirits' in which he publicly questioned the credibility of possessed people, confessed witches, and especially spectral evidence.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
However this probably had less to do with his conscience and more to do with the fact that there were rumors going around that Increase's wife was the next to be accused of witchcraft.
BEN KISSEL
She's a witch!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's getting too big.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And that's why I don't think he waited until it was socially popular to come out against it, I think he waited until it touched him to come out against it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kinda both.
MARCUS PARKS
And waited until it kind of came out of rural Massachusetts. Because as long as it stayed in the backwaters, who gives a shit? Just let them fucking battle it out.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that was the idea. They kept thinking I think in a while they're like this will burn itself out. This will all burn itself out. But then they just kept raging.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while Increase's book could have been a bold stroke against the establishment, he didn't go all the way because of his aforementioned connections. Instead he included a postscript in his book tacitly endorsing the executions by saying that he himself would have voted to execute Reverend Burroughs had he been on the jury and this is despite the fact that Burroughs' conviction was based on the testimonies of possessed people and confessed witches along with spectral evidence and nothing else.
BEN KISSEL
The mind of a politician has never changed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
BEN KISSEL
It is just that doublespeak is so fucking infuriating. And dare I say it makes him a witch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Literally since the invention of government.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
To be totally fair though, Increase did try in other ways to tamp down the hysteria. He went to Salem jail and talked with some of the accused who were still alive and they Not only retracted their confessions but also retracted their allegations against other alleged witches.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you can kill this group now.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool, they all just retracted, you can go and wipe those guys out too, that'd be great.
BEN KISSEL
That's all you gotta do, I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
Increase also wrote that while he did believe that there were dangerous witches that needed to be in his words "exterminated", it would be better that 10 suspected witches should escape rather than one innocent person be condemned. But like the accusations against Increase's wife, the thing that truly started winding down the Salem Witch Trials was when cries of witch began reaching people of actual power outside of the backwaters of New England.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Once it got out of shithead town and it started going into big shithead town.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
One girl from Andover accused a quote "worthy gentleman of Boston" of being a witch. But instead of weakly protesting, this worthy gentleman obtained a writ to arrest the accuser for defamation, then sent some goons to deliver the message.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That does help the message get delivered.
BEN KISSEL
Very Frank Sinatra of him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very.
MARCUS PARKS
Predictably the afflictions of that afflicted cleared up toute suite. In addition, other people were starting to realize that those imprisoned in Boston jail might not last the winter, especially considering how two people had already died of jail fever even when it was warm. And so after much public pressure, Governor Phips finally acknowledged the witch trials to his superiors in England while also saying don't worry, I'm putting a stop to everything except under circumstances.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just understand that. Listen, okay I know it was icky for me too and we're all kind of upset about what happened, how this all went down.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're all kind of upset about it.
BEN KISSEL
It is upsetting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But honestly like already done. So don't worry about it, I've already been handling so I didn't want to make you get all concerned about it because I was already handling it.
BEN KISSEL
It sounds like you're horrified.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Is everything falling apart?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
BEN KISSEL
Is everything okay?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
See Phips was able to pass the buck on the witch trials because he said he had missed most of it trying to win a frontier war in Maine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How could I even know? How could I even know what was happening?
BEN KISSEL
And these fucking molasses trees out there in Maine, you have any idea how difficult-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The resistance they're putting up?
BEN KISSEL
They're sticky! I lost 14 men.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then there's all these people living behind them.
BEN KISSEL
That's crazy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it was like ew, how did you get here?
MARCUS PARKS
And when he returned he said from these frontier wars, the people he'd left in charge had gone just the tiniest bit bananas, which was partly his fault but not really.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's more just like my main problem was that I couldn't foretell the flaws of other people.
BEN KISSEL
Oh that's your issue?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's my main thing is that I couldn't see-
BEN KISSEL
Do you also care too much?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I work so hard.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Again knowingly though, Phips made his big push to end the witch trials just after an afflicted girl accused his wife of witchcraft.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, meaning he was fairly content to let the whole affair play itself out until it affected him personally.
BEN KISSEL
God, you can just see fucking every time Mrs. Phips walks down the streets everyone's just like ugh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Actually it kind of makes me think that she must have been super hot or something because a lot of the times you're just constantly deflecting witchcraft or you're amazing. It's one or the other. It's either you're not wearing a bra-
MARCUS PARKS
You might be Dorcas Hoar.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who actually was the only witch in this whole thing.
BEN KISSEL
I like her.
MARCUS PARKS
But even though the witch trials were for all intents and purposes over, there was still one more death to go and a few more trials. On December 10th, confessed elderly witch Ann Foster died in jail but her body was not released to her family until they paid the £6 owed for fees incurred during her imprisonment.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You got slop, you got hay.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right? We brought in all the crows to scream at them so they couldn't sleep.
BEN KISSEL
What about all the tax dollars that we're paying for it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, no, no. That's paying for our hats.
BEN KISSEL
No. For your fucking hats?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Also we're fighting trees in Maine.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
Now in order to just sort of forget that this whole thing ever happened as fast as humanly possible, Governor Phips ended the Court of Oyer and Terminer and banned any further publication on the subject of witchcraft in New England unless he approved it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He just thought hey, all right, we'll just shut up about this. That's what we're gonna do.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And he put a three year ban saying no one can even mention that this happened.
BEN KISSEL
Boom.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it certainly is not super interesting and it's certainly not one of the most compelling stories about a microcosm of government and religion and all that kind of shit.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you'd be surprised how many people wanted to talk about it.
BEN KISSEL
Totally forgotten about though, huh?
MARCUS PARKS
No. The people of rural Massachusetts, they were in a way sobering up from almost a year of extreme witchcraft hysteria. But instead of blaming themselves, they were on the verge of blaming the government for not stopping them from acting like savage morons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wasn't this kind of on you to make us not crazy anymore?
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There is the truth because we talked about in the last episode, the judges as they were coming upon the quote unquote "liberal view" that they were trying to espouse was there was a barrier of entry for evidence and accusations and all this kind of shit that was supposed to keep all of this wildfire hangings, it was supposed to happen.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were supposed to stop it. The judges were supposed to be there to make a sense of normalcy. But then it's like what happens when mommy and daddy go insane?
BEN KISSEL
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
And so to squelch any sort of opposition that might bring down the fledgling colonial government, Phips engaged in what author Emerson Baker calls the first large scale government cover up in American history.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good work! (applauding)
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
First one on American soil.
BEN KISSEL
I'm going to tell him this, it didn't work.
MARCUS PARKS
Nope. You see as it is with most cover ups, this only angered people more because damn near everybody knew someone who had been touched in one way or another by the proceedings. And books criticizing the trials had already been published by the time this gag order went into effect. Among the most notable was 'A brief and true narrative of witchcraft at Salem Village' by Reverend Deodat Lawson. His book held particular weight because it was alleged multiple times during the trials that Reverend George Burroughs had murdered Reverend Lawson's family using witchcraft and Deodat had published a full book saying that's a bunch of bullshit, my wife and child died because life sucked and everything was hard.
BEN KISSEL
I killed my family.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I killed my family!
BEN KISSEL
If I don't get fucking credit for killing my family, I'm gonna be pretty upset.
MARCUS PARKS
About the only person in Massachusetts who didn't or couldn't read the room was Cotton Mather. But Cotton had fucked himself because he'd already explicitly supported the proceedings by attending an execution in person.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No one asked him to be there.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No one asked you to come, no one asked you to be to insert yourself into this whole fucking story. So I'm glad you also got covered in shit.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. See Massachusetts was now doing worse than ever and a public acknowledgement that the government had wrongly executed 19 people, pressed to death another, and imprisoned well over 100 more, it could have brought the whole fucking system down. And so Cotton Mather fell on his sword and publicly defended the trials in a highly selective book called 'The Wonders of the Invisible World'.
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, 'The Wonders of the Invisible World'. It minimized the use of spectral evidence in the trials and didn't mention any of the public support which some of the executed received at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he tried to retcon the whole thing.
BEN KISSEL
Right, right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And say like well spectral evidence was only used. And he cherry picked five cases.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was like no actually there was evidence here and blah blah blah. He was all full of shit because he'd already ruined himself.
BEN KISSEL
Right, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
And while his sacrifice might have saved the colony in a governmental sense, his obvious dishonesty destroyed faith in puritanism because Mather was a puritan leader, sort of like how failures in evangelistic and Catholic leadership had been eroding membership in those religions here in the western world for decades. As far as the rest of the accused or confessed witched still in prison went, 50 were rotting away by the time the Court of Oyer and Terminer ended. Most of the cases were thrown out for ignoramus or lack of evidence but 21 were still tried. And out of those 21, three resulted in guilty verdicts. Now while the Court of Oyer and Terminer was done, Chief Justice Stoughton, arguably the driving force behind all this mass death, he was still in charge and he signed a warrant for the execution of the last three witches and all of those who confessed during the trial.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he wasn't done.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wanted wanted them all dead. He literally wanted another 25 people hanged.
BEN KISSEL
He was a true believer I guess or refused to acknowledge that he was wrong.
MARCUS PARKS
It was maybe a little bit of both.
BEN KISSEL
He's a real Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From what I read of him, honestly I don't think he was a true believer. I think that he felt that it was politically convenient and he had already gone this far.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He had already killed 20 people. And at this point he's like well if I now say that I'm not going to execute all of the rest of them-
BEN KISSEL
It's almost rude to the 20 of them that are dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's rude.
BEN KISSEL
We want to respect the 20 that I already killed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
We're gonna need to kill 21 more.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
But in a last minute decision Governor Phips, eager to just get all this bullshit over and done with, he reprieved the eight that Chief Justice Stoughton was trying to murder and had them all released without telling Stoughton.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Run! Run witch!
BEN KISSEL
Okay. And then she flies away on a broomstick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(cackling)
BEN KISSEL
Oh goddamnit, we let her get away!
MARCUS PARKS
And so when Stoughton learned of the stays of execution upon the next court session, he walked out of the court in a huff like it was the last scene of an 80s teen comedy where the cool kids save the summer camp from the stuffy curmudgeon all at the last second.
BEN KISSEL
(grumbling)
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I have to agree, that damn talent show was entertaining.
BEN KISSEL
(grumbling)
MARCUS PARKS
After that, every remaining accused which was acquitted but were freed from jail only after they paid their prison fees.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
One last little make sure the government, always make sure. One last little bill.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that nice?
MARCUS PARKS
Elizabeth Proctor, wife of executed witch John Proctor, she returned to her farm with her newborn baby to find that authorities had stolen everything.
BEN KISSEL
Oh great.
MARCUS PARKS
Similarly Dorcas Hoar also returned home to an empty lot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then she did the thing, she crossed her arms, blinked and twitched her nose and all her shit just showed back up.
BEN KISSEL
Bewitched.
MARCUS PARKS
But perhaps the saddest postscript is that of Tituba, the woman who was forced to kick off the whole affair by the one who enslaved her, the Reverend Samuel Parris. See even though she'd been the first accused in January of 1692, she wasn't tried until May of 1693, having spent a year and a half behind bars. Her confession was rejected because it was all based on spectral evidence but she like everyone else had her jail fees. Reverend Parris legally still owned her but he refused to pay and instead sold her to someone else to cover the £7 she owed. Tituba then disappeared from the historical record completely. But as far as what happened to everyone else, Governor Phips ended his governorship in 1694. But incredibly, he was replaced by Chief Justice William Stoughton who ruled until 1701.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's almost like they gave him that to be like you know what? In the end, thanks for killing a bunch of people and then leaving the state.
BEN KISSEL
You did what it takes to be a great governor.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You really did, you fucking really made it so our tax dollars were spent well on those ropes.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
After Stoughton though came Joseph Dudley. And with Joe Dudley the Puritans were no longer in charge.
BEN KISSEL
I mean Dudley is a cool guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Joe Dudley is a pretty cool guy.
BEN KISSEL
Dudley, Dudley, baby. It's Dudley.
MARCUS PARKS
Massachusetts then became a full royal colony and remained so until 1776 motherfucker!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah!
BEN KISSEL
1776! Fuck taxes!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's happened again. It's all over again.
BEN KISSEL
1776. We're gonna rise again, 1776.
MARCUS PARKS
Now perhaps not surprisingly, the reverend Samuel Parris did not win any popularity contest for basically setting the whole of Massachusetts on fire for an entire year.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What did I do?
BEN KISSEL
I mean you just ruined everything for everybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, you did it. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What if I rapped the lord's prayer?
BEN KISSEL
I love white rap.
MARCUS PARKS
Well furthermore all the petty grievances that Samuel Parris had with Salem over pay and firewood, the shit that arguably started all of this, still hadn't been settled.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
And it would continue for years after the trials. In other words, Parris played his best hand, got 23 people killed, and lost.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He also didn't get his fucking firewood like a bitch.
MARCUS PARKS
He played his best hand. He didn't get anything.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He got nothing.
BEN KISSEL
I got to kill 23 people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean that's pretty sweet, isn't it?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. How many people have you fucking killed? Not 23, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Now he did apologize for his part in the trials and he apologized acceptance of spectral evidence.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey! It's like it didn't happen.
BEN KISSEL
It did happen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He apologized.
BEN KISSEL
It really did happen though.
MARCUS PARKS
It was like two years later, he was giving a sermon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He only kind of half apologized too, he didn't really give it all the way.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. It was very much a sorry if-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sorry that happened for you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, sorry if me getting all these witches killed, I'm sorry if that offended you. I'm sorry.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm sorry if you felt like that about yourself.
BEN KISSEL
That was kinda mean that you did that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah well I'm sorry for it so get over it.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. This however was not enough for his enemies in Salem. He spent six fucking years arguing and fighting and then finally stepped down as minister after his contract ended.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Six years.
MARCUS PARKS
The people of Salem did not get rid of him. And then he stayed in Salem so he could sue for back pay.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, what a fucking jackass.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. This is the city on a hill, man. It's the puritan ideal. Just be a fucking asshole in the woods.
BEN KISSEL
What if I sue you?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I need five cords. Cords please!
MARCUS PARKS
Finally they just gave him £79 just to fucking go away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get the fuck out of here.
MARCUS PARKS
Get outta here.
BEN KISSEL
Get out of here.
MARCUS PARKS
Parris then spent the next 23 years moving from town to town arguing about pay in every location. He switched from minister to schoolteacher to shopkeeper to farmer. And finally Parris died in 1720 at the age of 66 as an absolute fucking failure in everything he ever tried to be.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How dare you, Marcus. He inspired four episodes of our show.
BEN KISSEL
That is very true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a big deal. And I feel like that's equal to everything that went on.
BEN KISSEL
23 deaths.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
BEN KISSEL
23. That's something. That's nothing to shake a stick at.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can shake a stick at a bunch of corpses. It doesn't do anything.
MARCUS PARKS
Interestingly though, it only took the people of Massachusetts five years to realize how badly they'd fucked up, usually it's a couple hundred. In 1697 they observed a fast to acknowledge their wrongs and 12 jurors from the witch trials signed an apology asking a pardon from god himself.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, hear me out. We're not going to eat bread today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is what they did. Okay.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay, listen. Hey.
BEN KISSEL
You're gonna be kind of hungry or 12 hours?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can I just do it for 8?
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay, cool. Cool.
BEN KISSEL
Because it doesn't fucking bring anybody back.
MARCUS PARKS
Nine years after the fast, Ann Putnam Jr, the most vociferous of the accusers, she went before her congregation to read a statement of contrition.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I said I'm sorry.
MARCUS PARKS
Now she still blamed the devil for deceiving her.
BEN KISSEL
Good.
MARCUS PARKS
But she did say that for her part in the trials she desired to lie in the dust and earnestly beg forgiveness from those that she caused sorrow and offense.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm sorry for everything.
BEN KISSEL
And I'd also like to point out that I have not eaten chili in the past 9 years out of respect for the corpses. I've avoided most of the beans that I like.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And there's many beans that I wish I could eat.
BEN KISSEL
I love beans. Anyways so I've done that. Yeah. I'm almost the victim, aren't I?
MARCUS PARKS
That's gotta be hard to do in Massachusetts in 1692.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A lot of beans.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a bean-based diet.
BEN KISSEL
It's a tooty people.
MARCUS PARKS
Now some believe that this apology by Ann Putnam Jr was an admission that she was knowingly lying the whole time. Personally though I think Ann Putnam Jr started as a case of true conversion disorder but she eventually got caught up in the scene with all the cool older kids and she kept upping the ante until someone simply told her to stop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's just very difficult to pull yourself all the way back. Think about all of the families that have lost people to fucking QAnon. I really do mean it. And once you have sunk so much of yourself and your time and your energy into believing something that is absolutely total horseshit that also leads to societal chaos and actual death, it is very, very difficult to then come and be like, 'Sorry!' This is the closest that you get, you go the devil is still real. You have to package it in all of these things.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But hey, let bygones be bygones.
BEN KISSEL
Denver airport, what's going on at the Denver airport?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no. Honestly a lot of delays.
BEN KISSEL
I know that.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Ann Putnam Jr, remember she was only 12 when all this shit happened.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. She was traumatized and she had to deal with a lot of shit in a way. I agree with you, she was having a trauma response at the time and then it just got pulled into the lore.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the older girls, that was a big part of it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah this was like 12 going on 40 at that point though, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What?
BEN KISSEL
Back in the day 12 years old wasn't 12 years old, it wasn't like it is now. They didn't have My Little Pony, she was an adult.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well they had ponies but they had actual ponies.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But her brain still formed at the same rate as humans today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And she's still under the sway of older girls that she wants to impress. Humans no matter what time period always have a need for societal acceptance and I think she very much fell into that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. And at the time being a witch was super fetch.
MARCUS PARKS
Fetch.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah not me, I'm a lone wolf. Me and my 12 biker buddies are lone wolves. We don't hang out with anybody but ourselves and couple of other people. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me and my 20 friends and their girlfriends, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'm a lone wolf, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well even though the people of Massachusetts apologized in 1697, it took until October of 2001 for the government to officially declare that the 19 people executed were innocent.
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
Which I suppose was done to make people feel good about something after 9/11.
BEN KISSEL
9/11 had to happen for us to admit that? Oh my god, okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But in a moment of insane synchronicity which makes me very nervous about doing the fucking Manhattan Project in the future, the last person to finally be declared not a witch was Elizabeth Johnson Sr whose name was cleared the day before we released our first episode of this series.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just got pardoned.
BEN KISSEL
Not a witch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not a witch. Officially.
MARCUS PARKS
But when we're talking the long term consequences of the Salem Witch Trials, it didn't just come down to the fact that they effectively killed puritanism as a religion, although that was quite consequential.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Apart from that, Salem required the Christian leaders of the new world to heavily examine how they talked about Satan to their congregations.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is one of the very few, we saw it after the Black Death too, but it's one of the very few moments in history where you see a moment of people understanding that we need to change, something has to change.
BEN KISSEL
Well they're going to call him the much cuter Beelzebub.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we have to modernize, we have to move forward.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a moment of historical post nut clarity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
See they realized that if you spent all your time telling people that an all knowing, all powerful evil force was roaming the earth with the purposes of committing evil for evil's sake and destroying their way of life, if you kept saying that ship all the time, people are eventually going to want to do something about it. And as they blatantly saw on display in Salem, this sort of rhetoric not only causes intractable community divisions but also inevitably leads to violence and death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because you're fighting a war.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're literally fighting a war against the devil. So people are going to die in that war because you're fighting against a concept that doesn't exist.
BEN KISSEL
I like pornography with storylines so my post nut clarity is usually like this episode of Seinfeld wasn't really that good. Because I jerk off to Seinfeld.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's been saving that.
BEN KISSEL
Cause I jerk off to Seinfeld.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually the Seinfeld porno parody was pretty good.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do like it too.
BEN KISSEL
Oh is that right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like that one.
MARCUS PARKS
It was pretty good. It was pretty good. Yeah, Sasha Grey is in the scene with-
BEN KISSEL
It's all old men.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no. Elaine dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah dude.
BEN KISSEL
No I know. But it's mostly men.
MARCUS PARKS
No but the whole plot, but those men have sex with women that show up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
With other women.
MARCUS PARKS
Because remember they're always dating, they're always dating. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they're always dating. George fucked a lot.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
He killed his fucking fiance.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was her fault.
BEN KISSEL
No it wasn't, it was his fault. He got her the poisoned envelopes.
MARCUS PARKS
The funny thing about the porno parody is that the actor who plays George, they got an actual George-like man to play him and they never let him have sex.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he doesn't fuck for the whole thing. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah the whole thing is that the plot, very quickly, right here at the end of the fucking series, the plot is that Elaine goes to the porno nazi instead of the soup nazi, she finds the best porno shop in all of existence and that's the plot.
BEN KISSEL
It seems like that shows about something. Isn't that interesting? All right, there you go.
MARCUS PARKS
And so ministers in the late 17th century stopped talking about Satan so much because they recognized that going to negative turns any belief system into a death cult. It then eats itself from the inside out while also taking a lot of innocent people with them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A really interesting passage in 'Europe's Inner Demons' kind of talked about how what this did was it kind of put witches and all that kind of shit on the back burner for about 100 years up until the early 1800s when that fervor... During the 1700s it was basically considered the idea that there was a gigantic cabal of devil worshiping witches, that was so debunked that no one even really talked about it anymore.
BEN KISSEL
That's goofball stuff.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's dumb stuff.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then it wasn't until the 1800s when a bunch of literal comedians and tricksters made up this bunch of fake evidence about witch trials that didn't happen and it brought the whole thing back up again, which is where we're at again, 200 years later.
BEN KISSEL
Great. Fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
Well ministers therefore sent the devil back to hell as an entity that waited for sinners to arrive instead of tempting them here on earth. With the devil's tempter gone, Christians then took more personal responsibility for their sins and Satan largely disappeared as an earthly force in America until the Great Awakening 30 years later.
BEN KISSEL
So Satan just basically had it easier. Just go chill out. Relax.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he got to work from home.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So while it does seem like our current divisions in America will never fucking end, have faith that we're currently in the middle of just another satanic cycle. And if history does indeed rhyme, we may yet have a few decades of peace to look forward to here in the near future.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Now that is an actual positive ramification.
BEN KISSEL
Was it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know if it's gonna happen.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe, I hope what he's saying happens.
MARCUS PARKS
I hope so too.
BEN KISSEL
History also rhymes but then I don't know. What rhymes with nuclear bomb?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We've dealt with this since 1945.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah it is hopeful that the bomb doesn't go off anywhere. But if the Salem Witch Trials as it has happened dozens of times throughout history, if it's any indication, Satan always gets really big and then gets deflated. A lot of people usually have to die in the process.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Great.
BEN KISSEL
Awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
A very large portion of the population, an outsized portion of the population usually has to die first.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic.
MARCUS PARKS
A lot of people's lives need to get ruined and all that.
BEN KISSEL
Sure! Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
But then eventually everyone goes uh oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yikes!
BEN KISSEL
Did I do that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Did I just come back from a diner with an egg on my face?
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. No, it's just all the same.
BEN KISSEL
All right, Salem Witch Trials everybody, there it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
You mentioned eggs by the way, I watched Triple G, Guy's Grocery Games.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He doesn't like eggs.
BEN KISSEL
And I'll tell you one thing, speaking of tricksters, his son tricked Guy. Guy thought it was gonna be bacon challenge, it was an eggstravaganza challenge and Guy doesn't like eggs. So there you go.
MARCUS PARKS
That's just cruel. That's just a boy pranking his father.
BEN KISSEL
It was pretty cruel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's really sad.
BEN KISSEL
Again a lot of people have to die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just glad it's one last thing we can learn. We've made it through a month of witches and our fucking 500 episodes celebration is now over.
MARCUS PARKS
That's right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Next episodes we're very excited. When we come back from our little break obviously there'll be some episodes, don't worry, you'll be entertained. But I'm very excited for this fall and what we have ahead of us.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We got some good old fashioned weirdo topics, we've got blood. I'm very excited for some some weirdo shit.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. The next episode is going to be all about Virginia Slims, you're gonna love it. It's a more feminine cigarette.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually like them, you gotta suck hard to get that smoke.
BEN KISSEL
I know you do. All right everyone, well thank you so much for listening. We hope you're doing well out there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was awesome to see you in Vegas.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Check out Last Comic Book on the Left issue deux.
BEN KISSEL
Deux.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
On Z2comics.com. Get that pre order, it's fucking sweet.
BEN KISSEL
It's sweet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Drink some of that fucking coffee.
BEN KISSEL
It's sweet. Spring Heel'd Jack.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly I was fuelled with it, man.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah I know. You've had an interesting tummy week.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
All right everyone well thank you so much for listening. Hail yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan!
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein.
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations everybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, you wanna be the queen of hell?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fucking make sure everybody knows this week.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. Also bring back the name Dorcas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. I'd like to see some Dorcas' out there.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I'd like to see more people out there calling themselves rampant hags.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man. Be one this week.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.