What if witchcraft really occurred in Salem and nearby towns during the 1600's?

[Chad]

The Salem witch trials has long been the standard for the religious intolerance of Christianity.  Many books have been written on the subject.  The prosecution for witchcraft has been particularly chalked up to Christian intolerance.  However there is still the strange behavior of the people in Salem, especially the little girls who made accusations of witchcraft, to explain.  Some have advanced the theory that ergot (the fungus that grows on rye grain, out of which an ingredient of LSD, lysergic acid, is extracted) is to blame for the strange behavior. 

I read a person's unsubstantiated and unsourced theory that the Puritans were Jew wannabes who practiced the Cabala, based upon an abstract from a historical research institute that found evidence of Cabala nearby Salem.  I did my own research to find the abstract. 

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/25615394?uid=3739512&uid=2460338175&uid=2460337855&uid=2134&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=83&uid=63&uid=3739256&sid=21103555876097

Even those who are Jew-wise, therefore, are casting doubt upon the integrity of the colonists who came here on the Mayflower, whose compact, or social contract, influenced the form of government this nation would later develop.   

The book Jewish Revolutionary Spirit contained a lot of interesting information I did not know about Mannessa Ben Israel.  But if I remember correctly, he proposed that it was Indians living in Europe---not the actual White Europeans themselves---that were allegedly descended from the 10 lost tribes of Israel.  That is different from British Israelism, which has been an evolving denomination.  One part of British Israelism is thoroughly Judaized, as the author of JRS shows, and is evidenced today.  However, one cannot say that Christian Identity---which is extremely anti-Jewish---is Judaized, simply because they share one common religious belief with the infected British Israel movement.  All Christian denominations share common beliefs.  That aside, the religion of the Puritans itself is not ipso facto evidence that the Puritans were Cabalists.  Yet evidence of witchcraft nevertheless really does exist.  Who practiced it?

Who has ever given these colonists the benefit of the doubt? 

Salem became a ship building town.  And as it happens, the Jews were heavily invested in ships for trade and mercantilism.  While these colonists were doing their thing, Jews from Spain and Portugal were looking for new places to live, many of whom were well versed in being crypto Jews.  Was there a Jewish or crypto Jewish presence in the area at that time?  If so, it would explain the existence of symbols of the Cabala painted on a rock on or near the property of a man executed for witchcraft.

[passnthru2]

what if it did.. Paganism is a begin nature based belief, has nothing to do with Satan.  what happened in Salem was a combination of hysteria and land grabbing.  turn in your neighbor and get their land, enslave their wife an children.. typical right wing corruption looting the poor for profit.