Glenn Beck

It's a frigid, bleak January day, 1692.

Slate sky, sharp wind rattling the bare trees in the sleepy Puritan town of Salem Village, Massachusetts.

Two girls, nine-year-old Betty Parris and her 11-year-old cousin, Abigail Williams, huddled together in the dim glow of a candle.

They're just playing a game, something silly but secret.

a fortune-telling game involving an egg dropped in a glass of water.

You're supposed to watch the way the ghostly shapes form, how the egg white curls in the glass, and catch a glimpse of your future.

Maybe great riches, maybe adventure, maybe a tall, handsome husband.

It's a boredom-busting activity that would certainly be forbidden by Betty's father, the Reverend Samuel Parris.

If he knew that they were doing it, that is.

But when Betty and Abigail peer into their glass, they don't see husbands or homes or happy futures.

They see a coffin.

Then something goes wrong.

Horribly, horribly wrong.

The girls begin barking like dogs.

They shriek without warning, speaking strange, unintelligible words.

They clutch their heads in agony, convulsing, writhing on the floor, and curl themselves under the furniture as though trying to escape invisible claws.

The town doctor, William Griggs, is quickly summoned.

He examines them, his face growing more and more pale.

He can't detect the obvious physical cause, and so he provides the only diagnosis a Puritan village would accept in New England in the late 1600s.

The girls have been bewitched.