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The Puritans were simple people and believed that by living a simple life you would be closer to God, but the also believed that you were either damned or saved before you were even born. They believed that the Devil was a driving force for all evil and that when witches started to appear it was the Devil's influence. The girls who were involved in the witch trials continued to fan the hysteria and caused the death of nineteen people. The trials started by a couple factors: the foreign influence of Tituba, teenage boredom, and the observance of strange symptoms. I personally believe that the Puritans were paranoid due to their dangerous environment and circumstances, leading to a horrendous series of accusations and deaths.