A long history of research on the witchcraft hysteria in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692 contends that a group of Puritan ministers, including Salem Village’s Samuel Parris, developed and used the witchcraft hysteria in order to boost religiosity and church attendance in an effort to augment corporate and personal wealth. In carrying out this effort, these ministers pitted churched colonists against unchurched colonists, resulting in the wrongful convictions of 20 American colonials. This study argues that it might have ended without the executions of the colonists, and perhaps in even greater corporate wealth for the Puritan church, had Puritanism been receptive to the potential market-pull innovation represented by exorcism. Scrutiny of this proposition through the lens of rational choice theory suggests, however, that exorcism was inferior to executions as a technology choice for the congregant-maximizing Puritan ministers in Salem Village in 1692.

在1692年对马萨诸塞州海湾殖民地的巫术歇斯底里进行的长期研究表明，包括萨利姆村的塞缪尔·帕里斯（Samuel Parris）在内的一群清教徒部长开发并使用了巫术歇斯底里，以提高宗教信仰和参加教堂的人数，以扩大公司和宗教活动。个人财富。在进行这项工作时，这些部长使教会殖民者与未受殖民统治的殖民者相互对立，导致20名美国殖民者被定罪。这项研究认为，它可能没有殖民者的执行结束，也许在更大的企业财富的清教教堂里，就一直清教容易接受的潜力以驱魔为代表的市场拉动式创新。然而，从理性选择理论的角度对这一命题进行仔细的研究表明，在1692年，萨勒姆村的最大化清教徒的清教徒大臣们，驱魔不如处决，这是一种技术选择。