Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism

Part 1

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WITCHCRAFT OF NEW ENGLAND EXPLAINED BY MODERN SPIRITUALISM.

BY ALLEN PUTNAM, ESQ.,

AUTHOR OF "BIBLE MARVEL WORKERS," "NATTY, A SPIRIT," "MESMERISM, SPIRITUALISM, WITCHCRAFT, AND MIRACLE," "AGASSIZ AND SPIRITUALISM," ETC.

SECOND EDITION.

BOSTON: COLBY AND RICH, PUBLISHERS, 9 MONTGOMERY PLACE. 1881.

COPYRIGHT, 1880, BY ALLEN PUTNAM, ESQ.

Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, No. 4 Pearl Street.

CONTENTS.

Preface, page 9.--References, 14.--Explanatory Note--Definitions, 15.

MATHER AND CALEF, 25.--Account of Margaret Rule, 26.--Definitions of Witchcraft, 29.--Commission of the Devil, 30.--Margaret assaulted by Specters, 31.--Offered a Book, and pinched, 33.--Fasted, and perceived a Man liable to drown, 34.--Lifted, and saw a White Spirit, 35.--Rubbed by Mather, 37.--Visited by Spies, 39.--Prayed with, and Brimstone was smelt, 40.--Fowler charges Delirium Tremens, 41.--Affidavit of Avis, 44.--Calef baffled, 46.--Levitation of R. H. Squires, 46.

COTTON MATHER, 52.--Haven's Account of Mercy Short, 71.

ROBERT CALEF, 73.

THOMAS HUTCHINSON, 76.

C. W. UPHAM, 80.

MARGARET JONES, 85.--Winthrop's Account of her, 87.--Hutchinson's and Upham's, 88.--Our own, 89.--J. W. Crosby's Experience, 94.--Spirit of Prophecy, 99.--Spirit Child, 100.--Materialization, 102.--Newburyport Spirit Boy, 103.--Why Margaret was executed, 109.--Erroneous faith, 114.--Margaret's Case isolated, 119.--Epitaph, 121.

ANN HIBBINS, 122.--Beach's Letter, 123.--Hutchinson's Account of Ann, 124.--Upham's, 126.--Her Will, 128.--Her Wit, 131.--Densmore's Inner Hearing, 135.--Guessing, 138.--Her Social Position, 140.--Slandered, 130, 142.--Her Intuitive Powers, 143.--Her Illumination, 146.

ANN COLE, 147.--Hutchinson's Account, 147.--Whiting's, 148.--The Greensmiths, 153.--Representative Experiences, 154.

ELIZABETH KNAP, 157.--How affected, 158.--Long accustomed to see Spirits, 160.--Accused Mr. Willard, 162.--A Case of Spiritualism.

MORSE FAMILY, 167.--Physical Manifestations, 168.--The Sailor Boy, 169.--Caleb Powell, 170.--Hazzard's Account of Read, 172.--Mather's Account of John Stiles, 175.--Mrs. Morse accused, 178.--Hale's Report, 182.--Morse's Testimony, 184.--2d do., 187.--His Character, 190.--Faults of Historians, 193.--Marvels in Essex County, 197.--Eliakim Phelps, 198.

GOODWIN FAMILY, 199.--Hutchinson's Account, 201.--Character of the Children, 207.--Wild Irish Woman, 210.--Philip Smith's Case, 211.--Upham's Account, 213.--Spirit Loss of Earth Language, 216.--Mather flattered, 217.--The Girl's Weight triplicated, 219.--Mather's Person shielded, 221.--Upham's Conclusion incredible, 223.--Hutchinson nonplused, 224.--Justice to the Devil, 227. Summary, 229.

SALEM WITCHCRAFT, 231.--Occurred at Danvers, 231.--Circle of Girls, 233.--Their Lack of Education, 235.--Obstacles to their Meeting, 236.--Mediumistic Capabilities, 239.--Parsonage Kitchen, 240.--Fits stopped by Whipping, 242.--Upham's Lack of Knowledge, 243.--Hare's Demonstration, 245.--Upham's Lament and Warnings, 246.--Nothing Supernatural, 249.--Varley's Position, 252.--The Afflicted knew their Afflicters, 254.--Names of the Afflicted, 257.--Mr. Parris's Account of Witchcraft Advent, 259.--What occurred, 260.--Lawson's Account, 261.--The Bewitching Cake, 262.--John Indian and Tituba, 263.--Tituba Participator and Witness, 267.

TITUBA, 271.--Examination of her, 271-297.--Summary of her Statements, 298.--Discrepancies between Cheever and Corwin, 301.--Dates fixed by Corwin, 303.--Tituba's Authority as Expounder, 308.--Calef's Notice of her, 309.--Her Confession, 312.--Her Unhappy Fate, 313.

SARAH GOOD, 313.--Why visible apparitionally, 314.--Her Examination, 315.--Mesmeric Force, 318.--Persons absent in Form afflict, 320.--Only Clairvoyance sees Spirits, 323.--Its Fitfulness, 324.--A Witch because not bewitchable, 325.--Her Invisibility, 325.--H. B. Storer's Account of Mrs. Compton, 326.--Ann Putnam's Deposition, 331.--S. Good's Prophetic Glimpse, 335.

DORCAS GOOD, 335.--Bites with Spirit Teeth, 336.--State of Opinion admitting her Arrest, 338.--Upham's Presentation of Public Excitement, 339.--Lovely Witches now, 342.

SARAH OSBURN, 342.--Was seen spectrally, 343.--Heard a Voice, 345.

MARTHA COREY, 347.--Her Character.--Visited by Putnam and Cheever, 348.--Foresensed their Visit, 348.--Laughed when on Trial, 352.--Calef and Upham's Account of her, 353.--Her Prayer, 354.

GILES COREY, 354.--Refused to plead, 355.--Was pressed to Death, 356.--His Heroism, 357.

Part 2

REBECCA NURSE, 358.--Was seen as an Apparition, 358.--Her Mother a Witch, 360.--Had Fits, 361.--Confusion at her Trial, 362.--The Power of Will, 363.--Elizabeth Parris, 364.--Agassiz, 365.--Not guilty, and then guilty, 367.

MARY EASTY, 367.--Her Examination, 368.--The Character of her Trial, 370.--Her Petition, 371.--Last Hour, 373.

SUSANNA MARTIN, 373.--Her Examination, 374.--The Devil took Samuel's Shape, 374.--R. P.'s Position, 375.--Her Apparition gave Annoyance, 377.

MARTHA CARRIER, 378.--Examination of, 378.--Her Children Witches, how they afflicted, and their Confessions, 381.

GEORGE BURROUGHS, 390.--Indictment of, 391.--Opinions concerning him, 392.--Apparitions of his Wives, 394.--His Liftings, 399.--The Devil an Indian, 402.--Thought-reading, 405.--His Susceptibilities and Character, 406.

SUMMARY, 408.--Number executed, 412.--Spirits proved to have been Enactors of Witchcraft, 414.

THE CONFESSORS, 415.

THE ACCUSING GIRLS, 420.--Ann Putnam's Confession, 420.

THE PROSECUTORS, 425.

WITCHCRAFT'S AUTHOR, 428.

THE MOTIVE, 432.

LOCAL AND PERSONAL, 445.

METHODS OF PROVIDENCE, 451.

APPENDIX.

CHRISTENDOM'S WITCHCRAFT DEVIL, 459. LIMITATIONS OF HIS POWERS, 464. COVENANT WITH HIM, 466. HIS DEFENCE, 467. DEMONOLOGY AND NECROMANCY, 468. BIBLICAL WITCH AND WITCHCRAFT, 470. CHRISTENDOM'S WITCH AND WITCHCRAFT, 471. SPIRIT, SOUL, AND MENTAL POWERS, 472. TWO SETS OF MENTAL POWERS--AGASSIZ, 476. MARVEL AND SPIRITUALISM, 478. INDIAN WORSHIP, 480.

PREFACE.

"The nobler tendency of culture--and, above all, of scientific culture--is to honor the dead without groveling before them; to profit by the past without sacrificing it to the present."--EDWARD B. TYLOR, Primitive Culture.

Most history of New England witchcraft written since 1760 has dishonored the dead by lavish imputations of imposture, fraud, malice, credulity, and infatuation; has been sacrificing past acts, motives, and character to skepticism regarding the sagacity and manliness of the fathers, the guilelessness of their daughters, and the truth of ancient records. Transmitted accounts of certain phenomena have been disparaged, seemingly because facts alleged therein baffle solution by to-day's prevalent philosophy, which discards some agents and forces that were active of old. The legitimate tendency of culture has been reversed; what it should have availed itself of and honored, it has busied itself in hiding and traducing.

An exception among writers alluded to is the author of the following extract, who, simply as an historian, and not as an advocate of any particular theory for the solution of witchcraft, seems ready to let its works be ascribed to competent agents.

"So far as a presentation of facts is concerned, no account of the dreadful tragedy has appeared which is more accurate and truthful than Governor Hutchinson's narrative. His theory on the subject--that it was wholly the result of fraud and deception on the part of the afflicted children--will not be generally accepted at the present day, and his reasoning on that point will not be deemed conclusive.... There is a tendency to trace an analogy between the phenomena then exhibited and modern spiritual manifestations."--W. F. POOLE, Geneal. and Antiq. Register, October, 1870.

While composing the following work, its writer was borne onward by the tendency which Poole named. Survey of the field of marvels has been far short of exhaustive--his purpose made no demand for very extended researches. Selected cases, representative of the general manifestations and subject treated of were enough. The aim has been to find in ancient records, and thence adduce, statements and meanings long resting unobserved beneath the gathered dust of more than a hundred years, and therefore practically lost.

The course of search led attention beyond overt acts, to inspection of some natural germs and their legitimately resultant development into creeds, which impelled good men on to the enactment of direful tragedy.

Examination of the basement walls--the foundations--of prevalent popular explanation of ancient wonders, forces conviction that they lack both the breadth and the materials needful to stability. Modern builders of witchcraft history have either failed to find, or have deemed unmanageable by any appliances at their command, and therefore would not attempt to handle, a vast amount of sound historic stones which are accessible and can be used. Lacking them, these moderns have let fancy manufacture for them, and they have builded upon blocks of her fragile stuff which are fast disintegrating under the chemical action of the world's common sense.

We proposed here an incipient step towards refutation of the sufficiency and justness of a main theory, now long prevalent, for explaining satisfactorily very many well-proved marvelous facts. Some such have been presented on the pages of Hutchinson, Upham, and their followers; and yet these have been either not at all, or vaguely or ludicrously, commented upon, or reasoned from. Very many others, and the most important of all as bases and aids to an acceptable and true solution of the whole, are not visible where they ought to have conspicuous position. Presentation and proper use of them might have caused public cognizance to topple over the edifices which it has pleased modern builders to erect.

It is not our purpose to write history, but to give new explanation of old events. The long and widely tolerated theory that New England witchcraft was exclusively but out-workings of mundane fraud, imposture, cunning, trickery, malice, and the like, has never adequately met the reasonable demand of common sense, which always asks that specified agents and forces shall be probably competent to produce all such effects as are distinctly ascribed to them.

Persons who of old were afflicted in manner that was then called bewitchment, and others through or from whom the afflictions were alleged to proceed, are now extensively supposed to have possessed organizations, temperaments, and properties which rendered them exceptionally pliant under subtile forces, either magnetic, mesmeric, or psychological, and who, consequently, at times, could be, and were, made ostensible utterers of knowledge whose marvelousness indicated mysterious source, and ostensible performers of acts deemed more than natural, and which, in fact, were the productions of wills not native in the manifesting forms. The special forces that produced bewitchment and are put in application now, do not become sensibly operative upon any other mortals than peculiar sensitives; and their action upon such is often most easily and effectively manifested through aid obtained from other similar sensitives. Selections of both subjects and instrumentalities were of old, and are now, controlled by general law. Steel needles and iron-filings are not selected by the magnet's free will when it forces them to leap up from their resting-places and cleave to itself. Seeming levitation possesses them, and an invisible force takes them whither gravitation, their usual holder, would not let them go. It is upon steel, not lead--upon iron, not stone--that the magnet can execute its marvelous liftings. Nature's conditions fix selections. The organizations, temperaments, fluids, solids, and all the various properties, are, to some extent, unlike in any two human bodies whatsoever, and the range of the differings and consequent susceptibilities is very wide. A psychological magnet in either the seen or unseen may have power to draw certain human forms to contact with itself, and to use them as its tools, and yet lack force to produce sensible effects upon but few in the mass of living men. Where its action is most efficient, it controls the movements of what it holds in its embrace--takes a human form out from control by the spirit which usually governs it, and through that form manifests its own powers and purposes. Both the reputed bewitched and bewitching may severally have had but little, if any, voluntary part in manifesting the remarkable phenomena that were imputed to them. Where physical organs are used, the public is prone to deem the performances intentional acts by those whose forms are operated, while yet the wills of those whose forms are visibly concerned in marvelous works may have been formerly, as they often now are, little else than unwilling, and in many cases unconscious tools.

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