Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism Part 20

"How did you afflict folks? _A._ I pinched them. She said she went to those whom she afflicted--_went_, not in body, but in her spirit. She would not own that she had ever been at the witch-meeting at the Village."

The _confessions_ (?) are beautiful and precious; they are robed in all the appropriate naivete of any school-girl's _confession_ that herself was a--_pupil_. Not a tinge of shame, sorrow, or humiliation is visible anywhere about them. Not a sign appears, that, in little Sarah's comprehension, there was anything more censurable, as in fact there was not, in her being a witch, than there is in the child of to-day being a Sunday school scholar. Disclosure of common occurrences at her home, which inborn faculties there as naturally brought into view, as other faculties there and elsewhere cause the limbs of childhood to expand and its intellect to unfold, const.i.tuted her confession of the witchcraft that pertained to her mother and herself.

The common mind, if not cautioned, will almost perforce attach meanings to the testimonies of Martha Carrier's children which never belonged to them.

The detailings of facts and experiences not rare in that mediumistic family, were no confession of anything like what the public in any age has been accustomed to designate by the term witchcraft. In biblical times the occurrences might have been called prophecies--true or false--and to-day they would be regarded as spirit manifestations, or near kindred to such.

The little girl's _confessions_ are _precious_ as well as beautiful; they are instructive comments upon the creed held by the adults of her day; they give some support to the position that compact with some spirit was an element in preparation for working marvels. Her mother baptized her, and made her virtually sign a book, and then claimed her own child as hers "for ever and ever, Amen." The little child herself seems to have regarded this ratification of her mother's spirit claims upon her spirit as having made herself a witch; but such a witch as she was not ashamed to be, and saw no harm in being. Indeed, how can any other than perverted vision see harm in the girl's filial compact? Her clairvoyant and other mediumistic faculties had become so unfolded when she was about six years old, that she and her mother, as freed spirits, could, in conscious companions.h.i.+p, roam in spirit realms; and she, no doubt, felt that forces emanating from the mother aided in her unfoldment, and continued to have much sway over her in her mental journeyings and operations. She might with much propriety say that her mother made her a witch. And her case shows that the process for producing a witch might be much simpler and much less horrifying than the public in her day had any conception of. Indeed, witchification was then, and now is, a growth or unfoldment from G.o.d's plantings much more than a manufacture by the devil's or any mother's hands. She saw no devil, no black man--but only her own mother was concerned in making her a witch; and the mother probably made her a witch by processes as natural and legitimate as those by which she had previously made her a child.

The girl's power for afflicting was mental; her journeyings and pinchings were mental; and yet, no doubt, her grip was as sensibly felt by the nerves of those whom she pinched as would have been firm graspings of their flesh by her fingers of bones and muscles. It is the spirit only which feels hurts of the body, and a pinched spirit imprints the hurt on the flesh it is animating. This little girl's statements confirm t.i.tuba's, and give credibility to the many declarations of the accusing girls that they were pinched, bitten, and tortured by persons whose outer forms were remote from them at the time. We live amid mysteries which one by one are getting revealed as time rolls on.

An instructive instance of the warping force of these prevalent beliefs in shaping the diction of the most erudite describers of witchcraft facts, is found in Lawson's summary of events, where, when commenting upon testimony like that given by little Sarah, he says, "Several have _confessed_ against their own mother, that they were instruments to bring them into _the devil's covenant_." But the girl's testimony mentioned a covenant with her mother _alone_, saying that the devil was not there, as she saw.

It was Lawson, and not the girl, who brought the devil into this case.

The same writer further says, "Some girls of eight or nine years of age did declare that after they were so betrayed by their mothers to the power of _Satan_, they saw _the devil_ go in their _own shapes_ to afflict others." But the statement of Sarah is, that she herself went forth and afflicted in her spirit-form, and not that the _devil_ went in her shape.

The cultured of that generation had _devil on the brain_ so severely, that they persistently brought him in even where the facts as presented by the witnesses plainly excluded him.

Richard Carrier, eighteen years old, son of Thomas and Martha, was examined.

"Have you been in the devil's snare?--Yes.

"Is your brother Andrew insnared by the devil's snare?--Yes.

"How long has your brother been a witch?--Near a month.

"How long have you been a witch?--Not long.

"Have you joined in afflicting the afflicted persons?--Yes.

"You helped to hurt Timothy Swan, did you?--Yes.

"How long have you been a witch?--About five weeks.

"Who was in company when you covenanted with the devil?--Mrs. Bradbury.

"Did she help you afflict?--Yes.

"Who was at the Village Meeting when you were there?--Goodwife How, Goodwife Nurse, Goodwife Wildes, Proctor and his wife, Mrs. Bradbury, and Corey's wife.

"What did they do there?--Eat, and drank wine.

"Was there a minister there?--No, not as I know of.

"From whence had you your wine?--From Salem, I think it was.

"Goodwife Oliver there?--Yes; I knew her."

Statements by this witness, and also his probable circ.u.mstances and condition, seem worthy of special note. Frankness glows on all that he said. He was stating facts, which, in his apprehension, were harmless, and why should he not let them out? He knew, probably, that his mother had all through his life been accustomed to see and act through other than her physical organs, and was conscious that during the last five weeks at least himself had been doing the same. The abilities came unsought into action--were outgrowths from the natures of his mother and himself, and were not crimes. His long familiarity with the ostensible workings of such powers through his mother had shown him that they were neither diabolical nor censurable; and why not admit possession of them, and the acts they produced, whether through himself, his mother, or any one else? Neither the mother nor children in that family were afraid of ghostly beings, because able to confer with them intelligibly and sympathetically; and the ready admission by Richard that he had aided in hurting Timothy Swan, and been at a great witch-meeting, where they ate, and also drank wine, was no confession of any crime, but simple statement of facts. He was a medium, and also a frank and truthful witness.

He granted that he had been in the devil's snare. How much did this import? He and his brother Andrew both had been caught in it--one about four, and the other five, weeks prior to his statement. As certain atmospheric and other physical conditions often produce epidemic or wide-spread physical health or disease either, and certain public mental and moral states often act powerfully upon many minds, the great public excitement engendered by the arrest and prosecution of witches may well be deemed adequate to have unfolded latent mediumistic susceptibilities very widely; and it is not surprising that the children of a Martha Carrier should have such susceptibilities suddenly brought to their own cognizance, nor that they should as suddenly become well-fledged clairvoyants competent to wing their way widely and rapidly in the airs of a world in which spirits dwell; nor that they should be psychologized by spirit beings, and made to take part in any work, malignant or benevolent, which their controllers were bent upon executing. By being caught in the devil's snare, they probably meant neither more nor less than that they became mediums. All conditions like theirs the public was charging the devil with producing, and the young Carriers a.s.sented to that being done in their own case. Most things not of the earth, earthy, were then charged to the devil; and the mental powers of these children were not competent to show that their slippings out from their hampering bodies were effected without his aid.

Frequent mention occurs of witch-meetings at Salem Village, on the Green, or the minister's pasture, near Deacon Ingersoll's.

If any accused one had been seen in the company of a.s.sembled witches there, the fact was excessively damaging. Richard Carrier acknowledged having been there, and freely mentioned what persons were in the a.s.semblage--but did not see a minister.

The records have not led us to suppose that Mrs. Carrier ever stood very high in public estimation. It is not improbable that influences from outside of her had often, during the forty years through which she had experienced them, made her life eccentric, and many of her actions mysterious. Even the aged and charitable Francis Dane said, "That there was a suspicion of goodwife Carrier among some of us before she was apprehended, I know; as for any other persons, I had no suspicion of them." We must infer from that statement that she was noted for some peculiarities which were not universally regarded with favor; suspicions hung around her.

She was accused by one of causing grievous sores in himself, of sickening his cattle, and working many injuries; by others also of hurting and bewitching them, and of having attended a witch-meeting. The accusing girls, as seen above, were most excessively agonized when in court with her. She may justly be regarded, we think, as being socially among the lower cla.s.s of persons then accused; and yet we have met with nothing which will justify an inference that she was altogether unworthy of esteem, or even that she was emphatically bad in any respect. Mather called her _rampant hag_, and hence much of Christendom has been influenced to contemplate her with aversion. But whatever may have been her character, the sufferings of herself and family draw forth our sympathies.

If she said she had been a witch forty years, she meant only that for "forty years" she had been conscious of the ongoing of occult processes within and around herself. We doubt whether she applied the word _witch_ to herself, but can readily believe that she confessed to such experiences and performances as were in her day often called witchcrafts. That she detailed some experiences to Mary Walcott, which the latter termed witchcrafts, is highly probable. Neither the accused nor the accusers were accustomed to speak of seeing the devil; but it was the black man, or some other defined spirit,--not the devil,--according to their own statements.

Yet when recorders and reporters undertook to give us either the substance of what was said, or a nearly verbatim report, they generally subst.i.tuted devil for black man, or for any other unseen occult operator, whatever his, her, or its moral purpose or character. So, too, all specially marvelous works were called witchcrafts.

The little Carrier children were very instructive witnesses. Too young and inexperienced to do otherwise than answer simple questions directly in such language as was common, they show us of to-day, better than do older witnesses, what was probably common application of some terms of very frequent use in descriptions of things marvelous. When by implication charged with being themselves witches, their answers conceded the truth of the charge. One of them, eight years old, said she had been a witch ever since she was six. Another, eighteen years old, had been a witch about five weeks, and said that brother Andrew had been such "near a month."

Little did these frank and no doubt truthful young confessors of family and personal experiences deem that they were exposing themselves, and their mother also, to punishment by death. What they confessed to were frequent sights and sounds in their home, which came as naturally and innocently before them as the visits and words of friends and neighbors.

Community called such matters witchcrafts, and why should not these children do the same? Their mental powers were not expanded enough to even entertain the slightest apprehension that what they were saying could imply that they had made a compact with the devil, or that a simple, true statement of their unsought experiences could bring harm to themselves or any one else. Equally incompetent were such little ones to comprehend the nature of that devil who existed in the conception of the magistrate when he asked whether the devil had insnared the witness and brother Andrew.

They, no doubt, held the common notion that any worker whatsoever from realms unseen by the external eye was the devil; and having had experience--at least one of them had--that her own spirit had gone forth from her body and pinched certain persons, she understood that she had performed a part in works which were imputed to the devil. Still neither of these children confessed, or could be "insnared" to own, that they had seen _the devil_.

They, obviously, and their mother, we do not doubt, often as naturally and innocently beheld spirit forms and scenes, and just as innocently held converse with spirits, as they surveyed the scenes and forms of the outer world, or went in company with embodied people to their congregations in the meeting-house or elsewhere. The words of babes and sucklings, at a witchcraft trial, revealed the existence of finer natural laws and forces, and their operation also, upon and through some human beings, than science then dreamed of, or is yet quite ready to recognize. Very much in witchcraft times was charged to the devil which should have been credited to G.o.d. The erroneous entry of many heavy items on the great account-books, in the days of the fathers, calls for immense labor and study for their proper and equitable adjustment now. Martha Carrier and her children were probably posted on the wrong side of the moral Ledger when Cotton Mather labeled her "Rampant Hag;" and there they have stood ever since.

REV. GEORGE BURROUGHS.

Having come to the last of the accused whose case our leading purpose induces us to notice at much length, we present here a specimen of indictment for the crime of witchcraft.

"THE INDICTMENT OF GEORGE BURROUGHS.

Ess.e.x } _Anno Regni Regis et Reginae Willielmi et_ ss. } _Mariae. Nunc Angliae, &c., quarto._

"The jurors of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, _present_--That George Burroughs, late of Falmouth, in the province of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, in New England, clerk, the 9th day of May, in the fourth year of the reign of our sovereign lord and lady, William and Mary, by the grace of G.o.d, of England, Scotland, France and Ireland king and queen, defenders of the faith, &c., and divers other days and times, as well before as after, certain detestable arts, called witchcrafts and sorceries, wickedly and feloniously hath used, practiced, and exercised, at and within the towns.h.i.+p of Salem, in the county of Ess.e.x aforesaid, in, upon, and against one Mary Walcutt, of Salem Village, in the county of Ess.e.x, single woman; by which said wicked arts the said Mary Walcutt, the 9th day of May, in the fourth year abovesaid, and divers other days and times, as well before as after, was and is tortured, afflicted, pined, consumed, wasted, and tormented, against the peace of our sovereign lord and lady, the king and queen, and against the form of the statute in that case made and provided.

"Witnesses: MARY WALCOTT, SARAH VIBBER, MERCY LEWIS, ANN PUTNAM, ELIZ. HUBBARD.

"Indorsed by the grand jury, _Billa vera_."

Three other similar indictments accompanied the above, for witchcrafts practiced by Burroughs upon Elizabeth Hubbard, Mercy Lewis, and Ann Putnam severally.

S. P. Fowler, in the edition of "Salem Witchcraft" edited by him, says, on page 278,--

"The trial of Rev. Geo. Burroughs appears to have attracted general notice from the circ.u.mstance of his being a former clergyman in Salem Village, and supposed to be a leader amongst witches."

Fowler adds, that--

"Dr. Cotton Mather says he was not present at any of the trials for witchcraft; how he could keep away from that of Burroughs we cannot imagine. His father, Dr. Increase Mather, informs us that he attended this single trial, and says, 'Had I been one of George Burroughs's judges, I could not have acquitted him, for several persons did upon oath testify that they saw him do such things as no man that had not a devil to be his familiar could perform.'

"Burroughs was apprehended in Wells, in Maine; so say his children. They also inform us that he was buried by his friends, after the inhuman treatment of his body from the hands of his executioners at Gallows Hill, in Salem.

"He is represented as being a small, black-haired dark-complexioned man, of quick pa.s.sions and great strength. His power of muscle, which discovered itself early when Burroughs was a member of Cambridge College, and which we notice in the slight reb.u.t.ting evidence offered by his friends at his trial, convinces us that he lifted the gun, and the barrel of mola.s.ses, by the power of his own well-strung muscles, and not by any help from the devil, as was supposed by the Mathers, both father and son.