Part 18

Perhaps only few persons who give credence to the substantial accuracy of the transmitted statements of witchcraft facts, will dissent from Hutchinson's obvious meaning when he said that "some of them seem to be more than natural;" that is, as we suppose him to have meant, they seem to have required for their production something beyond the recognized powers of embodied human beings. He, however, in spite of such seeming, sought to lead other minds to fancy that fraud and malice acting upon credulity--in other words, that cunning and malicious embodied human beings, and none other--were concerned in their manifestation. Upham and Drake have not only followed Hutchinson's lead in excluding invisible agents, but have omitted to admit that some of the facts _seem_ to be more than natural. They blindly fancy that they find resident in human minds and hearts of seeming brilliancy and goodness, capabilities of artfulness, malice, and might which wrest from Satan's brow all laurels which the world has meeded to him for his imputed prowess on witchcraft's battlefields. As one of the human race, we protest against such slander of our kindred humans while embodied, none of whom, while dwellers here below, were ever smelted in fires hot enough to elicit from their own interiors some forces which were put in action through their forms--forces which, in common parlance, though not in absolute fact, were "more than natural." Events fearfully mysterious have long been, and now often are, spoken of as the productions of beings, or at least of One Special being, lurking somewhere away off beyond the outmost limits of nature. But each and every hiding-place of even Old Nick is somewhere within those limits, and even he can never and nowhere act otherwise than in obedience to nature's laws. How far up, down, around, do natural forces and agents extend and operate? If there be a fixed limit to nature's domain, where is it? When life departs from man's body, are the forces which continue to act upon his invisible spirit, whether that continues to be or ceases to be a conscious individuality,--are the forces which then act upon it and which bear it to its appropriate position in spirit spheres, _natural_ forces, or are they other?

When man escapes from his gross and sluggish encasement, and becomes--as the reappearance of many of the race teaches that he does--a freed spirit, he does not escape from within the realm of nature, nor pass to where natural substances and forces cease to sustain and act upon him. The word "supernatural" as well as its equivalent phrase, "more than natural," is often misleading; it tends to generate supposition that nature _terminates_ where man's external senses cease to take cognizance. Absolutely, however, as we believe, all beings, including even God, and all things whatsoever, are parts of nature; so that the word "supernatural" can scarcely find place for rigid, unqualified application. No objection to its usual application is here intended, provided it is not used to convey the idea that things to which it is applied are the work of intelligence above and beyond the control and restrictions of universal laws or forces; provided it does not intimate that the works are what theology has called miracles, i. e., acts "contrary to the established course of things." Such works probably never did and never can occur. Higher and unrecognized laws are availed of whenever known laws are thwarted in their results, as when the magnet takes the steel upward in spite of gravitation: gravitation works on with as much steadiness and force as over, while the magnet overpoweringly pulls against it. The overbalancing magnetic force does not act "contrary to the established course of things," but simply performs its own functions in full harmony with that course; so of all mysterious events in the vast universe. All move on in obedience to law; all events are outworkings of universal forces, none of which are ever broken or suspended, though sometimes some of them are restrained by other and counteracting forces from manifesting their usual results.

All the marvelous works of both ancient and modern Spiritualism may have occurred, and yet none of them have been, in fact, "more than natural," however much so some minds may be accustomed to deem them. Take psychic forces as natural instrumentalities, take both embodied and disembodied intelligences who had skill and power for the control of such forces, and with these take also others who had special susceptibilities for yielding to psychic action, and you will then have in your conceptions ample natural means for the production of each and every marvel that was ever described in human history, and all such may have been produced without any more help or hindrance in kind from either God or the devil, than we all receive in the ordinary acts of daily life. Bring in what is meant by either magnetism, or mesmerism, or psychology, or psychism, or by any other term expressive of that action upon and within a human being, which lets either his own spirit-senses or the forces of some outside intelligence get play therein independent of and superior to the owner's outer or physical senses, and we then may have fitting and adequate instrumentality through which finite intelligence can legitimately produce all the marvels that human eyes have ever witnessed. Professor Cromwell F. Varley, one of England's most eminent electricians, said, when addressing a committee of the London Dialectical Society, "I believe the mesmeric trance and the spiritual trance are produced by similar means, and I believe the mesmeric and the spiritual forces are the same. They are both the action of a spirit, and the difference between the spiritual trance and the mesmeric trance I believe is this: in the mesmeric trance, the will that overpowers or entrances the patient is in a human body; in the spiritual trance, that will which overpowers the patient is not in a human body."

The position taken by Mr. Varley, whose observations were made mostly within his own domestic circle, and whose professional pursuits led him to be a constant and careful observer of the nature, properties, and actions of delicate forces, is worthy of much regard. His view is probably in harmony with the conclusion of most minds which have studied carefully the outworkings of mesmerism and Spiritualism. The two isms, in some views of them, are essentially one in nature, the latter being the butterfly or moth that came from out the former. The grub and its moth are the same being in different stages of development. Multitudes of human beings raised, and to be raised, from lower to higher development have their habitats along the line where the material and spiritual interblend, and some are measurably amphibious there--can move and act in either of two auras. The younger, or less advanced, flesh-clad mesmerists, prevailingly abide in the material, while spirits have their most congenial residence generally beyond where the palpably material extends; but either class can at times bring under their control the physical systems of many human beings.

By means of this psychism, or this outworking of soul power, there may be kept up reciprocal action or intercommunion between what are usually called the material and spiritual worlds, both of which absolutely are natural, and are pervaded by interacting natural forces which are at the service of peculiarly endowed, or constituted, or unfolded persons, who are, or may become, competent and disposed to use them. A disembodied spirit no more needs special permission or aid from Omnipotence for acting upon men and matter, than the diver needs such for deep descents beneath the water's surface. Natural permission for spirits to reincase themselves in, or to act upon, palpable matter, is as free and full as man's is to put on submarine armor.

This much we have said for the purpose of disclosing our stand-points of observations and reasonings pertaining to Salem witchcraft, and now come to more direct consideration of that special topic.

At Salem Village about a dozen people, mostly the girls previously named, were strangely and grievously tormented, at short intervals, during several months. They often endured contortions, convulsions, and very acute sufferings. At times many of them became deaf, dumb, blind, &c. Seemingly to beholders they personally performed most strange and incredible feats of strength and simulations, and made astounding utterances. Because of these doings and sufferings they were, after some weeks of observation, deemed to be "under an evil hand"--were pronounced _bewitched_, and were termed, in the parlance of that day, "the afflicted."

According to the faith of those times, no person could be bewitched in any other way than through some other embodied person who had entered into a covenant with the _Devil_, and voluntarily become his instrument or his agent. It was then assumed, also, that the afflicted ones could perceive who the person or persons were through whom the devil tormented them. Consequently the sufferers were teased, coaxed, or driven to name some one or more who was causing their sufferings. Those named by the sufferers as producers of their maladies were called the accused, or were said to be "cried out upon."

Belief in the ability of the afflicted to designate accurately their afflicters, was then prevalent; but though probably born of facts in human experience, and in itself fundamentally correct, it was indiscreetly and harmfully applied. The mediumistic or psychologized condition often renders its subjects practically independent of time, space, and gross matter, and makes them possessors of ability to feel, or rather to _sense_, contact with the properties of some peculiarly constituted mortals, even though such persons at the time be physically many miles away. The persons from whom such agitating emanations would proceed would generally themselves be highly mediumistic.

If the inner or spiritual perceptive organs of Mr. Parris, Dr. Griggs, Thomas Putnam, and their consulting associates, of whom we shall speak hereafter, were inextricably interblended with their outer bodies, so that they were, par excellence, non-mediumistic, their presence near the bodies of persons infilled with abnormal properties by spirits might be imperceptible by the entranced, while either the poor, "melancholy, distracted" (?) Sarah Good, or "bed-rid" Mrs. Osburn (who will come into notice on a future page), if highly mediumistic, might, though being then in their distant homes bodily, be present as spirits, and their emanations might be distinctly felt by the suffering girls, and be by them visibly traced to their sources. Mediumistic states or entrancements, however induced, often bring their subjects into rapport with other mediumistic persons afar off, while they as often shut off sensibility to the presence of the physically imprisoned or very slightly impressible ones who are near by. The saying that "birds of a feather flock together" apparently has more constant application outside of gravitation's dominating reach than within it--more among relatively freed spirits than among rigidly body-hampered ones.

That there exist special occult forces, whose action frequently enables mediumistic persons, while under spirit manipulations, to know assuredly that emanations from special human organisms act upon them to either their pleasure or their annoyance is very clearly indicated by the experiences of some modern mediums; for these are often heard to speak of influences coming to their help or their harm from particular persons, who, at the time, are known to be miles away. Mediumistic intuitions often very accurately trace influences to some definite mundane source; that source frequently is where the disembodied operating spirit gets such an equivalent to a nervous fluid as is needful to give him or her contact with and control over matter. Some mediumistic systems may at times contain enough of such quasi nerve-producing elements to meet all the needs of the controlling spirit, while others usually lack them to such extent that drafts to supply the deficiency are made from the systems of others more or less remote from the point of application. If the harassed and tortured children in the family of Mr. Parris were acted upon by spirits, they might be, at times, able to _sense_ the fact that forceful

## action upon them came perceptibly forth from the bodily forms of

## particular living persons. Broad human observation and experience through

the ages had generated conclusion that bewitched persons could designate those from whom their inflictions came. Therefore our fathers would with conscious propriety ask any one whom they supposed to be under "an evil hand," "Who hurts you?" They would look for an answer, and, if one came, would deem it correct. It was, then, logically necessary for them to confide in the accuracy of any responses which might issue from the lips of the sufferers, so long as their creed was made chief premise. Sneers at belief that psychologized persons know from whom the force comes which generates their condition, may argue less knowledge in the sneerer's brain, of forces and agents that sometimes act upon men, than in the heads of those who in former days sought to learn from bewitched girls what

## particular persons afflicted them. The world, while learning much, may

have been forgetting some important knowledge.

The belief held by many of our forefathers, that the afflicted would generally know that afflicting forces came to them from the persons whom they named, though measurably correct in itself, was rendered most woefully disastrous in its application, because of its concomitant erroneous belief that such afflicting forces could go forth from none but such as were in covenant with witchcraft's awful devil. The fact of one's being a channel through which occult wonder-working forces could flow, was, in those days, proof positive that he or she had tendered allegiance to and made a compact with the Evil One. That was the specially great and disastrous error which engendered witchcraft. Susceptibilities which were in fact only nature's boons, were looked upon as acquisitions obtained through a diabolical compact. Some laws of psychology partially revealed and comprehended now, were then not dreamed of; and deductions from false premises or from an erroneous belief, being then applied by clear-headed and good men for noble ends, yes, for God's glory and man's protection, caused out-workings of unspeakable woes.

The persons most _afflicted_ at Salem Village were Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Parris, nine years old; Abigail Williams, his niece, eleven; Ann Putnam, twelve; Mercy Lewis, seventeen; Mary Walcut, seventeen; Elizabeth Hubbard, seventeen; Elizabeth Booth, eighteen; Sarah Churchill, twenty; Mary Warren, twenty: to these girls may be added Mrs. Ann Putnam, mother of the girl of the same name; also a Mrs. Pope and a Mrs. Bibber. Nearly all of these occupied very good social positions, and many of them were surrounded and cared for by as intelligent, moral, and religious people as that or any other parish in the neighborhood contained. Yes, from amidst the very breath of prayer, the light of intelligence, the sway of strong authority, and the restraining influences of religion, these reputable, and no doubt generally amiable, conscientious, and kind-hearted girls and women during all their previous years, suddenly became utterers of what were then regarded most damning accusations against their neighbors and acquaintances first, and subsequently against strangers living remote from them; against the low and the high, the vicious and the virtuous, the feeble-minded and the strong in intellect alike. And in their strange and desolating work these people, of exemplary deportment previously, moved on harmoniously, encouraging and strengthening each other, and without manifesting the slightest regret. A marked and startling specimen this of what mortal tongues may be used to accomplish! And yet those tongues generally may have only described what senses perceived.

History has said--no, not history--but invalid supposition has said that sportiveness, malice, love of notoriety, and the like, inherent in the minds and hearts of those young girls and women, were the chief incentives to and producers of the woeful, the murderous accusations and statements which came forth from their youthful lips. It was not so. One may as well call a pencil or a pen a malicious accuser when it is made to record malicious accusations, as to call those girls the contrivers and enactors of many scenes which were presented by use of their bodies.

We quote as follows from church records, penned by the Rev. Mr. Parris himself, in whose house the great and awful commotion originated:--

"It is altogether undeniable that our Great and Blessed God, for wise and holy ends, hath suffered many persons in several families of this little Village to be grievously vexed and tortured in body, and to be deeply tempted to the endangering of the destruction of their souls, and all these amazing feats (well known to many of us) to be done by witchcraft and diabolical operations.

"It is well known that when these calamities first began, which was in my own family, the affliction was" (had existed) "_several weeks_, before such hellish operations as witchcraft was suspected; Nay, it never broke forth to any considerable light, until diabolical means was used, by the making of a cake by my Indian _man_, who had his directions from our sister Mary Sibly. Since which time apparitions have been plenty, and exceeding much mischief hath followed. But by this means (it seems) the devil hath been raised amongst us, and his rage is vehement and terrible, and when he shall be silenced, the Lord only knows."

The statements just presented have come down from one whose position and whose mental powers qualified him to be as important a witness as any other person whatsoever could be; they come from one of keen intellect and ready perceptions, who saw the scenes of _Salem_ witchcraft in their first externally observable stages of development, and also throughout most of their subsequent unfoldments and disastrous workings. These statements were semi-private; were made in the _church_ and not the parish records; were made to be read by those who should come after him, rather than by those of his own times. And in such records he states that "amazing feats" were performed "_by witchcraft and diabolical operations_." What were those feats? It has been said generally concerning the whole Salem circle of proficients in "necromancy, magic, and Spiritualism," that "they would creep into holes, and under benches and chairs, put themselves into odd and unnatural postures, make wild and antic gestures, and utter incoherent and unintelligible sounds. They would be seized with spasms, drop insensible to the floor, or writhe in agony, suffering dreadful tortures, and uttering loud and fearful cries."--_History of Witchcraft and Salem Village_, vol. ii. p. 6.

An acute observer, who was also a definite and methodical describer of a portion of the actions referred to, says the sufferers were "in vain" treated medicinally; that "they were oftentimes very stupid in their fits, and could neither hear nor understand, in the apprehension of the standers-by;" that "when they were discoursed with about God or Christ ... they were presently afflicted at a dreadful rate;" that "they sometimes told at a considerable distance, yea, several miles off, that such and such persons were afflicted, which hath been found to be done according to the time and manner they related it; and they said the specters of the suspected persons told them of it;" that "they affirmed that they saw the ghosts of several departed persons;" that "one, in time of examination of a suspected person, had a pin run through both her lower and her upper lip when she was called to speak, yet no apparent festering followed thereupon after it was taken out;" that "some of the afflicted ... in open court ... had their wrists bound fast together with a real cord by invisible means;" that "some afflicted ones have been drawn under tables and beds by undiscerned force;" that "when they were most grievously afflicted, if they were brought to the accused, and the suspected person's hand laid upon them, they were immediately relieved out of their tortures;" that "sometimes, in their fits, they have had their tongues drawn out of their mouths to a fearful length, ... and had their arms and legs ... wrested as if they were quite dislocated, and the blood hath gushed plentifully out of their mouths for a considerable time together; I saw several violently strained and bleeding, ... certainly all considerate persons who beheld those things must needs be convinced that their motions in their fits were preternatural and involuntary, ... they were much beyond the ordinary force of the same persons when they were in their right minds;" that "their eyes were, for the most part, fast closed in their trance-fits, and when they were asked a question, they could give no answer; and I do verily believe they did not hear at that time; yet did they discourse with the specters as with real persons."--_Deodat Lawson._

They affirmed that "_they saw the ghosts of several departed persons_," and they did "_discourse with the specters as with real persons_." This looks like Spiritualism.

The above extracts describe a part only of the amazing feats.

Mr. Parris apprehended that this extensive diabolism was inaugurated through the making of a peculiar cake by his Indian man John. Either a sneer or a smile will probably drape the reader's face when he perceives that a clergyman in a former age deemed it probable that a compound offensive to refined taste (a cake made of meal mixed with urine from the suffering children) was so appetizing to the devil that it drew him from his wonted distance into close affinity with mortal forms, and increased his power to afflict them. Perhaps that clergyman had read what the reader may peruse by turning to the concluding portion of chap. iv. of Ezekiel, where preparation of food was prescribed for that prophet's use while he was in process of being trained for pliancy under manipulations by some unseen intelligence--such preparation of food as was not less offensive than such a cake as John Indian furnished.

We do not find a great producing cause of the _amazing feats_ where Mr. Parris did, and are not prepared to regard Mary Sibley's prescription as having been very efficacious. Still we might admit the possibility that the real author of the feats was present when John kneaded that cake, leavened it with supermundane yeast, and made use of it as an instrumentality for coming into closer contact than before with the human bodies from which part of the ingredients of the cake had been derived.

Both spirits and unfolded mediums often either prescribe or apply--as Jesus did when he treated a blind patient by application of a plaster composed of his own spittle and street dust--things which mankind at large would regard as either offensive or inert. Human mediums may be, and the observations of thousands now living indicate that they often are, made to prepare strange compounds, and prescribe them for the sick, the suffering, and for unpliant mediums.