Part 25

Sarah Osburn, though a secluded, respectable, inoffensive woman well advanced in years, was an early victim before the sweeping blast that rushed over the Village. Too feeble to endure the hardship of prison life, she died in jail before the day for her trial. She who heard voices from out the realm of silence, possessed inner faculties in fit condition to permit effluxes that reached and annoyed the mediumistic children, who traced them back to her, and made statements which brought her under suspicion of being a covenanter with the devil. Such capabilities constituted her crime--her witchcraft--and incited a devil-fighting people to persecution which hastened her exit to the realm from which the advisory voices had come upon her ears.

MARTHA COREY.

Soon after the commencement of prosecutions, suspicion alighted on one of more refinement, intelligence, efficiency, godliness, and respectability than the females first arrested. Martha, wife of Giles Corey,--aged, prayerful, but bright; disbelieving in any witchcraft; doubting the existence of any witches; discountenancing searches for any,--said that the eyes of the magistrates were blinded, and that she could open them. She possessed spiritual and theological knowledge uncommon in her day and vicinity, and must have held beliefs and convictions derived from other sources than those at which her neighbors obtained their supplies. She was aloof from the prevalent delusion devil-ward.

Though a church member, a woman of prayer, of reputed, and doubtless of genuine, piety, Martha Corey was very early _sensed_ by the Anns Putnam, mother and daughter, as the source of emanations which tortured them. Therefore she must be a witch. Grounds for such conclusion were not necessarily fanciful and fallacious. When and where natural outworkings from mediumistic properties and conditions were mistaken for symptoms of witchcraft, Martha Corey might easily be convicted of diabolism. We credit the allegation of Ann Putnam the younger that she was annoyed and afflicted by Mrs. Corey even while the two were miles apart. But we decline to admit that Mrs. Corey necessarily or probably had any voluntary connection with the girl's sufferings. Either unintelligent natural forces attracted the woman's effluvia to Ann, or else Tituba's "tall man," or some other hidden intelligent being, formed connections and applied processes which brought elements of these two persons into conjunction, and thus produced in the girl intense physical disturbances and sufferings, and attendant liberation of her inner perceptive faculties.

Ann's uncle, Edward Putnam, together with Ezekiel Cheever, because of the girl's repeated outcries upon Mrs. Corey, only just one week after the sending of Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osburn to jail, concluded to make a call upon sister Corey, who was "in church covenant" with them, and learn from her own lips what she would say relative to the suspicions that had been raised concerning her.

These just and considerate men,--for they were such,--probably seeing the possibility that the child might be mistaken as to the person who was causing her to suffer, very properly called upon Ann when they were about to start on their way to the woman's residence, and asked the suffering girl to describe the dress Mrs. Corey was then wearing. Their obvious design was to test the accuracy of the child's perceptions. But that purpose was not accomplished. The child pleaded inability to see, and stated that blindness was put upon her just then _by the accused woman herself_. The sequel indicates that Mrs. Corey foresensed the visit she was about to receive, imbibed knowledge of the intended test, and of

## action to thwart its success. Though dwelling and being miles apart as

physical persons, those two females may have then been practically together as spirits, and have mutually sensed the thoughts, acts, and conditions of each other as far as each avoided intentional concealment. All of Ann's statements may have been in strict accordance with facts actually witnessed and experienced by her inner self. There is no need to assume that she feigned or falsified at all, even if no invisible personal operators were concerned in what then transpired; and certainly not, if Tituba's "tall man" and his associates were then present and acting, as they may have been. Perhaps invisible actors, holding both of these impressible subjects under psychological control, either imparted to, or withheld from either of them, just such knowledge and perceptions as would further the purposes of the operators--which may have been either simply a manifestation of their own powers, or an intimation to the adroit men that they were undertaking to deal with something which it would not be easy to outwit or thwart. Also other and very different purposes may have actuated them.

Some spirits, at some times, have ability, through some mortal lips, to express their thoughts to the embodied, and to wreathe their own emotions over faces they borrow, even while the spirit, the selfhood, of the mortal form usurped is conscious of what is being done through it. Remember that the form of the conscious Agassiz was, against his own will, made to obey Townshend's mind. Perhaps Madam Corey's expressions of thoughts and emotions were sometimes prompted, and at other times modified by an unseen intelligence temporarily cohabiting with her own.

When the two brethren of the church, going forth on their solemn, self-imposed mission, had arrived at her home, Madam Corey welcomed them _with a smile_; notwithstanding she possessed and expressed very exact knowledge of the ominous nature and the purpose of their call. Her saluting words were, "I know what you are come for. You are come to talk with me about being a witch; but I am none. I cannot help other people's talking of me." This probably had reference to Ann Putnam's saying that she was afflicted by this speaker. She soon asked the men whether Ann, whose accusations had prompted their call, "had described the clothes she then wore." Learning that her dress had not been described, "a smile came over her face." Somebody's consciousness of power, issuing from her form, to obscure the child's vision, probably expressed itself in that smile; and the reflection that the child was operated upon by forces within or

## action through Mrs. Corey's own form, and therefore not necessarily by the

devil, and inference thence that the girl was not necessarily bewitched, was followed by her saying, "she did not think there were any witches." She knew enough of spiritual things to enable her to observe the broad distinction, overlooked by her cotemporaries, that may exist between some spirits and the devil; and also between persons whose inner senses were cognizant of spirit presence and action as naturally as the outer eye was of the sunlight, between these and such other human beings, could there be any such, and she thought there could not, who made a covenant with the devil, which covenant was a necessary preliminary to being a witch. "She," very reasonably, "did not think there were any" such "witches;" and only _such_ were sought for by her visitors and the startled public.

This woman was intelligent, courteous, and devout--was capable of understanding that _witch_, as then defined, necessarily meant a person who had voluntarily entered into a distinct compact with a factitious devil. Her _sensings_ in spirit spheres found no native-born monstrosity there, and she could say in good conscience that she did not believe there existed any such witches as her visitors and fellow church members were on the hunt for. At the same time she may have known, probably did know, that her own spirit and the spirit of little Ann Putnam could come into such communings as would give them accurate and conscious mutual perception of many unspoken thoughts and experiences in each other.

Mrs. Corey, as we view her, was very mediumistic, and was also a woman whose habitual aspirations were after things true, pure, and excellent. But no amount of good or bad moral and religious qualities either constitutes or nullifies ability for mutual visibility and rapport between mediumistic persons. All such are impressible more by virtue of their organisms and native properties, external and internal, than by any intellectual and moral acquisitions, whether good or _bad_.

Properties issuing from Mrs. Corey's system probably pinched and otherwise tortured Ann Putnam; the girl knew their special mundane issuance, and innocently gave utterance to the knowledge. She did so innocently and in good faith. But the divulgence of facts often brings fearful sequences.

When clear-headed logicians, being also conscientious and true men, as well as holders of undoubting faith that none but covenanted devotees to a wily devil could obtain knowledge and work harm by mysterious processes,--when such men took this case into careful consideration, the facts stated by the girl were to them proof that Mrs. Corey was the devil's minion, and therefore must be consigned to a witch's doom--death.

Edward Putnam and one other complained of her.

The warrant for her arrest was dated March 19, just one week after the visit of Putnam and Cheever. She was examined on the 21st; sentenced, September 9; executed, September 22. The questioning at the examination was discursive and protracted, spreading beyond inquiries as to who hurt the children, and how they were tormented, because of the prisoner's alleged disbelief in witchcraft; disapprobation of efforts to detect it; declarations that the magistrates, ministers, and others were blinded, and that she could open their eyes. She denied all knowledge as to who hurt the children, all knowledge of the devil, and repeatedly asked permission to go to prayer; but this privilege was denied her. She behaved like one conscious of innocence of the things laid to her charge, and manifested much intelligence, self-possession, and tact.

While on trial, one feature in her demeanor, already indicated on a previous occasion, strongly attracts notice. Notwithstanding the terrible fate that was standing before her, and the unflagging persistency of the magistrates and all others present in assuming her guilt, she was several times accused of _laughing_. Those laughs may have been simply hysterical, but possibly they were widely different from such.

"Why did you say the magistrates' and ministers' eyes were blinded," and "you would open them? She laughed, and denied it."

"Were you to serve the devil ten years? She laughed."

"Why did you say you would show us? She laughed again."

As previously stated, when Edward Putnam and Ezekiel Cheever made their call, although she knew the solemn object of the visit, they report that "in a _smiling manner_ she said, 'I know what you are come for.' With 'eagerness of mind' she asked them, 'Does she tell you what clothes I have on?' And when they replied that Ann had said, 'You came and blinded her, and told her that she should see you no more before it was night, that so she might not tell us what clothes you had on,' she seemed to _smile at it as if she had showed us a pretty trick_." These men obviously were prettily tricked. But who was genuine author of playful proceedings at a time when the business was so grave and solemn? And whose emotions mantled her face with smiles in the stern and frowning presence of "authority"? Her calm and pleasant deportment, while others were agitated or solemnly stern, was very like what is often manifested through some human forms by intelligences whose condition places them beyond the reach of man's frowns, laws, prisons, and scaffolds, and who, dwelling aloof from storms of human passion, can smile amid scenes that make humanity shudder.

Calef states, that "Martha Corey, wife to Giles Corey, protesting her innocency, concluded her life with an eminent prayer upon the ladder." Upham (vol. ii. 458) sums up her character thus: "Martha Corey was an aged Christian professor of eminently devout habits and principles. It is indeed a _strange fact_, that, in her humble home, surrounded, as it then was, by a wilderness, this husbandman's wife should have reached a height so above and beyond her age." The strangeness of the fact argues strongly in favor of our position, that she was so unfolded as to receive instruction directly from supernal teachers, or sense it in amid supernal auras. "But," continues the historian, "it is proved conclusively by the depositions adduced against her, that her mind was wholly disinthralled from the errors of that period. She utterly repudiated the doctrines of witchcraft, and expressed herself strongly and fearlessly against them. The prayer which this woman made 'upon the ladder,' and which produced such an impression upon those who heard it, was undoubtedly expressive of enlightened piety, worthy of being characterized as 'eminent' in its sentiments, and in its demonstration of an innocent, heart and life."

All her history suggests that this worthy woman, whose ways and powers were somewhat peculiar, was one of those rare individuals whose interior perceptives become so unfolded while in the body as to sense in knowledge by processes, and in some directions to extent, beyond the possible reach of man's outward intellect. Because of such blissful unfoldings her age condemned her, hastened her exit from among a creed-bound people, and her entrance to the home of freed spirits.

GILES COREY.

As renowned as any one among all sufferers under persecutions for witchcraft--a hero in the band--was Giles Corey, husband of Martha, more than fourscore years old, but still strong and resolute. He may have been wild and rough in youth and early manhood, but was efficient in business, and before the close of life was possessor of a very handsome estate for those times in that region. When the witchcraft prosecutions commenced, he sided with the multitude for a time; was vexed that his wife would not do the same, and, in his excitement, perhaps gave free vent to such hard epithets as his tongue had been allowed to put forth freely in his earlier years; some of which were soon brought to bear against his good dame, while she was subjected to examination. From some cause his sympathy with the prosecutors subsided when he saw his good wife maligned by them, and soon the witch detectors were after him also. He was arrested and imprisoned. His keen penetration perceived that acquittal, as things were going, was impossible, unless the accused pleaded guilty; which plea truth, honor, and manhood forbade him to make. To be tried and condemned would involve a forfeiture of his property, and take it from his children. But no trial could be had, and of course no condemnation, unless he should plead either guilty or not guilty to the indictment. His decision was soon formed. Taken into court, he closed his lips, and no power there could open them. Neither _guilty_ nor _not guilty_ could be wrung from them. The large, strong, old man stood in calm majesty before the court, his silence challenging the whole civil power of the province to shake his purpose. English custom in such cases--and he probably knew it--was to subject the recusant to lingering torture, trusting that pain or prostration would wring out a plea of either guilty or not guilty. Order was given by the court to lay this old man prostrate, pile over him heavy weights, and put him upon starvation diet for the purpose of bringing his stubborn will to subjection. But neither oppressing weights, the pangs of hunger, nor both combined, weakened the hold of that strong will upon its purpose. His only utterances then were, "More weight, more weight!"

Corey himself testified at his preliminary examination, and the court tried to make it evidence of diabolism, that, twice at least, when attempting to pray, there was more or less stoppage of his utterance. Whether this was caused by the action of some outside intelligence bringing spirit forces to bear upon him is not apparent. The case as stated will hardly justify the presumption, though it suggests the possibility that it was. The dumbness that was formerly imposed upon the prophet Ezekiel and priest Zacharias, and that which frequently befalls mediums in our own age, teach that unseen intelligences sometimes can and do temporarily prevent the use of vocal organs by their legitimate owners.

The conclusive evidences which led to his commitment were spectral. His apparition had been seen by many, and had harmed them. Ann Putnam's sharp eyes were first in this case, as in most others, to see the witch. She saw this old man's apparition April 13; Mercy Lewis did on the 14th; and subsequently he was seen as a specter by, and gave annoyances to, eight other females and two males, who severally gave in depositions to that effect.

Was their perception of him nothing more than the product of the imagination of the witnesses? Were all the declarations false? Possibly--but not probably; for both imagination and perjury are often charged with doing what clairvoyance legitimately sees and authorizes.

He was examined April 19, five days after his apparition was first seen. Calef states that "Sept. 16th Giles Corey was prest to death." In a foot-note, p. 260 of _Salem Witchcraft_, we read that "Giles Corey was _executed_ Sept. 19, 1692, about noon." Perhaps these statements permit the conclusion that he was subjected to pressure from some hour of the 16th, Calef's date, till noon of the 19th, or about three days, when, according to Fowler, he died. "In pressing," Calef says, "his tongue being prest out of his mouth, the sheriff, with his cane, forced it in again when he was dying."

Corey's endurance and call for "more weight," says Upham, ii. 340, "for a person of more than eighty-one years of age, must be allowed to have been a marvelous exhibition of prowess, illustrating, as strongly as anything in human history, the power of a resolute will over the utmost pain and agony of body, and demonstrating that Giles Corey was a man of heroic nerve, and of a spirit that could not be subdued." Hutchinson closes his account of this case with the remark that, "in all ages of the world, superstitious credulity has produced greater cruelty than is practiced among Hottentots, or other nations, whose belief of a deity is called in question." And why "_greater_ cruelty"? Nowhere outside of Christendom was so cruel a devil conceived of as within it. And therefore greater incitements to cruelty were called up in those fighting against his minions than in any other men anywhere at any time. The creed devil-ward, and not general "superstitious credulity," evoked in strong, good men, true to their ancestral and the _Christian_ world's faith, more than SAVAGE CRUELTY.

REBECCA NURSE.

The deluding and heart-steeling power of false conceptions of the devil, combined with clear faith that he could get access to external things only through human covenanters with himself, and also with belief that it was an imperative duty of Christian men to slay such persons as even spectral evidence or statements of clairvoyants pointed to as being in league with him, is perhaps manifested as strikingly and sadly in the case of Rebecca Nurse, as in that of any other person tried and executed at Salem--or indeed anywhere, in any age. The spirit-form or apparition of this venerable lady--venerable not only for years then bordering upon fourscore, but for a long life of active beneficence; for strong good sense; for Christian graces; for being the good wife of one and mother and mother-in-law of several as good, respectable, and useful men as the Village contained. Character and domestic connections so shielded her that nothing short of mighty power could fix upon her a blasting crime.

Her spirit-form or apparition had been seen by several members of the circle, and charged with having tempted them to evil and tormented them prior to the 23d of March; on the 24th she was brought before the magistrates and subjected to examination. The occasion was well fitted to put to severe test existing fealty to a fearful creed. Well might the magistrate then say to the prisoner, as he did, "What a sad thing it is that a church member ... should be thus accused and charged." Especially _sad_ it must have been in this case, because the accused had long been, and well deserved to be, regarded as one of the most venerable and esteemed of all the "mothers in Israel" residing in the region there and round about. Some sympathy was on her side, for when she said, "I can say before my Eternal Father I am innocent, and God will clear my innocency," the magistrate responded, "There is never a one in the assembly but desires it."

This venerable matron was then, and for scores of years had been, beloved and respected wherever known for her beautiful domestic, social, and religious course. Even such a one, however, was drawn in and crushed by the fierce and whirling zeal that was impelling community into headlong and frenzied fight for God and Christ against the _Devil_. Age and virtue were insufficient to arrest or divert the rushing storm which hallucination devil-ward then generated and propelled. A benighting creed, like a huge nightmare, lay down upon, and held down, both reason and all the kindlier sentiments, while it evoked and allowed free play to harsh and murderous propensities. Whither either natural brilliancy or natural attraction drew clairvoyant eyes most intently, thither were the accusing girls swayed to lead the whelming force. Why should they lead to, or rather why fix upon, the beloved and venerated Mrs. Nurse?

We may not find in the old records as full and distinct evidence that she was constitutionally impressible by either mesmeric or spirit force, as many others are now seen to have been--we may miss conclusive _proof_ that she was a magnet either drawing to or emitting from itself psychological forces unconsciously, and thence either becoming herself psychologized or yielding out substances from her own system which might cause, or be made instrumental in causing, marked changes in other human organisms. Still, several facts indicate that she may be assigned a place among the sensitives.

Mrs. Nurse, Mrs. Easty, and Mrs. Cloyse--three sisters--whose maiden name was Towne, were eminently intelligent, efficient, respectable, and respected matrons, and yet were all accused, tried, and the elder two were executed because their spirit-forms or apparitions had been seen by clairvoyants. The records contain a statement made at the time, in these words: "It was no wonder they were witches, _for their mother was so before them_." Often "blood will out" whatever its quality. Three noble daughters bespeak a good mother, and yet, for some reason, Mrs. Towne had been called _a witch_. The properties of the parent reappeared in her children, and rendered them visible by the inner or clairvoyant sight of others. Perception of their spirit-forms and of influences thence emanating caused the accusing girls to name these good women as their tormentors. Visibility as spirits or apparitions, and effluxes from their systems, were their crimes.