Part 7

Many men of no mean intellects have admitted that a spirit once came forth from a man "and leaped" on the seven exorcist sons of one Sceva, "and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." The mind which believes that record ought to be in condition to admit that possibly spirits could throw forth power through the hands of such as Margaret Jones which would produce pains, nausea, and disease in those whom the mediums touched, provided the spirits desired such results. It was no unprecedented event in kind, if, through her, some unseen force tortured the bodies of any who, as spies, enemies, mimickers, or rivals, sought an imposition of her hands; not new that torturing sensations should be produced when the magnetisms of the operator and subject were as alkali and acid to each other; nor new that her own spirit of resentment for wrongs either received or foresensed, thus operated. But favor too might often induce either her or a spirit through her to produce _violent effects_ at first, unless our doctors prescribe emetics and cathartics in unkindness or malice.

Read the following statement, which I have just written down from the lips of a neighbor whom I have known well for nearly or quite ten years, and whose truthfulness is as complete as that of any other one whatsoever in the whole circle of my acquaintances:--

"In the autumn of 1869, a woman in South Boston who knew me, advised one of her neighbors who was sick of fever to send for me and receive treatment by my hands. The patient's husband, a robust mechanic, had little faith in helpful efficacy from 'laying on of hands.' Still, curiosity or some other motive induced him and three other men to observe my processes and their effects. They witnessed very marked contractions of the sick woman's muscles, and many spasmodic movements of her limbs. When I ceased working upon my patient, her husband said, 'Do you suppose you can affect _me_ in the same way?' My reply was, 'I don't know--probably not; but if you desire me to try, I will.' 'Yes,' said he, 'try.' 'Sit down, then, sir, in the chair where your wife sat.' He did so, and I operated for a short time without perceptible effect, but was soon impressed to say to him, 'Strike me on the small of the back,'--simultaneously placing my back so that he could give it a fair, hard blow, which he was by no means unwilling to inflict. After his first stroke I called out, 'Harder!' After the second, '_Harder!_' After the third, he was instantly cramped up, his arms were hugged in upon and across his chest, the muscles on them were much enlarged, intensely hardened, and not obedient to his will, and he lustily begged, 'Let me down! let me down! let me down!' while the other men, the sick wife, and myself laughed till we were exhausted. I had no will in producing, nor any design to effect any such results.

"J. W. CROSBY.

"BOSTON, April 30, 1874."

2. The testimony indicates that her _very simple medicines, such as anise-seed and liquors, produced extraordinary violent effects_. This is credible. Extraordinary effects were produced by magnetized handkerchiefs in the days of Paul, and to-day, even pure water, placed beneath the hands of some peculiar mediums, or beneath the tips of their fingers, sometimes absorbs or is made to manifest the medicinal properties of wine, ipecac, or of other substances desired; and such mediums are often very "successful practitioners using only simple remedies." The action of what they administer need not be psychological in any proper sense of that term: that is, the patient need not be informed, nor have suspicion, that the water is medicated thus; though any persons upon whom the action is very perceptible, probably, must be constitutionally mediumistic. By personal observation we have learned that water may be so medicated by unseen infusion from unseen source, as to taste like, and operate like, either ipecac or wine, according to the properties which some unseen intelligence to whom needs are transparent, and who can sicken or refresh at pleasure, has gathered from the atmosphere or elsewhere and infused into that water. When public vigilance had been roused to suspicion around this woman, it is not improbable that many persons, belligerent devil-ward, sought a test of her powers, and that some of them (susceptible ones) felt or drank in what caused "deafness, or vomiting, or other pains or sickness"--not improbable that on some of them her simples had "_violent_ effects." Persons thus affected would make up nearly the whole class from whom witnesses at her trial would be selected. If she had been generally a producer of only pains and sickness, her practice would soon have dwindled to nothing, and she would have lived on without molestation. "A successful practitioner," simply as such, would never have been arraigned.

Upham detected the significant fact in the case, that her simple remedies were so efficacious as to make her a successful practitioner; yes;--but was simply successful medical practice the chief reason why her neighbors charged diabolism? What amount of success in alleviating the sufferings that flesh is heir to would invoke public vengeance? How much beneficence did one then need to perform before public sentiment, would reprobate its author? Could such faculties and agents alone as are normally and ordinarily used, enable a woman to achieve such success in curing diseases, healing wounds, and alleviating pains, as to arouse an intelligent and religious community to arrest and try her for a capital offense against the well-being of society? Never. Did the historian notice his own back-handed imputation of atrocious diabolism upon the population of Charlestown when he led his readers to infer that they persecuted one of their number unto an ignominious death, solely because "she was a successful practitioner using only simple remedies"? Whether he saw it or not, his explanation made her neighbors take the life of this woman because of the good works she had done among them. Some theory of explanation which will exempt us from the necessity of assenting to gratuitous aspersions of the sagacity and sentiments of justice pertaining to our ancestry in the mass, is very desirable. Margaret Jones was a very successful _healing medium_, and therefore her works were mysteries.

Having noticed the only two allegations in this case which the historians have deemed worthy of specification or had courage to adduce, and having seen that Hutchinson ascribed her persecution to her own anger flowing out through her hands, while Upham ascribed it to her great success as a healer, we will just note the fact that the former historian generally indicated an abiding apprehension that those who _were persecuted_ for the crime in question, were the parties most to be blamed; while the latter, oftener than otherwise, throws the chief blame upon the _persecutors_. In this instance the earlier historian makes her anger,--a trait which is blamable,--while the latter makes her beneficence,--a commendable characteristic,--the chief exciting cause to her condemnation and execution.

We proceed to examine other original charges more difficult to solve plausibly on the hypotheses of Hutchinson and Upham than were anger and successful medical practice; charges not amenable to any philosophy entertained by those expounders.

3. "_She used to tell such as would not make use of her physic that they would never be healed; and, accordingly, their diseases and hurts continued; with relapses against the ordinary course_," &c. It is very common in our day for clairvoyance to see, or--more broadly and instructively--it is common for mediumistic faculties to _sense_ and feel sure, that the existing tendency of a patient's disease will soon terminate in death, if not checked by some peculiar medicinal agent, often a spiritual one, or one medicated by spirits, which ordinary physicians are ignorant of, will not prescribe, and cannot obtain. The evidence which Judge Winthrop reports, shows that "the diseases and hurts" of recusants to take her prescriptions, not only continued to remain unhealed, but underwent such changes and relapses as physicians and surgeons could not understand. Since such things occurred in accordance with her predictions, we here perceive strong evidence that the woman possessed uncommon susceptibilities for _sensing_ coming results. _It is just as clearly proved_ that she foretold specific events, as it is that her touch was malignant, and her practice successful. Her marvelous prescience, which was one of her conspicuous powers, the historians failed to set forth. Their philosophy, founded only on such materials as are recognized in man's physical sciences, was too narrow to embrace occult natural agents and forces by which such prescient powers could be drawn or put forth through some human organisms and produce marvelous results. Therefore those expounders let such facts remain undisturbed in the rarely visited closets where they have long reposed.

4. _Things which she foretold came to pass accordingly._ That is, events verified her predictions, and thus proved her exercise of marvelously prophetic powers. Should one assume that her verified predictions were only skillful or lucky guesses, would such assumption be fair and just toward the people who, as living witnesses on the spot, could know what the things were which she foretold, and know also with what accuracy they were fulfilled, and yet deemed them genuine prophecies? Her accusers could know the facts, while we, in the main, must be ignorant of them. We cannot reasonably deny that the direct observers actually discerned the exercise of genuinely prophetic powers by her. Some mortals at times can prophesy; for both in ancient prophetic and apostolic times, and in our own age, many people have been and are known to do it. Eternal laws or forces lead some mortals to sure knowledge of coming events. History and returning spirits both so teach.

"The spirit of prophecy has its source in infinite truth, and is as much a part of infinite law as any other manifestation of life; therefore it has a wise and powerful protection; and they who avail themselves of this spirit of prophecy, _by virtue of the way and manner in which they are physically and spiritually compounded_, if they are fortunate enough to place themselves in harmonious relations to the law, fail not in prophesying. But if, as is often the case, they unfortunately place themselves in inharmonious relations to the law, they must, of necessity, fail in part, if not entirely. It is a truthful saying, that 'coming events cast their shadows before.' _These shadows_ (?) _are, in reality, portions of the events_; these shadows take precedence of the material birth of all events as they are understood by mortals; they are the basis of that which you receive, and outlast that which you receive; they are the infinite part. Now, then, there are some persons _so constituted_ that they perceive these shadows (?) and can judge as accurately concerning what they predict, as the learned astronomer can concerning an eclipse."--_Spirit_, _Prof. Alexander M. Fisher, of Yale._ BANNER OF LIGHT, Jan. 30, 1875.

5. "_She could tell of secret speeches which she had no ordinary means to come to knowledge of._" At times, then, she was clairaudient, or was one of those sensitives whose spiritual organs of sensation are at times so disentangled from their material ones, that she experienced a practical annihilation of space and gross matter, which let her, as all unclogged spirits may, be practically present with and listeners to any person anywhere, to whom she was for any reason attracted, and with whom she came into rapport. Conditions admitting cognizance of the thoughts and words of the absent in body are now of daily occurrence with men, women, and children not a few, and therefore were possible with Margaret Jones in 1648 and years preceding. A letter from Captain Densmore, on a future page of this work, will show recent possession of power to bear the voices of living persons whose bodies were very far distant from the hearer.

6. "_While in the prison in the clear daylight there was seen in her arms ... a little child ... which, at the officer's approach, ran and vanished._" _Vanished_; that word intimates that it was a spectral or spirit child--perhaps her own departed one. By whom was it seen? By an officer of the prison, and therefore by one not likely to be her confederate in attempt at imposture. Not by him only; for a chambermaid also saw the little one, and was made sick by the sight; which effect argues against her having had any complicity in a trick. That testimony to such occurrences was given in court, is vouched for by Winthrop, and must have been, or surely should have been, read by subsequent historians. Their adroitness at leaving certain classes of facts in undisturbed obscurity, nearly rivals the cunning of agents to whom they impute the origin and production of witchcraft manifestations.

The visible presence of that evanescent child shows very clearly that Mrs. Jones was endowed with some of the rarer and exceptional properties of mediumship--that she possessed those special elements in the midst of which spirits could be robed in such materialized encasements, that material eyes could discern them. Angels looking and acting like men (Gen. xviii.) were seen by Abraham and Lot. One was seen (Judg. xiii.) by Manoah and his wife. Another by Tobias, son of Tobit (Apoc.); another by disciples who were walking toward Emmaus (John xx.); others also by thousands of individuals in various ages and nations, sporadically. To-day, distinct perception of materialized spirits in the presence of Mrs. Andrews at Moravia, N. Y., around Dr. Slade of New York city, and many others are reported almost weekly, and are well attested. In these modern instances, generally, some special, though simple, pre-arrangements are made to facilitate such manifestations; but we may very reasonably doubt whether anything of the kind was resorted to by Mrs. Jones, because, being in prison charged with the awful crime of witchcraft, the presumption is imperative that she must have lacked both means and opportunity to command tangible apparatus either for helping on a genuine spirit manifestation, or producing an optical illusion upon her keepers.

_Mortal._ "How do spirits materialize?"

_Spirit._ "You must know the atmosphere is full of particles of matter. Everything that is in the human body is also in the atmosphere in fine

## particles. Darkness renders these particles more quiescent, and hence more

easily managed by spirits. The spirit has a will point or center which is a spark of the Divine Nature. When the condition of the atmosphere, of the medium, and of the circle is proper, the spirit exerts that will power, and, in accordance with natural law, _attracts to its spirit form_ the floating particles in the air, and they condense upon and interpenetrate the spirit form or body so as to materialize it, making bone, muscle, skin, hair--every part, and making the spirit body, for the time being, a solid, palpable one. The air contains an immense amount of matter which can be used by spirits for materializing. We do not, however, usually materialize the blood.... We have to draw a portion of the substance for materialization from the medium, he being a kind of reservoir where we concentrate our supplies, and it is much more difficult to draw from him when at a distance, therefore we keep near him."--_Spirit. Disc., as reported by H A. Buddington._ BANNER OF LIGHT, Feb. 6, 1875.

A case of much interest and significance was reported to the Boston Post, a daily newspaper, by a correspondent under date of Newburyport, Jan. 13, 1873. Therein is furnished an account of a spirit boy showing himself in broad daylight, several times, on different occasions, at a window between an entry and a school-room, to a band of children and their teacher; also of his making a disturbing racket in an unfinished attic over them occasionally for many successive months. Miss Perkins, the teacher, says, "He is a little fellow, about eleven years old, with a pale face, and the saddest, sweetest mouth that she ever saw in her life, looking fearlessly up into her face out of a pair of blue eyes. He retreated into a corner. She followed him, and just as she was about to lay her hand upon him he vanished. No door had been opened, and yet he was gone." The account states that Miss Perkins, "though no spiritualist, is convinced that it" (the racket) "is all produced by supernatural agency, and believes that the apparition she saw was a veritable ghost."

The editor of the Springfield Republican probably consulted the teacher of that school, Miss Lucy A. Perkins, as to the correctness of the foregoing, and perhaps other accounts, which had become public, for she wrote to him, and he published as follows:--

"The account you sent me is true, with a few exceptions. When I first saw the boy, he was neatly attired in a _brown_ suit of clothes, trimmed with braid and buttons of the same color. When I reached forward to grasp him, he seemed not like the boy, but vapory, or, as I can only describe it, like a thin cloud scudding across the room; still he seemed to have the boy form. Reports from some of the Boston papers say I fainted; such is not the case. I knew where I was and what I was about just as well as I know I am writing.

"One day I sent a boy out to hang up the brushes, &c.... He was out about five minutes. After he had taken his seat, three raps came on the door of the room where the brushes were hung. He said, 'Miss Perkins, can I go out and see who's there?' I told him, 'Yes, and leave the school-room door open.' He did so, and when he opened the brush-room door (I sat where I could see all) every one of the brushes, both long and short handled, came falling off the nails where they were hung; some struck him on the shoulders, and the broom directly on the top of his head. The dust-pan, hanging on a nail at some distance above the brushes, came tumbling to the floor with a vengeance. It then stood on its handle, then on the bottom edge, and continued on so till it entered the school-room, and then it was placed as nicely against the partition as if I had done it myself. Just as soon as I'd raise the ventilator, a black ball, like a cannon ball, would begin to roll around the attic, and make such a noise I would be obliged to lower the ventilator. One day the room was quiet as it possibly could be, and all at once some one in the attic called out, 'Dadie Pike!' Dadie thought I spoke, and said, 'What'm?' I said to him, 'Can you say your lesson?'

"Since the boy affair took place, the attic has been fastened up; locks and keys are of no use, however, for there is as much walking up stairs, and sometimes the hammering and nailing. Once in a while, sounds as of some one walking will come down the attic way, go across the entry, and open the outside door, and be gone perhaps ten minutes; after it is quiet again, the door will open, and he, she, or it will go up stairs.... I am not a spiritualist; never attended a sitting, in fact, never had anything to do with a person of that belief, and never saw any manifestations. Why anything of the sort should take place where I am, is more than I can account for."

This case, wherein a teacher and her two score pupils simultaneously saw a spirit in broad daylight, day after day and week after week, argues very forcibly that "the nature of things" permits admission that the testimony relating to the spirit child in the jail may be literally true. Laws and forces are now frequently indicating their existence, which permit the observable presence of spirits.

Intense yearnings for comfortings, sympathy, and support in her dark and trying hour, as well as other causes, may have drawn an angel child--her own or some other--to the arms of Margaret Jones, whose history reveals her possession of peculiar susceptibilities and mediumistic properties; and with her as a reservoir, materialization of the spirit may have been accomplished.

7. The sickened maid "was cured by the said Margaret, who used means to be employed to that end." Kindness and skill successfully put forth to heal the sick, even while the public was keeping her in a felon's cell, hang as a luminous cloud over her head, and betoken something good in her--betoken the possible source of something different from a malignant touch--yes, of "genuinely successful medical practice."

We know little of her character; there is no impeachment of it in the recorded testimony. Her peculiar powers resulted, no doubt, from peculiar innate formations of and connections between her outer and inner organisms, and had little dependence upon intellectual or moral qualities. Not her own holiness, nor any other common power of hers, enabled her to either intensify or abate painful sensations. Whether sinner or saint was the more prominent in her character, our course and views have no occasion to inquire.

Winthrop's comments say that "her behavior at her trial was very intemperate; lying notoriously and railing upon the jury and witnesses;... in the like distemper she died." He gives no particulars, and therefore furnishes no grounds on which we may judge whether any of her statements which seemed to him false, might not seem to us, at our different stand-point of observation, to have been true. Very many perfectly true utterances made by mediums to-day relative to their involuntary and even unconscious putting forth of acts and words imputed to them, would be deemed lies by all common interpreters who are ignorant of the part often performed by or through that higher set of mental powers which our leading scientists have lately discovered are at the service of intellect not our own. Perhaps she lied; perhaps, too, she was truthful, but misunderstood. Intemperance in her behavior, no doubt, was manifest. But that might spring from various motives. Any spirited person, consciously innocent of a charged offense, and possessing only moderate power of self-control and moderate intellectual stamina, would be very likely to pour forth warm language, and flat and forceful denials of allegations of wrong-doing. Persecuted innocence was only a very little less likely--if at all less--than ill temper or "distemper," to call forth what might seem to be "railing upon the jury and witnesses." Neither severe language nor "intemperate behavior" is necessarily derogatory to any one's prevailing temper or character, when rushing forth from the lips and limbs of one whose deeds are being so misinterpreted that beneficence is looked upon as diabolism, and whose beneficent works are being made to draw down upon their author an ignominious death.

Possibly words from her lips, and behavior seemingly prompted by her emotions, were manifestations of the thoughts and impulses of some other intelligence than herself. If so, most scathing rebukes for her persecution, and for thirstings for her blood, might fall thick and heavy upon the ears of benighted jurors and blinded witnesses. Observation has often noticed most terrific outflowings of denunciations upon blind guides, through organs of speech not controlled by their reputed owner. Felix is not the last person who has trembled under the lashings of inspiration. An acting out through her form, by another intelligence, a deep sense of wrong she had received, may have made her seem as mad in the eyes of Winthrop, as the learning and forceful utterances of Paul did him in those of Festus.