Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism Part 12

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 b.u.t.terfly or moth that came from out the former. The grub and its moth are the same being in different stages of development. Mult.i.tudes 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 cla.s.s 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 const.i.tuted, 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 p.r.o.nounced _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 a.s.sumed, 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, s.p.a.ce, and gross matter, and makes them possessors of ability to feel, or rather to _sense_, contact with the properties of some peculiarly const.i.tuted 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 a.s.sociates, 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 a.s.suredly 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 hara.s.sed 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 n.o.ble ends, yes, for G.o.d'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 d.a.m.ning 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 G.o.d, 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 h.e.l.lish 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 G.o.d 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.

Who was "my Indian man"? Yes; who that baker whose cake raised the devil, and caused apparitions to become exceeding plenty? Mr. Parris, prior to being a minister of the gospel, had been a merchant in Barbadoes, and at the commencement of the strange feats alluded to, had in his family some servants, whom he called Indians; but they probably were natives either of some one of the West India islands or of the neighboring coast of South America, whom he had brought thence, and who were, doubtless, by nature less firm and self-reliant than our northern Indians usually are. Two of these servants, or slaves, viz., John Indian, the cake-baker, and his wife, t.i.tuba, were among the first, if they were not the very first, persons there to succ.u.mb, and yield subjection to the peculiar influences which developed the terrible events we are considering. Those two humble, ignorant, weak-minded slaves may have been, and we regard them as having been, though unintentionally and unconscious of it, very efficient aids in the outward manifestation of what their master properly termed "amazing feats."

John seems, so far as records depict him, to have been only about as much of a medium as King Saul was; that is, one that could be made to tumble down and roll about in unseemly ways. There may, and there may not, have been properties in his composition which were very helpful to spirits in gaining control over other persons. However that may have been, he was not perceptibly much of a medium, and had but little connection with the events which so hara.s.sed his master and neighbors, as far as can now be shown. But his wife, t.i.tuba, deserves extended notice and careful study.

Before the observable works were commenced, she was clairvoyant and clairaudient, and her aid in the amazing feats which transpired was solicited in advance by a nocturnal visitant needing no opened door for entrance. She entered behind the scene,--behind the vail of flesh,--and her spirit eyes saw the chief manager. She is the great eye-witness in the case. She was a medium easy of control, and, Aga.s.siz-like, retained her consciousness and her memory of experiences while her form was subjected to control by another's will. Obviously, also, she was an uncommonly good developing medium, or, in other words, her const.i.tutional properties were such as greatly aided spirits to develop the mediumistic susceptibilities of other persons.

This humble, illiterate slave, besides being apparently the chief focus or reservoir of supermundane forces that evolved the Salem wonders, was one among the first three persons who were arrested and brought before the civil tribunals under charges of practicing witchcraft. Her statements at her examination were recorded very fully by one of the two magistrates who conducted the proceedings. And the transmitted words of this simple-minded creature, whose intellect was incompetent to foresee the consequences of her answers and statements, throw more light upon the origin and growth, and upon the nature and true character, of Salem witchcraft, than does all that came from other lips, or any pens of her cotemporaries, or than has come from subsequent historians. Her mediumistic susceptibilities gave her admittance where she was an actual observer of the real author of and actors in that memorable drama. Her knowledge was derived directly through one set of her own senses, and therefore she was able to speak of, and apparently did speak simply and truthfully of, persons and scenes which her inner organs of sense had cognized. She _knew_ more than did all her prosecutors and judges combined concerning the matters under investigation at her trial; and could those who then presided have been n.o.bly humble enough to learn from such a witness, and single-eyed enough to admit into their own minds the literal import of her simple statements, the horrors which were subsequently experienced would never have transpired. But the faith of those times forbade such elevation.

t.i.tuba's general, if not uniform frankness, and the extreme simplicity of her answers, tend strongly to beget confidence in the intentional and substantial truthfulness of her statements. We deem it unjust to doubt her truthfulness. And the general accuracy of her testimony is now rendered credible by its harmony with a ma.s.s of facts pertaining to Spiritualism.

If the truth and accuracy of her words be conceded,--and they ought to be,--we learn distinctly that during the "several weeks" through which Mr.

Parris's afflicted daughter and niece were treated by their physician and cared for by the family and friends without suspicion of witchcraft, t.i.tuba was positively _knowing_ that something like a man, invisible to outward sense, visited herself, and sought and sometimes forced her co-operation in pinching the two little girls and in producing their seeming sicknesses. Her experience proved to her that the sufferings of the children were purposely inflicted by an intelligent being something like a man. Her statements prove the same to us.

Such testimony as hers, by such a lowly person as she was, when given before a tribunal whose members were firm believers in such a devil and in such a creed as have been described in our Appendix, even if fairly comprehended by them, would cause her judges to believe that she was virtually confessing that she had made a covenant with the Evil One. From their premises they could not logically draw any other conclusion.

Perhaps, unfortunately for her, but not for us at this day, her intellect was too feeble to perceive the inferences which would be drawn from her words. Fearing not consequences, she could frankly tell her experiences and observations; she let out the exact facts of the case, and furnished for us a sound historic basis for the a.s.sertion that the strange maladies which came upon the little girls in Mr. Parris's house were designedly and deliberately imposed by a disembodied spirit or a band of spirits.

The mouths of not only babes and sucklings, but of adults of feeble intellect, present facts, sometimes, better than those whose intellects are swayed by fears of dreaded consequences which might ensue from frank and full avowal of their knowledge. From t.i.tuba came statements of facts to which we must give prolonged attention. A perusal of the fullest minutes of her testimony may be wearisome, but her account of what she saw, heard, and was made to do, is so instructive that we shall present it without abridgment, because it was first printed in full only a few years ago, was probably never seen or known to exist by Hutchinson, was not availed of by Upham, and not very carefully a.n.a.lyzed by Drake. Only a very limited portion of the reading public has ever had opportunity to learn more than a small fraction of the disclosures made by this important witness.

Upham, though he had perused the minutes of testimony to which we allude, elected to use a briefer report of t.i.tuba's statements, which was made by Ezekiel Cheever. The more extended one he noticed thus: "Another report of t.i.tuba's examination has been preserved in the second volume" (we find it in vol. iii., appendix, p. 185) "of the collection edited by Samuel G.

Drake, ent.i.tled the 'Witchcraft Delusion in New England.' It is in the handwriting of Jonathan Corwin, very full and minute." It is "full, minute," and abounding in facts which the faithful historian should adduce and comment upon. It was written out by one of the magistrates before whom t.i.tuba was examined, and therefore its authority is good. It surprises us that the historian who noticed it as above failed to use much important matter contained in it which was lacking in the report that he preferred to this.

Drake, under whose supervision this ampler report was first printed, says, in Woodward's "Historical Series," No. I. Vol. III. Appendix p. 186, that "it is valuable on several accounts, the chief of which is the light it throws on the commencement of the delusion.... This examination, more, perhaps, than any of the rest, exhibits the atrocious method employed by the examinant of causing the poor ignorant accused to own and acknowledge things put into their mouths by a manner of questioning as much to be condemned as perjury itself, inasmuch as it was sure to produce that crime. In this case the examined was taken from jail and placed upon the stand, and was soon so confused that she could scarcely know what to say.

While it is evident that all her answers were at first true, because direct, straightforward, and reasonable. The strangeness of the questions and the long persistence of the questioners could lead to no other result but confounding what little understanding the accused was at best possessed of.... The examination was before Messrs. Hathorne and Corwin.

The former took down the result, which is all in his peculiar chirography." Upham, it will be noticed, says the report was written by Corwin, while Drake here ascribes it to Hathorne. But since those two men were both present as joint holders of the examining court, the authority of either gives great value to the doc.u.ment; we regard the record as having been made by Corwin.

While Drake says this record of "the examination is valuable" for "the light it throws on the commencement of the delusion," he also calls it a "record of incoherent nonsense." The public very narrowly escaped loss of opportunity to get at the important and luminous facts contained in this doc.u.ment. Drake, in 1866, says, "The original (now for the first time printed) came into the editor's hands some five and twenty years since,"

at which time, "on a first and cursory perusal of the examination of the Indian woman belonging to Mr. Parris's family, it was concluded not to print it, and only refer to it; that is, only refer to the _extract_ from it contained in the HISTORY AND ANTIQUITIES OF BOSTON. But when editorial labors upon these volumes were nearly completed, a re-perusal of that examination was made, and the result determined the editor to give it a place in this Appendix." We are constrained to doubt whether this editor attained to anything like either fair comprehension of the value of this doc.u.ment even upon its re-perusal, or that he perceived one half the import which facts fairly give to the following words from his pen: "The record of this examination _throws light on the commencement of the delusion_." Yes, light upon the time, place, source, and nature of that commencement, and which also discloses who was the originating, and probably the guiding agent of all that witchcraft's subsequent process up to its culmination--light which, to great extent, exculpates both the fathers and their children--light which reveals the true actors and exonerates their _unconscious_ instruments. That doc.u.ment, read, as it now can be, with help from modern revealments, proves that some spirit, or a band of spirits, was witchcraft's generator and enactor at Salem, and indicates that simple t.i.tuba comprehended the genuine source of the disturbance more clearly than did any other known person of that generation. She furnished for transmission a key that now unlocks the door of the chamber of mystery, in which she and her a.s.sociates were made to enact thrilling and b.l.o.o.d.y scenes one hundred and eighty years ago.

That such as desire to do so may be enabled to peruse the whole of her testimony, which probably can now be found printed only in Woodward's very valuable Series of original doc.u.ments pertaining to witchcraft,--a work too voluminous and costly to obtain general circulation,--we shall do what we can to further public accessibility to t.i.tuba's statement, ungarbled and unabridged. Still, to both relieve and enlighten the reader, we shall break up its continuity by interjecting comments upon many parts as we go on, but do this in such form, that, if the reader chooses to peruse the whole unbiased by comment, he can; for this will require only an observance of our quotation marks. By skipping our comments he can read in their original collocations all parts of what Drake calls "incoherent nonsense," but which to us, notwithstanding some perplexing incoherence of both questions and answers, is rich in instructive _facts_.

Prior to March 1, the malady seems to have spread out beyond the parsonage and seized upon other persons, for on that day several afflicted ones were convened as witnesses, or accusers, or both, at the place where the magistrates then appeared for attending to the cases of three women who had been accused of witchcraft, arrested, and held for examination. Here was the commencement of reputed folly and barbarity so exercised as soon to redden that region with the blood of the innocent, the manly, the virtuous, and the devout.

Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn, and t.i.tuba were brought into the meeting-house as suspected witches and as producers of the sufferings of the several afflicted ones, to be examined in the presence of their accusers and the public. What course the magistrates either elected or were constrained to pursue in order to educe such facts as would sustain a charge for witchcraft, will reveal itself as we proceed, through the questions which they put to the accused, and the kinds of evidence which they admitted.

t.i.tUBA.

"_t.i.tuba, the Indian woman, examined March 1, 1692._

"_Q._ Why do you hurt these poor children? What harm have they done unto you?

"_A._ They do no harm to me. I no hurt them at all."

The first question by the magistrates implies the presence there of the afflicted children, and of their then seeming to be invisibly hurt. It also implies the magistrate's a.s.sumption that t.i.tuba was hurting them. Her denial that either they had harmed her or that she was hurting them was distinct. But the magistrate seemingly doubted its truth or its sufficiency, for he next asked,--

"_Q._ Why have you done it?

"_A._ I have done nothing. I can't tell when the devil works.