Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism Part 26

DEMONOLOGY AND NECROMANCY.

Demonology--intercourse with demons--implies dealings with spiritual personalities; but these may be either good or bad, and may consist wholly, or only in part, of departed human beings, provided there be any other grade of spirits residing in, or able to enter, earth's spirit spheres: probably there are not.

In earlier ages, these demons were often deemed to be intermediate messengers and links facilitating intercourse between mortals on earth and most eminent G.o.ds above. That idea, somewhat qualified, is having revival now in the minds of those who are receiving from their departed friends instructions and influences which allure humans heavenward. In the olden faith, demon was used to designate a spirit who might be good; and demonology, then, far from being branded as DIABOLISM, or dealings with one great Devil and his special devotees, was generally deemed not only innocent, but helpful;--as much so as man's communings to-day with either his disembodied kindred and friends, or with benighted, forlorn, and anguished souls who seek needed encouragement and solace, which they can obtain from none other than an earthly source, are deemed helpful by those loving and philanthropic men and women who take active part in similar demonological interviews now. Bad as demonology seems at this day, when the word has come to suggest dealings with bad and demoralizing spirits alone, time was, when both it and necromancy, or intercourse with the dead, could be legitimately applied to such interviews as Jesus had with Moses and Elias on the Mount of Transfiguration; and therefore then might have imported communings that would spiritualize and elevate whoever experienced its operations. Strictly, there are no dead. Moses and Elias were living personages when seen by Jesus. Socrates, and many another ancient and wise teacher, drew much profound wisdom and inspiration from out the vailed recesses of demonology and necromancy, and the example of such wise and good men of old has practical imitation by the spiritually-minded and philanthropic disciples of modern communicators living in supernal spheres.

BIBLICAL WITCH AND WITCHCRAFT.

Very great difference existed between the witchcraft of Bible times and that of Christendom fifteen hundred years after John recorded the Revelation. The difference was almost as marked as that between the devils of those two periods.

The word witch seems primarily to mean, "a _knowing_ one," and perhaps has always hinted at knowledge or power acquired by some mysterious method.

Witch has generally meant, not only a _knowing one_, but also any person who gets knowledge or help by processes which are mysterious. Witch_craft_ has been the utterance of knowledge, or the application of power, thus obtained. But neither all such utterance, nor all such application of force, was, in biblical times, called witchcraft. Far, very far different from that. Daniel, Ezekiel, and John the Revelator, all obtained knowledge mysteriously from the lips of departed men; their promulgation of it, however, was not called _witchcraft_, but the _word of G.o.d_.

Neither do the Scriptures speak of the woman of Endor as a witch or practicer of witchcraft, though she had both a familiar spirit, and such clairvoyant powers that at her call Samuel rendered himself visible by her; and he either used her organs of speech, or impressed her to use them, in utterance of rebukes to Saul and prediction of his coming fate.

This was not biblical _witchcraft_; though, departing from biblical precedent, the modern world has fallen into the habit of calling the woman of Endor a _witch_, while that epithet is not applied to her in the Bible.

His lawgiver said to Moses, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live;" but if that teacher furnished any very clear definition of either witch or witchcraft, it has not come down to us. Tempting to _spiritual wh.o.r.edom_, so far as we can determine, const.i.tuted the crime of witchcraft among the Jews. The people of Israel were regarded as being _wedded_ to the G.o.d of Abraham; therefore persons who by _signs_, by marvelous utterances and acts, tempted Jews to be false to their marriage relations with their G.o.d, were witches. The crime of witchcraft was not involved in simply putting forth knowledge, signs, and wonders by the help of familiar spirits, because prophets and apostles often did that when they put forth "the word of G.o.d." Witchcraft was application of supernal knowledge and powers for the special purpose of seducing and tempting people to worship Moloch, or some other G.o.d of the heathen. (See Lev. xx. 5, 6.) Bible witchcraft was _use of mysterious acquisitions in teaching_ HERESY.

PROTESTANT CHRISTENDOM'S WITCH AND WITCHCRAFT.

In the seventeenth century, much of the biblical import of witch and witchcraft, as well as of demon, had been either perverted or dropped, and belief was prevalent, especially outside of the Catholic Church, that none but _evil_ spirits could come to men; and also that "the days of miracles, or special manifestation directly from the Almighty, had ceased." Then, too, a personal devil, heaven-born but apostate, and perhaps also myriads of other heaven-born but rebellious and banished angels, could, and only such base spirits could, get access to our external world; and they could effect entrance only through human beings who voluntarily consented and agreed to co-operate with them. It will be apparent on future pages, that any spirit then seen by clairvoyant eyes, whatever the s.e.x, form, features, complexion, or aspect, was either the devil himself, or some apparition formed and presented by him or his, and he was held responsible for its presentation. Our fathers attained to and held firm conviction that all channels for inspirations and mighty works, available since the days of Jesus and his apostles, were avenues for the influx of none but poisonous waters. This was a sad mistake; for, could they have perceived the groundlessness of their faith that supernal springs of truth, purity, and benevolence had been dammed against the emission of good waters earthward,--groundlessness of their belief that the possibility and feasibility of such works and inspirations as they called miracles had ever been restricted by anything but natural conditions,--that perception would have rendered it apparent to themselves that they ought to make wizards of Abraham and Lot, of Moses and Samuel, of Daniel, Ezekiel, and John the Revelator, since each one of those communed with spirits.

Our American predecessors in the seventeenth century believed it impossible that good spirits could come to man from bright abodes,--doubted perhaps, perhaps disbelieved, that departed men and women ever did return to earth, excepting "by the immediate agency of the Almighty;" and their writings and actions justify us in saying, that with them, _witchcraft was injection of occult forces and teachings upon man, through consenting mortals, for malicious purposes solely, and by invisible intelligences_.

SPIRIT, SOUL, AND MENTAL POWERS.

Perplexing diversity prevails among users of English language in their application of the terms spirit and soul. Some regard spirit as only a fine, invisible robe of the essential man; while others speak of soul as the robe and spirit as the man who wears it. Our own custom has been to regard soul as _the man_, and spirit as his under-garment during earth-life, and his outer one, if he shall have more than one, when he shall put off his present outer. This view is not novel. The sometimes clairvoyant Paul stated that there is a natural or outer, and a spiritual or inner body--yes, _body_. Opened inner eyes to-day often see spirit-forms pervading the outer forms of people around them. Their observations are in harmony with the apostle's declaration.

The essential nature of spirit is all unknown by us. Whether matter, spirit, and soul are but different combinations and conditions of like primal elements, we are utterly incompetent to determine. Practically we accept, what is probably a common notion, that matter and soul differ fundamentally; and, having done that, we are unable to identify spirit with either of them elementally. Therefore, without any definite conceptions as to its inherent alliances, we speak of it as possibly something between the other two--_a tertium quid_. Thought regards it as the substance of worlds unspeakably finer than material planets. Spirit, in ma.s.s, is not a living, conscious ent.i.ty, any more than matter is; but is a finer than gossamer substance, capable, like matter, of becoming organized, and growing into a living enrobement of the soul--enrobement of that which const.i.tutes the on-living man through all changes of vest.i.ture.

Such is our present conjecture.

We apprehend that a world whose elemental substance is spirit both pervades and surrounds this material one--a world, we will say for the purpose of indicating our thought, composed of spirit matter. The invisibility and impalpability of such spirit substance are no conclusive refutation of its existence in and around us perpetually. Who sees electricity, magnetism, gravitation, attraction, cohesion, repulsion? Who sees either mind, or the force by which an aching toe reports to the brain and excites the sympathy of the whole organism? Many things are about us, and yet known only in their perceptible phenomena. Spirit substance may be all about us; the spirit world may be in, through, upon, and around the material one. Many manifestations hint at the existence of an all-permeating something, which--since the word is shorter than atmosphere, and not so liable perhaps to be suggestive of palpable matter--we will call _aura_, that contains and furnishes the elements out of which spirit _bodies_ are formed, elements of the solid globe on which spirits live, and also is the medium of sight, sound, touch, and all sensation to man's spiritual or inner organism even now and here. A soul, encased within a body elaborated from and within that aura, may, when and where conditions favor, live, move freely, and be happy, whether near the fireside of its former earthly mansion, in earth's atmosphere above and around us, in the earth below our feet, under and in the waters of ocean, in the heavens over us, or _wherever thought can go_. It gives body to thought itself. Brick walls and granite mountains may be no hindrances to its movements, or its freedom and power to see, act, and enjoy. All such powers and privileges probably pertain to us as spirits, even while residents in these outer forms, provided only we can effect temporary disentanglements from the outer, as is often done by or for the highly mediumistic. And yet, so long as the two bodies of a human being retain their ordinary conjunction, something not yet well understood, generally either keeps the spirit senses from cognizable contact with what is conceived to be their native aura, and therefore holds them seemingly embryonic, or it keeps the exterior consciousness of most persons from perceptions of many things which inner senses may be latently experiencing.

A broad survey of mediumistic phenomena raises the question, whether the inner powers of mediums--now in this life, and daily--see, hear, and learn any more of spiritual things than do the inner powers of others, or whether the chief difference between the mediumistic and others is that the inner faculties of mediums are enabled, in consequence of some peculiarity in relative strength between the outer and inner or in the attachments between the two sets of organs, to report to the outer consciousness, and thus let their outer faculties perceive and report what the inner have cognized, while in the ma.s.s of mankind such process is not cognized.

The young servant of Elisha (2 Kings vi. 17) was unable to see spirit hosts upon the hills about Dothan, which were visible to his master; but "Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Elisha." The prophet did not ask that his young man should be endowed with any new organs of vision, but only for the opening of such as he already possessed. As soon as those visual organs in him, which could be reached and illumined by spirit aura, came into action of which he became conscious, the young man beheld spiritual beings; which beings, since the prophet had been seeing them all the time, were obviously as near and as visible before as after the prayer. Some spirit perhaps ejected spirit force upon the young man in such way as helped internal perceptions to impress themselves on his external consciousness. Spirits frequently throw some invisible aura with perceptible force upon the external eyes of modern mediums, when these sensitives are being brought into condition for conscious discernment of spirits. Whether the object be to awaken new vision, or simply to impress existing internal vision upon the outer consciousness, is yet an unanswered question. Perhaps each in different cases.

Possibly an actual discernment of earth-emanc.i.p.ated intelligences by our inner organs, especially in our hours of sleep, occurs frequently with most human beings; that is, the "inward man," or inner consciousness, of each mortal may be well acquainted now with many spirits and spirit scenes, so that, upon liberation from the flesh, emerging spirits may find themselves among acquaintances and at home. With some individuals--especially with prophetic and otherwise mediumistic ones--their knowledge, gained through sensations experienced by the inner faculties, is sometimes brought to and impresses itself upon the outer consciousness, and becomes to palpably operative that those individuals are deemed inspired, for they speak as never _man_--that is, as the outward man--spake.

Either physical peculiarities, or peculiar relations between the outer or natural and the inner or spiritual bodies, more than the quantum of either mental or moral developments, seem to be the requisites for facile mediumship. That view is often set forth in statements made by spirits, and is rendered probable by observation of many facts. Mediumistic proclivities run much in families, about as much as musical ones do; and the capabilities for either mediumistic or musical performances are measurably const.i.tutional and transmissible. Moses, Aaron, and their sister Miriam, all prophesied, or were mediums of communications from the realm of spirits. In our antecedent pages it appears that four children of John Goodwin,--that three n.o.ble, adult, and married sisters, Nurse, Easty, and Cloyse, living apart from each other, whose mother had been called a witch,--that Sarah Good and her little daughter Dorcas, five years old,--that Mrs. Ann Putnam and her daughter Ann, and that Martha Carrier and four of her children, were mediumistic. We can add to the list seven sons of Seva, and four daughters of Philip, in apostolic times.

Const.i.tutional properties, combinations, or endowments, differing from such as are most common in the make-up of man, pertain to such persons as are or can be the most plastic mediums. In many people, the organized properties of their physical or mental structures, or of both these, and the relations of such properties to each other, and their mutual action, become, at times, so modified by severe sickness, proximate drownings, protracted fastings, sudden frights, intense griefs, by use of anaesthetics, narcotics, and stimulants, and from many other causes, that those to whom the properties belong become temporarily mediumistic, though they be not observably or consciously such in their more normal states.

The most common, and the more mildly acting agents or instrumentalities of such change, and those which produce the more abiding effects, are magnetic emanations and psychological influences from the positively mediumistic acting upon relatively negative systems. Such emanations may be seed originating new, or fertilizers quickening and expanding existing, inward growths.

Emanuel Swedenborg was, prior to and independently of his marked spiritual illumination late in life, one of the most erudite and ill.u.s.trious scientists of the last century, and, being a truthful, conscientious, devout man, trained to accuracy of observation and statement, he was admirably fitted for a reporter to the external world, of facts which came under his observation as an observer in spirit realms; and we take from his works the following short extracts, which have some bearing upon the topic just presented.

"Man loses nothing by death, but is still a man in all respects.... Many are bewildered after death by finding themselves in a body, in garments, and in houses, ... some had believed that men after death would be as ghosts, specters of which they had heard."

"The will and understanding ... are two _organic_ forms, ... forms organized from the purest substances. It is no objection that their organization is not manifest to the eye, being interior to sight.... How can love and wisdom act upon what is not a substantial existence? How else can thought inhere?"

TWO SETS OF MENTAL POWERS.

Teachers unseen, speaking back to the world they have gone from, often say that, when here, they possessed two _bodies_--one of which is entombed below, while in the other they went forth and still abide; they say also that they possessed two mental systems and a double consciousness, one only of which survives. Quite recently, science, pressing forward in explorations, obtained perceptions of this latter fact. In his eighth lecture on the "Method of Creation," given May 1, 1873, and reported in the New York Tribune, the eminent Aga.s.siz spoke as follows:--

"Are all mental faculties one? Is there only one kind of mental power throughout the whole animal kingdom, differing only in intensity and range of manifestation? In a series of admirable lectures, given recently in Boston by Dr. Brown-Sequard, he laid before his audience _a new philosophy of mental powers_. Through physiological experiments, combined with a careful study and comparison of pathological cases, he has come to the conclusion that there are _two sets_, or a double set, of mental powers in the human organism, or acting through the human organism, essentially different from each other. The one may be designated as our ordinary conscious intelligence; the other as a superior power which controls our better nature, solves, sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly, nay, even in sleep, our problems and perplexities, suggests the right thing at the right time, acting through us without conscious action of our own, though susceptible of training and elevation. Or perhaps I should rather say, our own organism may be trained to be a more plastic instrument through which this power acts in us.

"I do not see why this view should not be accepted. It is in harmony with facts as far as we know them. The experiments through which my friend Dr.

Brown-Sequard has satisfied himself that the subtle mechanism of the human frame, about which we know so little in its connection with mental processes, is sometimes acted upon by a power outside of us as familiar with that organization as we are ignorant of it, are no less acute than they are curious and interesting."

Many persons, including the author of these pages, more than twenty years ago found among "phenomena called spiritual," many which seemed imperatively to demand a broadening of the base of any mental philosophy which the world at large had presented to their notice, and apprehended that light was dawning amid the dark work of spirits, which might reveal to man more knowledge than he had ever obtained both of his own mysterious structure, and of his relations to and possible intercourse with his predecessors on earth. Many, perceiving this, have held on prosecuting such observations, and drawing such conclusions as their opportunities and powers permitted, undeterred by sneers and cold shoulders; and such now spontaneously hail with joy the arrival of the world's most advanced scientists at "_a new philosophy of mental powers_;" such a philosophy, too, as manifestations well scrutinized have long been indicating would some day be based on the firm foundation of proved facts, and become a blessing to our race. Both spiritualism and science, by distinct routes, have reached a common point, and each testifies to the other's discovery of a new world _in_ man.

"The subtle mechanism of the human frame, about which we know so little in its connection with mental processes, _is sometimes acted upon by a power outside of us as familiar with that organism as we are ignorant of it, ...

acting through us without conscious action of our own, though susceptible of training or elevation_." Such is the conclusion of Dr. Brown-Sequard, which is indorsed by Aga.s.siz. Backed by such authority, one may very courageously move forward in efforts to show that the very structure of man through all ages may have permitted certain human forms to have been controlled and used by intelligent powers outside of themselves, and without conscious action of their own, that is, without consciousness on the part of the individual minds to which those bodies naturally pertained. Such facts are guide-boards designating pathways along which producers of prophetic, witchcraft, and spiritualistic phenomena can reach standing-points for speech and action perceptible by men's external senses; these facts are keys, too, that will unlock many chambers of mystery, and we have used them in searches among the records of witchcraft.

Those eminent savants do not state, and therefore we shall not maintain, that the outside power they refer to is spirits of former occupants of human bodies; but since that power "is as familiar with the human organism as we are ignorant of it," the language surely implies reference to _some intelligent_ power, for its familiarity with the organism is that of _knowledge_, the acquisition of which is contrasted with our _ignorance_.

To whom can they refer, if not to spirits of some grade?

The nature of things contains provision for temporary reincarnations of some departed spirits in the physical forms of some peculiarly organized and endowed human beings. This fact is important, and should be borne in mind during a perusal of the present work.

MARVEL AND SPIRITUALISM.

We are reluctant to use the word "miracle" because of its liability to be construed as designating not only an act performed directly by an Almighty One, but also that, in performing it, He acts "contrary to the established const.i.tution and course of things;" which course we believe was never adopted. Therefore we shall use "marvel," to designate all works which have seemed to require more than human power, and have been understood to be "more than natural."

Such A MARVEL _is a result from application of powerful occult forces which man neither comprehends nor can manage_.

SPIRITUALISM is phenomena resulting from use of occult forces and processes by invisible, departed human spirits.

Most genuine spiritual phenomena are marvels; but there may be, and may have been in witchcraft-scenes, marvels which spirits did not produce. We left out from the definition of marvel, necessity for an _intelligent_ operator. Impersonal influxes to many mediums may at times produce many things which are often ascribed to personal spirits.

Our broad definition lets the word marvel cover all supernal revelations and inspirations from any G.o.d, spirit, or the impersonal spirit realms,--all angel or spirit presence ever perceived by man,--all mighty works, signs, and wonders ever wrought through prophets, apostles, magicians, sorcerers, and the like,--all promptings, helps, and works by spirits called "familiar,"--all necromancies, witchcrafts, &c., &c. As a natural philosophy, our subject embraces all these. Its moral or religious aspects do not come under special consideration in the course of inquiry which is pursued by us. Spiritualism--as evolvements by finite unseen intelligences, using none other than natural forces, however occult, acting in subserviency to natural laws and nice conditions--has its rightful place with whatever has come forth from action of intra-mundane or supra-mundane forces and agents.

Hidden intelligences in all ages and lands have had credit for performing in man's presence many "mighty works," and for making revelations from the world unseen. Over the whole earth formerly, and over the larger part of it now, such intelligences have been and are deemed to be of all characters and grades, from very unfolded, pure, and benevolent beings, down to the ignorant, corrupt, and malignant. But our Puritan ancestry on this continent had inherited and brought hither with them a firm, unqualified belief that no other spirits but evil ones could, or at least that none but such would, operate among the Christian dwellers on New England soil. The mysterious workers and their doings were here excessively diabolized by the monstrous creed previously described, which prevailed all through Christendom during the seventeenth and some prior centuries, so that signs, wonders, and mighty works among our ancestors a.s.sumed forms, characters, and horrors which were never known among Jews, Christians, or heathen of old, and do not revive in our own times. There was then lacking here any conjecture that the same laws which in Job's time permitted Satan to mingle in company with the sons of G.o.d, might permit a son of G.o.d--a good spirit--to traverse the paths along which the sons of the devil--bad spirits--made approaches to the children of men.

Moses, Elias, Samuel, and John's brother prophet were forgotten. We apprehend that facts of history teach beyond all successful refutation that spirits of some quality acted upon and through many persons in the American colonies during the latter half of the seventeenth century. Our fathers were not mistaken as to that fact; but their inhospitable and fierce slamming of doors in the faces of these visitants provoked terrible retaliations. One leading object of this work is to refute the position of intervening historians, that no disembodied spirits whatsoever had any hand in producing American witchcraft.

INDIAN WORSHIP.

The historian Hutchinson said, "the Indians were supposed to be worshipers of the devil, and their powows to be wizards." Such supposition by the mind of Christendom intensified fears and ruthless acts on American soil more than elsewhere, whenever suspicion of witchcraft was engendered.

America was then understood to be peculiarly the domain of the Evil One, and all its pagan inhabitants were regarded as his devoted adherents.

Thence his followers here were deemed to be more numerous and formidable than elsewhere, and therefore his invasion was more to be dreaded on this than on the other side of the Atlantic.

We must impute a considerable portion of witchcraft horrors to such narrow and cramping religious views and feelings among our fathers, as made all men everywhere seem to them not only outcasts from G.o.d, but also a.s.sociates with Satan, who did not possess their special creed, and worship by their processes. They practically forgot that all men, of all nations and tribes, are the offspring of the Unknown G.o.d, whom Paul declared to the Athenians; and also that his paternal beneficence extends to his children everywhere, and draws them toward him by methods suited to their circ.u.mstances, capacities, and needs, and consequently that all religious creeds and all modes and forms of worship may be helpful to those who possess and use them.

History, literature, and public belief, pertaining to the religious practices of North American Indians, so far as we remember, have very uniformly ascribed to them something closely resembling communings and consultations with invisible intelligences. Such religious services are, and ever have been, rendered in all those primitive tribes the world over concerning whom we have attained to anything like accurate knowledge. (See Primitive Culture, by Edward B. Tylor.) Ethnology proves that belief in the presence of spirits--and, generally, belief in the access of ancestral spirits--exists among man everywhere in the nations lowest of all in culture, and survives in them as they rise in development. Dr. Bentley declared that "the agency of invisible beings, if not a part of every religion, is not contrary to any one." Hutchinson, as quoted above, says, "The Indians were supposed to be worshipers of _The Devil_, and their powows to be wizards."