That there exist special occult forces, whose action frequently enables mediumistic persons, while under spirit manipulations, to know assuredly that emanations from special human organisms act upon them to either their pleasure or their annoyance is very clearly indicated by the experiences of some modern mediums; for these are often heard to speak of influences coming to their help or their harm from particular persons, who, at the time, are known to be miles away. Mediumistic intuitions often very accurately trace influences to some definite mundane source; that source frequently is where the disembodied operating spirit gets such an equivalent to a nervous fluid as is needful to give him or her contact with and control over matter. Some mediumistic systems may at times contain enough of such quasi nerve-producing elements to meet all the needs of the controlling spirit, while others usually lack them to such extent that drafts to supply the deficiency are made from the systems of others more or less remote from the point of application. If the harassed and tortured children in the family of Mr. Parris were acted upon by spirits, they might be, at times, able to sense the fact that forceful action upon them came perceptibly forth from the bodily forms of particular living persons. Broad human observation and experience through the ages had generated conclusion that bewitched persons could designate those from whom their inflictions came. Therefore our fathers would with conscious propriety ask any one whom they supposed to be under “an evil hand,” “Who hurts you?” They would look for an answer, and, if one came, would deem it correct. It was, then, logically necessary for them to confide in the accuracy of any responses which might issue from the lips of the sufferers, so long as their creed was made chief premise. Sneers at belief that psychologized persons know from whom the force comes which generates their condition, may argue less knowledge in the sneerer’s brain, of forces and agents that sometimes act upon men, than in the heads of those who in former days sought to learn from bewitched girls what particular persons afflicted them. The world, while learning much, may have been forgetting some important knowledge.
The belief held by many of our forefathers, that the afflicted would generally know that afflicting forces came to them from the persons whom they named, though measurably correct in itself, was rendered most woefully disastrous in its application, because of its concomitant erroneous belief that such afflicting forces could go forth from none but such as were in covenant with witchcraft’s awful devil. The fact of one’s being a channel through which occult wonder-working forces could flow, was, in those days, proof positive that he or she had tendered allegiance to and made a compact with the Evil One. That was the specially great and disastrous error which engendered witchcraft. Susceptibilities which were in fact only nature’s boons, were looked upon as acquisitions obtained through a diabolical compact. Some laws of psychology partially revealed and comprehended now, were then not dreamed of; and deductions from false premises or from an erroneous belief, being then applied by clear-headed and good men for noble ends, yes, for God’s glory and man’s protection, caused out-workings of unspeakable woes.
The persons most afflicted at Salem Village were Elizabeth, daughter of Mr. Parris, nine years old; Abigail Williams, his niece, eleven; Ann Putnam, twelve; Mercy Lewis, seventeen; Mary Walcut, seventeen; Elizabeth Hubbard, seventeen; Elizabeth Booth, eighteen; Sarah Churchill, twenty; Mary Warren, twenty: to these girls may be added Mrs. Ann Putnam, mother of the girl of the same name; also a Mrs. Pope and a Mrs. Bibber. Nearly all of these occupied very good social positions, and many of them were surrounded and cared for by as intelligent, moral, and religious people as that or any other parish in the neighborhood contained. Yes, from amidst the very breath of prayer, the light of intelligence, the sway of strong authority, and the restraining influences of religion, these reputable, and no doubt generally amiable, conscientious, and kind-hearted girls and women during all their previous years, suddenly became utterers of what were then regarded most damning accusations against their neighbors and acquaintances first, and subsequently against strangers living remote from them; against the low and the high, the vicious and the virtuous, the feeble-minded and the strong in intellect alike. And in their strange and desolating work these people, of exemplary deportment previously, moved on harmoniously, encouraging and strengthening each other, and without manifesting the slightest regret. A marked and startling specimen this of what mortal tongues may be used to accomplish! And yet those tongues generally may have only described what senses perceived.
History has said—no, not history—but invalid supposition has said that sportiveness, malice, love of notoriety, and the like, inherent in the minds and hearts of those young girls and women, were the chief incentives to and producers of the woeful, the murderous accusations and statements which came forth from their youthful lips. It was not so. One may as well call a pencil or a pen a malicious accuser when it is made to record malicious accusations, as to call those girls the contrivers and enactors of many scenes which were presented by use of their bodies.
We quote as follows from church records, penned by the Rev. Mr. Parris himself, in whose house the great and awful commotion originated:—
“It is altogether undeniable that our Great and Blessed God, for wise and holy ends, hath suffered many persons in several families of this little Village to be grievously vexed and tortured in body, and to be deeply tempted to the endangering of the destruction of their souls, and all these amazing feats (well known to many of us) to be done by witchcraft and diabolical operations.
“It is well known that when these calamities first began, which was in my own family, the affliction was” (had existed) “several weeks, before such hellish operations as witchcraft was suspected; Nay, it never broke forth to any considerable light, until diabolical means was used, by the making of a cake by my Indian man, who had his directions from our sister Mary Sibly. Since which time apparitions have been plenty, and exceeding much mischief hath followed. But by this means (it seems) the devil hath been raised amongst us, and his rage is vehement and terrible, and when he shall be silenced, the Lord only knows.”
The statements just presented have come down from one whose position and whose mental powers qualified him to be as important a witness as any other person whatsoever could be; they come from one of keen intellect and ready perceptions, who saw the scenes of Salem witchcraft in their first externally observable stages of development, and also throughout most of their subsequent unfoldments and disastrous workings. These statements were semi-private; were made in the church and not the parish records; were made to be read by those who should come after him, rather than by those of his own times. And in such records he states that “amazing feats” were performed “by witchcraft and diabolical operations.” What were those feats? It has been said generally concerning the whole Salem circle of proficients in “necromancy, magic, and Spiritualism,” that “they would creep into holes, and under benches and chairs, put themselves into odd and unnatural postures, make wild and antic gestures, and utter incoherent and unintelligible sounds. They would be seized with spasms, drop insensible to the floor, or writhe in agony, suffering dreadful tortures, and uttering loud and fearful cries.”—History of Witchcraft and Salem Village, vol. ii. p. 6.
An acute observer, who was also a definite and methodical describer of a portion of the actions referred to, says the sufferers were “in vain” treated medicinally; that “they were oftentimes very stupid in their fits, and could neither hear nor understand, in the apprehension of the standers-by;” that “when they were discoursed with about God or Christ ... they were presently afflicted at a dreadful rate;” that “they sometimes told at a considerable distance, yea, several miles off, that such and such persons were afflicted, which hath been found to be done according to the time and manner they related it; and they said the specters of the suspected persons told them of it;” that “they affirmed that they saw the ghosts of several departed persons;” that “one, in time of examination of a suspected person, had a pin run through both her lower and her upper lip when she was called to speak, yet no apparent festering followed thereupon after it was taken out;” that “some of the afflicted ... in open court ... had their wrists bound fast together with a real cord by invisible means;” that “some afflicted ones have been drawn under tables and beds by undiscerned force;” that “when they were most grievously afflicted, if they were brought to the accused, and the suspected person’s hand laid upon them, they were immediately relieved out of their tortures;” that “sometimes, in their fits, they have had their tongues drawn out of their mouths to a fearful length, ... and had their arms and legs ... wrested as if they were quite dislocated, and the blood hath gushed plentifully out of their mouths for a considerable time together; I saw several violently strained and bleeding, ... certainly all considerate persons who beheld those things must needs be convinced that their motions in their fits were preternatural and involuntary, ... they were much beyond the ordinary force of the same persons when they were in their right minds;” that “their eyes were, for the most part, fast closed in their trance-fits, and when they were asked a question, they could give no answer; and I do verily believe they did not hear at that time; yet did they discourse with the specters as with real persons.”—Deodat Lawson.
They affirmed that “they saw the ghosts of several departed persons,” and they did “discourse with the specters as with real persons.” This looks like Spiritualism.