Adopt the view—and we believe it correct—that the accusing girls were constitutionally endowed with fine sensibilities and special organisms and temperaments which rendered their bodies facile instruments through which unseen intelligences acted upon visible matter and human beings, the supposition that God made them capable of being good mediums—good instruments for use by otherminds and wills than their own, and that their bodies, either apart from or against their own minds and wills, were concerned in the enactment of witchcraft, and then you may look upon each and all of them as having been as pure, innocent, harmless, sympathetic, and benevolent as any females in that or in this generation; and no descendant from them need fear the cropping out of specially bad and disreputable blood thence inherited, and each may regard his or her native spot as deserving to be consecrated rather than damned to fame, because there true, conscientious men fought manfully and legitimately for rescue of both their own homes and the community from direst of all conceivable foes, while living instruments of rare efficiency existed there, by use of which the Christian world was delivered from dwarfing and hampering slavery to a monk-made devil. What other battle, of any nature, ever fought on American soil, purchased choicer freedom, or effected mental emancipation more widely over Christendom, than did your fathers’ conflict withtheirdevil? May the year 1892 deem the spot worthy of a commemorative monument!
Your last historian poetically says, that your “witchcraft darkness is a cloud conspicuous chiefly by the widening radiance itself of the morning on whose brow it hung.” Shining traits, qualities, and deeds of New Englanders in the seventeenth century, including the dwellers at the Village, no doubt gave widening radiance to the morning of our nation’s day; and the abiding brilliancy of that morning may be what makes your “witchcraft darkness” far more conspicuous than any in other lands. But it surely required far other than begulled fathers and begulling daughters to emit the rays of a morning of such widening radiance as would make darkness more conspicuous there than elsewhere. That morning owed its brightness to far other traits than beguiled and beguiling ones. Clear perceptions of the demands of a creed, of duty to God, of duty to one’s family; prompt, vigorous action in obedience to God’s direction and the king’s law when the devil invaded one’s home; fearless and untiring conflict with man’s most powerful and malignant foe;—these, and other powers, qualities, and acts kindred to these, emitted the radiance which made the blackness of witchcraft more conspicuous at Danvers than elsewhere in the broad world.
No. Witchcraft did not rage with most marvelous fierceness, end enact its death-struggle, on your soil because of the weakness,but because of the strength of your fathers; not because of their cowardice, but of their courage; not because of their heartlessness and barbarity, but of tenderness toward their agonized families; not because of lack of faith in God, but because of faith in him so strong that it could put humaneness down, and keep it down till God’s call to put a witch to death could be obeyed.
Such properties gave to the morning of the Village an inherent brightness which first extinguished witchcraft’s dismal day, and now harbingers a brighter one, in which, no civil law molesting, spirits hold mutually helpful communings with mortals. That momentous and most valuable privilege was essentially won on your soil in 1692. Nation after nation, taught by results at the Village, has repealed its obnoxious statutes, and broad Christendom is the freer and more elevated because of light widely radiating forth from your “witchcraft darkness.”
Our planet, Earth, is yet crude. Its soil, products, emanations, and auras are coarse and harsh. Though meliorated much since it first gave birth to man, it is not now fitted to nurture beings as refined as it will be centuries hence. It is being constantly softened, and is ever progressing toward the present ripened condition of older planets, whose embodied inhabitants easily and constantly commune with wise departed kindred, from whom they receive such instructions and aids as cause them to live in close harmony with the laws of animal health, and therefore nearly free from sickness and pains, and, when ripened for release, to pass painlessly out from their grosser integuments. From the days of remotest history, and our world over, spirits have often been transiently visible and palpable by some mortals. But the atmosphere in which humans live is measurably uncongenial and oppressive to most, and especially to purer and more advanced spirits; still it becomes less so from century to century, is ever gaining such conditions as lift a little higher its incarnate inhabitants, and is less oppressive to those disrobed of flesh. Its modifications prophesy that time will be when mortals and spirits may here more comfortably than now intercommune constantly and with mutual benefit. Terrific mentalconflicts—moral tornadoes, agitations to the depths of society, are used as instruments in advancing earth and its inhabitants to states which will permit spirits to be our constantly recognized attendants, and our helpful advisers and guides along the paths of spiritual progression. Progress is hastened through intense tribulations.
Great changes and advances of either a material, mental, political, social, or spiritual world are, like births, generally outwrought through anguish and sufferings. Even the entrance of spirits into mortal forms is usually painful to both parties. First and earlier reincarnations are almost necessarily attended by psychological action which forces spirits severally to manifest, and, moderatedly, to undergo, again their special sufferings during their last hours of earth-life. Mortals, too, shrink from, and are agitated by, and afraid of their nearest friends, if disrobed of flesh. Such fears are repulsive forces, making spirit approach arduous and often impossible. The boon of return, in most cases, is at the cost of suffering—but of suffering which pays well—suffering which purchases joy for both those who come and those who welcome them. Our earth and all who are born upon it receive or earn many of their greatest blessings through the sweats of convulsive throes or severe toil. The abolition of a wide-spread obnoxious creed was terrific in 1692.
In civilized lands extensively, and especially in Protestant Christendom, possibility of the return of departed good souls from their invisible abodes has for centuries been doubted. Therefore a most copious source of valuable instruction and help has been unused. Resort to it has, or had, become horrific; it has been deemed by men the devil’s pool exclusively. But not so by spirits. Wise and friendly ones, unseen, have long and often sought and labored for such recognition and welcome, by survivors on earth, as would render demonstration of spirit presence widely practicable. Spirits have sought this because they have been seeing that free and extensive intercommunings between dwellers in flesh and enfranchised ones might greatly facilitate the advance of both classes in beneficence and happiness. The immense aid which the earth-embodied living, and only they, can give to many unhappy ones whom they call dead, is not yet dreamed of by the public. Knowledge that many departed ones are obliged to get aid from earth ere they can make an efficient start up the ladder heavenward, opens a wide and interesting field of labor to those who have carefully sought to learn the mutual dependences of the seen and unseen worlds.
The possible advent of instruction from unseen realms is now for the first time receiving practical demonstration among a people, who, as a whole, are able and disposed to scan carefully the nature and qualities of the intelligences who impart it. Prior to 1692, the Christian world had long been shrinking from conferences with unseen colloquists, deeming all such diabolical in purpose and influence. Ignorance was mother of its fears. The present age, more enlightened, more disposed to investigation, more prone to believe in the reign of law always and everywhere, asks the hidden teachers who they are, and whence and why and how they gain access to our homes. Their responses affirm, and each lapsing year of non-refutation confirms the allegation, that they are spirits now, but once were mortals robed in flesh; and that they come, some from this motive, some from that,—some for fun, frolic, and even revenge and wrong; but more of them to give and to receive the pleasure and happiness which visits to their former homes and friends will generate, and especially to make known to their loved ones here the course of life which will best fit them for joy and happiness in the mansions and scenes of the world to which they all must come.
The methods of Providence have ever been homogeneous; and now that they have brought peoples to the dawn of a day when human hospitality is entertaining angels, not always unawares, but often consciously and joyfully, the beneficence of the witchcraft scenes at Salem Village, whereby Christendom’s thralldom to a factitious devil was effectually broken up, becomes conspicuous. Lapsed time reveals probability that the barbarisms of that day were availed of as instruments for procuring the freedom which now permits instructive, helpful, and gladdening intercourse between millions of devout and truth-seeking mortals and bright, beneficent spirits. What though the agitation of Christendom brings its latent iniquities and impurities to the surface? What though the counterparts of publicans, sinners, and harlots float numerously into view? Ascent of dross and scum to the surface is usually the first product in processes of clarification. Inexperienced observers are very liable to regard the unsightly stuff as a sample of all that underlies it. Others, who better comprehend the cause and object of bringing impurities into view, observe such first results complacently, knowing that subsequent effects will be most beneficent—willpresent purified, and therefore more precious views of the divine methods of bringing men to righteousness, and will furnish more efficient helps to man’s upward progression than have been generally applicable heretofore.
Great reformatory truths have seldom been first offered to or received by the worldly-wise and prudent. Not rulers and Pharisees, but common people, fishermen, humble women, publicans, sinners, and harlots were numerous among the first followers of Jesus; and these were the ones who heard him gladly. Like causes which made it thus of old, operate to-day, and the supplemental revelations and revealers of our time meet with like reception as did those centuries ago. It is well. Wide popularity and affectionate fondling might sap an infantismof its best health-giving and reformatory powers. Comprehensive wisdom lets it harden and strengthen through buffetings with the leaders of prevalent theological and scientific decisions, opinions, and fashions. The boundless intelligence, which ever acts for good, is patient and long forbearing. It waits for seeds of reforms to take deep root in the masses, and thence, in time, pushes onward the force which overturns dynasties, hierarchies, and all effete institutions, creeds, and customs which are no longer fruitful of food suited to cultured man’s existing needs.
Savage and barbarous nations, everywhere and always, attain to more or less faith in the presence and help of ancestral spirits; they seek instruction from the departed. Broad and perpetual belief in a particular fact is far from weak evidence of its positive existence. Uncultured minds admit witnessed facts to be positive occurrences, and affect no need to comprehend how they are produced before giving assent to their verity. But the cultured are prone to deny the manifestation of any events whose transpiration is not referable to the permission of some law whose operations are familiar. They cannot account for a fact, and therefore it does not exist, or, as Agassiz said, “it is not in nature.” The greatest of human scientists, however, falls far short of acquaintance with all the forces and permissions enfolded within boundless, unfathomable, incomprehensiblenature. It is dogmatism—not science—which says that facts observed by the senses of man continuously from the birth of his race down to now, have had no positive existence.
Law reigns; and we know no law which permits return frombeyond the grave; therefore departed spirits cannot revisit their survivors on earth. Such is often the position and argument of theology, science, and culture. But our question to them is, Are you sure that you are acquainted with all the laws, forces, agents, and permissions in the broad storehouses of nature? Have you explored all realms in the universe, and qualified yourselves to maintain that you have definitely learned that no forces anywhere exist by which things anomalous to human science can be manifested to human senses? Practically you say, Yes. And doing thus, you foster and fast extend belief in non-immortality.
Are the results of your course to be lamented? Perhaps not. The oozing out and disappearance of an old belief, and a consequent state of non-belief, may be arranged for in the methods of Providence, because the latter state may be the best possible for the induction of belief founded on demonstration, where one previously lived which rested upon dogmatic authority.
The skepticism of our generation pertaining to a future life is an offspring of general and advanced education which asks for proofs as the only proper foundation for belief. That education has fitted the thinking masses to demand that teachers shall grapple with and either refute or adopt sensible facts widely witnessed. Millions upon millions of Christendom’s inhabitants are having sensible demonstration, day by day and hour by hour, that the spirits of departed mortals make known their veritable presence among their survivors in mortal forms. They say to the world’s leading minds,—spirit return is a fact in nature: it is made manifest to our physical senses; we know it to be true. Therefore, ye sticklers for law and scientific methods, prove to us our mistake if we are dupes.
During more than five and twenty years we have been putting forth that call, and you have thus long omitted to give any other response than dogmatic assertion that the appearances we witness are the productions of fraud, fancy, delusion, and the like. That is not satisfactory. Our claim is, that departed spirits of men are working marvels on the earth. That claim is good till it be shown that the marvelous events witnessed are the productions of other agents. Each lapsing year strengthens that claim. And if a check to such materialism as argues that man is devoid of any property which will consciously survive the death of his body, and if a positive demonstration of man’s survival beyond the tomb, be matterswhich the methods of Providence are employed to advance, then the unwonted numbers of returning spirits recently and now, and the frequency of their advent, together with the consequent daily and palpable demonstration of a life beyond the present, come to man most opportunely—come to him both when vast masses of mortals are prepared so meet and welcome them as friends and kindred, and also, and significantly, when their presence impairs the power of bright and leading minds to cause the thinkers of our age to anticipate annihilation of themselves, their kindred, and their race, and to suffer loss of the incentives and joys which attend anticipations of a heaven in advance.
So welcome, efficient, and salutary an advent of invisible actors and teachers as we witness to-day, seemingly would have been impossible, had the witchcraft creed of our fathers retained abiding hold upon their descendants. The methods of Providence seem to have embraced both the abolition of that creed, and a sufficient lapse of time for the nurture and culture of a people up to such elevation that a large portion of it would be fitted and disposed to welcome back departed ones just when their proved presence would be the great fact at man’s command which would effectually deter advancing and beneficent physical scientists from inferring and teaching that life’s emigrants all take a plunge into the rayless abyss of nonentity.
A continuous thread of the methods of Providence seems traceable through many of the darkest and most shocking scenes of human history. Many of man’s greatest advances have been outwrought through anguish and tortures whose inflictors we reprobate. Is it too much to say that such a thread ropes in, as instruments of good, Pharaoh, Pontius Pilate, Witchcraft, and many other notable personages and scenes, which have been made to further the deliverances of oppressed and suffering mortals? Permission of sins, sufferings, and wrongs comes from the Infinitely Benevolent.
Fit instrumentality existed at Salem Village for demolishing that special creed of Christendom which closed and barred the gates that nature hinged for furnishing a way of egress back from beyond the grave; and wisest and kindest dwellers above were in mood then to let suffering and anguish enough come upon mortals there to awaken them out of their deep delusion, and sway them to set those special gates ajar. They broke the bars; but dust andrubbish long made a wide opening difficult and arduous. A century and a half was needed for such liberation of mortals from the crampings of delusion, and for such exercise of free thought in a land of free schools, as would educate a nation up to courage which could calmly ask any mysterious visitant whatsoever, who he was, whence he came, and what he wanted. In the fullness of time, this could be and was done. When culture and science were broadly producing conviction that there is no hereafter for man, one came forth from the land of the departed, knocked on cottage walls, gained the ear of common people, allured hosts of other spirits to follow him to human abodes; and the numerous band of returning ones is now the only host which can effectually stop the hope-crushing advance of materialism, and furnish the world palpable demonstration of an hereafter for the souls of men.
In 1692, an unprecedented strain in its application effectually broke up Christendom’s long cherished and indurated delusion that devils unfleshed and devils incarnate are the only beings who can act and commune across the line dividing this from the life beyond. That rupture set Christians free to learn that duty called them to “try the spirits.” In time a generation came who met that duty. Spirits of God—good spirits—as well as others visit human abodes, and their presence itself is proof positive of man’s survival beyond the grave. Their widely conceded advent seems divinely opportune, for it occurs when their presence tends forcefully to check, and promises to stop the prevalent strong tendency of science and culture to divine that man’s doom is drear annihilation. The beneficent intensity of a special strain upon a specific delusion, nine score years ago, is due to the strength of faith, character, and action, and to the unwonted extent and excellency of medianimic instrumentality then existing at Salem Village, whose conspicuous action and use there made that spot lastingly memorable; and we deem it just to regard it as a point from which influences emanated whose fruits to-day are eminent blessings to the Christian world. The methods of Providence often educe choicest good from most direful evils.
Christendom’s Witchcraft Devil.
Christians, when New England witchcraft occurred, generally believed that it originated with, emanated from, and was controlled byonevast malignant personality, possessing frightful powers, aspects, and efficiency. A fair comprehension of what that being was then conceived to be is needful to anything like accurate knowledge of the origin, growth, sway, exit, and genuine character of occurrences which outwrought as dire strifes, horrors, bloodshed, and heart-wrenchings, as any courageous, intelligent, and conscientious people ever sided forward or suffered under.
Christendom, in the day of our Puritan forefathers, believed in a devil peculiar to a few centuries—in one who was of more modern birth than the Bible or other ancient histories—who was very different from any being characterized in either Jewish or heathen records of antiquity, and has no parallel, we trust, in any creed to-day.
Probably many malicious, as well as benevolent, unseen personages exist, who may often act upon men and their affairs. There may be powerfulevil ones, in realms unseen, who there rule over hosts of like dispositions with themselves. Neither the existence of many devils, nor intermeddling by them with man’s peace and welfare, is called in question.
Authors of the Bible, when using the terms devil, Satan, and others of similar import, generally designated, as our own age extensively does, beings very unlikesucha devil as was conceived of and dreaded by Christendom from two to five hundred years ago. Prior to and during the days of Jesus and his apostles, such terms were often applied to whatever, in either the visible or the unseen world, tempted or forced men to wrong-doing, or hindered theirprogress in goodness. Jesus said to a disciple, “Get thee behind me,Satan;” and this, simply because Peter was giving him advice more carnal than spiritual, and which was designed to dissuade Jesus from following the course which his conscience was prompting him to pursue. The mere giving of unwise advice made Petera Satan. Turning to 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, you may read that theLord, being angry, moved David to number the people. Turning again to 1 Chron. xxi. 1, you will find a description of the same transaction, in which it is said that “Satan... provoked David to number Israel.” Therefore, in biblical language, even theLord, when angry, was equivalent to Satan. Any accuser, in a court of justice or equity, might properly have been called a Satan, in the days of the prophets, for then that term was applicable to any adversary or opponent, of whatever grade or nature.
Very much later than David’s day the worddevilfrequently had a much softer meaning than it usually bears now. Jesus said (John vi. 70), “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you isa devil?” Having previously called Peter “Satan,” Jesus here called Judas adevil. Thus highest Christian authority spoke of unwise and treacherous men as being Satans and devils, and thereby showed that those words anciently were sometimes applied, by the pure and wise, to other beings than one special great malignant spirit. The devil of modernwitchcraftwas unknown by Jesus and by all biblical authors.
Whence, then, since not from the Bible,—whence did Christians of the seventeenth and some earlier centuries obtain those peculiar conceptions of him, which made the devil almost counterbalance, in malignity and monstrosity, the benignity and beauty of the Infinite God? Where did they find him? So far as we perceive and believe, his like was never recognized, either outside of Christendom, or prior to the dark ages. No being verily like him was ever dreaded as an enemy by any other people than Christians, and not by them till within the last thousand years. About all that we know is, that he had become huge and frightful at the time of the Reformation; and our belief is, that morbid fancy, in the cloisters and monasteries of Europe, through several centuries plied her limnistic verbal skill, and thereby outlined and blackened piecemeal her mostoutréconceptions possible of the lineaments and expressions of a being as monstrous in shape, as powerful, wily, andmalicious, as imagination could fabricate, and thus gave the Christian world a monk-made devil—a hideous personification of evil. Lapsing time eventually caused this cloister-born scarecrow to be looked upon as vitalized malignity incarnate—as an immortal, ubiquitous personality—as a living fiend of awful sway and force, who should be watched, feared, and fought by every God-serving man. We look upon him as a production of human fancy. But not so did our predecessors. They assigned to their devil of horrid form and huge dimensions a very different origin and nature.
Where born, and what his nature, according to the belief of those who imported him to New England shores, are important questions the appropriate answers to which must be comprehended before one can obtain just appreciation of the position in which their creed placed our forefathers, and the direction and force it gave to their action whenever seeming diabolism not only fearfully disturbed private firesides and social relations, but threatened tenure of lands, and continued existence of church and state throughout the colonies.
Their Author of witchcraft was conceived of, believed in, and set forth in language, as having been heaven-born—a glorious angel once, but apostate and banished from his native skies;—as one mighty, malignant personality, almost ubiquitous, almost omniscient, second in power to Almighty God alone, and nearly His equal. As quoted by Upham, vol. i. p. 390, Wierius, a learned German physician, described the devil as being one who “possesses great courage, incredible cunning, superhuman wisdom, the most acute penetration, consummate prudence, an incomparable skill in vailing the most pernicious artifices under a specious disguise, and a malicious and infinite hatred toward the human race, implacable and incurable.”—“He was,” says Appleton’s N. A. Cyc., “often represented on the stage, with black complexion, flaming eyes, sulphuric odor, horns, tail, hooked nails, and cloven hoof.” Many of us now living have seen him pictured nearly thus in some old illustrated editions of the Bible.
But the gifted Milton’s comprehensive fancy and lofty diction, exempted, under poetic license, from adherence to fact or creed, or other enfeebling restraint, put forth, in masterly and acceptable manner, lineaments and features appropriate to an embodiment of his highest possible conceptions of combined majesty, might, andmalignity, and thus allured his own and future ages to bow in awe before a devil who in grandeur far surpassed any which monkish powers had been able to fabricate and describe. He imputed to Satan “eyes that sparkling blaz’d; his other parts, besides prone on the flood, extended long and large lay floating many a rood,” ... “unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage never to submit or yield,” ... “resolve to wage by force or guile eternal war, irreconcilable to our grand foe, ... ever to do ill our sole delight, as being the contrary to his high will whom we resist; If then his providence out of our evil seek to bring forth good, our labor must be to prevent that end, and out of good still to find means of evil.” Such was the great poet’s “Archangel ruined;” nearly such was the prevalent perception of him by the general mind of Christendom. He was one mighty Evil Spirit—monarch of all fiends, and an untiring operator for harm to both the body and soul of man.
Such conceptions were general alike in Europe and America. But still another view, quite as appalling as any of the foregoing, and appealing more directly to the temporal interests of men, operated inAmerica, and made it specially needful for all property holders here to contest the devil’s advances. Cotton Mather called the arch mischief-worker “a great landholder;” and he was spoken of as though conceived to be temporal as well as spiritual ruler over all Indian tribes and their lands, and also as being a contester against God and Christ for empire over each and every part of the American continent where Christians encroached upon his sable majesty’s domains. God and devil—each was a vast and powerful spirit, exercising sway and dominion widely, as the other would let him; and these two mighty spiritual Rulers were often struggling in sharp conflict of doubtful issue for empire over particular portions of the earth. The Devil—and such a devil too—occupied much space not only in the theology and philosophy of the learned, but also in the daily and worldly thoughts of the common colonists.
Upham has forcefully and truthfully said (vol. i. p. 393), that our fathers “were under an impression that the devil, having failed to prevent progress of knowledge in Europe, had abandoned his efforts to obstruct it effectually there; had withdrawn into the American wilderness, intending here to make a final stand; and had resolved to retain an undiminished empire over the wholecontinent and his pagan allies, the native inhabitants. Our fathers accounted for the extraordinary descent, and incursions of the Evil One among them, in 1692, on the supposition “that it was a desperate effort to prevent them from bringing civilization and Christianity within his favorite retreat; and their souls were fired with the glorious thought, that, by carrying on the war with vigor against him and his confederates, the witches, they would become chosen and honored instruments in the hands of God for breaking down and abolishing the last stronghold on the earth of the kingdom of darkness.”
This mighty Devil, commander-in-chief of the countless hosts of all the devils, demons, satans, Indians, heathen, sinners in, above, upon, or around earth,—this mighty contester for dominion with God and Christ and all good Christians, was conceived to be author of all works called witchcrafts, producing them through human beings who had voluntarily made a covenant to serve him, and who resided in the midst of the people whom he molested; for we shall soon see that the philosophy of those times permitted him no other possible access to man than through persons who were in covenant with himself.
Any covenanter with such a devil, that is, any wizard or witch, could be regarded by the public as nothing less formidable than a voracious wolf burrowing within the Christian sheepfold, who, if not at once unearthed and slain, would either actually devour, or frighten away from their pasturing grounds, all those with their descendants who had crossed the ocean to feed on the hills and vales of America. Our fathers felt that the possession and value of their homes and lands, as well as the temporal peace and prosperity of the community, its religious privileges, and the salvation of human souls, were at stake in a witchcraft conflict. Their faith, their interests temporal and spiritual, their manhood, and all that was brave, strong, and good in them, called upon them to face boldly even such a devil as has been described above, and to fight him by any processes which had been tried and approved in Europe; the chief of which was, to seize his covenanted servants—his guns—and silence them promptly and permanently. Witches must die!
Limitations of the Devil’s Powers.
Creed-makers before the Reformation conceived, what is probably true, that natural barriers at all times have effectually debarred even the mightiest devil, as well as each and all of his disembodied imps, from coming directly into such close contact with a human body, or any other material object, as enabled them to produce effects perceptible by man’s physical senses. Being themselves spirits, whether primarily earth-born or foreign, devils could effect direct access to, and could harm the minds and souls of men, and, unaided by mortals, could incite human beings to evil actions and self-debasement, while yet, so long as they were unaided by voluntary human alliance, they were absolutely unable to act upon matter—unable to subject human forms to fits, twitchings, tumblings, transformations, sicknesses, pains, &c., such as the bewitched of old experienced, and such as await many mediumistic persons to-day. Devils, formerly, and spirits now, to make the effects of their powers observable, or to make themselves felt by men’s external senses, usually must act first and directly upon the equivalent to such nervous fluid or aura as enables man’s mind to actuate his own body. Any disembodied spirit, of whatsoever grade or character, may be, and probably is, seldom able to command that intermediate aura—or thatsomething—excepting when in or near an animal organism which possesses those properties or conditions, whatever they are, which render a person mediumistic. Constructors of the witchcraft creed probably had learned that nature always and everywhere makes matter intangible by spirit directly, and they thence inferred that the devil could never get into close contact with human bodies without the aid of some spirit, or of appendages to some spirit, who holds living alliance with matter, and consequently has in or around itself nervous fluid, or its equivalent, which is usable by mind not its own—is loanable, or at least liable to be abstracted.
Transpiring observation now quite distinctly perceives that control of human organisms by disembodied spirits is usually attended by conditions fundamentally analogous to an antecedent covenant. The old creed-makers may have reasoned from facts of experience and observation much more generally and logically than the presentage imagines. No special desire is felt, and we do not see that any special obligation rests upon us, to palliate the doings of those monastics who in dark ages both fabricated and shackled the devil of witchcraft. Still we do not begrudge them such justification as may flow out that passing facts. We have already stated the probability that nature makes physical man intangible by spirits directly. Because of protracted observations of their doings, we assume that spirits are able to read at a glance the properties of each form to which they give special attention, and are at no loss to determine what organisms are controllable by them when conditions are all favorable. One and an important condition is, absence of resistance to control by the mind to which the susceptible organism pertains. The genuine owner generallycanwithhold his or her nervous fluids, or auras, or those properties, of whatever kind or name, which a spirit must use in the controlling process; and, consequently,a quasi agreement, amounting at least to acquiescence on the part of the medium, is generally a necessary preliminary to any modern spirit-manifestation, especially with mediums not much accustomed to be controlled.
When and where belief prevailed that all disembodied spirits who ever actuated human forms were the devil or his imps, the inference that those whom he and his controlled had entered into an agreement withhim, was natural and almost necessary. For an agreement or consensus between a controlling spirit and the will of the person controlled is very common now, and, no doubt, has been in all past ages. The assumption, however, which seems to have been prevalent formerly, that such consensus involved eternal reciprocal obligation between the devil and a human soul, or the sale of that soul to the Evil One, could not be required or suggested by any facts perceivable by modern observation. No doubt each successive use of properties of a particular body by an intelligence from outside itself, generally enables the foreign spirit subsequently to manage that body with increasing ease to itself, and with more satisfaction probably to both parties; and the practice, if mutually pleasurable, renders prolonged co-operation probable; but co-operation for a time imposes no obligation or necessity that the parties shall remain forever conjoined. Common use of the same magnetism, nervous elements, or whatever they use in common, may tend to make a spirit and a mortal assimilate in theirtastes, emotions, motives, and characters. This co-operation may evoke such sympathy between them, that each may often be drawn to the of other’s aid, and conjointly they may manifest both physical and mental powers which neither could put forth alone. And it is possible that a liberated spirit may be so linked in sympathy with numerous other spirits, that the joint powers of many are at his service, so that through a single human form there may be manifested to the outer world the effects of the combined forces of legions of ascended spirits, either good or bad, in one accordant band.
Obviously, spiritual beings, of whatever quality, are generally dependent, for any manifestation to the outer world, on one or more of a class of mortals possessing special properties or susceptibilities. Nature seems to impose such necessity. She does not let even man’s own spirit act upon his stable body directly, but through something evanescent before microscope and scalpel.
Covenant with the Devil
Perhaps, and probably, the direst and most disastrous of all deluding misconceptions by our forefathers—the one which engendered, nurtured, and intensified the greatest evils of witchcraft—was, that neither their huge devil, nor any subordinate fiendish spirit, could get access to external nature and human bodies through any other avenue than some man, woman, or child, who had alreadyvoluntarily made an explicit agreement with him or his to be his obedient and faithful servant, in consideration of helps and favors which the devil promised to bestow in requital. When such a covenant had been ratified by signature in the devil’s book, written with the blood of the mortal party, then forthwith the devil and his hosts thereby became subject to his new servant’s call, and the servant to the devil’s summons, so that either could command the powers of both for co-operation in the execution of any malice or deviltry whatsoever, and upon any designated individual. The assumed fact that the devil could use the faculties and properties of no human being who had not expressly covenanted with him, conjoined with belief that he must have the voluntary help of some human being whenever he molested men, was the speciallymurderous ingredient of faith which impelled good and humane men on to copious shedding of innocent blood. The making of that covenant, and thereby opening an aperture for the devil’s entrance through nature’s barrier, and thus admitting a wolf into the Christian fold, who otherwise could not possibly have entered, constituted the essence of the crime of witchcraft. That covenanting act made the covenanting man or woman a wizard or a witch; and God had said, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
The Devil’s Defense.
The custom is humane and equitable which permits the accused to be heard in their own behalf. It is a common saying, that even the prisoner now at our bar is always entitled to his due and we cheerfully grant him opportunity to defend himself. Under his alias, Satan, and using a cultured Englishman as his amanuensis, he has recently favored the world with his autobiography; in which he says,—
“I am a power. I am a power under God, and as such I perform a task which, however unlovely and however painful, is destined to put forward God’s wise and benignant purposes for the good of man.... I am an image of the evil that is in man, arising from his divinely-given liberty of moral choice. That evil I discipline and correct, as well as represent; and so I am also a divine school-master to bring the world to God. My origin is human, my sphere of action earthly, my final end dissolution. Evil must cease when good is universal. While, then, I cannot boast of a heavenly birth, I disown fiendish dispositions. Worse than the worst man I cannot be. I am indeed a sort of mongrel, born, bred, reared, and nurtured of human fancy, folly, and fraud. As such I possess a sort of quasi omnipresence and a quasi omniscience, for I exist wherever man exists, and, dwelling in human hearts, know all that men think, feel, and do. Hence I have power to tempt and mislead; and that power, when in my worst moods, I am pleased to exercise.... I am a personification of the dark side of humanity and the universe.... I exist in every land, and occupy a corner in every human heart.... I am the child of human speculation: I cameinto existence on the first day that man asked himself, ‘Whence this world in which I live and of which I am a part?’”[1]
The frankness, perspicuity, definiteness, and point, taken in connection with the calm, earnest tone, and gentle, candid spirit in which his then placid Majesty dictated that account of himself to his Reverend scribe, win our credence, and induce us to believe he utters only the simple truth when he describes himself as “a personification of the dark side of humanity and the universe,”—as one who “cannot boast of a heavenly birth,” but was “born, bred, and nurtured of human fancy, folly, and fraud,”—as possessing “a sort of quasi omnipresence and a quasi omniscience,” existing “wherever man exists, ... dwelling in human hearts,” knowing “all that men think, feel, and do,” having power “to tempt and mislead,” and, in his “worst moods, is pleased to exercise” that power. Such a Satan, or devil, no doubt exists. But, though we admit that he was a mighty impersonal power in the midst of witchcraft scenes, he was vastly different from the heaven-born “Archangel fallen,” whom the good people of New England believed in, feared, and supposed themselves to be fighting against.
A personification of the principle of evil, or “of the dark side of humanity and the universe,” is the only devil who is simultaneously present with the whole human race. But hosts of unseen personalities—earth-born, expanded, wily, malignant, and powerful—may act upon man, and bands of such may be subservient to some abler ones of their kind, who reign over them as princes of the dark powers of the air. Malignant departed mortals are the only disembodied personal devils who molest mankind. We believe inmanydevils, but not in Christendom’s witchcraft chiefOne.
The devil of our fathers, though but a fiction, was chief cause of witchcraft’s woes, and therefore merits attention first, in any attempt to subject that matter to new analysis.
Demonology and Necromancy.
Demonology—intercourse with demons—implies dealings with spiritual personalities; but these may be either good or bad, andmay 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 gods 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 asDiabolism, 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, “aknowingone,” and perhaps has always hinted at knowledge or power acquired by some mysterious method. Witch has generally meant, not only aknowing one, but also any person who gets knowledge or help by processes which are mysterious. Witchcrafthas 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 calledwitchcraft, but theword of God.
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 biblicalwitchcraft; though, departing from biblical precedent, the modern world has fallen into the habit of calling the woman of Endor awitch, 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 tospiritual whoredom, so far as we can determine, constituted the crime of witchcraft among the Jews. The people of Israel were regarded as beingweddedto the God of Abraham; therefore persons who bysigns, by marvelous utterances and acts, tempted Jews to be false to their marriage relations with their God, 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 putforth “the word of God.” Witchcraft was application of supernal knowledge and powers for the special purpose of seducing and tempting people to worship Moloch, or some other god of the heathen. (See Lev. xx. 5, 6.) Bible witchcraft wasuse of mysterious acquisitions in teachingHERESY.
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 butevilspirits 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 sex, 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 believedit 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 asthe 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 mass, is not a living, conscious entity, 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 constitutes the on-living man through all changes of vestiture. Such is our present conjecture.
We apprehend that a world whose elemental substance is spiritboth 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 callaura, that contains and furnishes the elements out of which spiritbodiesare 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, orwherever 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 themediumistic 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 mass 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 theLordopened 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-emancipated 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 becomesto palpably operative that those individuals are deemed inspired, for they speak as neverman—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 constitutional 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 noble, 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. Constitutional 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 anæsthetics, 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 eruditeand illustrious 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 twoorganicforms, ... 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 twobodies—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 Agassiz 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-Séquard, he laid before his audiencea 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 aretwo 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 whichcontrols 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-Séquard 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 worldinman.
“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-Séquard, which isindorsed by Agassiz. 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 tosome intelligentpower, for its familiarity with the organism is that ofknowledge, the acquisition of which is contrasted with ourignorance. 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 constitution 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.”
SuchA MARVELis a result from application of powerful occult forces which man neither comprehends nor can manage.
Spiritualismis 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 anintelligentoperator. 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 god, 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 assumed 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 God, might permit a son ofGod—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 God, but also associates 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 God, 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 circumstances, 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, havevery 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 ofThe Devil, and their powows to be wizards.”
No question is raised that such a supposition pertaining to Indian worship was prevalent in the New England mind down to the close of the seventeenth century. Nor can we doubt that untruthfully the Puritans charged the aborigines with worshiping the one great Devil of Puritan Diabolism, because of our conviction that the red men were in fact communing with their ancestral and numerous other friendly spirits. The white man’s erroneous conception that his devil was the red man’s god, had no small influence upon public action in witchcraft times. The idea that their devil had for backers all the aborigines of the continent, made him a more formidable foe than he otherwise would have been, and intensified the ruthlessness of the whites in their persecutions of those of their own complexion and households who were believed to have made a compact to serve the Evil One. Perhaps a modern instance may exhibit with much clearness the real nature of Indian worship in former ages.