Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism

MATHER AND CALEF, 25.--Account of Margaret Rule, 26.--Definitions of Witchcraft, 29.--Commission of the Devil, 30.--Margaret assaulted by Specters, 31.--Offered a Book, and pinc...

Opportunities for studying spirit manifestations came in the writer's way more than twenty years since, and have been recurring quite steadily down to the present hour. Release,...

"They presented a book and demanded of her that she should set her hand to it, or touch it at least with her hand, as a sign of her becoming a servant of the devil;" upon her re...

We cannot doubt--and who will venture to?--that he must have known the characters for truth and veracity of Avis and his associate witnesses; must have known the circumstances s...

Even egregious egotism is not necessarily incongruous with truth, kindness, charity, devotion, and great usefulness. With all his faults, we regard Mather, when compared with mo...

Calef went into his work in deep earnest, and perhaps from a strong sense of duty to God and man; he perceived that departure from teachings and requirements of the Scriptures,...

The _only_ charge _proved_? If it was proved that "she was a successful practitioner, using only simple remedies," then each one of the other six is just as clearly proved as he...

"One day I sent a boy out to hang up the brushes, &c.... He was out about five minutes. After he had taken his seat, three raps came on the door of the room where the brushes we...

The old records are nearly or quite devoid of information relating to the intelligence, character, and social position of Margaret Jones. She was wife of Thomas Jones, who, soon...

When she saw two known persecutors talking, the circumstances may or may not have been helpful to a correct guess at the topic of their conversation _then_. But--but these men,...

Hers was not a case of necessary spirit co-operation, was perhaps only one of uncommon liberation of the internal perceptive faculties. Because highly illumined, her brilliancy...

Sensations, conditions, and various powers attendant on Elizabeth Knap were emphatically extraordinary. Detailed journalistic account of them having come down from a sagacious,...

"These and a thousand such vexations befalling the boy at home, they carried him to live abroad at a doctor's. There he was quiet; but returning home, he suddenly cried out he w...

Such is the account given by an eye and ear witness, who had as good opportunities to receive sensible demonstration of acts performed as can well be imagined. Did he see, hear,...

What do the quoted statements indicate as to the constitutional endowments and acquired skill of those children for purposely acting out the feats ascribed to them? Ready wit, s...

Very likely Mather was then egregiously cajoled by _some_ one. Observation, together with information otherwise obtained, renders it obvious that one essential condition of psyc...

Upham has told us that these meetings were held "at Mr. Parris's house," and that they occurred within the space of "about two months ... during the winter of 1691 and 1692." Dr...

Another question is suggested by the foregoing quotation. Would not positive knowledge that there are unseen agents and forces within the realms of nature that can legitimately...

Mr. Parris apprehended that this extensive diabolism was inaugurated through the making of a peculiar cake by his Indian man John. Either a sneer or a smile will probably drape...

The witness was here apparently brought to describe her _first_ interview with the author of Salem witchcraft. We see her now standing at the fountainhead of the devastating tor...

"_Q._ What did he say you must do more? Did he say you must write anything? Did he offer you any paper? _A._ Yes, the next time he come to me; and showed me some fine things, so...

If there exists in the world's annals more distinct testimony that a particular individual was the deliberate and intentional producer of acts which generated suffering, than Ti...

In many subsequent examinations and trials, these magistrates required the accused to look upon the afflicted ones, and special note was taken of the apparent action of the supp...

That deposition furnishes a fair specimen of the kind of evidence sought for, admitted, and applied to prove probable compact with the devil. All of the above pertains to the fi...

Sarah Osburn, though a secluded, respectable, inoffensive woman well advanced in years, was an early victim before the sweeping blast that rushed over the Village. Too feeble to...

Though members of the accusing circle had been demonstrative for several weeks, and probably had attracted to their bedsides or homes nearly every person in the town who could m...

One R. P., dated Salisbury, August 9, 1692, and forwarded to Jonathan Corwin, a document ranking among the ablest on record against the legal proceedings of that day, in which h...

The little Carrier children were very instructive witnesses. Too young and inexperienced to do otherwise than answer simple questions directly in such language as was common, th...

You also state that Burroughs was "_foolish_ enough to say that an Indian" helped him. Was it foolish in him to state the truth? Your own witnesses en masse say his helper _rese...

Abigail Faulkner was condemned, and two of her children, "Dorothy ten, and Abigail eight years old, testified that their mother appeared and made them witches." That mother was...

In part the same can be said in defense of Rev. Samuel Parris as we have adduced in defense of his co-sufferer and co-laborer for relief. During the weeks from January 20 to the...

When John Brown made his raid across the border line of freedom, not only the invaded South, but a large portion of the North regarded him as a ruthless and malicious invader of...

Many of you know that I first drew breath and also received my earlier training and unfoldment on the soil of your town. My relations to witchcraft soil were not of my own choos...

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 appearanc...

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 o...

"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...