An Essay on Demonology, Ghosts and Apparitions, and Popular Superstitions: Also, an Account of the Witchcraft Delusion at Salem, in 1692Thacher, James
Philosophy
An Essay on Demonology, Ghosts and Apparitions, and Popular Superstitions: Also, an Account of the Witchcraft Delusion at Salem, in 1692
Thacher, James
Superstition; Witchcraft; Witchcraft -- Massachusetts -- Salem
'On the 30th of the same month, at about four o'clock, P. M., Mrs B.
came down stairs into the drawing room, which she had quitted a few
minutes before, and on entering the room, saw me, as she supposed,
standing with my back to the fire. She addressed me, asking how it was
I had returned so soon. (I had left the house for a walk half an hour
before.) She said I looked fixedly at her with a serious and
thoughtful expression of countenance, but did not speak. She supposed
I was busied in thought, and sat down in an arm-chair near the fire,
and within a couple of feet at most of the figure she still saw
standing before her. As, however, the eyes still continued to be fixed
upon her, after a few moments she said--'Why don't you speak--?' The
figure upon this moved off towards the window at the farther end of
the room, the eyes still gazing on her, and passed so very close to
her in doing so, that she was struck by the circumstance of hearing no
step nor sound, nor feeling her clothes brushed against, nor even any
agitation of the air. The idea then arose for the first time into her
mind, that it was no reality, but a spectral illusion, (being a person
of sense and habituated to account rationally for most things, the
notion of anything supernatural was out of the question.) She
recollected, however, your having mentioned that there was a sort of
experimentum crucis, applicable to these cases, by which a genuine
ghost may be distinguished from one conjured up by merely natural
causes; namely, the pressing the eye in order to produce the effect of
seeing double, when, according to your assertion, a true Tartarean
ghost may be duplicated as well as everything else; while the morbid
idea being, I suppose, an impression on the retina, would or ought to
remain single. I am sorry, however, to say, that the opportunity for
verifying your theory was unfavorable. Before Mrs B. was able
distinctly to double her vision, my figure had retreated to the window
and disappeared there. The lady followed, shook the curtains, and
tried the windows, being still loth to believe it was not a reality,
so distinct and forcible was the impression. Finding, however, that
there was no natural means of egress, she became convinced of having
seen a spectral apparition, such as are recorded in Dr Hibbert's work,
and consequently felt no alarm or agitation. The appearance lasted
four or five minutes. It was bright daylight, and Mrs B. is confident
that the apparition was fully as vivid as the reality; and when
standing close to her, it concealed, of course, the real objects
behind it. Upon being told of this my visible appearance in the
spirit, having been only _audible_ a few days before, I was, as you
may imagine, more alarmed for the health of the lady than for my own
approaching death, or any other fatality the vision might be supposed
to forebode. Still both the stories were so very much _en regle_ as
ghost stories, the three calls of the plaintive voice, each one louder
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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