Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern SpiritualismPutnam, Allen
Religion
Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism
Putnam, Allen
Spiritualism; Witchcraft -- New England
"Is it possible," asks the historian, "that the mind of man should be
capable of such strong prejudices as that suspicion of fraud should not
immediately arise?" We answer for him and say, No; emphatically, No. Such
suspicion must have been felt. And we ask in turn, is it possible that an
historian's mind can be capable of such strong prejudices as that
suspicion that such a family as he described, circumstanced as he made it,
was absolutely incapable of practicing fraud and imposition competent to
the results which he indicates were wrought out? Yes, his mind failed to
receive such a suspicion, and therefore reveals its own blinding
prejudices. Skepticism in one direction generated credulity in another
with him, as it does with many to-day.
Four children of the "grave man" were simultaneously and excruciatingly
racked and tortured precisely alike, and in the same parts of their
bodies, although being, some of them, in separate apartments, and
ignorant of one another's complaints. Such are the alleged and uncontested
facts. The citizens of Boston, two or three years ago, were permitted to
see, and we saw, even more than four, yes, eight or ten boys, strangers to
the operator, and mostly to each other, volunteer to go upon a stage,
where, in a few minutes, after two or three out of a dozen had been
requested to leave the stage, all the others were made to move, and act,
and suffer precisely and simultaneously alike, many of them standing often
back to back, and no one among them perceptibly looking at any other. This
was all occasioned by the mental, magnetic or psychological force of
Professor Cadwell.
If we presume (and why may we not?) that the wild Irish woman possessed
strong psychological powers; that Martha Goodwin was easily subjectible to
psychological control; that her brothers and sister were so too, and that
they were all naturally sympathetic, then we can see that nothing more
occurred, even if the whole that is told be literally true, than falls
within the scope of such psychological forces as have in recent years been
manifested by embodied, and, we may add, by disembodied minds. If in her
anger the old woman forced or found rapport between her own sphere or aura
and that of Martha Goodwin, way was opened for injection of germs of
suffering to the girl's system, and the systems of others in rapport with
her. Way was opened through which the tormentor could, though absent, send
upon the child ugly wishes that would keep torturing her so long as the
old woman kept the wishes active; as perhaps she did in many of her waking
hours. The account says, "One or two things were _very remarkable_. All
their complaints were _in the daytime_, and they slept comfortably _all
night_." When the old woman was asleep, and her resentful feelings were
dormant, the children also slept.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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