Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern SpiritualismPutnam, Allen
Religion
Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism
Putnam, Allen
Spiritualism; Witchcraft -- New England
Poor Tituba! Because of your forced connection with a scheme and works
which entirely baffled your comprehension, because of your forced
disclosure of things you had witnessed and experienced behind the vail of
flesh, your own body was imprisoned thirteen months, and two innocent
women were doomed to death. Guileless and innocent, so far as connected
with witchcraft, you was borne on by mighty forces to seem to act
voluntarily, though in fact unwillingly and perforce, a prominent part in
one of the most fearful scenes in human history. Man's ignorance of
spiritual agents and forces in your day, together with the prevalent
hallucination devil-ward, made you a humble and pitiable martyr to simple
truth-telling. Some seeds in your simple story now gathered from out the
chaff that has covered them for nine-score years, may soon be scattered
over New England soil, from which, we trust, you above, and men below, may
gather wholesome fruits of justice and truth.
SARAH GOOD.
Tituba's sister witch, as that slave's master called Sarah Good, may not
have been regarded in her generation as possessor of any large amount of
such qualities as her name is commonly used to designate. Still her
neighbors doomed her to lasting fame by selecting her as the first person
to be put under examination on suspicion of being a producer of Salem
witchcraft. As a facile tool in supernal hands she may have been, and
probably was, good in quality as well as name.
Indications that her spirit-form was susceptible of either easy
elimination or wide radiations from its material counterpart, are
contained in the facts that on January 20, 1692, the inner eye of Tituba
saw this Sarah; on February 25, Ann Putnam, and on the 28th, Elizabeth
Hubbard saw her apparition, or her spirit-form.
Man's "natural" or physical optics do not discern a spirit. Spirit, when
not materialized, is discernible only by our inner or spirit-eyes; spirit
is "spiritually discerned." The spirit forms, however, of embodied, living
men and women, are not all equally discernible by clairvoyants. Generally,
only such among flesh-clad spirits are readily seen by inner optics as are
able to slip, or are liable to be drawn, or to radiate out, from one's
ordinary integuments of flesh, or, at least, those only whose integuments
are transparent of spirit-light. Only few, relatively, can either see or
be seen readily and frequently by spiritual eyes. Eagles exist as well as
owls and bats. And clear perception of objects by the former amid light
that blinds the latter, is no proof either that the vision of eagles is
perverted, or that the objects they behold are but creatures of fancy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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