Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern SpiritualismPutnam, Allen
Religion
Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism
Putnam, Allen
Spiritualism; Witchcraft -- New England
This long array of names of impressibles existing in the Village at so
early a time as the very first attempt to find a witchcraft-worker there,
indicates that Tituba's visitant had been an expert selector of a spot for
operation. He began his work in the midst of abundant and fit materials
with which to carry out a purpose to obtain close approach to, and to put
forth startling action upon and among embodied mortals. It may be learned
in the hereafter that he was suggester of the visible as well as of the
invisible CIRCLE which met at the parsonage; and learned, also, that his
forces magnetized the members of each. That so many mediumistic ones, a
large proportion of them wonderfully facile and plastic, were hunted up in
"the short space of two months," among the five hundred scattered
inhabitants of that Village, is surprising. Only keen eyes and active
search could have found thus many in so short a time. Germs of prophets
must have been abundant there, and must have developed rapidly under the
culture of the supernal gardener who discovered their abundance and
quality, and took them under his special watch and care.
While under examination, Sarah Good said, "None here see the witches but
the afflicted and themselves;" that is, none but the afflicted and the
accused; none but the clairvoyant. By witches she meant spirits and
semblances of mortals and spirits; and she said in substance none others
but we who behold with our internal eyes see the hovering and operating
intelligences and forms. This unschooled woman then announced a great and
instructive truth. She taught that the two classes--the tortured accusers
and the accused both--possessed powers of vision which other people did
not; that they possessed such clairvoyance and other fitful capabilities
and susceptibilities as pertained to only a quite limited number of
persons, and that these physical peculiarities were the source of the
existing mysteries.
It should be ever borne in mind that the powers which Mrs. Good had
reference to are generally very fitful in their operations. Those who
sometimes see spirits and spirit scenes are seldom able to do it at will,
or with any very long continuance without interruption. The most of them
might, every few minutes, say with Tituba, "I am blind now, I cannot see."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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