He granted that he had been in the devil's snare. How much did this import? He and his brother Andrew both had been caught in it--one about four, and the other five, weeks prior to his statement. As certain atmospheric and other physical conditions often produce epidemic or wide-spread physical health or disease either, and certain public mental and moral states often act powerfully upon many minds, the great public excitement engendered by the arrest and prosecution of witches may well be deemed adequate to have unfolded latent mediumistic susceptibilities very widely; and it is not surprising that the children of a Martha Carrier should have such susceptibilities suddenly brought to their own cognizance, nor that they should as suddenly become well-fledged clairvoyants competent to wing their way widely and rapidly in the airs of a world in which spirits dwell; nor that they should be psychologized by spirit beings, and made to take part in any work, malignant or benevolent, which their controllers were bent upon executing. By being caught in the devil's snare, they probably meant neither more nor less than that they became mediums. All conditions like theirs the public was charging the devil with producing, and the young Carriers assented to that being done in their own case. Most things not of the earth, earthy, were then charged to the devil; and the mental powers of these children were not competent to show that their slippings out from their hampering bodies were effected without his aid. Frequent mention occurs of witch-meetings at Salem Village, on the Green, or the minister's pasture, near Deacon Ingersoll's. If any accused one had been seen in the company of assembled witches there, the fact was excessively damaging. Richard Carrier acknowledged having been there, and freely mentioned what persons were in the assemblage--but did not see a minister. The records have not led us to suppose that Mrs. Carrier ever stood very high in public estimation. It is not improbable that influences from outside of her had often, during the forty years through which she had experienced them, made her life eccentric, and many of her actions mysterious. Even the aged and charitable Francis Dane said, "That there was a suspicion of goodwife Carrier among some of us before she was apprehended, I know; as for any other persons, I had no suspicion of them." We must infer from that statement that she was noted for some peculiarities which were not universally regarded with favor; suspicions hung around her.