Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern SpiritualismPutnam, Allen
Religion
Witchcraft of New England Explained by Modern Spiritualism
Putnam, Allen
Spiritualism; Witchcraft -- New England
How far the novel annunciation of their names and some of their practices
contributed to the condemnation of the Greensmiths, husband and wife, or
whether it did at all, is only matter for conjecture. But that either some
influences went out from them and acted upon Ann, or that some went forth
from Ann and acted upon them, or that there was reciprocal action back and
forth, is only a fair inference from what is stated above, taken in
connection with that foot-note of Hutchinson, which is credited to "Goffe
the Regicide's Diary," and reads thus: "After one of the witches was
hanged, the maid was well." No mention has been met with of any sickness
about Ann, excepting the strangely induced _fits_ in which she was used as
the mouthpiece of the strange occupant or occupants of her form. Her
becoming _well_ may mean no more than a cessation of her fits, or
obsessions. That these should cease after the execution of a person or
persons with whom she had been in distressing and uncongenial rapport, was
perhaps only a natural result from the action of universal laws. Drafts
may have been made from her system by forces not her own, which helped
invisible beings to act upon the condemned Greensmiths for good or for
harm. Occasion for such use of her elements or properties may have ceased
as soon as the gallows had finished its work. The fits ceased, perhaps,
solely because drafts of special properties from her were discontinued.
"After one of the witches was hanged, the maid was well." The execution of
one person and the restoration of health to another were viewed by Goffe
as cause and effect.
The Greensmith woman's confession of the use of her form by her
familiar--revolting as the isolated fact would be to us, and will be to
the reader--was the controlling reason which influenced us to adduce the
case of Ann Cole. We get from the old woman Greensmith an ancient
indication, which is paralleled by many unproclaimed modern ones, that
astounding possibilities reside within the scope and sway of forces
interacting between the realms of matter and of spirit, which possibly and
probably may be availed of for elevation as well as for debasement of the
human race. Many whispered facts of human experience are to-day indicating
that the old woman may have made true statement of her personal
experiences. If degradation and fatuity permit the leaking out of some
momentous facts of human experience which conscious vessels of fair
soundness and delicacy will retain within themselves, and hide from a
profaning world's knowledge, that world, nevertheless, may be entitled to
hints at the existence of occult, though only rarely perceptibly operative
forces and permissions of nature, through the only channels which have let
them flow forth for the world's free observation. The Greensmith woman's
fact may be regarded as representative of very many others of a like
nature.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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