In the family of John Goodwin, of Boston, in 1688, four children, all young, were simultaneously either sorely afflicted or set themselves to playing pranks and tricks with diabolical furore. Which? An elaborate account of what was either imposed upon them by other beings, or of what themselves devised and enacted, was promptly written out by Cotton Mather, who was an observer of many of the marvels while they were transpiring. Poole, in “Genealogical and Antiquarian Register,” October, 1870, says those children were “Martha, aged 13; John, 11; Mercy, 7; Benjamin 5.” Drake, in “Annals of Witchcraft,” says they were “Nathaniel, born 1672; Martha, 1674; John, 1677; and Mercy, More than seventy years subsequent to the occurrences in the Goodwin family and to the manifestations at Salem, Hutchinson said, “It seems at this day with some people, perhaps but few, to be the question whether the accused or the afflicted were under a preternatural or diabolical possession, rather than whether the afflicted were under bodily distempers, or altogether guilty of fraud and imposture.” Poole, having quoted the above, makes the following sensible query and comment. “Why make an alternative? Both accusers and accused were generally possessors of NOT bodily distemper, but of peculiar susceptibilities growing naturally from their special organisms and temperaments, and were probably as free from and as much addicted to fraud and imposture, as the average of the community in which they lived.” If we read Hutchinson aright, he stated that a few people, even at his day, were believers that there had formerly been some “preternatural or diabolical” inflictions, but were in doubt whether such inflictions came upon the accusers or upon the accused; while, in his opinion, all ought to drop belief in anything preternatural or diabolical in the case, and seek only Hutchinson’s account of the family now under consideration is as follows:— “In 1687 or 1688 began a more alarming instance than any which preceded it. Four children of John Goodwin, a grave man, a good liver, at the north part of Boston, were generally believed to be bewitched. I have often heard persons who were of the neighborhood speak of the great consternation it occasioned. The children were all remarkable for ingenuity of temper, had been religiously educated, and were thought to be without guile. The eldest was a girl of thirteen or fourteen years. She had charged a laundress with taking away some of the family linen. The mother of the laundress was one of the wild Irish, of bad character, and gave the girl harsh language; soon after which she fell into fits, which were said to have something diabolical in them. One of her sisters and two brothers This historian was born more than twenty years after the “great consternation” which the Goodwin case occasioned, and therefore those must have been elderly people who gave him accounts of personal remembrance of it, and rehearsed to him their mellowed recollections of the past. From such people he had probably heard many particulars, and received general impressions which were one source from whence he drew materials for his history, at least for his comments; also opinions then prevalent around him were aids to his judgment when reading Mather’s account. He omitted to express directly any doubt as to the occurrence of such facts as the records presented, but innuendoed, all through his account, that fraud, acting upon credulity, begat and brought forth that entire brood of marvels. He left us the facts, and stated that the children were What do the quoted statements indicate as to the constitutional endowments and acquired skill of those children for purposely acting out the feats ascribed to them? Ready wit, sprightliness, or whatever is meant by “ingenuity of temper,” was a very good basis for any kind of performances; but the character of the doings likely to proceed from that basis in a given case, will be indicated by other possessions. Religious education and freedom from guile are not very probable prompters of either egregious trickery, or prolonged and mischievous imposture. Hutchinson’s remark that “some things are mentioned as extraordinary which tumblers are every day taught to perform,” is doubtless true; but he adds that “others seem more than natural.” Yes, they do. And it is these especially that the world desires to see traced to competent performers. How did the historian account for such—for those seeming “more than natural”? Solely by the dogmatic remark that “it was a time of great credulity.” Did he intend to say that credulity caused the senses of our fathers to see, hear, and feel erroneously, so that they would testify less accurately than those of the generation in which he was living? Perhaps he did; and yet on what rational grounds could he? None that we perceive. Was the former generation less truthful than his own? Probably not. Had it less sagacity than his own? We can think of no evidence that it had. Were its senses less reliable? Probably not. Was its belief in the testimony of its own senses a proof of its credulity? No. Was clear statement of what its senses had witnessed evidence of its credulity? It seems to have been so to the historian, but is not to us. The fathers told of witnessing things, which, if they occurred, were seemingly “more than natural.” What then? Does that prove that the things they described did not occur, and thus prove a generation of the fathers to have been, as a whole, either dolts or liars? No. The appearance is, that the historian was obliged to admit that valid testimony We can extend much leniency to Hutchinson, because he lived and wrote when the pendulum of belief, recently wrenched from the disturbing grasp of witchcraft, and allowed to swing back toward extreme Sadduceeism, had not acquired its legitimate movements under the action of mesmerism, Spiritualism, psychology, and other regulating forces. Witchcraft’s unnatural devil had died from the blow he received at Salem Village in 1692, and for a long time afterward there was seeming non-intercourse between men and dwellers in spirit realms; partially man was forgetting that there are spirits, and doubting whether they had ever acted overtly among men. Probably Hutchinson’s thoughts were never led to inquire His implied position that all the works were nothing more than natural acts and sufferings of children, magnified and made formidable by popular credulity, fails to yield satisfactory revealment of the nature and origin of such facts as he himself presents and leaves uncontroverted. What was the character of the Goodwin children themselves? They were bright, religiously educated, and free from guile. The account shows that four such children, of a sudden, without previous training for it, all join at first, and three of them long unitedly continue, in a course of most distressing imposition upon their own family, upon physicians, clergymen, magistrates, and the neighborhood; also that the “O, star-eyed” Fancy, “hast thou wandered there, Look still more closely at the circumstances of this case. The bright girl of “great ingenuity of temper, “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, 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 A passage-way so opened as to admit the entrance of one, usually admits others of the same kind to follow. Where the old woman’s subduing will-force had entered and gained sway, that of her sympathetic, and many other spirits, might do the same; and could make the children’s outer forms either accept or reject, at the controller’s pleasure, any books or class of literature which should be offered for perusal. Catholic spirits, or any spirit, liking a little fun, might keenly relish the work of astonishing Cotton Mather and his ilk, by showing preferences antagonistic to his own righteous ones. The case of Philip Smith, a very intelligent, efficient, and highly respected citizen of Hadley, Mass., exhibits analogous phenomena. We shall not go into that case in detail. It occurred 1685, and is very instructive. Being sick, sensitive, clairvoyant, and pining away, “he uttered a hard suspicion” that one old Mrs. Webster, who had once been tried for witchcraft, and also had taken offense at some of Smith’s official acts, “had made impressions with enchantments upon him.” His “suspicion” and sufferings fired the minds of young men in the town to go “three or four times” and give that old woman disturbance. Drake, in Woodward’s “Hist. Series,” No. VIII. p. 179, presents the following account: “It is said by a reliable historian that the young miscreants went to her house, dragged her out, and hung her up till she was almost dead. One of these Goodwins, says Hutchinson, “I knew many years after. She had the character of a very sober, virtuous woman, and never made any acknowledgment of fraud in the transaction.” Probably, therefore, there was no fraud. This sober, virtuous woman, a party concerned, years subsequently made profession of religion, continued long to live a useful and respected life, and never made acknowledgment of fraud. The probability is near to certainty that she never acted any. And how was it with the others? “They returned to their ordinary behavior, lived to adult age, and made profession of religion.” Look at the case. Four guileless, bright little sisters and brothers, residing In the process of watching these children, and the annoyances and sufferings they endured, it was discovered that when absent from home they were in great measure exempt from the special evils; therefore arrangements were made for their abode elsewhere; and probably not for all of them together in any one family. We find that the girl Martha became a resident in Cotton Mather’s family not many weeks after the commencement of the great consternation. And it is stated that for a time none of her extraordinary demeanor was manifested there; yet subsequently the fits and antics revealed themselves abundantly, even under the roof of the devil-fighting clergyman. Some sayings and doings while she was residing there, manifested more frolicsome and quizzical motives than prompted the manifestations described by Hutchinson. Turning to a much later historian, we quote from Upham as follows:— “One of the children seems to have had a genius scarcely inferior to that of Master Burke himself; there was no part nor passion she could not enact. Such is a general summary of her feats as presented by this historian. Does he believe that such things were actually performed either by or through her? Does he believe that such were the literal facts even in appearance? He nowhere, so far as we notice, till he sums up the case, distinctly charges fraud on the one side, or such credulity on the other, as made witnesses falsify as to appearances. He seems to admit the facts as appearances, and charge them all to the girl’s extra cunning and skillful acting. “She pretended that the evil [?] spirit came to her.” Was it only her pretense? Who knows? Why say pretended? Was she so generous as to give credit to The historian says that while she was residing with Mather, “the cunning and ingenious child”—please mark the adjectives of the modern expounder, applied by him to one whom the earlier records put among those who “had been religiously educated and thought to be without guile”—“the cunning and ingenious child,” he says, “seems to have taken great delight in perplexing and playing off her tricks upon the learned man. Once he wished to say something in her presence to a third person, which he did not intend she should understand. She had penetration enough to conjecture” (why say conjecture?) “what he had said. He was amazed. He then tried Greek; she was equally successful. He next spoke in Hebrew; she instantly detected his meaning. He resorted to the Indian language, and that she pretended not to know.” Such are facts as deduced from Mather’s account by Upham and put forth by the latter, and which he attempts to account for by supposition that the girl’s own conjectures enabled her to get at the meaning of sentences put forth in languages of which she had no knowledge. No We have stated essentially that each mortal upon departing from this life enters into conditions where human language is not only not needed, but is unusable; therefore we may be asked how returning spirits can possibly speak to us in our language, which is no longer at their command. They measurably rechange or change back their conditions when they reconnect themselves with a mortal form; they then come back to where earth language is needful, and where fitting instrumentality for revival of knowledge and use of such language exist. They, however, do not reconnect themselves with their own former forms, nor often with forms which they can use as well as they formerly did their own; in many, very many instances, those who, in their own forms, were eminent for polished diction and fervid eloquence, either get such slight control or get hold of such rickety or such rigid vocal apparatus, that they can make no perceptible approximation to their former productions. The reincarnated spirit is a somewhat mystical being, half spirit, half man, and as a spirit can read the thoughts of man, and as man can use human language. Flattery was sometimes poured over the minister through the lips of Martha, with a lavishness indicative of its flowing from some ensconsed waggish spirit, amusing himself by tickling the vanity of the egotistical black coat, much more than from a guileless miss speaking to her consequential minister. “There stood open the study of one belonging to the family, into which entering, she stood immediately on her feet, and cried out, ‘They are gone! They are gone! They say they cannot. God won’t let ’em come here!’ adding a reason for it which the owner of the study thought more kind than true; and she presently and perfectly came to herself, so that her whole discourse and carriage was altered into the greatest measure of sobriety.” Very likely Mather was then egregiously cajoled by some one. Observation, together with information otherwise obtained, renders it obvious that one essential condition of psychological control is, that the magnetisms or auras of the controlling mind shall, at the time, be, in the mass of its operative qualities and powers, stronger than, or positive to, any other person’s spheres, auras, or emanations amid which the control is either to be taken or held on to. Suppose, then, what would be necessary under the circumstances, that the atmosphere, walls, and furniture of that study were highly charged with emanations from the vigorous minded Mather, who was then present, and consequently his own halo was radiating there and keeping his surroundings fully charged with himself. Physical and also external mental and emotional effluvia from him might then be so repulsive to magnetisms pertaining to spirits of any moral quality whatsoever, that no visitant from unseen realms would try to withstand the repulsion. If such was the condition of things, the parting exclamation of the last to remain, might well be, “They are gone; God won’t let ’em come here!” Such statement “She presently and perfectly came to herself, so that her whole discourse and carriage was altered into the greatest measure of sobriety.” Yes, naturally so; for Martha Goodwin herself resumed control of her own body, and re-exhibited the religiously educated and guileless girl which she in fact was, just as soon as usurping visitants vacated her legitimate premises. So long as her form was dominated by another’s mind, her existence was either a blank to herself, or, if conscious, she was powerless. Upham teaches that once, according to Mather, when people attempted to drag this girl up stairs, “the demons would pull her out of the people’s hands, and make her heavier than perhaps three times herself.” Did the historian himself who quoted those words and let them appear to be accurately descriptive of facts, believe that they were such? Did he believe that demons acted within her, held her back, and made her something like three times heavier than she normally was? Such things were adduced by him as being facts, and it would be pleasant to know whether he believed that the girl herself was those demons, and by her own action made Mather states that this girl, at times, by whistling, yelling, and in other ways, disturbed him when at family prayers. Upham says, “She would strike him,” Mather, “with her fist and try to kick him”—probably meaning, try both to strike and kick him, for he adds, “her hand or foot would always recoil when within an inch or two of his body; thus giving the idea that there was an invisible coat of mail, of heavenly temper, and proof against the assaults of the devil around his sacred person.” That “idea” looks much more like a child born within the historian’s own mind than a gift to him by Mather. A statement by the latter that her hand or foot would always recoil when within an inch or two of his body, hardly justifies the slurring innuendo which seems to be appended to it. But ignorance of many operating laws, forces, and agents pertaining to the subject discussed by the modern historian, let him sometimes become as tempting a target for the shafts of ridicule as he found Mather to be. Without presuming that Mather perceived that natural laws generated repulsion between matter animated and moved by a disembodied spirit and matter in its normal conditions, we can state that extensive observation has generated the conclusion that unless there exists rapport with, or at least an absence of repulsion between, the sphere of the spirit using the borrowed hand or foot, and the sphere of the normal person aimed at, natural law forbids their contact. William Morse made such observation as caused Many other pranks, not less marvelous than the ones already presented, are ascribed to this girl; but notice of them may be omitted here, because the general character of the operations around her are all that this work proposes to exhibit. We must, “There is nothing in the annals of the histrionic art more illustrative of the infinite versatility of the human faculties, both physical and mental, and of the amazing extent to which cunning, ingenuity, contrivance, quickness of invention, and presence of mind can be cultivated, even in very young persons, than such cases as just related. It seems, at first, incredible that a mere child could carry on such a complex piece of fraud and imposture as that enacted by the little girl whose achievements have been immortalized by the famous author of the ‘Magnalia.’” We are glad to note the author’s frank and distinct confession that his own solution seems at first incredible. Why he put in the phrase “at first” needs explanation, which he fails to furnish. He makes no attempt to show why the first seeming should not be the permanent one. It is permanent. It will continue permanent to the end of time. It is and forever will be incredible that the Goodwin girl herself performed all the feats which the evidence proves were performed through her organism. If her body was the organ of all the performances which are distinctly ascribed to her, she was not the author of them all, but only a channel for the occurrence of many of them. Can reflection find her competent to all that was ascribed to her? Incredible. Incredible not only at first, but also on and on to the latest last. Ingenious fancy, while weaving over this case a dazzling web of rhetoric, may have deluded the eyes that overlooked the loom, and caused them to discern other seemings than the first ones; but such delusion will never become epidemic. The later historian, unhampered by need to move Grant to the Goodwin children all the natural human endowments which imagination can conjure up and embody, also grant to them skillful training and long-continued practice, which there is no probability they had, and even then it was impossible for them, when in separate rooms, to have voluntarily and designedly acted, and seemingly suffered, precisely and simultaneously alike, as they are alleged to have done, and as they would have naturally been made to do if all of them were under and controlled by the psychologic influence of the single mind of the resentful wild Irish woman, because then the same mental impulses would move them all like machines, and simultaneously. After their separation, the girl at Mr. Mather’s house could never have accomplished single-handed what is ascribed to her. The internal evidence of the narrative of events which transpired there combines with common sense in pronouncing it farcical—distinctly farcical—to regard that young girl as the contriver and performer of all the works and pranks which history says transpired through her physical organism, and, therefore, to external eyes, seemed to be products of her own volitions. The nature, quality, and extent of those performances bespeak producing powers both different from and greater than such a girl possessed; bespeak just such powers as departed It is not only at first, but permanently incredible, “that a mere child could carry on such a complex piece of fraud and imposture as that enacted” through “the little girl whose achievements have been immortalized by the famous author of the Magnalia;” and therefore the world demands, and will yet obtain, a simpler, more rational, and more satisfactory solution of this and kindred cases; solution that will admit all the amazing feats of witchcraft to be embraced within the scope of forces that finite human beings, the seen and the unseen in conjunction, could in the past and can now so apply as to execute all the world’s marvels without aid from either the One Great Devil, from fraud, or from imposture. Neither of these need ever have any connection whatever with, or complicity in, such matters. The records teach, and man’s recent experience divines, that other, more befitting, and more competent actors than mere children were on hand and at work in Cotton Mather’s presence. Though justice would have us assign to any Great Dull his honest dues, it also permits us to pull off from his sable brows any unearned wreaths which Cotton Mather and others credulously placed upon them. It also and especially requires us to tear off from the fair head of guileless Martha Goodwin that badge labeled Fraud and Imposture—that emblem of deviltry—which modern delusion has most cruelly, and yet most artistically, wreathed around temples that seem worthy of a pure martyr’s honoring crown.
From among the works of witchcraft that occurred from 1648 to 1688, we have now presented six cases, which bring into view some phenomena that are very like many which are now called spirit manifestations. The efficient touch of Margaret Jones, of Charlestown, the extraordinary efficacy of her hands and simple medicines, her prophetic powers, the keenness of her hearing, and the materialization of a spirit-child in her arms, brought her to the gallows in 1648. Ann Hibbins, of Boston, seemingly because of the wit-sharpening acuteness of her hearing, was hanged in 1656. Ann Cole, of Hartford, Conn., in 1662, had her vocal organs “improved” by some intelligence not her own for the utterance of thoughts which were never in her mind, and some of the utterances through her contributed to the conviction and consequent execution of the two Greensmiths, husband and wife. At Groton, a spirit controlling the form of Elizabeth Knap, in 1671, made avowal that he was “a pretty black boy, and not Satan.” At Newbury, in 1679, the wild dance of pots, kettles, andirons, and things in general, came off on the premises of William Morse. And at Boston, in 1688, inflictions upon the Goodwin children led to the execution of Mrs. Glover, “one of the wild Irish.” Cases thus scattered in both time and space, half of them limited each to a single actor or sufferer, and each differing widely from any other in many of its prominent features, cannot satisfactorily be ascribed to acquired skill in legerdemain, histrionic art, magic, or necromancy, unattended by help from the living dead. Such facts were gathered from Cotton Mather’s account; they come to us from one whose influences and writings are alleged to have been most strongly provocative of executions for witchcraft. Perhaps some of them became so. But his presentation of |