Introductory Passages from Wonders of the Invisible World, Cotton Mather, 1693

 

The New-Englanders are a People of God settled in those, which were once the Devil’s Territories; and it may easily be supposed the Devil was exceedingly disturbed, when he perceived such a People here. . . .

 

The Devil thus Irritated, immediately try’d all sorts of Methods to overturn this poor Plantation . . . I believe, that never were more Satanical Devices used for the Unsettling of any People under the Sun, than what have been Employ’d for the Extirpation of the Vine which God has here Planted . . .

 

But, All those Attempts of Hell, have hitherto been Abortive . . . Wherefore the Devil is now making one Attempt more upon us; an Attempt more Difficult, more Surprizing, more snarl’d with unintelligible Circumstances than any that we have hitherto Encountered; an Attempt so Critical, that if we get well through, we shall soon enjoy Halcyon Days with all the Vultures of hell Trodden under our Feet.

 

He [the Devil] has wanted his Incarnate Legions to persecute us . . . he has therefore drawn forth his more Spiritual ones to make an Attacque upon us. . . . An Horrible PLOT against the Country by WITCHCRAFT . . .  [that would] Blow up and pull down all the Churches in the Country

 

An Army of Devils is horribly broke in upon the place . . . and the Houses of Good People there are fill’d with the doleful Shrieks of their Children and Servants, Tormented by Invisible Hands, with Tortures altogether preternatural . . . the terrible Plague of Evil Angels, hath made it Progress into some other places, where other Persons have been in like manner Diabolically handled

 

Several of them have been convicted of a very Damnable Witchcraft; yea, more than one Twenty have Confessed, that they have Signed unto a Book, which the Devil show’d them, and Engaged in his Hellish design of Bewitching and Ruining our Land.

 

Now, by these Confessions ‘tis Agreed, That the Devil has made a dreadful Knot of Witches in the Country . . . That these Witches have driven a Trade of Commissioning their Confederate Spirits, to do all Sorts of Mischief to the Neighbours . . . That at prodigious Witch-Meetings, the Wretches have proceeded so far, as to Consort and Consult the Methods of Rooting out the Christian Religion from this Country, and setting up instead of it, perhaps a more gross Diabolism, than ever the World saw before.

 

 

GOD ALMIGHTY in His most holy and wise providence, hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich, some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity,; others mean and in submission.

 

 

Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. We have professed to enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends. We have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.

 

 

For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

 

--from “A Model of Christian Charity,” Governor John Winthrop’s Sermon on board the Arabella as it sailed to New England, 1630

 

 

 

 

 

Spectral Evidence

 

“Spectral evidence refers to a witness testimony that the accused person’s spirit or spectral shape appeared to them witness in a dream at the time the accused person’s physical body was at another location. It was accepted in the courts during the Salem Witch Trials. The evidence was accepted on the basis that the devil and his minions were powerful enough to send their spirits, or specters, to pure, religious people in order to lead them astray. In spectral evidence, the admission of victims’ conjectures is governed only by the limits of their fears and imaginations.  Specters could be seen by those tormented but be invisible to others.

 

Spectral evidence was testimony in which witnesses claimed that the accused appeared to them and did them harm in a dream or a vision. Contemporary witch lore held that witches could project themselves spiritually, either directly or with the aid of Satan, in order to harm their victims from afar.

Spectral evidence is a form of legal evidence based upon the testimony of those who claim to have experienced visions. Such testimony was frequently given during the witch trials of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. The alleged victims would claim to have been tormented by specters invisible to others. This was taken as evidence that the accused witches, and or devils or demons that assumed appearance, were actively tormenting the victims. This testimony was virtually impossible to refute.