An essay on demonology, ghosts and apparitions, and popular superstitions : also, an account of the witchcraft delusion at Salem, in 1692 / by James Thacher.

  • Thacher, James, 1754-1844.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on demonology, ghosts and apparitions, and popular superstitions : also, an account of the witchcraft delusion at Salem, in 1692 / by James Thacher. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    force conviction, that the whole was a scene of fraud and imposture, commenced by young girls, who at first, perhaps, thought of nothing more than exciting an interest in their sufferings, and continued by adult persons, who were afraid of being accused themselves. Rather than confess their fraud, they permitted the lives of so many innocent persons to be sacrificed. None of the pretended afflicted were ever brought upon trial for their fraud ; some of them proved profligate persons, abandoned to all vice, oth- ers passed their days in obscurity and con- tempt. In December, 1696, there was a proclama- tion for a fast, in which there was this clause, * That God would shew us what we know not, and help us wherein we have done amiss, re- ferring to the late tragedy raised among them by Satan and his instruments, through the awful judgiTient of God. On the day of the fast, at the South meeting-house in Boston, Judge Sewall, who had sat on the bench at the trials, delivered in a paper to be read publicly, and he stood up while it was reading. It ex- pressed in a very humble manner, that he was apprehensive he might have fallen into some