The Salem witchcraft ; The planchette mystery ; and Modern spiritualism / with Dr. Doddridge's dream.

Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Salem witchcraft ; The planchette mystery ; and Modern spiritualism / with Dr. Doddridge's dream. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Brandeis University Libraries, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections Department, Brandeis University.

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    PAEEIS AIS-D HIS ^^ CIRCLE. 5n had been hanged in Boston for bewitching four children, named Good- win—one of whom, a girl of thirteen, had sorely tried a reverend man, less irascible than Mr. Parris, but nearly as excitable. The tricks \\\?i^r=^ the little girl plaj^ed the Reverend Cotton Mather, when he endeavo^cl • to exorcise the evil spirits, are precisely such as are flmiiliar to us, in cases which are common in the practice of every physician. If we can not pretend to explain them—in the true sense of explaining—that is, referring them to an ascertained law of nature, we know what to look for under certain conditions, and are aware that it is the brain and nervous system that is implicated in these phenomena, and not the Prince of Darkness and his train. Cotton Mather had no alternative at his disposal. Satan or nothing was his only choice. He published the story, with all its absurd details; and it was read in almost every house in the Province. At Salem it wrought with fatal effect, because fuere was a pastor close by well qualified to make the utmost mischief out of it. [In cases of hysteria, the phenomena are sometimes so remarkable, that one is disposed to attribute their cause to influences beyond nature.] PARKIS AND HIS CIRCLE. Mr. Parris had lived in the West Indies for some years, and had brought several slaves with him to Salem. One of these, an Indian named John, and Tituba his wife, seem to have been full of the gross superstitions of their people, and of the frame and temperament best adapted for the practices of demonology. In such a state of affairs the paaiOT-aglmillv formed, or allowed to be formed^ji^goc_iet_v of young gixJs betu^en jlie ages of eight and eighteen to meet in his parsonage, strongly resembling those circles in the America of our time which have filled the lunatic asylums with thousands of victims of spiritual- ist visitations. It seems that these ,young persons were laboring un- der strong nervous excitement, whiclL was encouraged rather than repressed by the means employed by their spiritual director. Instead of treating them as the subjectsof morbid delusion, Mr. Parris regarded them as the victims of external diabolical influence; and this influence was, strangely enough, supposed to be exercised, on the evidence of the children themselves, by some of the most pious and respectable members of the community. We need not describe the course of events. In the dull life of the
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