5. She could tell of secret speeches which she had no ordinary means to
come to knowledge of.
6. While in prison, in the clear daylight, there was seen in her arms ...
a little child ... which at the officer's approach ran and vanished.
7. The maid that fell sick at sight of that child "was cured by the said
Margaret, who used means to be employed to that end."
The _only_ charge _proved_? If it was proved that "she was a successful
practitioner, using only simple remedies," then each one of the other six
is just as clearly proved as her successful practice, and by the same
document, too. But some of them are more difficult to account for on
sadducean grounds, and were left unnoticed. Even the admitted marvel is
put forth in distorted form, being so draped as to teach that the woman
was a _successful_ medical practitioner, while the original record reads
that her simples produced extraordinary _violent_ effects. No doubt she
was in an important sense "a successful practitioner, using only simple
remedies." But that is not what the testimony specially stated. The
historic evidence is, that her simples produced "_violent effects_." Her
fate teaches that the action of her simples was deemed diabolical. Is that
idea conveyed in calling her a successful practitioner? No.
The case of this woman is vastly more instructive than it has been deemed
by former expounders; and since, in its varied features and aspects, it
presents many interesting points, we shall dwell upon it at considerable
length.
Nothing has been met with in her history which conflicts with supposition
that she and her husband, perhaps in or below the middle ranks of society,
were laboring for a livelihood amid a clear-headed, sagacious, hardy,
industrious community, which had resided twenty years around the mouth of
the Charles without any startling witchcraft among them, or any teachers
of that art, (?) or skillful co-operators in its practice. Something
induced her to lay hands upon and administer simple medicines to the
pained, the sick, or the wounded. Whence the impulse? We can hardly
suppose that she had studied medicine. A nurse she may have been--very
likely had been--and perhaps had become conscious of ability to relieve
sufferings and disease, and may have been known by her neighbors to be
willing to practice the healing art. Obviously they became accustomed to
submit themselves to her manipulations and medical treatment quite
extensively, and at length were astonished at the extreme efficacy of her
hands, and the sometimes _violent_ action of her simple medicines.
So extraordinary were the effects of her labors that the neighborhood
became suspicious that an obnoxious _one from below_ was her helper, and
therefore she was arrested on suspicion of witchcraft.
What persons would be summoned into court to testify concerning her when
such was the charge? Her patients promiscuously? No. Only such among them
as had, or as would swear that they had, received suffering or annoyance
under her treatment. Search would be made for harm only, and not for any
good which she had done. More moral courage and strength than are common
would be needed to induce those not summoned, and who had nothing but good
which they could say of her operations, to try to get upon the witness
stand where witchcraft was the alleged offense. All the testimony, either
sought, or given, was, no doubt, intended to bear against her; and yet it
comes to our view that the sickened maid "was cured by the said Margaret,
who used means to be employed to that end." Beneficence as well as "murder
will out" sometimes.
The various powers manifested through her are worthy of separate
examination.
1. _When she manipulated either man, woman, or child, some nausea, pain,
or disease was forthwith engendered in the subject of her operations._
That is the only crime which Hutchinson seems to have found laid to her
charge; it is the only one he puts to the credit of her persecutors, and
thus he leaves them heavily indebted on humanity's ledger. If the
testimony were not mainly sheer fabrication, some extraordinary efficacy
went forth from her imposed hands, and apparently on many different
occasions, too; for the account stating that effects were similar upon
men, women, and children, indicates that she was an extensive operator.
Mesmer had not then made his discoveries. But the powers always resided in
living forms which he detected and measurably learned to educe and
control. Margaret Jones's system may have been a very powerful magnetic
battery, controlled sometimes by her own will, sometimes moved by and
giving passage-way to impersonal magnetic forces, and sometimes also used
by that intelligence outside of man which Agassiz and Brown-Sequard say
(see Appendix) can operate through his organism. Both intensification and
mitigation of pains, diseases, and the forces of medicines are credible
results from her manipulations.
As said before, only those portions of the primitive document which relate
to the efficacy of her hands and her simples, drew forth comments from the
historians; they also failed to set forth a tithe of the significance
which was involved in the little they did attempt to unfold. Such action
of hands and very simple medicines upon the systems of men, women, and
children is not satisfactorily accounted for either by ascribing it, as
one did, to the anger of the operating woman, nor, as the other did, to
the simple medicines acting normally. Such causes could never have
produced effects competent to so startle an intelligent and firm-nerved
community as to make them charge this practitioner with diabolism, and
seek her execution. The implied infatuation and credulity of a generation
which could be roused to such barbarity by such insignificant causes is a
most defamatory impeachment of the sagacity, manhood, and humaneness of
our forefathers. Our witchcraft expounders, we apprehend, have allowed
themselves to sacrifice very much that was bright and noble in the past,
on the altar of false assumption that modern scientists, or at least that
their own wise historic intellects, have explored all the recesses of
broad nature, and positively determined that no forces can anywhere exist
by which supermundane acts can legitimately be brought to the cognizance
of man. The merits of the fathers are darkened, that the arrogance of the
children may be labeled Wisdom.
Many men of no mean intellects have admitted that a spirit once came forth
from a man "and leaped" on the seven exorcist sons of one Sceva, "and
overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that
house naked and wounded." The mind which believes that record ought to be
in condition to admit that possibly spirits could throw forth power
through the hands of such as Margaret Jones which would produce pains,
nausea, and disease in those whom the mediums touched, provided the
spirits desired such results. It was no unprecedented event in kind, if,
through her, some unseen force tortured the bodies of any who, as spies,
enemies, mimickers, or rivals, sought an imposition of her hands; not new
that torturing sensations should be produced when the magnetisms of the
operator and subject were as alkali and acid to each other; nor new that
her own spirit of resentment for wrongs either received or foresensed,
thus operated. But favor too might often induce either her or a spirit
through her to produce _violent effects_ at first, unless our doctors
prescribe emetics and cathartics in unkindness or malice.
Read the following statement, which I have just written down from the lips
of a neighbor whom I have known well for nearly or quite ten years, and
whose truthfulness is as complete as that of any other one whatsoever in
the whole circle of my acquaintances:--
"In the autumn of 1869, a woman in South Boston who knew me, advised
one of her neighbors who was sick of fever to send for me and receive
treatment by my hands. The patient's husband, a robust mechanic, had
little faith in helpful efficacy from 'laying on of hands.' Still,
curiosity or some other motive induced him and three other men to
observe my processes and their effects. They witnessed very marked
contractions of the sick woman's muscles, and many spasmodic movements
of her limbs. When I ceased working upon my patient, her husband said,
'Do you suppose you can affect _me_ in the same way?' My reply was, 'I
don't know--probably not; but if you desire me to try, I will.' 'Yes,'
said he, 'try.' 'Sit down, then, sir, in the chair where your wife
sat.' He did so, and I operated for a short time without perceptible
effect, but was soon impressed to say to him, 'Strike me on the small
of the back,'--simultaneously placing my back so that he could give it
a fair, hard blow, which he was by no means unwilling to inflict.
After his first stroke I called out, 'Harder!' After the second,
'_Harder!_' After the third, he was instantly cramped up, his arms
were hugged in upon and across his chest, the muscles on them were
much enlarged, intensely hardened, and not obedient to his will, and
he lustily begged, 'Let me down! let me down! let me down!' while the
other men, the sick wife, and myself laughed till we were exhausted. I
had no will in producing, nor any design to effect any such results.
"J. W. CROSBY.
"BOSTON, April 30, 1874."
2. The testimony indicates that her _very simple medicines, such as
anise-seed and liquors, produced extraordinary violent effects_. This is
credible. Extraordinary effects were produced by magnetized handkerchiefs
in the days of Paul, and to-day, even pure water, placed beneath the hands
of some peculiar mediums, or beneath the tips of their fingers, sometimes
absorbs or is made to manifest the medicinal properties of wine, ipecac,
or of other substances desired; and such mediums are often very
"successful practitioners using only simple remedies." The action of what
they administer need not be psychological in any proper sense of that
term: that is, the patient need not be informed, nor have suspicion, that
the water is medicated thus; though any persons upon whom the action is
very perceptible, probably, must be constitutionally mediumistic. By
personal observation we have learned that water may be so medicated by
unseen infusion from unseen source, as to taste like, and operate like,
either ipecac or wine, according to the properties which some unseen
intelligence to whom needs are transparent, and who can sicken or refresh
at pleasure, has gathered from the atmosphere or elsewhere and infused
into that water. When public vigilance had been roused to suspicion around
this woman, it is not improbable that many persons, belligerent
devil-ward, sought a test of her powers, and that some of them
(susceptible ones) felt or drank in what caused "deafness, or vomiting, or
other pains or sickness"--not improbable that on some of them her simples
had "_violent_ effects." Persons thus affected would make up nearly the
whole class from whom witnesses at her trial would be selected. If she had
been generally a producer of only pains and sickness, her practice would
soon have dwindled to nothing, and she would have lived on without
molestation. "A successful practitioner," simply as such, would never have
been arraigned.
Upham detected the significant fact in the case, that her simple remedies
were so efficacious as to make her a successful practitioner; yes;--but
was simply successful medical practice the chief reason why her neighbors
charged diabolism? What amount of success in alleviating the sufferings
that flesh is heir to would invoke public vengeance? How much beneficence
did one then need to perform before public sentiment, would reprobate its
author? Could such faculties and agents alone as are normally and
ordinarily used, enable a woman to achieve such success in curing
diseases, healing wounds, and alleviating pains, as to arouse an
intelligent and religious community to arrest and try her for a capital
offense against the well-being of society? Never. Did the historian notice
his own back-handed imputation of atrocious diabolism upon the population
of Charlestown when he led his readers to infer that they persecuted one
of their number unto an ignominious death, solely because "she was a
successful practitioner using only simple remedies"? Whether he saw it or
not, his explanation made her neighbors take the life of this woman
because of the good works she had done among them. Some theory of
explanation which will exempt us from the necessity of assenting to
gratuitous aspersions of the sagacity and sentiments of justice pertaining
to our ancestry in the mass, is very desirable. Margaret Jones was a very
successful _healing medium_, and therefore her works were mysteries.
Having noticed the only two allegations in this case which the historians
have deemed worthy of specification or had courage to adduce, and having
seen that Hutchinson ascribed her persecution to her own anger flowing out
through her hands, while Upham ascribed it to her great success as a
healer, we will just note the fact that the former historian generally
indicated an abiding apprehension that those who _were persecuted_ for the
crime in question, were the parties most to be blamed; while the latter,
oftener than otherwise, throws the chief blame upon the _persecutors_. In
this instance the earlier historian makes her anger,--a trait which is
blamable,--while the latter makes her beneficence,--a commendable
characteristic,--the chief exciting cause to her condemnation and
execution.
We proceed to examine other original charges more difficult to solve
plausibly on the hypotheses of Hutchinson and Upham than were anger and
successful medical practice; charges not amenable to any philosophy
entertained by those expounders.
3. "_She used to tell such as would not make use of her physic that they
would never be healed; and, accordingly, their diseases and hurts
continued; with relapses against the ordinary course_," &c. It is very
common in our day for clairvoyance to see, or--more broadly and
instructively--it is common for mediumistic faculties to _sense_ and feel
sure, that the existing tendency of a patient's disease will soon
terminate in death, if not checked by some peculiar medicinal agent, often
a spiritual one, or one medicated by spirits, which ordinary physicians
are ignorant of, will not prescribe, and cannot obtain. The evidence which
Judge Winthrop reports, shows that "the diseases and hurts" of recusants
to take her prescriptions, not only continued to remain unhealed, but
underwent such changes and relapses as physicians and surgeons could not
understand. Since such things occurred in accordance with her predictions,
we here perceive strong evidence that the woman possessed uncommon
susceptibilities for _sensing_ coming results. _It is just as clearly
proved_ that she foretold specific events, as it is that her touch was
malignant, and her practice successful. Her marvelous prescience, which
was one of her conspicuous powers, the historians failed to set forth.
Their philosophy, founded only on such materials as are recognized in
man's physical sciences, was too narrow to embrace occult natural agents
and forces by which such prescient powers could be drawn or put forth
through some human organisms and produce marvelous results. Therefore
those expounders let such facts remain undisturbed in the rarely visited
closets where they have long reposed.
4. _Things which she foretold came to pass accordingly._ That is, events
verified her predictions, and thus proved her exercise of marvelously
prophetic powers. Should one assume that her verified predictions were
only skillful or lucky guesses, would such assumption be fair and just
toward the people who, as living witnesses on the spot, could know what
the things were which she foretold, and know also with what accuracy they
were fulfilled, and yet deemed them genuine prophecies? Her accusers could
know the facts, while we, in the main, must be ignorant of them. We cannot
reasonably deny that the direct observers actually discerned the exercise
of genuinely prophetic powers by her. Some mortals at times can prophesy;
for both in ancient prophetic and apostolic times, and in our own age,
many people have been and are known to do it. Eternal laws or forces lead
some mortals to sure knowledge of coming events. History and returning
spirits both so teach.
"The spirit of prophecy has its source in infinite truth, and is as much a
part of infinite law as any other manifestation of life; therefore it has
a wise and powerful protection; and they who avail themselves of this
spirit of prophecy, _by virtue of the way and manner in which they are
physically and spiritually compounded_, if they are fortunate enough to
place themselves in harmonious relations to the law, fail not in
prophesying. But if, as is often the case, they unfortunately place
themselves in inharmonious relations to the law, they must, of necessity,
fail in part, if not entirely. It is a truthful saying, that 'coming
events cast their shadows before.' _These shadows_ (?) _are, in reality,
portions of the events_; these shadows take precedence of the material
birth of all events as they are understood by mortals; they are the basis
of that which you receive, and outlast that which you receive; they are
the infinite part. Now, then, there are some persons _so constituted_ that
they perceive these shadows (?) and can judge as accurately concerning
what they predict, as the learned astronomer can concerning an
eclipse."--_Spirit_, _Prof. Alexander M. Fisher, of Yale._ BANNER OF
LIGHT, Jan. 30, 1875.
5. "_She could tell of secret speeches which she had no ordinary means to
come to knowledge of._" At times, then, she was clairaudient, or was one
of those sensitives whose spiritual organs of sensation are at times so
disentangled from their material ones, that she experienced a practical
annihilation of space and gross matter, which let her, as all unclogged
spirits may, be practically present with and listeners to any person
anywhere, to whom she was for any reason attracted, and with whom she came
into rapport. Conditions admitting cognizance of the thoughts and words of
the absent in body are now of daily occurrence with men, women, and
children not a few, and therefore were possible with Margaret Jones in
1648 and years preceding. A letter from Captain Densmore, on a future page
of this work, will show recent possession of power to bear the voices of
living persons whose bodies were very far distant from the hearer.
6. "_While in the prison in the clear daylight there was seen in her arms
... a little child ... which, at the officer's approach, ran and
vanished._" _Vanished_; that word intimates that it was a spectral or
spirit child--perhaps her own departed one. By whom was it seen? By an
officer of the prison, and therefore by one not likely to be her
confederate in attempt at imposture. Not by him only; for a chambermaid
also saw the little one, and was made sick by the sight; which effect
argues against her having had any complicity in a trick. That testimony to
such occurrences was given in court, is vouched for by Winthrop, and must
have been, or surely should have been, read by subsequent historians.
Their adroitness at leaving certain classes of facts in undisturbed
obscurity, nearly rivals the cunning of agents to whom they impute the
origin and production of witchcraft manifestations.
The visible presence of that evanescent child shows very clearly that Mrs.
Jones was endowed with some of the rarer and exceptional properties of
mediumship--that she possessed those special elements in the midst of
which spirits could be robed in such materialized encasements, that
material eyes could discern them. Angels looking and acting like men (Gen.
xviii.) were seen by Abraham and Lot. One was seen (Judg. xiii.) by Manoah
and his wife. Another by Tobias, son of Tobit (Apoc.); another by
disciples who were walking toward Emmaus (John xx.); others also by
thousands of individuals in various ages and nations, sporadically.
To-day, distinct perception of materialized spirits in the presence of
Mrs. Andrews at Moravia, N. Y., around Dr. Slade of New York city, and
many others are reported almost weekly, and are well attested. In these
modern instances, generally, some special, though simple, pre-arrangements
are made to facilitate such manifestations; but we may very reasonably
doubt whether anything of the kind was resorted to by Mrs. Jones, because,
being in prison charged with the awful crime of witchcraft, the
presumption is imperative that she must have lacked both means and
opportunity to command tangible apparatus either for helping on a genuine
spirit manifestation, or producing an optical illusion upon her keepers.
_Mortal._ "How do spirits materialize?"
_Spirit._ "You must know the atmosphere is full of particles of matter.
Everything that is in the human body is also in the atmosphere in fine
particles. Darkness renders these particles more quiescent, and hence more
easily managed by spirits. The spirit has a will point or center which is
a spark of the Divine Nature. When the condition of the atmosphere, of the
medium, and of the circle is proper, the spirit exerts that will power,
and, in accordance with natural law, _attracts to its spirit form_ the
floating particles in the air, and they condense upon and interpenetrate
the spirit form or body so as to materialize it, making bone, muscle,
skin, hair--every part, and making the spirit body, for the time being, a
solid, palpable one. The air contains an immense amount of matter which
can be used by spirits for materializing. We do not, however, usually
materialize the blood.... We have to draw a portion of the substance for
materialization from the medium, he being a kind of reservoir where we
concentrate our supplies, and it is much more difficult to draw from him
when at a distance, therefore we keep near him."--_Spirit. Disc., as
reported by H A. Buddington._ BANNER OF LIGHT, Feb. 6, 1875.
A case of much interest and significance was reported to the Boston Post,
a daily newspaper, by a correspondent under date of Newburyport, Jan. 13,
1873. Therein is furnished an account of a spirit boy showing himself in
broad daylight, several times, on different occasions, at a window between
an entry and a school-room, to a band of children and their teacher; also
of his making a disturbing racket in an unfinished attic over them
occasionally for many successive months. Miss Perkins, the teacher, says,
"He is a little fellow, about eleven years old, with a pale face, and the
saddest, sweetest mouth that she ever saw in her life, looking fearlessly
up into her face out of a pair of blue eyes. He retreated into a corner.
She followed him, and just as she was about to lay her hand upon him he
vanished. No door had been opened, and yet he was gone." The account
states that Miss Perkins, "though no spiritualist, is convinced that it"
(the racket) "is all produced by supernatural agency, and believes that
the apparition she saw was a veritable ghost."
The editor of the Springfield Republican probably consulted the teacher of
that school, Miss Lucy A. Perkins, as to the correctness of the foregoing,
and perhaps other accounts, which had become public, for she wrote to him,
and he published as follows:--
"The account you sent me is true, with a few exceptions. When I first saw
the boy, he was neatly attired in a _brown_ suit of clothes, trimmed with
braid and buttons of the same color. When I reached forward to grasp him,
he seemed not like the boy, but vapory, or, as I can only describe it,
like a thin cloud scudding across the room; still he seemed to have the
boy form. Reports from some of the Boston papers say I fainted; such is
not the case. I knew where I was and what I was about just as well as I
know I am writing.
"One day I sent a boy out to hang up the brushes, &c.... He was out about
five minutes. After he had taken his seat, three raps came on the door of
the room where the brushes were hung. He said, 'Miss Perkins, can I go out
and see who's there?' I told him, 'Yes, and leave the school-room door
open.' He did so, and when he opened the brush-room door (I sat where I
could see all) every one of the brushes, both long and short handled, came
falling off the nails where they were hung; some struck him on the
shoulders, and the broom directly on the top of his head. The dust-pan,
hanging on a nail at some distance above the brushes, came tumbling to the
floor with a vengeance. It then stood on its handle, then on the bottom
edge, and continued on so till it entered the school-room, and then it was
placed as nicely against the partition as if I had done it myself. Just as
soon as I'd raise the ventilator, a black ball, like a cannon ball, would
begin to roll around the attic, and make such a noise I would be obliged
to lower the ventilator. One day the room was quiet as it possibly could
be, and all at once some one in the attic called out, 'Dadie Pike!' Dadie
thought I spoke, and said, 'What'm?' I said to him, 'Can you say your
lesson?'
"Since the boy affair took place, the attic has been fastened up; locks
and keys are of no use, however, for there is as much walking up stairs,
and sometimes the hammering and nailing. Once in a while, sounds as of
some one walking will come down the attic way, go across the entry, and
open the outside door, and be gone perhaps ten minutes; after it is quiet
again, the door will open, and he, she, or it will go up stairs.... I am
not a spiritualist; never attended a sitting, in fact, never had anything
to do with a person of that belief, and never saw any manifestations. Why
anything of the sort should take place where I am, is more than I can
account for."
This case, wherein a teacher and her two score pupils simultaneously saw a
spirit in broad daylight, day after day and week after week, argues very
forcibly that "the nature of things" permits admission that the testimony
relating to the spirit child in the jail may be literally true. Laws and
forces are now frequently indicating their existence, which permit the
observable presence of spirits.
Intense yearnings for comfortings, sympathy, and support in her dark and
trying hour, as well as other causes, may have drawn an angel child--her
own or some other--to the arms of Margaret Jones, whose history reveals
her possession of peculiar susceptibilities and mediumistic properties;
and with her as a reservoir, materialization of the spirit may have been
accomplished.
7. The sickened maid "was cured by the said Margaret, who used means to be
employed to that end." Kindness and skill successfully put forth to heal
the sick, even while the public was keeping her in a felon's cell, hang as
a luminous cloud over her head, and betoken something good in her--betoken
the possible source of something different from a malignant touch--yes, of
"genuinely successful medical practice."
We know little of her character; there is no impeachment of it in the
recorded testimony. Her peculiar powers resulted, no doubt, from peculiar
innate formations of and connections between her outer and inner
organisms, and had little dependence upon intellectual or moral qualities.
Not her own holiness, nor any other common power of hers, enabled her to
either intensify or abate painful sensations. Whether sinner or saint was
the more prominent in her character, our course and views have no occasion
to inquire.
Winthrop's comments say that "her behavior at her trial was very
intemperate; lying notoriously and railing upon the jury and witnesses;...
in the like distemper she died." He gives no particulars, and therefore
furnishes no grounds on which we may judge whether any of her statements
which seemed to him false, might not seem to us, at our different
stand-point of observation, to have been true. Very many perfectly true
utterances made by mediums to-day relative to their involuntary and even
unconscious putting forth of acts and words imputed to them, would be
deemed lies by all common interpreters who are ignorant of the part often
performed by or through that higher set of mental powers which our leading
scientists have lately discovered are at the service of intellect not our
own. Perhaps she lied; perhaps, too, she was truthful, but misunderstood.
Intemperance in her behavior, no doubt, was manifest. But that might
spring from various motives. Any spirited person, consciously innocent of
a charged offense, and possessing only moderate power of self-control and
moderate intellectual stamina, would be very likely to pour forth warm
language, and flat and forceful denials of allegations of wrong-doing.
Persecuted innocence was only a very little less likely--if at all
less--than ill temper or "distemper," to call forth what might seem to be
"railing upon the jury and witnesses." Neither severe language nor
"intemperate behavior" is necessarily derogatory to any one's prevailing
temper or character, when rushing forth from the lips and limbs of one
whose deeds are being so misinterpreted that beneficence is looked upon as
diabolism, and whose beneficent works are being made to draw down upon
their author an ignominious death.
Possibly words from her lips, and behavior seemingly prompted by her
emotions, were manifestations of the thoughts and impulses of some other
intelligence than herself. If so, most scathing rebukes for her
persecution, and for thirstings for her blood, might fall thick and heavy
upon the ears of benighted jurors and blinded witnesses. Observation has
often noticed most terrific outflowings of denunciations upon blind
guides, through organs of speech not controlled by their reputed owner.
Felix is not the last person who has trembled under the lashings of
inspiration. An acting out through her form, by another intelligence, a
deep sense of wrong she had received, may have made her seem as mad in the
eyes of Winthrop, as the learning and forceful utterances of Paul did him
in those of Festus.
Evidence produced at her trial shows that Margaret Jones correctly
foretold the course of diseases in the systems of those who declined her
prescriptions--that she foretold other "things which came to pass
accordingly"--that she learned the purport of conversations by the absent
or secluded--that a spirit child became visible in her auras--and that
the sickened maid was cured by her appliances. Each and all of these very
marvelous manifestations were just as distinctly and authentically
recorded on paper still extant, as were those less rare ones which have
been put forth as fair indices of the case. Such blinking out of sight the
most important things pertaining to the person who, as far as is now
known, was first on this side the Atlantic to be executed for witchcraft,
is unjust to culture and philosophy, which should be furnished with all
known facts; is unjust to the fathers, whose full basis for her
prosecution and execution should be set forth ere just judgment of their
doings can be formed; and is unjust to her whose transcendent powers and
effective labors for healing the sick may have been the main cause why
minds deluded by a false and frenzying creed devil-ward, were impelled on
to barbarously destroy one who had been and might have continued to be
their benefactress.
She was a natural conduit from the inner to the outer world, through which
perhaps impersonal force at times might cause supernal knowledge and power
to come into her outer being; through which again, her own will might
suction such, while at other times unseen persons might inject them
through from their abodes, and even come themselves to aid her in their
application. Nothing harmful was charged against her, excepting what
seemed to be, and were believed to be, superhuman abilities.
The power that formed her originally, implanted and developed within her
organism unusual capabilities for curing physical disease, for reading
the future, and hearing the distant. There is neither evidence nor
foundation for a conjecture that she was ever pupil of teachers of medical
science, or of jugglery, nor that she belonged to any mesmerically
developing circle. Her acts cannot well have been mere imitations of what
she had seen others do, or had read or heard of having been done. She had
no teachers, no confederates that were visible and tangible. Indeed, who
among men could possibly have taught or helped her to prophesy correctly,
to hear the far distant, or to embody a spirit child? Not one--not one.
Such performances were only natural evolutions from her inborn faculties,
when acted upon by spirit forces or agents, or both. The reader is asked
how these manifestations, through our first martyr to it, can _possibly_
be explained on the hypothesis that witchcraft was nothing else than the
histrionic tricks of sprightly and cunning children, either singly or in
combination with the ingenuities and malignities of old women. Such
agents, unaided from out the unseen, were most clearly incompetent to
project into human view some phenomena which attended upon this
consternating seer, hearer, healer, and holder of properties for
materializing a spirit form so as to render it visible.
What possible facts or considerations could have induced the humane,
intelligent, virtuous, and religious community in which she lived, to seek
the life of such a woman, moving, probably, in humble sphere, but, in the
main, a doer of good works? The question brings up a complex and difficult
problem, viz., How can the seeming stupidity and inhumanity of our fathers
be reconciled with their obvious intelligence and humaneness?
Assuming the record of testimony given in court to be correct--and why
should we not?--the manifestations through and around Margaret Jones
clearly indicated the outworking there of some abilities which the bodies
and ordinary mental powers of embodied human beings do not possess. What
then? Some unseen power must have helped her. What unseen power? Yes,
_what_ unseen power? Experience as then interpreted--religious creeds as
then understood--science and philosophy as they then existed--all
conspired to give one and the same answer, viz., _The Devil_. That
conclusion from the witnessed facts was then inevitable. The devil helped
her. What next? The devil could help no one who had not previously entered
into a covenant with him, and he surely helped this woman. Therefore she
had made a covenant with him, and in making that she became a _witch_. The
law of God which binds Christians says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to
live." Thus our forefathers saw and reasoned. Steps from facts to the
conclusion were few, short, and plain. Feeble intellects _could_ take
them, and strong ones _must_ do so, or reject their life-long creeds. Then
a crucial hour was upon them. To distrust and disregard their credal faith
or stifle their humanity, one or the other, was the hard alternative
presented to strong, good men. Their cherished creed or Margaret Jones,
one or the other, must be sacrificed. Which? Clear heads and life-long
affections grasped the creed firmly, and resolved to save it. They let
Logic draw her rigid conclusions, and put them forth as rules for
individual and public action. Sympathy went down before dominant faith,
and man stifled every rebellious emotion. God's call and law, Christian
men then felt, were paramount to sympathy. In submission to what they
deemed Heaven's will and call they said, "Down, humaneness--down! Up,
God-derived Faith--up, in your majesty and might! Heart must follow
whither you lead." Their awful and cramping _Creed devil-ward_ was the
chief fountain of bewildering and brutalizing force that dragged
intelligent and kind men on to redden our soil with innocent blood, and
that too "in all good conscience."
Look closely at their position. The faith of all ages and nations had held
that occurrences which seemed to result from supermundane force were
produced by disembodied intelligences. Protestant Christendom was
extensively holding that no invisible beings, excepting their Great
Monstrous Monk-made Devil (see Appendix) and his obedient servants, could
by any possibility work upon the bodies and possessions of men. And none
such could work upon the external world in any other way than through, or
by the aid of, such mortals as had voluntarily made a covenant with him.
Such covenant once formed, the person making it would be an open door
through which his fearful Majesty, or any imp of his, could freely enter
the outer world and vent his malignity upon all the region far and wide
around his entrance-place. Her works proved to the intellect of that day
that this Margaret had covenanted to let him enter and co-operate with
her. What, therefore, must be done? It was manifest to the people of
Charlestown that through her the great invisible cloven-foot had found
entrance, and was prowling among them. What was their duty? They must bar
his entrance promptly. To do it, they arrested, tried, condemned, and
executed the Christian traitor who had furnished their great enemy
entrance to the Christian fortress. Could firm, true men, holding then
prevalent beliefs, have done less?
That prisoner was put to trial before judge, jury, and a public who each
and all held the then common creed throughout all Protestant Christendom
which is set forth in our Appendix. Witnesses swore that she accurately
foretold the effects of medical treatment and other events; that she heard
speeches by persons far remote from her; that a spectral child was seen in
her presence; that her hands and simples wrought marvels,--therefore, how
could jurors avoid conviction that the devil helped her? There was no
spectral testimony in this case; outer senses of many persons had learned
her supermundane powers. The nature of the testimony was unexceptionable,
and its purport distinct and conclusive. The prevalent faith imperatively
demanded that the verdict should be--_guilty_. The clear, strong faith of
that day, in whomsoever it conjoined with good conscience and courage, put
forth mighty power to persuade the good citizen and good man that high
duty was calling upon him to gird on heavenly armor and fight for the
destruction of this minion and colleague of the devil, even at the
smothering of kindlier sentiments in his heart. She was _witch_, and
therefore must die. Was that a _deluded_ court, representative of a
_deluded_ people, which condemned Margaret Jones to "hang high on the
gallows-tree"? No doubt it was. Delusion led not only our fathers here,
but all Christendom, on to deeds of shameful bloodshed. Witchcraft itself,
as a whole, is now by most people deemed a "_dark delusion_." But which,
among the human faculties, did that delusion spell-bind, stultify, and
make sanguinary?
Were the external senses of a whole community so disordered that the
character and dimensions of sensible acts were grossly misapprehended? No.
The circumstances amid which the early colonists lived, were certainly as
well fitted to sharpen, discipline, and give reliability to the external
senses as those which wait upon their descendants in the present century.
Whatever eyes saw, ears heard, or touch felt in 1648, was reported to the
mind then as accurately as the same senses can report to-day. Witchcraft
phenomena were not the fictions of deluded _senses_.
Did that delusion dominate those mental faculties which clothe in words
and report what the senses had learned, and derange them so effectually
that they would put forth even under oath distorting and exaggerated
accounts of facts which the senses had witnessed? We think not. Distrust
of the truthfulness and discrimination of ancient unknown witnesses,
founded mainly upon the marvelousness of facts they swore to knowledge of,
is not a basis that either candor or justice can deem sufficient to
sustain a charge that their testimony was misleading. Wherein lurks
anything which indicates that the witnesses in this case stated anything
that was not substantially true? If anywhere, it is probably in modern
incredulity that spirits ever colabor with or act upon men. If the time
shall come--and there now exist signs that it is near--when the cultured
world shall learn that _science_ has been unwittingly _generating
delusion_ by failing to detect and regard the existence of certain occult
agents and forces which play important parts in scenes of nature and human
society, then a greatly modified opinion concerning the truth of testimony
evoked in witchcraft times may prevail throughout the enlightened world.
The signs of to-day make it prudent, kind, and just to conceive that
ancient _witnesses_ were quite as truthful and discriminating as modern
elucidators of remote transactions have generally been.
Were the faculties of jurors and judges for comprehending the accuracy,
force, and tendency of testimony, and for logically deducing conclusions
from proved facts, so deluded as that the whole court, without a
misgiving, convicted either on false testimony or illogically? Candor must
hesitate to say yes--especially in a case where such a man as Governor
Winthrop sat upon the bench. He and his associates in the court may have
been as free from any delusion that impaired or perverted their powers of
discrimination, or for logical inferences from facts, as any court that
has adjudicated since their day. The absolute cruelty and injustice of
their verdict and sentence, however, do indicate delusion of some
faculties; but not of the senses; not of the capacities to speak truth,
and "nothing but the truth;" not of the capacities to sift evidence and to
reason logically--not of these.
Their faculties for receiving, containing, holding on to, and obeying an
inherited FAITH were the _deluded_ ones. In common with all Christendom
the convictors of witches had been deluded into adoption, or at least
retention, of a woful creed concerning the devil. At that time public
sentiment in most countries on the continent of Europe, and also in both
Old and New England, demanded rigid enforcement of all laws which that
false, mischief-working creed had engendered and recorded in
statute-books. Such laws were plain and imperative; both jurors and
judges, suppressing sentiment, must yield to logic--must convict and
sentence. By no other course could they be true to their convictions of
duty toward society around them, or toward God on high. Yes; an imported
monastic-born FAITH, unnatural, erroneous, and more than barbarous,
deluded kind and good men to feel that they must suppress sympathy, ignore
their tender impulses, benumb their hearts, and, whither God's voice was
believed to call, go forward in stern, agonizing resolve to thrust a
devil-helped worker, however good and estimable in outward seeming, to
where the wicked one could do them and theirs no mischief through that
mortal ally. Such was the logical and stern demand of the old deluding and
heart-curbing creed.
Do we wonder in our day how such monstrous faith could ever have obtained
and kept both an abiding hold and controlling authority in any clear head
that was joined to a kindly heart? Seeds of faith get lodgment in the
human brain while it is yet too young to understand or even try to test
the nature and quality of what falls upon it. Whatever the church and
public believe, and have believed through a long past, is ever dropping
its own seed into opening minds, which forthwith germinates therein. This
sends its roots deep into virgin soil, grows with vigor there, and becomes
fruitful of the same old faith during that very early portion of life in
which the infantile questioning, analyzing, and reasoning faculties are
scarce able to doubt the soundness or excellence of what thence has grown
and matured in close alliance with themselves. Faith's right and fitness
to define duty, and the child's obligation to execute its requirements,
are usually conceded by all the other faculties. The truer and better the
man, the more surely will he carry out his faith to its logical demands,
even though, Abraham like, he have to lay his dearest on the altar of
sacrifice, to lift the knife, and nerve himself to plunge it into his own
child's heart, unless some voice from on high, more potent than previous
faith, shall bid him hold. Few other than strong men and true, conscious
of being soldiers in heaven's army, would march resolutely to the Devil's
living and shotted guns, purposing to destroy them; for their destruction
was instinct with, and inseparable from, anguish to Christian neighbors
and friends. Extremists alone would do that. None midway between vile
demons and men of high faith in God would voluntarily meet that ordeal.
We do not regard _all_ the active prosecutors and convictors of witches as
having been actuated by well-defined faiths and high principles. When
popular furor sets strongly in any direction, the thoughtless, the
unprincipled, the cruel, the malicious, join in the rush, and some such
often become conspicuous and heartless agents in confounding confusion and
in executing public decrees. Still, nearly all eminent men of both Europe
and America--the leading divines, jurists, and civilians, the men of
culture and of influence--believed that witchcraft and the witchcraft
devil existed, and that witches should be detected and punished by the
processes and laws then deemed applicable in such cases. Therefore, the
mass of the people, however ignorant, thoughtless, or rash, when detecting
and punishing witches, were only hastening to effect by rough processes
and expeditiously, no more than the learned, more orderly, and patient
would have felt constrained to accomplish, in the end, from a firm
conviction of duty. Good faith and conscientious regard for the public
weal actuated and sustained all those "solid men of Boston" and its
vicinity, who were the real bones, sinews, and muscles which brought the
devil's seeming helper to the gallows.
Whether this impressible and unfolded woman was literally aided in any of
her marvelous operations by invisible _intelligences_ may be debatable. It
is possible that forces subject to no will but her own, and not even to
that at all times, may have passed from her into other persons, which
relieved some and agonized others extensively. Medication of her simples
may have been mainly their natural absorption of elements residing in her
system, or which were naturally attracted into and through that peculiar
system. Her correct perceptions of the future action of remedies
prescribed by either herself or others, and of the future course and
result of diseases, may have been obtained by her own inner faculties when
partially and transiently disentangled from her outer ones, and sensing in
knowledge from the hidden realm of causes. So too she may have been at
times so nearly a freed spirit, that she could by her own perceptives
accurately sense coming events, and hear the words of far distant
speakers. We refrain from denying the possibility that such auras resided
in, emanated from, and surrounded her body, that a spirit child coming
within them was by natural impersonal forces there rendered visible to
external optics. It is possible there was no phenomenon in this case that
must be called _spiritual_, excepting the mere _advent_ of the child--not
its visibility, but its _advent_. If the child was there, then a spirit
was there, and it was a case of Spiritualism. All this is possible; but we
ask whether it is probable that all works seeming to be hers were produced
by blind natural forces and her own will and powers solely? To this our
own answer is an emphatic NO. The presence of the child gives force to
that response. If one spirit came to her, others could have come.
The old records are nearly or quite devoid of information relating to the
intelligence, character, and social position of Margaret Jones. She was
wife of Thomas Jones, who, soon after her execution, took passage on board
a vessel for Barbadoes. We have met with no indication that they had
children--with nothing which alludes to his age, occupation, or standing
in society. We find her a practicer of the healing art; but at what age,
or amid what worldly circumstances, is all unknown.
Bunker Hill and its circumjacent slopes and lowlands have close connection
with the earlier stages of two American conflicts for freedom. There
lived, and from thence was taken to prison and the gallows, the first
American martyr in a war whose end, obtained forty-four years later at
Salem Village, was Christendom's mental emancipation from deluding and
dwarfing bondage to a more than savage creed. True, the aggressive
hosts--the prosecutors for witchcraft--were ignorant and unsuspicious of
the far-reaching purposes of the divinity that shaped their ends, that
beheld and ruled over their blind violence, and made them, all
unconsciously and undesignedly, mortally rend a monster-creed whose
demands they were slavishly and blindly complying with, and thus, without
knowledge of it on their part, procuring for themselves, their children,
and all future Christians, new freedom and new incentives for independent
speculations and conclusions regarding all matters both demonological and
theological. A nightmare of centuries was thrown off from disturbed and
horrified Christendom at Salem, and each cramped sufferer could
thenceforth draw breath more freely, and commence processes of
recuperation and expansion.
The case of Margaret Jones is isolated. It has no traceable connection
with any kindred one which either preceded or followed it. Still its
origin was in the abiding-place of forces and operators acting invisibly
upon the external world, and amidst which all genuine witchcraft, miracle,
and Spiritualism have been born.
Her case must be catalogued among the marvelous, though the proving of the
nature and character of her offense, erroneously so called, was unattended
by the absurdities and cruelties which attach to many cases where spectral
evidence was admitted, and barbarous processes were resorted to for
extorting a plea to an indictment. As a witchcraft trial, hers was
exceptionally inoffensive to modern views of propriety. The testimony
throughout was based on experiences and observations by external senses,
and would be admissible in any court and any age. The extra-common powers
or susceptibilities of the accused were clearly proved. Therefore the
monstrous creed which then blinded and tyrannized over all minds took her
life legitimately. Good men, humane men, could do no less than pronounce
her guilty before the law and before that creed which engendered the law.
Before we denounce or even disparage those who condemned her, let us pause
for reflection.
"A creed sometimes remains outside of the mind, incrusting and petrifying
it against all other influences addressed to the higher parts of our
nature, manifesting its power by not suffering any fresh and living
conviction to get in."--_John Stuart Mill._