Manifestations differing widely from any noticed in the preceding cases,
were observed in the presence of a Connecticut girl named Ann Cole.
American witchcraft history has transmitted no distinct account of the use
of human organs of speech by intellect that was foreign to the legitimate
owner of the vocals used, prior to the instance described by Hutchinson in
the following extract. The history of Ann Cole involves all that we know
of the Greensmiths, husband and wife, mentioned therein, and who were
executed for witchcraft.
"In 1662, at Hartford, Conn., one Ann Cole, a young woman who lived next
door to a Dutch family, and, no doubt, had learned something of the
language, was supposed to be possessed with demons, who sometimes spoke
Dutch, and sometimes English, and sometimes a language which nobody
understood, and who held a conference with one another. Several ministers,
who were present, took down the conference in writing, and the names of
several persons mentioned in the course of the conference as actors or
bearing parts in it; particularly a woman, then in prison upon suspicion
of witchcraft, one Greensmith, who, upon examination, confessed, and
appeared to be surprised at the discovery. She owned that she and the
others named had been familiar with a demon, who had carnal knowledge of
her; and although she had not made a formal covenant, yet she had promised
to be ready at his call, and was to have had a high frolic at Christmas,
when an agreement was to have been signed. Upon this confession she was
executed, and two more of the company were condemned at the same time."
Hutchinson also credits to Goffe's diary the statement that "after one of
the witches was hanged, the maid was well."
Another account of this Ann's case, furnished by an eye-witness and
personal hearer when she was in her trances, has been transmitted. The
writer of it promptly made, but afterward lost, minutes of what he heard
from her lips, and about twenty years afterward wrote his remembrances of
the manifestations, and forwarded the following account to Increase
Mather:--
"Anno 1662. This Ann Cole (living in her father's family) was taken with
strange fits wherein she (or rather the devil, as 'tis judged, making use
of her lips) held a discourse for a considerable time. The general
substance of it was to this purport, that a company of familiars of the
evil one (who were named in the discourse that passed from her) were
contriving how to carry on their mischievous designs against some, and
especially against her; mentioning sundry ways they would take to that
end, as that they would afflict her body, spoil her name, hinder her
marriage, &c.... The conclusion was, 'Let us confound her language; she
may tell no more tales.'... The discourse passed into a Dutch tone, ...
and therein was given an account of some afflictions that had befallen
divers, among the rest a young Dutch woman ... that could speak but very
little, had met with great sorrow, as pinchings of her arms in the dark,
&c.... Judicious Mr. Stone being by, when the latter discourse passed,
declared it, in his thoughts, impossible that one not familiarly
acquainted with the Dutch (which Ann Cole had not at all been) should so
exactly imitate the Dutch tone in the pronunciation of English....
Extremely violent bodily motions she many times had, even to the hazard of
her life, ... and very often great disturbance was given in the public
worship of God by her and two other women who had also strange fits....
The consequence was, that one of the persons presented as active in the
forementioned discourse (a lewd, ignorant, considerably aged woman), being
a prisoner upon suspicion of witchcraft, the court sent for Mr. Haynes and
myself to read what we had written.... She forthwith and freely confessed
these things to be true: (that she and other persons named in the
discourse) had familiarity with the devil. Being asked whether she had
made an express covenant with him, she answered, she had not, only as she
promised to go with him when he called (which she had accordingly done
sundry times).... Amongst other things, she owned that the devil had
frequent use of her body with much seeming (but indeed horrible, hellish)
delight to her. This, with the concurrent evidence, brought the woman and
her husband to their death as the devil's familiars.... After this
execution ... the good woman had abatement of her sorrows, which had
continued sundry years, and she yet remains maintaining her integrity.
"Ann Cole was daughter of John Cole, a godly man among us. She hath been a
person esteemed pious, behaving herself with a pleasant mixture of
humility and faith under very heavy sufferings, professing (as she did
sundry times) that _she knew nothing_ of those things that were spoken by
her, but that her tongue was improved to express what never was in her
mind."--_John Whiting to Increase Mather. Feb. 1682._
The source of Hutchinson's information is not known. Rev. Mr. Whiting, of
Hartford, was an eye and ear witness to what he relates, and therefore is
the better authority. Some great discrepancies are obvious in the two
accounts. One hundred years after her day the historian said Ann no doubt
had learned something of the Dutch language. But the better authority,
because it is that of one who both saw and beard the young woman when
under control, and continued to obtain knowledge of her for twenty years
subsequently, says she "had not at all been acquainted with" that
language. The former says "the supposed demons" spoke through her
sometimes in English and sometimes in Dutch; while the latter "judged"
that the devil alone was speaker, and implies that the language always was
English, though the tones sometimes were very exactly Dutch. The devil was
"judged" to be there divulging the malicious purposes of "a company of his
familiars" toward certain human beings. Here is manifested a propensity,
common to all describers of witchcraft scenes, to impute to the great
devil himself whatever was projected forth from the realm of mysteries.
A careful reading of the two accounts excites conjecture that Hutchinson
may have drawn his facts mainly from Whiting's letter, and yet failed to
regard and adhere to opinions therein presented as to the actual speaker
through Ann Cole's lips. Whiting says, that "she, or rather the _devil_,
as 'tis judged, making use of her lips, held a discourse" in which sundry
living persons were named as being familiars of the Evil One, and plotters
of mischief against some of their neighbors, and especially against this
Ann herself. This personal observer says, that "_she, or rather the
devil_," described Mrs. Greensmith and her associates, and disclosed their
evil purposes toward Ann and some other mortals. But the historian greatly
metamorphosed the matter; he writes, that she "was supposed to be
possessed with demons, who sometimes spoke Dutch and sometimes English,"
and that the persons who took notes (Mr. Whiting, Mr. Haynes, and Mr.
Stone) mentioned the names of several persons "_as being actors or bearing
parts in the conference, ... particularly one Greensmith_."
Wrong--entirely wrong: these mortals were the subjects of a discourse;
were not speakers, but persons spoken of. Thus Hutchinson converted
certain low-lived mortals into such demons as took possession of a human
form, and through it, in varying languages, held a dialogue in which they
openly told to mortal ears their own malicious purposes, and what mortals
they were intending to injure. Stupid. Whiting makes the devil, in varied
tones and assumed characters, speak out the names of the embodied
culprits, and tell of harms they had done, and more that they intended to
do. Sensible. The devil or his alias often acts well the part of a
detective and informer; in this case he managed to bring Mrs. Greensmith
to confession.
_Possibly_, and only possibly, that devil was only an influx of auras
which found entrance to Ann's inner perceptives, put in abeyance her outer
consciousness and outer senses, and let her inner ones sense and give
expression to the thoughts and purposes of some low-lived and lewd
mediumistic persons in her neighborhood, whose inner selves, she, as a
relatively freed spirit, could thoroughly read. Occult intelligences
sometimes actuate the physical organs, while yet the mortal's
consciousness fails to perceive either the action or the will that prompts
it.
The account of her life makes it apparent that Ann, as a woman, had no
affinity with the base and lewd, but, being mediumistic, was caused,
either by design or by the out-workings of unconscious natural forces, to
disclose the baseness and lewdness of others. She apparently experienced
entrancement to absolute unconsciousness, so that she became, for the time
being, literally a tool--no more self-acting, and therefore no more
responsible, than a pen, a pencil, or a speaking-trumpet. Condition like
hers in that respect is experienced by many persons at the present day.
Some utterances made by her lips when she was entranced were successfully
used in court, either as proofs, or as helps for obtaining proof, that
certain other persons in her neighborhood were in league with Satan--were
the devil's familiars. Presentation in court of accusations that had come
forth from her vocal organs brought a woman, then on trial for witchcraft,
to prompt confession that the allegations were true, and both she and her
husband were condemned and executed.
Similar resorts for obtaining clews by which to trace crimes to their
authors are extensively resorted to now, and frequently with success; but
the statements of the entranced and the clairvoyant are not adduced in
court, nor should they be, because our world has not yet attained to
reliable skill for testing their accuracy; nor are high-minded and
trustworthy spirits often willing to expose any guilty mortals to
punishment by this world's tribunals and executioners.
How far the novel annunciation of their names and some of their practices
contributed to the condemnation of the Greensmiths, husband and wife, or
whether it did at all, is only matter for conjecture. But that either some
influences went out from them and acted upon Ann, or that some went forth
from Ann and acted upon them, or that there was reciprocal action back and
forth, is only a fair inference from what is stated above, taken in
connection with that foot-note of Hutchinson, which is credited to "Goffe
the Regicide's Diary," and reads thus: "After one of the witches was
hanged, the maid was well." No mention has been met with of any sickness
about Ann, excepting the strangely induced _fits_ in which she was used as
the mouthpiece of the strange occupant or occupants of her form. Her
becoming _well_ may mean no more than a cessation of her fits, or
obsessions. That these should cease after the execution of a person or
persons with whom she had been in distressing and uncongenial rapport, was
perhaps only a natural result from the action of universal laws. Drafts
may have been made from her system by forces not her own, which helped
invisible beings to act upon the condemned Greensmiths for good or for
harm. Occasion for such use of her elements or properties may have ceased
as soon as the gallows had finished its work. The fits ceased, perhaps,
solely because drafts of special properties from her were discontinued.
"After one of the witches was hanged, the maid was well." The execution of
one person and the restoration of health to another were viewed by Goffe
as cause and effect.
The Greensmith woman's confession of the use of her form by her
familiar--revolting as the isolated fact would be to us, and will be to
the reader--was the controlling reason which influenced us to adduce the
case of Ann Cole. We get from the old woman Greensmith an ancient
indication, which is paralleled by many unproclaimed modern ones, that
astounding possibilities reside within the scope and sway of forces
interacting between the realms of matter and of spirit, which possibly and
probably may be availed of for elevation as well as for debasement of the
human race. Many whispered facts of human experience are to-day indicating
that the old woman may have made true statement of her personal
experiences. If degradation and fatuity permit the leaking out of some
momentous facts of human experience which conscious vessels of fair
soundness and delicacy will retain within themselves, and hide from a
profaning world's knowledge, that world, nevertheless, may be entitled to
hints at the existence of occult, though only rarely perceptibly operative
forces and permissions of nature, through the only channels which have let
them flow forth for the world's free observation. The Greensmith woman's
fact may be regarded as representative of very many others of a like
nature.
I know a man who once visited a married couple, both of whom are
intelligent and refined, both estimable in character, the husband being a
highly respected member of one of the learned professions. This couple,
at their own dining-table, where they and the visitor were the only
occupants of the room, united in stating that once, when they had just
finished taking their midday meal, and were sitting at the table opposite
to each other, the lady's chair, with herself sitting in it, was moved
back by some invisible power, and forthwith she, by palpable but invisible
arms, was taken from her seat, laid upon the carpet, and there made to
experience all the sensations of actual and pleasurable nuptial coition.
While such were her positions and sensations, her husband remained on the
other side of the table, and they two were the only flesh-clad persons in
the room. One accomplished and truthful lady had such experience while her
consciousness and all her mental faculties were fully alert. Nature
enfolds astounding possibilities. The human race, in coming times, may
possibly be improved rapidly and extensively, by designed infusions of
supernal elements into fetal germs.
No evidence has come to us, and no apprehension is entertained, that such
experiences ever eventuate in physical conception; yet there are seen, now
and then, glimmerings of evidence that supernal beings can and do inflow
some of their own properties into the very marrow of some susceptible
mortals of either gender, or of both simultaneously and conjointly, so as
to modify physical systems in such manner and to such extent, that their
offspring receive, at the very moment of conception, such properties as
will ever afterward render them either better or worse because of
injections through the parents by intelligences whose presence and
operations elude perception by our external senses. Possibly both the most
beneficent and the most malignant of our race--both those whose moral
hues most illumine, and those whose shades most blacken the pages of
history--were conceived while supernal beings held the parents either
under strong psychological control or in deep unconscious trance.
The mother of the rough, lustful, and murderous Samson was visited by a
spirit being "very terrible."
The mother of Jesus was visited by the bright and glorious Gabriel, and
enwrapped in an abnormally sound, helpful, or holy aura.
Far away from Charlestown and Boston, where the two women noticed in the
preceding pages had their homes and met their fate, Ann Cole was the
_unconscious_ mouthpiece through which invisible beings carried on
dialogues, partly in languages, or, at least, in tones, which she had
never learned. The manifestations through her were no imitations of
anything before known on this continent, so far as history shows. Her
reputed doings were unlike any for which Massachusetts had hanged two of
her daughters.
From whom came the tones, if not the words, of languages which this
possessed girl had never learned? From whom came the things put forth
through her which "she knew nothing of"? And especially who "improved her
tongue to express what was never in her mind"? Any satisfactory
explanation of witchcraft must point out distinctly, and must admit the
action of some force competent to all such performances; a force
controllable and controlled by intelligence. The facts in the case were
set forth by a personal witness of many of them, who wrote at a time when
he was not under any excitement or hallucination which their novelty might
at first produce, but twenty years subsequent to their occurrence, when
their recorder should have been, and no doubt was, calm and cautious, and
when, too, the girl's own good character had been confirmed by good
Christian deportment through twenty years succeeding the marvels
manifested through her organs. If any history is worth reading, Ann Cole's
lips were used by intelligences not her own "to express what never was in
her mind." Either embodied intelligences--the Greensmiths and their
associates whose bodies were not present with her--used her vocal organs,
as Hutchinson's account implies that they did, or demons--spirits, as
Whiting supposed--spoke through her form.