"There stood open the study of one belonging to the family, into which
entering, she stood immediately on her feet, and cried out, 'They are
gone! They are gone! They say they cannot. God won't let 'em come here!'
adding a reason for it which the owner of the study thought more kind than
true; and she presently and perfectly came to herself, so that her whole
discourse and carriage was altered into the greatest measure of sobriety."
Very likely Mather was then egregiously cajoled by _some_ one.
Observation, together with information otherwise obtained, renders it
obvious that one essential condition of psychological control is, that the
magnetisms or auras of the controlling mind shall, at the time, be, in the
mass of its operative qualities and powers, stronger than, or positive to,
any other person's spheres, auras, or emanations amid which the control is
either to be taken or held on to. Suppose, then, what would be necessary
under the circumstances, that the atmosphere, walls, and furniture of that
study were highly charged with emanations from the vigorous minded Mather,
who was then present, and consequently his own halo was radiating there
and keeping his surroundings fully charged with himself. Physical and also
external mental and emotional effluvia from him might then be so repulsive
to magnetisms pertaining to spirits of any moral quality whatsoever, that
no visitant from unseen realms would try to withstand the repulsion. If
such was the condition of things, the parting exclamation of the last to
remain, might well be, "They are gone; God won't let 'em come here!" Such
statement would be in full harmony with the most common use of language
to-day by spirits, for they are accustomed to say that God won't let them
do this or that, when, according to their own oft-repeated explanation,
they mean only that the forces of nature oppose or control them. God and
natural forces with them generally mean one and the same all-dominating
power--God's forces as well as himself are called by his name by visitants
who read his operations with more than mortal accuracy.
"She presently and perfectly came to herself, so that her whole discourse
and carriage was altered into the greatest measure of sobriety." Yes,
naturally so; for Martha Goodwin herself resumed control of her own body,
and re-exhibited the religiously educated and guileless girl which she in
fact was, just as soon as usurping visitants vacated her legitimate
premises. So long as her form was dominated by another's mind, her
existence was either a blank to herself, or, if conscious, she was
powerless.
Upham teaches that once, according to Mather, when people attempted to
drag this girl up stairs, "the demons would pull her out of the people's
hands, and _make her heavier_ than perhaps three times herself." Did the
historian himself who quoted those words and let them appear to be
accurately descriptive of facts, believe that they were such? Did he
believe that _demons_ acted within her, held her back, and made her
something like three times heavier than she normally was? Such things were
adduced by him as being _facts_, and it would be pleasant to know whether
he believed that the girl herself was those demons, and by her own action
made her own body three times heavier than common gravitation would make
it. Did such observable effects occur as Mather described? Probably they
did, and the historian's process of accounting for them implies that by
her own cunning, ingenuity, and histrionic skill, the child made herself
three times heavier than she actually was. If the allegations were not in
his estimation facts, why did he let them stand unaccounted for in his
summary of things accomplished by his "cunning and ingenious child"?
Perhaps he presumed that readers to-day are generally as ignorant as
himself of the vast many cases in which the present generation has tested
and proved by the best of Fairbanks's scales, that spirits augment or
diminish the weight of material substances at pleasure, and to as great
and sometimes greater extent than either demons or Martha Goodwin are
alleged to have done in the case above cited. He perhaps presumed that the
reading world at large was as ignorant and prejudiced as himself on this
subject, and that the world's clearing and opening eyes will continue to
see, as his glamoured ones did, only fibs in Mather's facts. This was a
sad oversight. Light from Spiritualism (see Dr. Hare, Dr. Luther V. Bell,
William Crookes, Alfred R. Wallace, and many others) has already
substantiated facts which prove that nature infolds forces by which agents
unseen can at their pleasure produce either levitation or increase of the
weight of material objects. Therefore such action may have been put forth
upon the body of Martha Goodwin. Yes, we now may _rationally_ believe that
there existed too much sagacity and truth among the men of witchcraft
times, and too little deviltry among the guileless children of that day,
to permit that fictions and rhetoric shall long be suffered to malign our
forefathers because they recorded true accounts of what transpired among
them.
Mather states that this girl, at times, by whistling, yelling, and in
other ways, disturbed him when at family prayers. Upham says, "She would
strike him," Mather, "with her fist and try to kick him"--probably
meaning, try both to strike and kick him, for he adds, "her hand or foot
would always recoil when within an inch or two of his body; thus giving
the idea that there was an invisible coat of mail, of heavenly temper, and
proof against the assaults of the devil around his sacred person." That
"_idea_" looks much more like a child born within the historian's own mind
than a gift to him by Mather. A statement by the latter that her hand or
foot would always recoil when within an inch or two of his body, hardly
justifies the slurring innuendo which seems to be appended to it. But
ignorance of many operating laws, forces, and agents pertaining to the
subject discussed by the modern historian, let him sometimes become as
tempting a target for the shafts of ridicule as he found Mather to be.
Without presuming that Mather perceived that natural laws generated
repulsion between matter animated and moved by a disembodied spirit and
matter in its normal conditions, we can state that extensive observation
has generated the conclusion that unless there exists rapport with, or at
least an absence of repulsion between, the sphere of the spirit using the
borrowed hand or foot, and the sphere of the normal person aimed at,
natural law forbids their contact. William Morse made such observation as
caused him to say in his deposition that "the wedge and spade flying on
his wife _did not touch her_." Forceful and rapid approximations of hands
and feet under control of invisibles, toward the bodies of surrounding
witnesses, and marvelous arrestings of those moving limbs so that no
contact ensues, are of very frequent occurrence. Very many parlor
ornaments and household utensils, hard and soft, light and heavy, are, by
spirits, not unfrequently set in rapid motion back and forth, and
crosswise, promiscuously over and amid a crowd of people in a room, and
yet but few persons are ever hit, and the few sensitives in rapport with
the performers, and contributors to their apparatus, if hit, are never
hurt. The temper of Mather's shielding coat of mail was just as heavenly
as that of each other human being's coat which the Master Armorer in
nature's boundless shop forges and furnishes for the protection of each
human child who is sent forth to fight the battles of life in gross flesh
and bones. Not his own holiness, but either nature's antipathies or spirit
forbearance saved Mather from the blows, and the historian wronged him
perhaps when he intimated that the divine thought otherwise; for that man,
halting as his steps were, and small as his advance was, made nearer
approach toward a fair comprehension and exposition of our witchcraft than
any other American who wrote upon that subject, till since the publication
of "History of Witchcraft."
Many other pranks, not less marvelous than the ones already presented, are
ascribed to this girl; but notice of them may be omitted here, because the
general character of the operations around her are all that this work
proposes to exhibit. We must, however, give the reader opportunity to
peruse the historian's concluding comments upon this case. He says,--
"There is nothing in the annals of the histrionic art more illustrative of
the infinite versatility of the human faculties, both physical and mental,
and of the amazing extent to which cunning, ingenuity, contrivance,
quickness of invention, and presence of mind can be cultivated, even in
very young persons, than such cases as just related. It seems, at first,
incredible that a mere child could carry on such a complex piece of fraud
and imposture as that enacted by the little girl whose achievements have
been immortalized by the famous author of the 'Magnalia.'"
We are glad to note the author's frank and distinct confession that his
own solution seems _at first_ incredible. Why he put in the phrase "at
first" needs explanation, which he fails to furnish. He makes no attempt
to show why the _first_ seeming should not be the permanent one. It is
permanent. It will continue permanent to the end of time. It is and
forever will be _incredible_ that the Goodwin girl herself performed all
the feats which the evidence proves were performed through her organism.
If her body was the organ of all the performances which are distinctly
ascribed to her, she was not the author of them all, but only a channel
for the occurrence of many of them. Can reflection find her competent to
all that was ascribed to her? Incredible. Incredible not only _at first_,
but also on and on to the latest last.
Ingenious fancy, while weaving over this case a dazzling web of rhetoric,
may have deluded the eyes that overlooked the loom, and caused them to
discern other seemings than the first ones; but such delusion will never
become epidemic.
Hutchinson, usually a scornful handler of aught that emitted any odor of
witchcraft, we now requote where he said, concerning the family which
included this Martha, that "they all had been religiously educated, and
were thought to be without guile;... they returned to their ordinary
behavior, lived to adult age, made profession of religion.... One of them
I knew many years after. She had the character of a very sober, virtuous
woman, and never made any acknowledgment of fraud in this transaction."
Such is the testimony of one whose views and feelings obviously inclined
him, as far as possible, to consider all witchcraft works the products of
imposture and fraud; and who, therefore, was not likely to assign to this
family any good qualities which they were not widely and well known to
possess. He spoke of them as above, and refrained from any direct
imputation of fraud to them. He hinted at fraud, it is true, but probably
both lacked any historical or traditionary evidence of it, and was
conscious that if fraud were alleged, and even proved, it would fail to
meet the case in all its parts--in those especially that "seemed more than
natural." Nonplussed in the way of solution, he could only say "it was a
time of great credulity"! In one important respect he had better
facilities for judging this case correctly than can be obtained to-day. He
had listened to conversations of many persons who were living at the time
of its occurrence, and yet refrained from direct charge of fraud or
imposture. Also he intimated that such causes, even if alleged, would be
inadequate, because some of the transactions "seemed more than natural."
The later historian, unhampered by need to move in harmony with the
knowledge and beliefs of any cotemporaries of those Goodwins, and
abandoning historic grounds which furnish supermundane agencies for
solving the occurrence of acts which filled the town and colony with
consternation, delved into the composition of man, and fancied that he
found therein enormous capabilities for credulity, fraud, imposture,
infatuation, spontaneous out-flashings of highest, and more than highest,
feats of histrionic art, for self-generated triplication of personal
weight, for aviarial flittings, for equine antics, for self-induced
roastings, self-induced showerings, for comprehension of languages never
learned, &c.; fancied that he had found how one little girl, "religiously
educated, and thought to be without guile," could execute to admiration
each of those many things "seeming to be more than natural," and could
mimic with admirable exactness most astounding feats, and such as always
before had been supposed to require the powers of disembodied
intelligences. That was an astounding discovery. But the present are times
of great credulity, and in the infatuation of these days mental optics
have been molded, which, looking back nearly two hundred years, see the
brightest, most vigorous, and keen-sighted men of Boston--the "solid men
of Boston"--see them stolid and gullible, and see, too, among the people
there three or four little children, bright and religiously educated, and
yet malignant and agile as the very devil. What a contrast between the old
and the young then! Was there ever a day when Boston's wisest adults were
prevailingly blockheads easily befooled, and when those of her children
who had "great ingenuity of temper" metamorphosed themselves into
devil-like incendiaries, and set the town ablaze with sulphurous fires?
Alas! one modern eye has penetration enough to convince its owner that
such a day once was. That eye, "by the aid of"--something, seems "gifted
with supernatural insight;" certainly with very uncommon back-sight.
Grant to the Goodwin children all the natural human endowments which
imagination can conjure up and embody, also grant to them skillful
training and long-continued practice, which there is no probability they
had, and even then it was impossible for them, when in separate rooms, to
have voluntarily and designedly acted, and seemingly suffered, precisely
and simultaneously alike, as they are alleged to have done, and as they
would have naturally been made to do if all of them were under and
controlled by the psychologic influence of the single mind of the
resentful wild Irish woman, because then the same mental impulses would
move them all like machines, and simultaneously.
After their separation, the girl at Mr. Mather's house could never have
accomplished single-handed what is ascribed to her. The internal evidence
of the narrative of events which transpired there combines with common
sense in pronouncing it farcical--distinctly _farcical_--to regard that
young girl as the contriver and performer of all the works and pranks
which history says transpired through her physical organism, and,
therefore, to external eyes, seemed to be products of her own volitions.
The nature, quality, and extent of those performances bespeak producing
powers both different from and greater than such a girl possessed; bespeak
just such powers as departed spirits are now putting forth all around us
through living human forms.
It is not only at first, but _permanently_ incredible, "that a mere child
could carry on such a complex piece of fraud and imposture as that
enacted" through "the little girl whose achievements have been
immortalized by the famous author of the Magnalia;" and therefore the
world demands, and will yet obtain, a simpler, more rational, and more
satisfactory solution of this and kindred cases; solution that will admit
all the amazing feats of witchcraft to be embraced within the scope of
forces that finite human beings, the seen and the unseen in conjunction,
could in the past and can now so apply as to execute all the world's
marvels without aid from either the One Great Devil, from fraud, or from
imposture. Neither of these need ever have any connection whatever with,
or complicity in, such matters. The records teach, and man's recent
experience divines, that other, more befitting, and more competent actors
than mere children were on hand and at work in Cotton Mather's presence.
Though justice would have us assign to any Great Dull his honest dues, it
also permits us to pull off from his sable brows any unearned wreaths
which Cotton Mather and others credulously placed upon them. It also and
especially requires us to tear off from the fair head of guileless Martha
Goodwin that badge labeled _Fraud and Imposture_--that emblem of
deviltry--which _modern delusion_ has most cruelly, and yet most
artistically, wreathed around temples that seem worthy of a pure _martyr's
honoring crown_.