The Salem Witchcraft, the Planchette Mystery, and Modern Spiritualism

BIGOTRY. Obstinate or blind attachment to a particular creed; unreasonable zeal or warmth in favor of a party, sect, or opinion; excessive prejudice. The practice or tenet of a bigot.

PREJUDICE. An opinion or decision of mind, formed without due examination of the facts or arguments which are necessary to a just and impartial determination. A previous bent or inclination of mind for or against any person or thing. Injury or wrong of any kind; as to act to the prejudice of another.

SUPERSTITION. Excessive exactness or rigor in religious opinions or practice; excess or extravagance in religion; the doing of things not required by God, or abstaining from things not forbidden; or the belief of what is absurd, or belief without evidence. False religion; false worship. Rite or practice proceeding from excess of scruples in religion. Excessive nicety; scrupulous exactness. Belief in the direct agency of superior powers in certain extraordinary or singular events, or in omens and prognostics.--Webster.

INTRODUCTION.

The object in reprinting this most interesting review is simply to show the progress made in moral, intellectual, and physical science. The reader will go back with us to a time--not very remote--when nothing was known of Phrenology and Psychology; when men and women were persecuted, and even put to death, through the baldest ignorance and the most pitiable superstition. If we were to go back still farther, to the Holy Wars, we should find cities and nations drenched in human blood through religious bigotry and intolerance. Let us thank God that our lot is cast in a more fortunate age, when the light of revelation, rightly interpreted by the aid of SCIENCE, points to the Source of all knowledge, all truth, all light.

When we know more of Anatomy, Physiology, Physiognomy, and the Natural Sciences generally, there will be a spirit of broader liberality, religious tolerance, and individual freedom. Then all men will hold themselves accountable to God, rather than to popes, priests, or parsons. Our progenitors lived in a time that tried men's souls, as the following lucid review most painfully shows.

S. R. W.

CONTENTS.

PAGE The Place 7 The Salemite of Forty Years Ago 8 How the Subject was opened 9 Careful Historiography 10 The Actors in the Tragedy 12 Philosophy of the Delusion 12 Character of the Early Settlement 13 First Causes 15 Death of the Patriarch 16 Growth of Witchcraft 17 Trouble in the Church 18 Rev. Mr. Burroughs 19 Deodat Lawson 20 Parris--a Malignant 20 A Protean Devil 21 State of Physiology 22 William Penn as a Precedent 22 Phenomena of Witchcraft 23 Parris and his Circle 25 The Inquisitions--Sarah Good 26 A Child Witch 27 The Towne Sisters 28 Depositions of Parris and his Tools 31 Goody Nurse's Excommunication 35 Mary Easty 36 Mrs. Cloyse 38 The Proctor Family 40 The Jacobs Family 41 Giles and Martha Corey 42 Decline of the Delusion 44 The Physio-Psychological Causes of the Trouble 45 The Last of Parris 47 "One of the Afflicted"--Her Confession 49 The Transition 50 The Fetish Theory Then and Now 51 The Views of Modern Investigators 53 Importance of the Subject 55

CONTENTS OF THE PLANCHETTE MYSTERY.