Cotton Mather (1) (1663–1728)

Increase and Cotton Mather (who would probably be named Derivatives and iPod Mather today) were a father/son pair of Puritan preachers in late 17th century New England. I dimly remember encountering them in my high school American history text, where they were pressed into service as analogs to Joseph McCarthy. The next encounter I remember was the poem “Cotton Mather” in Stephen Vincent Benét’s A Book of Americans, which (although written earlier) confirmed my high school opinion. (…“But men began to wonder/If there had been witches/When he walked in the streets/Men looked the other way.”) However, a while back I ran across a book (Salem Possessed) that suggested that the Mathers were not the Bible-thumping inquisitors they were traditionally portrayed to be; that, in fact, they had intervened to end the trials.

Thus, I picked up a reprint of Cotton Mather’s tract, Wonders of the Invisible World Being An Account of the Trials of Several Witches Lately Executed in New England. It was a very difficult read, as the Kessinger Press edition I have is a direct copy of a 1692 book published in London. The reproduction is quite poor, with entire paragraphs unreadable because the letters are “washed out”; there’s also the ubiquitous medial “s”, that looks like an “f” (especially disconcerting when Mather discusses witches supposedly suckling their familiars).

Further, this isn’t an organized discussion of the trials – rather it’s a collection of various things Mather threw together on the general theme of witchcraft and the Devil. Thus there are some observations on witch hunting technique (“heavier than a duck” is not mentioned), some sermons Mather gave on the Devil, accounts of individual trials (there were 19 witches involved; Mather only discusses five – Bridget Bishop, Susanna Martin, Elizabeth How, Martha Carrier, and “G.B.”) “G.B.” is George Burroughs, whose fall from grace (he was a former Salem minister) so incensed Mather that he refused to give his full name. Mather seems quite sure that these five were guilty as charged. He doesn’t say much about the others (although he does describe Giles Corey, who was pressed to death refusing to plead, as a “poor man”, with the implication that he was unfortunate rather than financially destitute). The section that seems to confirm the partial rehabilitation of Mather in Salem Possessed is at the beginning, and is Mather’s commentary on “spectral evidence”.

“Spectral Evidence” was apparently considered definitive proof of witchcraft. A “specter” was the appearance of a living person (as opposed to a dead person, who would be a ghost) in a place where the person couldn’t physically be. All the specters cited are engaged in tormenting or at least annoying somebody; the accounts Mather gives makes it pretty clear that most of the specters are what would now be called hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations; the witch appears in the victim’s bedchamber and sits on his chest, “greatly oppressing” him. The victim is paralyzed, but is eventually able to stir or cry out, whereupon the specter disappears. Mather’s caution is that maybe, just maybe, God might permit the Devil to make a specter of an innocent person, since it would certainly delight the Devil to have an innocent accused and executed. He doesn’t go on from there, but it could be the thin edge of the wedge; if the Devil can falsify spectral evidence, then presumably he could also falsify mad cows, mysteriously dead chickens, poorly behaved children, sour beer, miscellaneous aches and pains, and all the other evils inflicted by witches. Rather shallow evidence for changing Mather’s image from inquisitor to civil right activist; but perhaps.

The book is quaint enough, and inspires me to read a little more about the Mathers.… (mere)

"Permit me to mention one little Instance, which tho' it relates to my self, will not be quite uninteresting to you. When I was a Boy, I met with a Book intitled Essays to do Good, which I think was written by your Father. It had been so little regarded by a former Possessor, that several Leaves of it were torn out: But the Remainder gave me such a Turn of Thinking as to have no [little] Influence on my Conduct thro' Life; for I have always set a greater Value on the Character of a Doer of Good, than on any other kind of Reputation; and if I have been, as you seem to think, a useful Citizen, the Publick owes the Advantage of it to that Book" - BF to Samuel Mather, 12 May 1784.… (mere)