Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- Introduction
- 1 Magical Experiments: Divining, Healing, and Destroying in Seventeenth-Century New England
- 2 The Serpent that Lies in the Grass Unseen: Clerical and Lay Opposition to Magic
- 3 Entertaining Satan: Sin, Suffering, and Countermagic
- 4 Sinful Curiosity: Astrological Discourse in Early New England
- 5 Insufficient Grounds of Conviction: Witchcraft, the Courts, and Countermagic
- 6 Rape of a Whole Colony: The 1692 Witch Hunt
- Epilogue
- Appendix A Witchcraft Trials in Seventeenth-Century New England (Excluding Persons Accused During the Salem Witch Hunt)
- Appendix B Persons Accused During the Salem Witch Hunt
- Name Index
- Subject Index
1 - Magical Experiments: Divining, Healing, and Destroying in Seventeenth-Century New England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Prologue
- Introduction
- 1 Magical Experiments: Divining, Healing, and Destroying in Seventeenth-Century New England
- 2 The Serpent that Lies in the Grass Unseen: Clerical and Lay Opposition to Magic
- 3 Entertaining Satan: Sin, Suffering, and Countermagic
- 4 Sinful Curiosity: Astrological Discourse in Early New England
- 5 Insufficient Grounds of Conviction: Witchcraft, the Courts, and Countermagic
- 6 Rape of a Whole Colony: The 1692 Witch Hunt
- Epilogue
- Appendix A Witchcraft Trials in Seventeenth-Century New England (Excluding Persons Accused During the Salem Witch Hunt)
- Appendix B Persons Accused During the Salem Witch Hunt
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Summary
She acknowledged the turneing of the sieve, in her house by hir daughter, whom she Desyred to no [know] if her brother Moses Haggat was alive or dead. And that if the sieve turned he was dead, and so the sieve did turn.
Salem Witchcraft PapersA man in Boston gave to one a Sealed Paper, as an effectual remedy against the tooth-ach[e], wherein were drawn several confused characters, and these words written, In Nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, Preserve thy Servant, such an one.
Increase Mather, Essay for the Recording of Illustrious ProvidencesThe colonists brought with them from England a variety of magical beliefs and practices. These traditions had a lengthy and complicated pedigree, more often than not obscured in the mists of time. Throughout the medieval and early modern periods, most English men and women had access to local folk practitioners who provided magical services. These experts were known to contemporaries variously as “cunning” or “wise” folk, “conjurors,” “white witches,” and “wizards.” Cunning folk were skilled artisans who practiced the mysteries of healing and divining; they performed a vital social service. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century observers commented on the popularity of magical practitioners and the frequency with which people made use of their skills. Robert Burton, a don at Christ Church, Oxford, from 1599 to 1640, wrote that there were “cunning men, wizards, and white witches, as they call them, in every village, which, if they be sought unto, will help almost all infirmities of body and mind.”
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- Information
- The Devil's DominionMagic and Religion in Early New England, pp. 24 - 54Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
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