A History of the American People

For him, his numerous scientific interests were in no way opposed to his religious beliefs but
were an extension of them. He argued that the existence of witches was a collateral proof of the
life to come: Since there are witches and devils,' he wrote,We may also conclude that there are
immortal souls.'
It was in fact precisely Cotton Mather's scientific interests which made him such an
enthusiastic witchhunter. He believed that the trials, if pursued vigorously enough, would
gradually expose the whole machinery of witchcraft and the operations of the Devil, thereby
benefiting mankind enormously. But here he disagreed with his own father, another learned,
scientific gentleman. Increase Mather held that the very operation of hunting for witches might
be the work of the Devil, and characteristic of the way the Great Deceiver led foolish men into
wickedness. His return from England in the autumn of 1692 was one factor in the ending of the
witchhunt, and the following spring he published a book, Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil
Spirits, which drew attention to the risks of public delusions and suggested that the real work of
the Devil was the hanging of an innocent old woman. Increase Mather was instrumental in
persuading the General Court of Massachusetts to pass a motion deploring the action of the
judges. Members of the jury signed a statement of regret, indemnities were granted to the
families of the victims who had been hanged. Some of those who had made false statements later
confessed to them, though in one case not till many years had passed. These events, and Increase
Mather's book, virtually put an end to trials for witchcraft in America.
The Salem trials, then, can be seen as an example of the propensity of the American people to
be convulsed by spasms of self-righteous rage against enemies, real or imaginary, of their society
and way of living. Hence the parallels later drawn between Salem in 1692 and the Red Scare' of 1919-20, Senator McCarthy's hunt for Communists in the early 1950s, the Watergate hysteria of 1973-74, and the Irangate hunt of the 1980s. What strikes the historian, however, is not just the intensity of the self-delusion in the summer of 1692, by no means unusual for the age, but the speed of the recovery from it in the autumn, and the anxiety of the local government and society to confess wrongdoing, to make reparation and search for the truth. That indeed is uncommon in any age. In the late 17th century it was perhaps more remarkable than the hysteria itself and a good augury for America's future as a humane and truth-seeking commonwealth. The rule of law did indeed break down, but it was restored with promptness and penitence. The real lesson of the affair, a contemporary historian may conclude, is not the strength of irrationality but the misuse of science. Cotton Mather had been trained as a doctor before he decided to follow his father into the ministry, and was a pioneering advocate of smallpox vaccination, especially of the young. He was a keen student of hysterical fits as a medical as well as a religious phenomenon. Both he and his father took an interest in the behavior of children under extreme psychic and physical stress, though they reached different conclusions. He, and the interrogators of the children, were manifestly anxious to hear tales of possession and sorcery and devilish activity to confirm their preconceptions, and the children intuited their need and supplied it. We have here a phenomenon by no means confined to the 17th century. Perhaps the best insight into the emotional mechanism which got the Salem trials going can be provided by examining some of the many cases of child-abuse hysteria, and cases in which children were alleged to have been abused by Satanist rings, occurring in both the United States and Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. The way in which children can be encouraged, by prosecuting authorities, toremember' imaginary events is common to both types of case. The Salem of the 1690s is not
so far from us as we like to think.