The Torturer's Dilemma: Analyzing the Logic of Torture for Information

emained problematic: for as many pointed out over the course of the trials, if Satan could impersonate
the prophet Samuel (as was thought to be the case in the reign of Saul in Israel, 1 st Book of Samuel,
28:3-25) then he could impersonate anyone, including the innocent and the saved. 55
Mather went on to describe several reasons why spectral testimony could not be considered
valid in the courts. To the assumption that God would not permit so many good and righteous men to
be in such deadly error, Mather replied that God had allowed the good to suffer before, and would do
so again. Similarly, since God did not grant humans the ability to see the “Invisible World,” the
knowledge of its goings on exhibited by the afflicted could only come from Satan – and Satan could
not be trusted to tell the truth. Furthermore, if Satan could bring New England to execute the innocent
by tormenting the afflicted, the he would be killing two birds with one stone: endangering the souls of
the judges on the one hand while weakening the authority of the law on the other. The 'touch cure'
favored by the judges, where the afflicted would be blindfolded, and the accused made to touch them in
order to break the spell, was also fatally flawed: as folk magic it came perilously close to witchcraft
itself, and allowed Satan the opportunity to 'prove' the guilt of the accused. (Roach, p. 308-309) The
afflicted themselves are not spared in his argument: their evidence could not be counted in court since
they were clearly not in their right minds (at least during their fits). Since Satan did not need the
permission of any human to work his evil, Mather offered a powerful alternative theory to spectral
attacks and witchery – the afflicted were simply possessed.
Perhaps the most interesting point raised by Mather, and one that provides an astonishing link
between those dark days and our own, deals with the 'evil eye' – the folk belief that a witch's gaze could
hurt a victim by shooting spiritual poison at them. Mather described recent scientific findings by Isaac
Newton that showed that eyesight was not a projective, but a reflective phenomenon: rather than
invisible beams that moved from the eyes out to the world, instead sight came from light beams that
were reflected off of external objects into receptors in the eyes – proving that evil eye to be nothing but
superstition. This interest in science was not an abnormality in the Puritan world – part of the identity
of Puritanism stemmed from its rejection of Catholic 'superstition' in favor of Protestant 'reason.' And
would fall into fits and torments until they found the confession to their approval – consequently, the magistrates would
not believe the confession to be truthful until the afflicted had accepted it as fact.
55 While Cotton Mather knew of the potential pitfalls of spectral evidence, he nonetheless encouraged the trials for two
reasons: firstly, specters would be enough to hold a person for questioning, even if it was not enough to convict, and
secondly he assumed that the evidence against the condemned included much more that simple spectral testimony – an
assumption that proved utterly false.
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