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Mathers, Samuel Liddell 169
executed as witches (after the “craze” got rolling,
almost anyone was susceptible to accusations of
witchcraft) were either outsiders—an Irish
Catholic and a West Indian slave—or New
Englanders who had deviated enough from
Puritan values to be transformed into moral
outsiders. Mather’s participation in this perspective
(outsider = demonic) is evident in the above
remarks associating the demonic with Indians as
well as in some of his “experiments” with Martha
Goodwin. For example, while Martha’s tormenting
spirits would permit her to read neither the
Bible (“her Eyes would be strangely twisted and
blind”) nor books by Puritan authors (which
“would bring hideous convulsions”), she was quite
able to read Quaker and “popish” (i.e., Catholic)
works. In other words, in Mather’s mind, all of the
colony’s external and internal enemies worked
together, and all were minions of Satan.
For the Puritans, the greatest possible harm that
could be effected by witches was spiritual rather
than physical death. In the cases examined by
Cotton Mather, the infernal assault on the young
women under his care was understood (as we saw
in the instance of Mercy Short) in terms of a
“Captivity to Spectres,” and his interest in their
troubles understood as efforts to “rescue” them
from hell. Mather had a high opinion of the efficacy
of his efforts. In one place in his diary, for
example, he recounted that he “cried unto the
Lord . . . for the Deliverance of a young Woman,
whom the Powers of Hell had now seized upon.
And behold! Without any further Noise, the
possessed Person, upon my praying by her, was
delivered from her Captivity.” In at least one
instance, his perception of demonic assault in
terms of captivity was so vivid that he felt himself
actually striking off the victim’s invisible bonds:
“There was one very singular passion that
frequently attended her. An Invisible Chain would
be clapt about her, and shee, in much pain and
Fear, cry out, When They began to put it on. Once
I did with my own hand knock it off, as it began to
be fastned about her.” Cotton Mather’s community
was less successful in defending its children from
the spiritual attacks of Satan’s other supposed
minions, the American Indians. The Puritans were
particularly disheartened by the readiness with
which young people captured by Native Americans
adopted “savage” ways. The success that American
Indians achieved in their efforts to convert
Euramerican children to aboriginal lifestyles may
have been part of the reason for New Englanders’
attraction to tales recounted by former captives of
Native Americans: As individuals who had
managed to resist the temptations of the Indian
mode of life, ex-captives could reassure the
colonists that the “New England Way” was far
preferable, and the apparent attractions of a savage
lifestyle (e.g., its imagined freedom) illusory.
In spite of the marked antipathy expressed by
captives toward their captors, the earliest captivity
tales, such as Mary Rowlandson’s Sovereignty and
Goodness of God, were saved from being anti-
Indian hate tracts by their focus on the captives’
inner spiritual dramas. Cotton Mather has the
dubious distinction of being the first Puritan
consciously to deploy captivity tales, shorn of their
inner dimension, as anti-Indian propaganda.
See also Salem Witchcraft
For Further Reading:
Mather, Cotton. “A Brand Pluck’d out of the
Burning.” 1693. In G. L. Burr, ed. Narratives of
the Witchcraft Cases. New York: Barnes and
Noble, 1968.
———. Magnalia Christi Americana; or, The
Ecclesiastical History of New-England. Vol. 2.
1698. Hartford, CT: Silas Andrus, 1820.
———. “Memorable Providences, Relating to
Witchcrafts and Possessions.” 1689. In G. L.
Burr, ed. Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases. New
York: Barnes and Noble, 1968.
Silverman, Kenneth. The Life and Times of Cotton
Mather. New York: Columbia, 1985.
Mathers, Samuel Liddell
Samuel Mathers (1854–1918), a founder of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, had a significant
but indirect influence on modern religious
Satanism through Aleister Crowley, a one-time
member of the order. Born into a Scottish family
in London, England, and he later gave himself the
first name of MacGregor to reflect his Scottish
heritage. His father died when he was young and
his mother then supported the family as a clerk in
the town of Bournemouth.
Mathers remained at home, reading widely