Salem Witch Trials: Cotton Mather

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central. Good evening everyone. I'm going to begin this episode with a very important question. Hero of the faith or a villain in a horrible story. Hero of the faith or villain and a horrible story. Now you'd be saying, I need to know who you're talking about before I can answer if this person is a hero of the faith or a villain and a horrible story. So tell me and then I'll give you an answer. Well, I'm not going to tell you until first I say good evening everyone. It is Thursday, March the sixth, twenty twenty five. It is currently nine forty seven pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, the individual that I am asking you about, even though I haven't given you the name yet, the individual I want to know if you think they are a hero of the faith or a villain and a horrible story.

1:17 That individual is Cotton Mather. Cotton Mather, Right, Cotton, you know how to spell that Cott N Mather m A t h e R. Cotton Mather. If you've never heard of the name, well, then most likely you're not familiar with a lot of the Puritan writers and those very influential Puritans back at a specific time in American history. If you're familiar with the Puritans, you probably know Cotton Mather. You probably have heard him mentioned in sermons to some level. Most Christians, I will say the majority of Christians would probably say, well, either they don't know him, or they're going to be Cotton Math was great, he's wonderful. He's misunderstood, he's been falsely accused, he's been made to be a villain when it really wouldn't be a villain, and they will come to his defense. If you need any evidence of this, you can start looking around on the sermons, the sermons. What's the name of the new app. It's not the Sermon's two point oh app. It's not the sermons three point oh app, Sermons by Sermon Audio app or right the sermon Audio app. If you'll look on the sermon Audio app or the sermon Audio website, do a search for Cotton Mather, you're going to see a lot of messages. Well, I don't know about a lot.

2:37 You're gonna see some, but you're going to be able to tell just from the title almost immediately that they are taking up and defending Cotton Mather. Now at some point we will be reviewing many of those, if not all of them, over maybe the rest of the year, and talking about it because it will lead us to talking not only about Cotton Mather himself, but out what this entire series is about, what we have been looking at, what have we been talking about, is the Salem witch Trials. And I will argue you cannot understand the Salem witch Trials until you understand Cotton Mather. So that's who we're going to be talking about. I think this may take more than one episode. It may take two episodes to do everything I want to do. And just to remind you, because I've been doing things a little differently, I'm going to be once again doing this more as a narrative.

3:32 I'm going to be doing this as a narrative, not so much my typical teaching style, which would be Cotton Mather. Cotton Mather was born on this state, and like almost giving you like a you know, an outline, bullet points, write this down, memorize this, asking review questions that way, I typically typically would teach, but I'm going to do this more as a narrative. Now. What I did is I kind of put together, Okay, I want this, I want this, I want this and this. I'm going to break these down into segments. And then I basically gave it all to AI and said, Okay, help me organize this, and as a narrative script, help me organize this, and then AI would give me one and then be like, what revisions do we want to make? And I'd be like, let's do this. So AI helped formulate a lot of this, but I did a lot of I did the research and just once again just to make this very clear, whenever we talk about Cotton Mather or talk about anything related to the Salem witch Trials, by no means of my claiming I'm a complete expert, because I am not.

4:38 But I will say this in my defense. I have been studying the Salem witch Trials for years and years, and I have been to Salem multiple times and I will be going back to Salem again. And every time I go to Salem, I'm there trying to learn everything I possibly can about the Salem Witch Trials. I want to see everything in Salem. I want to visit everything, see everything. I want to just walk around and soak in the atmosphere of Salem. As I have said numerous times, I have this just connection to Salem. There's just something about it. I could just walk around, I could just sit somewhere in that city and just I don't know, just my imagination just goes crazy with Salem and everything that happened there. There's lots of things in history that I've been fascinated by, and I just kind of get pulled into it and I just can just escape into what happened. I can almost like relive it in my mind.

5:43 And for some reason, Salem, the city itself, but Salem and the witch trials, the witch trials that took place in Salem, absolutely just captivates my imagination, my mind. And I think one of the reason it does, and we've already talked about this in this series, is because I just see that it has very important lessons for me as a Christian, for the Church, for Christians all across the world. I think Salem screams at us some very important lessons. That's why the first episode I did was about the lessons we can learn from Salem, and I'm going to try to, you know, once again, try to bring out very important things that we need to know.

6:26 But here's the question. As I started off with hero of the faith or the villain and a horrible, horrific story, I want you to decide for yourself. I'm going to try to be as fair and accurate as I can be with all of the research I have done, also utilizing artificial intelligence to fact check and challenge me to try to make sure. And at the same time, the one of the reasons I feel really motivated to do this is because on the Sermon Sermon Audio app and the Sermon Audio website, there's all these other messages basically defending Cotton Mather, almost treating him as a hero, and I just don't understand how anyone can see him as here.

7:13 So I have a not do I just not have an opposite perspective. I'm very bothered at the other perspective. But that's okay. They can have it, and you, the listener, can decite. So are you ready? I think and I think it's fair that one could say that Cotton Mather is the architect a fear. One could say Cotton Mather put together the blueprint for the Salem Witch Trials. I think that would be possibly accurate. Some could say Cotton Mather is the man who shaped the Salem Witch Trials.

8:00 Some could go on to say that Cotton mathers not only the architect of fear, not only the one who gave the blueprint for the Salem Witch Trials, not only the man who shaped the Salem Witch Trials, but he also is the man who shaped the fear that would endure way past the Salem Witch Trials. And in many ways, some of the concepts and ideas are still found in the minds of many Christians. And I think it's based off a lot of well wrong way of thinking. And we're going to look at all of it, all right, So are you ready. Let's go back three hundred and thirty three years ago. All right, three hundred and thirty three years ago. And many many people say the Salem Witch Trials really began on March the first. Many believe that that's kind of like the anniversary date. We could get into it really started in January, when is when all the hysteria, but the trial itself, we can get into all of that discussion we've already talked about, but let's just remind ourselves that the Salem witch Trials are one of the darkest chapters in American history. I believe that that's not hyperbole. I believe that's accurate. The Salem witch Trials are one of the darkest chapters in American history.

9:18 But behind the hysteria, behind the accusations, behind the fear, stood a man whose words and teachings shaped it all. I want you to really think about that. Behind the hysteria of the Salem witch Trials and all the witch fear that was going on at the time, behind all of the accusations being thrown at people, behind all the fear that was driving it, there really stood one man. And that man it was his words, it was his teachings that shaped at all. His name was Cotton Mather.

10:06 Now he may have never sat as a judge in Salem, and that is true. He never sat as a judge in Salem, and a lot of people like to use that, well, Cotton Mather, he wasn't one of the judges in Salem. Why are we blaming him? Why are you Whenever people say anything like that to me, it demonstrates a great ignorance about everything that occurred in Salem. It seems to me that it's almost like, well, Cotton Mather was the Puritan. Oh, I love the Puritans. He's on my team. Well, I'm just going to justify him. And I cannot stress this enough. Whenever you study church history, Oh, nobody's gonna like this. But I believe this is a foundational point, like if I was teaching a church history class in Seminary Bible College, and I definitely say it whenever I've taught church history in church. Whenever you study church history, you don't look back in church history and try to say, well, these guys are on our team, so they're the heroes of the story, and those guys are not on our theological team, and they're the villains. You don't classify people based on which theological team they are on. You classify them as human beings who are sinners and they did this, and they did this, and they did that. You let the facts speak whatever they may be, the good, the bad, the ugly. You don't try to and you don't try to always because what we love to do is go back, maybe even to the early Church fathers and go oh, look, look Augustine said this. See say, look he was on our team. It's never that simple. And that is a bad way to do church history. All right. So when

11:40 it comes to Cotton Mather, we cannot deny, we cannot deny that his words and his teaching shaped everything that happened in Salem. And just by pointing out the historical fact that he never sat as a judge in Salem, you can't say, well, that proved that makes him innocent. No, this, this is the very thing you need to remember when it comes to Cotton Mather. His influence was everywhere. It was in Boston, it was in Salem, it was all over that area. See, when it comes to Cotton Mather, he preached about the war between God and the devil.

12:22 He documented cases of supposed demonic possession, he defended the executions of the accused, and when the trial ended, he never truly admitted fault. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if you have influenced, if you've given the blueprint for the Salem witch trials, and then the Salem witch trials come to an end, I think you should be the very first person. Oh wait, wait, guys, if I influenced this in any way, shape or form. No, I was at fault and that everything that I've been here in Salem was wrong. This was horrible, This was a tragedy. But no, no, he never did that. Now you can see maybe in some of his teaching he kind of moved away from some of the stuff that led to Salem, but he never renounced it. He never apologized. He never No, he never did, And right there, to me does not put him in the hero of the faith category. It may put him much closer to the villain and a horrible, horrible, horrible story, because anyone who had anything to do with the Salem Witch Trials should have been apologizing. Now today, this evening, tonight, this morning, whatever time it may be, I'm going to attempt to look at this man, Cotton Mather, And even though he didn't light the fire, I believe he gave

13:55 it the fuel it needed to burn. He may not have been the one who lit the fire that we called the Salem Witch Trials, but he definitely gave it the fuel. He was pouring fuel all over it, and he he in fact, in some way, in some ways you can think of Cotton Mather, not by his physical presence, but by his words, by his teaching, he basically covered that entire area from Boston to Salem and basically in Gasoline. And all it needed was someone to strike a match. So I'm going to I am going to do my very best to tell you the story of Cotton Mather, the man who helped shape the Salem witch Trials and the Puritan obsession with the Devil. And I think it's fair to say the Puritans were obsessed with the Devil at least at this specific point in time. And it and and and again, it's not just Salem. You have to put Boston involved in all of this. Do not forget Boston. I mean Boston. What was going on. What happened in Boston happened before you even get to what happened in the Salem witch Trials. So let's consider Cotton Mather as a child of Puritan power. That's the first thing we're gonna look at. Cotton Mather, a child of Puritan power. Before he was the most feared preacher in New England, or let me to be more maybe historically accurate,

15:25 before he was considered by some to be the most feared preacher in New England. Before his books justified the execution of witches. Cotton Mather was simply the son of a very powerful man. Cotton Mather was born in sixteen sixty three in Boston. His father's name, it's Cotton. That's already an interesting name, right, Cotton. That's I think that's a pretty interesting first name, right, Okay, So it's always it's always easy to remember Cotton Mather because of the first and his father's name is even easier to remember because his father's name was Increase, Increase Mather. So Cotton Mather was born in sixteen sixty three in Boston. Just keep that in mind. In Boston, Boston, really, I mean, yeah, well, we could talk a lot here about Boston, but we will not. Sixteen sixty three in Boston. His father's name was Increase Mather, and he was one of the most prominent Puritan ministers in the colony. Now, Cotton Mather's mother, her name was Maria, right, she came from another famous Puritan family. From birth, Cotton Mather was destined for religious greatness, or at least that's what he was told. It seems that, at least according to some that his parents were like, you're you're destined for religious greatness. That's your destiny. That's what you're going to be, that's what you're going to do. Right,

16:56 And it makes sense. Right. I mean, if his father is the most prominent Puritan minister, his mother comes from another famous Puritan family, they have a son that you can see whether there may be, Hey, you're you're gonna be a man of the Word. You're gonna be a man of God. You're gonna you're gonna do great things for the for the for the Word of God, for God, for God's glory, for the Puritan ideas in theology. Now, his father, Increased Mather, was a leader in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He shaped religious doctrine, He advised the government, and he saw New England as God's chosen land under constant attack by Satan, and Cotton Mather absorbed every single word.

17:50 I really want to stress this. So Cotton Mather is being raised in a family that is saying, hey, look, this is very Look around. This is God's chosen land. Cotton. Look around, Cotton, let's take a walk. This is God's chosen land. But Cotton, this is important. I know you're young, but it's under attack. By Satan. Cotton. Look, you see, this is God's chosen lambit, but Satan is attacking it. Satan is out to get it. And young Cotton, well, he absorbed every single word. You can understand. Now, this gives you at least some insight maybe to the way his thinking is going to be shaped. Now by the age of twelve, Cotton was already attending Harvard College. He graduated at just fifteen years of age. By most accounts, he was incredibly intelligent. But by most accounts he was also very ambitious. He didn't just want to serve the Puritan cause. He wanted to lead it. He didn't want to just be a part of it. He wanted to lead the cause. He wanted to lead this movement of Puritanism.

19:11 He wanted to be at the forefront. I'm not saying that's bad. I'm not saying that's good. I'm just saying what we seem to know from what we can read and discover about him. Now, by the time he turns to the age of twenty or somewhere early in his twenties, we not have an exact date. We do know this, he was already preaching fire and brimstone we already know that by this point he's already preaching fire in brimstone, he's going all in. So by the time he was in his early twenties, I think that's fair to say, by the time he was in his early twenties, he was already preaching fire and brimstone, sermons about sin, about the devil, and the spiritual war raging all about them.

19:58 And it makes sense. This is the way he was raised, right, and now he's in his early twenties, the way he was raised, the theology he's been raised with. Now he's there and you can you can say it was fire and brimstone, but he definitely is going to talk about sin. He's definitely going to talk about the devil, and he's going to talk about the spiritual war that is raging all around them. Why because he was brought up to believe that this is God's chosen land and the devil is attacking it. But it's not going to be those sermons that's going to make Cotton Mather famous. No, it's not going to be those sermons. His fame is not going to be attached to the sermons he wrote. His fame is going to be connected to well witchcraft, because Cotton Mather and the concept of witchcraft are destined to have a head on collision. You can say, if a train leaves Boston traveling at this speed and if Cotton Mather or you can say, if witchcraft leaves Boston traveling at this sad speed and Cotton Mather is coming from a different direction, how long is it gonna take before they have a head on collision? Were they're gonna have a head on collision, but in a rear and kind of a if you really want to put this in a factual way, it wasn't that the witchcraft was coming from Salem towards Boston and Cotton Mather was going from Boston to Salem. Basically, Cotton Mather and Witchcraft is all in Boston. How long is it going to be before they head to Salem? All Right? That's kind of the way you almost have to describe this if you want to be historically accurate. But for Cotton Mather, it's gonna be how long before him and witchcraft come together? Because

21:31 that's that's gonna be the thing that's going to making famous. Now, before we get to the witchcraft, before we get to this head on collision between Cotton Mather and witchcraft. We have to kind of understand his theology. So we're going to consider Cotton Mather's teaching on the devil, his teaching on witchcraft, his teaching on spiritual warfare, and we're gonna we're gonna put this all together in a way that will be able for you to remember, because I think it's very key. It's key. Look, if you're going to understand Salem, you got to understand some of this. So to understand why Cotton Mather fought so relentlessly against witches, we have to understand what he believed about them and to Mather. To Cotton Mather, witches aren't just criminals. Now, that's very important to understand. For Cotton Mather, a witch is a criminal. A witch is a criminal in his mind, not just someone who believes something different than the Puritans.

22:38 They are criminals because this is where you have the merging of kind of Christianity and the state. All right, And always remember, whenever you have I say this all the time, whenever Christianity and the state merge, people die. It's inevitable. Whenever religion of any kind merges with the civil authorities. People are going to die. Why because that religion, whichever religion gains power Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Puritanism, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who takes it doesn't matter who takes a charge Lutherans, it doesn't matter whatce they merge with the state. Now they can say. The religion can say, well, that sin is a crime. Now believing this is a crime.

23:27 Believing this is a crime, Celebrating this is a crime. So now the religion can say what is not only what is a sin? They can say this is wrong, and this is wrong, this is wrong. And then the state can come along and then punish using the civil authority, using the police, judge, judicial system, whatever, and they can imprison and then they can execute whomever religion deems to be the sinners and the bad people. Now you may say, well, oh we can bring morality back. Now you bring a religion back, and whenever that religion is on your side, you get to live. When that religion is no longer on your side, you get to die. That's why I do not I want the separation of church and state. I want them so far apart that they can't even see each other, because Church history proves it over and over as soon as they come together. So what was happening in Puritan America at this time? This that came together?

24:20 So hey, hey, hey, witches are bad. The Bible says witches are bad. Now let's use the civil government to go after them and kill them and criminalize criminalize them. Hey we don't like Christmas, let's ban Christmas. And we can go on and on and on on the things that were happening in that area. But that that, that's just an important lesson. So for for Cotton Mather or witches, well, they were there were criminals. But not only were they criminals, they were Satan's soldiers and an ongoing invisible war. So if you could identify someone as a witch, you were not just identifying a criminal, you were identifying one of Satan's foot soldiers. So, hey, that person's a witch, they're a criminal, and they are a foot soldier for Satan.

25:12 That's pretty serious right now. To the Puritans, New England was more than just a colony. It was a battleground, a place where God's chosen people. So not only was the land chosen, they are So now, where are the chosen people. This is the chosen land. But the land had one time belonged to pagan natives and in their minds, the devil himself. So this is God's chosen land. But see when we got here, who are these natives here? Who are these native tribes? They're Pagans, They're they're basically well foot soldiers of the devil. Right, So now you can you can dehumanize them based Well, then while these you know, the native tribes are going to start dying and oh, you're going to take the land. Okay, we can get into a lot of discussions here, but this sets up a really interesting way of thinking in that area. Right.

26:12 So basically, if you're not, you know, one of the Puritans, if you are a slave, then you probably came from some land you if you were, if you're not from that particular region, if you're not the right let's dare we say, if you're not the right ethnic origin, well, you're gonna be viewed with suspicion because you probably came from a pagan land. You're a pagan, you could be a foot soldier of the devil. And so that's that's going to be very a part of this We're the We're God's chosen, not any of you. You're you're all a suspect, you're all dangerous, you are possibly evil, but we we we were the good guys and all of this. Now, was one of the loudest voices preaching this war. So probably I think it's fair to say he was maybe the loudest, maybe not just one, he was maybe the loudest voice at the time preaching this war that was occurring between Satan's foot soldiers and well, the good Puritans.

27:21 He saw the witches or anyone accused of being a witch, basically as a direct agent of Satan, and warned that the devil had a four part strategy to destroy Puritan society. There was a four point strategy, a four part strategy to destroy Puritan society, and you needed to know these four points. Let's kind of work through these in kind of a more general way. I'm not getting into the I'm not getting into the necessarily the weeds here. I'm trying to give you kind of an overview, So just make sure you understand how I'm trying to break this down. So for for Cotton Mather, all right, he carries all of these ideas, and he's like, Okay, here's this strategy, and this is the first thing everyone needs to remember.

28:09 The Devil's army targets the weakest first. So here's the devil, and he's going to target weak people, those who are weak. And who are the weak people? According to Cotton Mather, who are the weak people? Well, the weak people are women, children and the poor. Oh, you have to remember this. You have to remember this, all right. If you know what happened in Salem, you have to remember this because he's I told you, he's the architect, not only a fear, He's the one who writes the blueprint. So Cotton Mather tells everyone, look Satan's going to come for the week first, and who are the weak? Women? Are? Children? You are?

29:02 And if you're poor, you are poor women? Children. Now this is going to play in really two different ways, right, because if you go to the Salem witch trials and you go to not only what happens in the Salem, what happens in Boston, which we'll talk about in greater detail, that Cotton Mather was involved in what happens, Well, if someone if someone's gonna start being tormented, and like, oh, a witch is doing this to me. I'm being tormented by a witch. They're causing me to have convulsions and they're talking, getting me to bark, or meiw like a cat, or fall on the floor or have like an epileptic seizure or whatever. They were claiming how they were being tormented. However, they're being tormented. Typically the people being tormented would be one of those people who are considered weak, which would be women now usually children or actually women or children, or the poor in many cases. In many cases, those who were being afflicted would be classified in what this group as the weak in many cases. Right, so if you're being afflicted and you fall into one of the categories that are weak, then you're more believable. Well, of course they're being attacked. Of course they're being tormented. They're in the weak category. They're either a woman or the children play a major role in this classification, the children or the poor. But then it play this is used.

30:32 This is so weird because it's almost contradictory. So if you are afflicted and you fit into this category, you're going to be believed because you're one of the week. But if those being afflicted are going to accuse someone as being the witch. You accuse someone in these same categories, you accuse a woman. Now, they didn't really accuse other children, but they would accuse women, or they would accuse those who are poor. In fact, and Salem when the first accusations go, well, the first people afflicted are children. They are weak, so that's why they're being afflicted. Satan goes after the week, and who is Satan using. He's using those who are weak, poor women. They're women and they are poor, or they are a slave who's not from this area, brought from Barbados, right, So it all fits into their kind of overall way of thinking about people in the way they classify them. Again, slaves from other nations, other countries who are not like the Puritans are almost immediately going to be viewed with suspicion and viewed as basically being a pagan and being used by the devil.

31:41 If it's a woman, well she's weak, so clearly she can be used by a devil. And if she's poor, a slave would be poor or be a beggar in town, which was one of the women who were accused of being a witch, one of the first ones. Then this fits. So if you are think of how this this is one of those situations where they can use who is the same thing to go in two contradictory ways. Satan goes after the week. So that's the number. That's the first strategy that Satan has to take down Puritan society. He's going to go after the week. And who are the weak people? All right? All the weak people stand up in church? Are you a woman? Week? Are you a child? Week? Are you poor? Week? All three of you are week. So if you start flopping around saying who which is attacking me? Do you fit this category? Well, that makes sense. You're weak. That's why Satan's going after you. Wait, who did it to you? Well? They did it? Oh wait, that makes sense. They're part of the weak group, so because they're a woman or they're poor. So this is very key and this becomes a blueprint of exactly how everything goes out. Mather believed that Satan's first victims were usually just my page just skipped around here. Mather believed that Matther believed that Satan's first victims were usually women, children, and the poor. He taught that the devil preyed on the week, those who lacked strong faith, all right, So he taught that the devil prayed on the week those who lacked strong faith. But note, day's kind of messed up.

33:12 So who has a lack of strong faith? Where you're kind of now saying women, children and the poor have a lack of strong faith. Was it always that clean cut? I'm not saying it was always that clean cut, but this is kind of the way it sets up. Now, this is no, it's no coincidence then that the first accused in Boston and Glover and in Salem were women on the fringe of society. So the woman accused in Boston, she fits. She's a woman, she's a she's an outcast, she comes from a different country. They go after her. Guess what happens in Salem. The first people accused are women who are outcasts or at least one from another country because she's a slave. I mean, you can't the I mean Cotton Mather is giving the blueprint here. So the first way, the first part of the strategy of Satan to destroy the Puritans was number one. The devil will target the weakest first, So you have to be on the lookout for the weakest, the weakest will be afflicted or the weakest will be doing the affliction because they're both being either tormented by Satan or used by Satan.

34:20 And the reason he's tormenting you or the reason he's using you is because you're weak. Number two, the devil works in secret. Mather worn that witches could literally be anyone. It could be your spouse, It could be your parent, could be your child, could be your friend, could be your neighbor, could be anyone in your family. It could be the person sitting right across from you in church.

35:05 It could be the person in the pew in front of you. It could be the person in the pew behind you. It could even be your minister. Anyone could be a witch. Now you can see the paranoia this is going to begin to create a witch. This is from Cotton Mather. A witch will not announce themselves. Instead, they will blend in. Witches are not going to announce. You're not going to know they're a witch because they're going to pretend to be a good Christian while secretly performing rituals, speaking in strange tongues, and signing Satan's book.

35:48 Now we'll have to get more into that signing of Satan's book. When I visited Salem, I think the last time, there was an interesting discussion presentation on this Satan, this book that you signed, and there was lots of interesting stories about the time, especially amongst the children, the young. The young people really had this thing about signing Satan's book. And so maybe we need to do a little bore, a little bit more exploring of that concept, and we'll talk about it. But just note, so number one, it's gonna go after the week, it's gonna go. So you're already gonna set up who needs to be the people who are afflicted one of the week? Who needs to be the people doing the afflicting one of the week.

36:31 So how does it play out in the In almost every case, children are making the accusations. They're the ones being tormented because they're weak, And who do they accuse those who are weak? It's like now, after a while, they just start they just start accusing anybody and everybody. But at the very very beginning, they follow this blueprint to the letter to the letter, and the second the devil works in secret, it could be anyone. And so what starts happening. Everyone starts getting accused everyone this person. I think over two hundred. I think over two hundred people get accused. If I remember, I'm going from memory. There a lot of people were imprisoned. Crazy stuff was going on. Number three. Okay, now Satan is going to use a specific way to attack people, right, and he's going to attack people in this way. And this is how it happens, all right, that the witches could send their spirits to attack others in dreams or visions or in different ways. So the third thing that he says Satan is doing his part of his strategy is that he's going to use witches to attack. But the witch could be somewhere else. The witch could be For example, the witch could be in Maine, just mining their own business, living their life. You could be in Salem and all of a sudden, Oh attacked, I'm being itaed. Oh fall

38:02 on the floor. Oh they're burning me. They're doing this horrible thing. What's going on? Who did it? So and so? And they're like where is so and so? Well, so and so is in Maine. Well they couldn't have done it. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Cut in Mather's Like, you guys don't understand that's exactly how a witch works. A witch doesn't have to be physically present. They can send their spirit. They can be hundreds of miles away, and they can send their spirit after you at any time. And this was known as spectral evidence. So how was Satan going to destroy Puritan society? Number one? His army was going to attack the weakest first. Who are the weak, women, children, and poor people. The Devil's going to do it in secret.

38:48 So what does that mean? Anyone, anywhere, anytime could be a witch. Anybody everyone is suspect. Everyone could be out to get you. There are Satan's Satan's foot soldiers could be literally sitting next to you in church. Number three. Hey, the witch doesn't actually have to be around you. You don't even have to I don't even have to be in the same state. I don't even have to be in the same city. Oh, they can attack you. You identify them. And this is called spectral evidence. And Cotton Mather was the one who promotes this craziness, quoting this was called this is what Cotton Mather says. This is called spectral evidence, and it plays a massive Well, okay, well, he says it's called spectral evidence, I will then add, and it played a massive role in the Salem witch trials.

39:42 You see, if someone claimed they saw a person's spirit tormenting them in a vision, it was enough to convict someone of being a witch, even if there was no physical proof. Oh, physical proof needed. So Mather's support of spectral evidence became one of the most controversial parts of the Salem Trials, something even other Puritans would later reject later on, they'd be like, Hey, this spectral evidence stuff, we gotta stop, no more using it. Cotton Mather, though, was the one using it. So is he a hero of the faith. When you're promoting spectral evidence, allowing people then to be arrested, tried, and executed based off something like spectral evidence, you're not a hero of the faith, ladies and gentlemen, You're a villain and a horrible, horrific story.

40:40 But there was a fourth part of this plan, all right, So let's go through these again. The devil. The Devil's army targets the weakest. First. Second, the devil works in secret Number three, The devil uses witches who can then attack you by sending their spirit to you without being physically present. This is known as spectral evidence. Right number four. The devil uses objects and spells to corrupt. Mather taught that witch is left behind physical signs of their power, things like puppets use for cursing, written spells, or marks on their skin. So the devil uses objects. Oh, look they have that object. Ooh, they have that object. So you got to be on the lookout for objects. Oh oh, and he will leave marks, so you got to be.

41:30 So Satan is using objects to help destroy Puritan society. So now everyone's worried about objects. But one of those objects are things you would be. So you're looking at what anybody owns. Oh they have a doll, Oh they have this, they have that, Oh that they're a witch. But oh, it gets even worse. Oh, this gets even worse. So you're ready marks on the skin. During the Salem Trials, Puritans would search for these witch marks, a spot on the body, which where a witch supposedly fed. They're demonic familiar. So now if you have a spot on your body, oh you're a witch. Now. Satan is using all these devices to help bring down Puritan society, all these objects.

42:16 But because they leave objects, they also leaves the mark and leaving the mark now can be utilized to identify who's a witch. So Satan really has this four ways of going after everybody, a targeting the weakest, works in secret. The witches now have this ability to attack you using their spirit, no matter from great distances, and well they can use they can use objects. So you've got to be looking at Wait, is that object? Oh I think that's that's attached to witchcraft? Oh? I think that object is Oh I think that's attached to witchcraft. And that kind of thinking still plays a major role in the minds of many Christians. It's basically a lot of superstition thrown in here. Right, So let's now take a step back.

43:03 Everything that happened in Salem. It feels like, this is my feeling, was following the blueprint. Dare I say, was following the exact script. Who were the first afflicted children? Week? Who were the first accused women? Week? A poor beggar week, an enslaved woman from Barbados week, an elderly widow who wouldn't play the Puritan reindeer games week? All right, so that follows it perfectly. What evidence was used? Spectral attacks and supernatural testimony? The script. Who shaped all of these ideas Cotton Mather. Oh, but let's not accuse him. We can accuse good o'cott because he's the hero in the story.

44:02 Ladies and gentlemen, he's not the hero in the story. Mather didn't create the Salem witch Trials, but his teaching gave them their theological foundation. And when the trials began, his words, his theology, his doctrine was already in the minds of the judges. Definitely the first minister that's very involved in all of this, that minister's mind, and of course the people of Salem. Now Cotton Mather's path to becoming the leading voice on witchcraft and new we en. Actually, I think if we want to try to find a beginning point now, we could actually go back to when he was in his twenties he starts preaching those sermons.

45:09 But if you really want to see where how Cotton Mather and witchcraft, remember we talked about that had on collision. That's coming right, that had on collision. Because Cotton Mather doesn't become famous for his sermons, it's his involvement witchcraft. Well, if we really want to find his involvement with witchcraft, I think, and we've already talked about this, but we're going to talk about it again here because I think it's important. Before he becomes a leading voice on witchcraft, we have to go back to the year sixteen eighty eight with a case that predated Salem by four years. That we've talked about this case, right, and you can go look at my episode the prequel to Salem, because this case is the prequel. This case really solidifies the script, It really solidifies everything about it. And I already talked about it before. It's just amazing the similar. But we need to at least remind ourselves because we want to keep things in some form of chronological order here. So it all starts, or it started with the Goodwin children in Boston. They were afflicted by strange fits, screaming, convulsing, falling into trances. A doctor examined them but found no physical cause. And when Puritans couldn't explain something, the answer was always the same. If we can't explain it, it's the devil. If we can't explain it, it's witchcraft. The blame in this particular case fell on Anne Goodie Glover,

46:41 an Irish Catholic woman who had been deported to Barbados before coming to Boston. Ah, look at this, she's Irish Catholic. Oh boy, she's a woman weak Irish Catholic. Week. She's from Barbados week. She spoke mostly the Irish week, with only broken English week, and she was seen as an outsider week week week week week week. Okay, so this, this already sets up that template. Now, under pressure, she struggled to recite the Lord's Prayer in English, something Puritans believed a witch could not do. That was enough. She was convicted and hanged in Boston on November sixteenth, sixteen eighty eight. That is an oversimplification of everything that happened in that case, all of its similarities with what happens in Salem. Please go listen to my previous episode and you can get a greater detail about what occurred. But kiss who was there watching it all unfold? Cotton Mather.

47:48 He wasn't just watching it. He was studying. And not only was he studying, he was writing. He took He took what he had just seen and he turned it into a book that would define witch hunting for years to come. That case, in sixteen eighty eight, Cotton mathers, he's all there, and he watches it, and he writes it. He turns it into a book, and it becomes the manual. It becomes the manual for witch hunting. In fact, I think it becomes the manual for exactly what happened in Salem.

48:31 So don't tell me. Well, oh well, Cotton Mather was. He wasn't a judge in Salem, so how dare you accuse him? He only wrote the blueprint. He wrote the script for what happened. So now we need to look at Memorable Providences and the blueprint for Salem. One year after the execution of Goodie Glover, Cotton Mather published a book called Memorable Providences relating to Witchcraft and Possessions. Now, in this book, he didn't just document the Goodwin case. He laid out a guide on how to identify and how to prosecute witches. He didn't just say, hey, this is what happened. Oh no, no, no, no, He's like, this is what happened. We're under attack, so what do we need to do. We got to identify and we got to prosecute witches. The book spread through New England and one of the men who read it. One of the men who had it in his home, had it in his library, was none other than Reverend Samuel Parris, who lived in Boston during that trial. Right, he lived there in the during the trial and execution of Goody Glover.

49:52 He was there. But he comes to Salem with Cotton Mather's book, and guess what, His daughter, Betty his niece Abigail are the very first two people in Salem who start exhibiting the same symptoms as the Goodwin children. They follow the same symptoms that's literally in the book in their house. Okay, most likely they've heard their father preach about or talk about. And because this pastor had brought the book from Boston or got it at some point, we just know he had it. We know he had it.

50:37 So what do you think he assumed when he sees Paris and when he sees Betty and he sees Abigail having the same symptoms as what's in that book. It's in that book written by Cotton Mather. Well, he had the guidebook sitting in his study. Cotton Mather gave Salem a script, and they're going to follow it to the very lets. They almost deserve it, Guys, you're following this, You're doing so good. So now we can look at Cotton Mather's teaching on spiritual warfare, the Devil and the witchcraft, because this is the blueprint for Salem. See, Cotton Mather didn't just believe in the devil. He believed the devil was already here, walking among them, working in secret, whispering to his followers. To Mather, New England wasn't just a colony, it was a battlefield, just like his father taught him.

51:42 Mathers strongly believed that Satan and his witches could send their spirits to attack people in their sleep or envisions. These ghostly assaults, known as spectral evidence, were invisible to all but the victim. Nobody else could see it. So for example, you can be in the room your child could be falling on the floor going through a horrible what's happening? So and so is attacking me. I don't see anything. It's their spirit that's attacking me. So you could just fall over, oh huh, and it's just blame anybody. Like I mean, I have a seizure disorder. I could fall on the floor, have a seizure, wake up and say so and so attacked me, and then you could go get arrested and be accused of being a witch, even though you were nowhere near me, and the only person who could see it was the victim. Now let's take a step back once again. Let's think about what happened in Salem. Who was the first accused, A poor beggar, an enslaved woman, an elderly woman who accused them young girls considered weak and vulnerable to Satan's influence. What evidence was used? Spectral visions, puppets and supernatural testimony? How did the Puritans? How did the Puritan leaders react? They believe every single word of the accusers. This wasn't just a coincidence.

53:08 The trials followed Cotton Mathers teaching almost exactly his words, his belief, his sermons. They created the blueprint for Salem. I cannot stress that enough. He had the specific teachings about this like plan to bring down Puritan society, but just in a general sense, he sets it all up. I know, I know, I repeat it a little bit of that, but I want you to see that you and the reason I have to repeat it is because everyone's like Cotton mather didn't do anything. He set the blueprint.

53:49 So what happened. Now, there's more to what Cotton Mather does, all right, and I'm going to save that for its own episode, okay, because I'm gonna skip part of this right because during the trials, when a man's going to be executed, Cotton Mather shows up, all right, everyone wants to act like he has nothing to do. He's literally there when a man's about to be executed. And when they the people decide let's let's not let's not execute this person. We think we got this wrong, Cotton Mather is the one that's like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna give you his argument, and well, it's just it's a horrible thing that Cotton Mather does. I'm not gonna go into that right now because I'm gonna save that for its own separate thing. I just want you to see, you cannot separate Cotton Mather from Salem. Everybody wants to separate you know. You can't say he's the one giving you the blueprint. He's the one giving you the teaching for And it plays out identical to what Cotton Mather said.

54:49 And his book is in the minister's library and it's that minister's daughters who make the first accusations, who start showing the first symptoms. Just how depends to follow. I don't know, page for page book that's in their house. Now, the world moved on from Salem. The Massachusetts courts banned spectral evidence, the Puritan grip on the colony weakened, and some judges and officials even apologized for their roles. I mean, I'm glad, well, I kind of apologize. But Cotton Mather, he never fully backed down. His legacy wasn't just in books.

55:35 It was in fear. Fear of outsiders, fear of strangers, fear of strange customs, fear that at any moment the devil could be working through someone you loved. That fear didn't really end in Salem. In fact, it's alive and well in twenty twenty five. Maybe that's why three hundred and thirty three years later, we're still talking about him. Now, next time we'll talk about we'll talk about Cotton Mather and the execution of the minister who became a witch.

56:36 Thanks for listening, everyone, have a great night. We have to learn from history. I know it's a cliche, because if we don't. We're doomed to repeat it. God bless