In calling for calm and caution, Mather wasn’t doubting the existence of witches. Quite the opposite: Belief in witchcraft was more than just superstition or scapegoating; it was the linchpin of Puritan belief. As Mather once bluntly wrote, “Since there are Witches and Devils, we may conclude that there are also Immortal Souls.” It would seem odd to posit that proof of God followed proof of Evil, not the other way around, but for Puritans like Mather, Evil was much closer and easier to see. After all, one could say that “one felt the Holy Spirit” or “heard God’s voice,” but God was far from physically present in Puritan daily life. One could not simply go into the forest, meet God in physical form, and talk to Him. Witches, however, claimed not only to be in league with the Devil, but also to have met him, signed his book, and participated in his Black Sabbath in the woods. While diabolical, they were far closer to what Mather called the “Invisible World” than a pious Puritan like himself could hope to be. Their eyewitness accounts were ironclad proof that such a world existed—but only if authenticated.
He’d been searching for this proof for years. In 1688, John Goodwin, a Boston mason, complained that his children had been bewitched, and in time, an Irish immigrant washerwoman named Ann Glover was accused by one of the children—13-year-old Martha. Glover confessed and was sentenced to death. Mather interviewed Glover in her cell as she awaited execution, but when the afflictions of the Goodwin children continued after her death, he went further: taking Martha into his home to study her behavior and better understand the mechanism of her affliction. For six weeks, she lived with Mather and his wife, Abigail, and as Martha continued to act out, Mather documented her ordeal. He went on to publish his findings in his 1689 book, Memorable Providences, Relating to Witchcraft and Possessions, wherein he states his resolve “after this, never to use but just one grain of patience with any man that shall go to impose upon me a Denial of Devils, or of Witches.”
But if Mather was trying to understanding the nature of witchcraft, he already understood human nature all too well. He was fully aware of the shortcomings of humanity—even the chosen of New England were as prone as anyone to pettiness, lying, errors, and stupidity. And he knew how powerful an accusation of witchcraft could be and how a belief in the Invisible World could be exploited by such human failings. “An Ill-look, or a cross word will make a Witch with many people,” he wrote in Memorable Providences, observing that there “has been a fearful deal of Injury done in this way in this Town, to the Good-name of the most credible persons in it.”