"What is their striking down with a fierce Look? What is their making of the Afflicted Rise, with a touch of their Hand? What is their Transportation thro' the Air? What is their Travelling in Spirit, while their Body is cast into a Trance? What is their causing of Cattle to run mad and perish? What is their Entring their Names in a Book? What is their coming together from all parts, at the Sound of a Trumpet? What is their Appearing sometimes Cloathed with Light or Fire upon them? What is their Covering of themselves and their Instruments with Invisibility? But a Blasphemous Imitation of certain Things recorded about our Saviour, or His Prophets, or the Saints in the Kingdom of God."
C. Mather
“From these examinations, it would appear that both Mrs. Foster and her daughter had caused themselves to be suspected as Witches, from neglecting the church services!
It will be noticed, moreover, in Mary Lacey's Confession, that, some three or four years before, she saw Mrs. Bradbury, How and Nurse baptized by the Devil at Newbury Falls, and says that " there were over six baptized at that time, who were some of the chief or higher powers,"—that is. Witches or Wizards of higher rank in the expected Kingdom of Satan, and then adds, " that there might be near about a hundred [Witches] in company at that time." Here we see some hundred or more Witches and Wizards—some of high rank—engaged in the Plot three or four years before 1692. In the confessions of Ann Foster, we see the number of Witches in 1692 increased to some three hundred or more, some of whom met from all quarters at Salem Village, and whose discourse was "that they would afflict there to set up the Devil's Kingdom." So that we have here the plot of the Witchcraft, its objects and aims. It was no sudden affair—had been gathering for years—and Salem Village, in 1692, was only the chosen locality for the beginning of the work.
Salem Village was indeed to be destroyed—that is, converted to Satan—as the whole people [Christians] in due time were to be, or else to be cut off by diabolical Witchcrafts and torments. The object of Satan in 1692 appears to have been either to convert the Christians to his own faith and into subjects of his Kingdom, or else destroy them out of the land by his arts and Witchcrafts, and thus re-establish his ancient Kingdom, then fearfully endangered by the spread of the Puritan Church, and the decrease of his own Priests and subjects—the Indian Wizards, and fast-fading Red Men. The White Witches and Wizards of 1692 were aiding this Devil—this Hobbomock in this desperate scheme of re-conquering the land. It was, in effect, Satan fighting in rage and despair for the possession of New England, aye, even the whole western world.”
Footnote to text:
“There can be no reasonable doubt that the Devil of 1692 was the Indian Devil, Hobbomock. Cotton Mather in his trial of George Boroughs (Wonders of Invisible World) says, that the Witches called the Devil a Black* man, " and they generally say he resembles an Indian." Hutchinson (on Witchcraft) informs us (p. 77) that Cotton Mather attributed the Witchcraft of 1692 to the Indian Powaws (or Wizards), as sending their spirits or demons among the Whites. Now as Hobbomock was the God of these Powaws, and their patron and instigator, we see that Hobbomock was at the bottom of the plot and for the reasons we have endeavored to give in the text.
Those therefore of the Whites, who were engaged in the Witchcraft of 1692, were doubtless considered as having been seduced into the Plot of this Indian Devil and his native Priests to destroy the hated Church of Christ in New England, and to aid him and them in setting up his expected Kingdom — his Kingdom, moreover, as referred to in the Apocalypse.
The Satan of 1692 was evidently believed to be the old biblical Satan; but who in America took upon himself the disguise of an Indian, and in order to be the Indian Deity —he being able to assume any and all shapes and disguises to suit his own purposes. Thus our Fathers, while combatting Hobbomock,were only (in their own imaginations) dealing with the same Devil who had seduced Eve, tormented Job, tempted the Saviour, and assumed the shapes of various Saints and Apostles; and who would appear (if need be) even as an Angel of Light to deceive the very eleot. He was, too, the Satan of the Apocalypse.” ~ George Cheever in Historical collections of the Essex Institute, Volume 3
http://books.google.com/books?id=PG8MAAAAYAAJ&dq=Hobbomock&pg=PA70#v=onepage&q=Hobbomock&f=false
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