The Devils Stain to the Hand of God: How Witchcraft Shaped the Spiritual Revival of the First

Great Awakening
Thirty Christians are found guilty of the sacrilegious practice of witchcraft. Nineteen of
these god-fearing citizens are hung by their necks and left to die, one is crushed under rocks as
torture turns into murder, and many others are locked away in prison based on evidence that
cannot be seen or heard, all to convey a message to every other man, woman, and child in
colonial New England: The Devil is not welcome here.1 Puritan zealotry shook the Salem
community to its very foundations, bringing into question not only the power of its governing
figures, but also the validity of its own religious practices. The 1692 Salem Witch Trials were
spoken of even a year afterward as a tragic mistake, but out of this mistake came one of the most
notable shifts in religious ideology in the Western world.2 Known as The First Great Awakening,
this religious revival was significant because of its focus on forming a personal connection with
God, as well as marking the beginning of widespread acceptance of spiritual frenzies as a form
of worship. However, these frenzied spiritual outpourings, which became commonly accepted
during the 1730s and 1740s, as well as other supernatural acts of religious fervor, have a striking
similarity to the same otherworldly occurrences that were labeled witchcraft only a few decades
prior. The records of the witch trials of New England and their affect on society, when examined
alongside the accounts of spiritual frenzies that took place in the following years, show that an
evangelical rebranding of Satanic influence as divine emotion during the First Great Awakening
allowed witches to have a part in shaping religious freedom in the United States.

1 Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (London: Printed for Nath. Hillar, at the Princess-Arms,
in Leaden-Hall-Street, over against St. Mary-Ax, and Joseph Collier, at the Golden Bible, on London Bridge, 1700),
110.
2 Brian P. Levack, The Witchcraft Sourcebook (New York: Routledge, 2004), 220.

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Critical examinations of the Salem Witch Trials began only a year after their conclusion with the
writings of Robert Calef in 1693.3 Calef, a cloth merchant who immigrated to the New World in
the 1680s, wrote a book immediately after the trials to debate whether or not a zeal governed by
blindness and passion, and led by precedent, has not herein precipitated us into far greater
wickedness (if not Witchcrafts) than any have been yet proved against those that suffered.4
Further works written during the following centuries claim a variety of reasons as the cause for
the largest witch-hunt in the Americas.5 Thomas Hutchinson and George Bancroft write, in 1765
and 1834 respectively, that the cause of the trials stemmed from social and political issues and
that the leaders of Salem were at fault.6 Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum cite conflict
between the rural Salem Village and the urbanizing Salem Town as the impetus behind the trials.7
Mary Beth Norton claims King Williams War was the main cause of the conflict, blaming the
rampant hysteria on the fear and post-traumatic stress caused by Native American attacks.8 John
Putnam Demos and Chadwick Henson both use psychology to explain the witch trials, with
Demos claiming that the hysteria was a teenage rebellion against overbearing Puritan authority,
and Hansen postulating that the extreme emphasis on satanic power in sermons caused the young
women of Salem to have mental breakdowns.9 Carol F. Karlsen was one of many who interpreted
the trials through the lens of feminism as an attack on women.10 Scientist Linnda R. Carporael
3 Sean Purdy, Conjuring History: The Many Interpretations of the Salem Witchcraft Trials, Rivier Academic
Journal 3, no. 1 (2007), 3-4.
4 Calef, 3.
5 Levack, 220.
6 See Thomas Hutchinsons The History of the Colony and Province of Massachusetts-Bay (Boston: Thomas &
John Fleet at the Heart and crown in Cornhill, 1765), and George Bancrofts The History of the United States
(Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1834).
7 See Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaums Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1974).
8 See Mary Beth Nortons In the Devils Snare (New York: Vintage Books, 2003).
9 See John Putnam Demos Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1982), and Chadwick Hansens Witchcraft at Salem (Florida: Paw Prints Publishing, 2008).
10 See Carol F. Karlsens The Devil in the Shape of a Woman (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1998).

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theorizes that ergot poisoning was the cause of the supposed supernatural occurrences, and
Laurie Winn Carlson claims encephalitis played a role in the trials.11 While many of these
interpretations are valid and rely on sound evidence, they are limited in that they only look at the
Salem trials as an effect of other events taking place during the time period. Instead, the trials
should be examined as actively affecting the progression of religious freedom and spiritual
revival in the colonies of New England. This interpretation relies not on outside events, but on
the trials themselves to express the changes occurring in the New World.
Any transcript from the trial of a witch has limitations as an accurate historical tool. Many
confessions of witches were made under torture or the threat of torture, which calls into
question the validity of the statements made by the accused.12 However, the existence of
witchcraft does not need to be proven in order to explore the impact of the belief in supernatural
occurrences on a societal level both during and after the trials. Such an analysis does not rely on
the accuracy of the transcripts. Instead, the importance of the widespread acceptance of the
evidence given as fact, and its use as a legal basis for execution in the 1690s is paramount.
Public belief in the accusations made during the trials was so prevalent in Salem that even the
accused could believe that the magic people claimed they used was real. One of these individuals
who openly confessed to practicing witchcraft is also one of most popularly discussed witches of
the trials, the Indian servant of Samuel Parris, Salems Puritan minister, Tituba. Titubas account
of the magic she had both witnessed and participated in highlights many common symptoms
associated with satanic influence. When put on trial, Tituba claims to see apparitions in the form
of a hog and sometimes a great dog. She also reveals that the animal apparitions speak to her

11 See Linnda R. Caporaels Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem? Convulsive ergotism may have been a
physiological basis for the Salem witchcraft crisis in 1692, Science, 192 (1976): 21-26, and Laurie Winn Carlsons
A Fever in Salem (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 1999).
12 Levack,1.

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and give her commands. Further apparitions take the form of black and red rats, a wolf, a cat, and
another thing hairy. It goes upright like a man. It hath only two legs. Perhaps the most damning
part of the confession was Titubas accusation that she saw a a thing with a head like a woman
with two legs and wings, which was later said to be a supernatural form taken by Goody
Osborne, according to the testimony of Abigail Williams, the niece of Parris and one of the
young girls who brought forth the accusations of witchcraft to the authorities of Salem. After she
confessed these facts, the judges attempted to question Tituba further as to who was currently
using magic to harm the children of the town when she was suddenly struck with blindness. As
Tituba lost her sight, the afflicted children who were sitting in the courthouse began having
extreme fits, becoming blind and struck dumb by an invisible force that they claim was
sent by Goody Good.13 Titubas trial reveals all three of the major symptoms commonly
associated with demonic supernatural influence: vivid hallucinations, in the form of animal-like
apparitions, loss of body functions, such as Titubas blindness, and violent convulsions,
experienced by the children in the courtroom. The recurrence of these symptoms in the people of
Salem gave credence to the claim that the Devil worked among them.
Bridget Bishop stood accused of practicing dark magic similar to Titubas by five people, who
claim that she could send out a projection of her spirit to attack her neighbors. Samuel Gray of
Salem accused Bishop of using her powers to invade his home at night, attempting to insert an
object into his mouth as he slept, and causing his child to become sickly and die.14 This vivid
hallucination of the figure of Bishop was seen by many of her neighbors, and all of them
believed that the magic they witnessed was real enough, and evil enough, to watch her hang for

13 Examination of Tituba in Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, ed., Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim
Transcripts of the Legal Documents (New York: De Capo Press, 1977).
14 Examination of Bridget Bishop in Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, ed., Salem Witchcraft Papers:
Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents (New York: De Capo Press, 1977).

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using it. Bishops trial corroborates one of the three symptoms of witchcraft. Another of the
accused, Susannah Martin, caused many to fall into fits simply by entering the courthouse to be
examined by the judges. The convulsions were so powerful that many were hindered from
speaking, except for Abigail Williams who claims that Martin hurt her often. Testimony against
Martin gives clear examples of the fits and frenzies that marked the trials:
Martin did many times afterward appear to her at her house and did much trouble her
in any of her occasionsAnd from that time to this very day have been under a strange
kind of distemper and frenzy incapable of any rational action though strong and healthy
of body. He further testifieth that when she came into that condition, this deponent
procured Doctors Fuller and Crosby to come to her for her release, but they did both say
that her distemper was supernatural and no sickness of body but that some evil person
had bewitched her. (Transcripts)
Further accusations against Martin implicate her in using both animal apparitions and invisible
magic to torture the people of Salem.15 Martins trial further proves the prevalence of the three
major symptoms of demonic influence. Her mere presence caused violent convulsions and took
away the bodys function of sight, and people claimed to see apparitions around her. The
supposed witches of Salem possessed a limited range of abilities that can be categorized and
observed throughout the entirety of the trials.
The Salem Witch Trials were not the first time that the people of New England saw these
symptoms afflict their friends and neighbors. Another example of the frenzied fits that overtook
the colonists in Massachusetts comes from the letters of Sir Walter Scott, who describes an
account of supernatural events that took place four years prior to the Salem trials:
and shortly after, the elder Goodwin, her sister, and two brothers were seized with such
strange diseases, that all their neighbors concluded they were bewitched. They conducted
themselves as those supposed to suffer under maladies created by such influence were
accustomed to do. They stiffened their necks so hard at one time that the joints could not
be moved. At another time their necks were so flexible and supple that it seemed the bone
was dissolved. They had violent convulsions, in which their jaws snapped with the force
15 Examination of Susannah Martin in Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, ed., Salem Witchcraft Papers:
Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents (New York: De Capo Press, 1977).

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of a spring-trap for vermin. Their limbs were curiously contorted, and to those who had a
taste for the marvellous, seemed entirely dislocated and displaced. Amid these distortions,
they cried out against the poor old woman, whose name was Glover, alleging that she was
in presence with them, adding to their torments. (Letters 222)
These fits were blamed on satanic magic practiced by a witch, the old woman named Glover,
who was hung for her crimes.16 The existence of the precedent for interpreting violent
convulsions as witchcraft, and that children experiencing these convulsions could name an
individual as the cause and have her executed, shows that these symptoms were a serious and
prevalent problem in the colonies. However, after the fervor of the Salem Witch Trials ended and
people returned to their normal lives, the collective memory of the executions left mental scars
that would later transform the religious practices of New England.
As the zeal that marked the Salem witch trails faded away, even those most in sympathy with
the trials declined to defend them entirely.17 Five years after the conclusion of the trials one of
the judges and twelve members of the jury gave public apologies for their failure as judicial
officials and the loss of life that occurred as a result. Despite the understanding that the trials
were a grave miscarriage of justice, the people of Massachusetts continued to believe in
witchcraft and the supernatural, prompting the governor, William Phips, to issue a ban on
publications relating to witchcraft.18 This ban was issued not to curb the superstitions of the
people, which could not be shaken so easily, but to stop the objections toward the legal and
judicial processes that allowed for the use of spectral evidence, such as claims of bewitchment,
possession, or visions, and the use of coerced confession to convict.19 If discussion over the issue
of the trials was allowed to continue, Phips saw the likelihood of kindling an inextinguishable
16 Walter Scott, Sir, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (London: Routledge and Sons, 1830), 222-223.
17 Marc Callis, The Aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials in Colonial America, Historical Journal of
Massachusetts 33, no. 2 (2005), 188.
18 Daniel G. Payne, Defending against the Indefensible: Spectral Evidence at the Salem Witch Trials, Essex
Institute historical collections 129, no. 1 (1993), 81.
19 Callis, 188-189.

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flame if I should admit and public and open contests.20 This fear was not unfounded, as the
Royal Governor was arrested and jailed by the colonists of the Massachusetts Bay Colony only
three years prior to the trials, showing Phips that if the people became unhappy they would not
be afraid to act.21 However, New Englanders had already become disillusioned with the political
system that carried out the trials. The most powerful change that the colonists experienced in the
proceeding years was their loss of faith in the Puritan ideals that justified the trials in the first
place.
When the ban on works related to witchcraft was lifted in 1693 literature was published
that placed blame on not only the political, but also the spiritual elite of Salem. Robert Calef
wrote in his text More Wonders of the Invisible World, that Parris coerced Tituba into a false
confession so that he and his associates could attempt to regain control of a village that was
moving away from their puritanical governance.22 He furthers his accusations by claiming that
Parris was attempting to pressure his congregation into signing the deed to the parsonage into his
name personally. Calef also criticizes Cotton Mather, a minister who was one of the central
figures in the trials, for using witchcraft as an excuse to dispose of his rival, Minister George
Burroughs.23 Whether or not these claims are true does not matter, as the change that Parris and
Mather were purportedly trying to prevent was already set in motion. Puritans were beginning
feel that something was wrong within their religious hierarchy. Though the corruption may have
never existed, the public sense of shame felt by the colonists because of what their Puritanical
zeal had wrought was enough to make them question the strict religious doctrine that they
allowed to control their lives.
20 William Phips, Letter to the Earl of Nottingham, February 21, 1693
21 Callis, 196.
22 Purdy, 2.
23 Callis, 201.

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The Puritans obsession with the supernatural and the occult stems back to St. Augustine, who in
the fourth and fifth centuries declared that all magic, including holy magic known as theurgy, is
nothing but Satan transforming himself into an angel of light in order to confuse the children
of God.24 This labeling of all supernatural occurrences as satanic was popular among both
Catholics and Protestants.25 Protestant minister William Perkins furthered this interpretation of
magic in the late sixteenth century by creating covenant theology, whose believers espoused that
the very thing that maketh a witch to be a witch (is) the yielding of consent upon covenant.26
Perkins theory that a covenant with Satan was the antithesis of mans covenant with God was
popular among the Puritans of New England.27 With the belief that such a covenant was not only
possible, but also that Satan was actively trying to assail them in a New World full of pagan
savages, the Puritans found themselves embroiled in superstition. The fearful reaction the
Puritans had to their environment was later noted by Sir Walter Scott:
Unfortunately, they were not wise according to their zeal, but entertained a proneness to
believe in supernatural and direct personal intercourse between the devil and his vassals,
an error to which, as we have endeavored to show, their brethren in Europe had from the
beginning been peculiarly subject. In a country imperfectly cultivated, and where the
partially improved spots were embosomed in inaccessible forests, inhabited by numerous
tribes of savages, it was natural that a disposition to superstition should rather gain than
lose ground, and that to other dangers and horrors with which they were surrounded, the
colonists should have added fears of the devil, not merely as the Evil Principle tempting
human nature to sin, and thus endangering our salvation, but as combined with sorcerers
and witches to inflict death and torture upon children and others. (Letters 222)
By the early 1700s however, the Massachusetts Bay Colony lost its charter, and as the colonists
became more acclimated to their environment they began challenging Puritan ideals.28 Even
Cotton Mather, in an attempt to validate the Salem trials, states that the Devils may sometimes
24 Augustine, Saint, trans. M. Dods, The City of God (New York: Random House, 1950), 312.
25 Levack, 27.
26 William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft (Cambridge: Cantrell Legge, 1613), 167.
27 Levack, 94.
28 Levack, 110.

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have a permission (from God) to represent an innocent person, introducing the idea that
supernatural occurrences can be an expression of the will of God despite centuries of opposing
theological interpretation.29 The Reverend John Hale, who had witnessed the trials, goes so far as
to cite the Bible in his writings, claiming that Jesus himself was falsely accused of witchcraft.30
Hale does not directly state that theurgy was an acceptable form of magic. However, by stating
that Jesus used abilities that could be construed as witch-like but were in fact expressions of
Godly power, Hale contributes to the interpretation of supernatural occurrences as divine. The
people of New England recognized that a tragedy had taken place under their guidance during
the Salem trials, and the shifts in religious thinking that occurred as a result began almost
immediately afterward.31
Changes in the colonists interpretations of supernatural occurrences took place in stages over
the decades following the Salem Witch Trials. Two women, Mercy Short and Margaret Rule,
became afflicted with the same fits and frenzies, in 1692 and 1693 respectively, that plagued the
young women during the trials. Cotton Mather came in to help the Salem residents, and instead
of blaming their afflictions on devil worshippers in the community, Mather relieved the girls of
their ailment through prayer. In 1694, two years after the trial, the people of Boston claim that
angels visited the city and caused supernatural occurrences. The major shift in thinking regarding
the supernatural occurred in the 1730s, when Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards responded to a
call for help in Hadley, Massachusetts, where young girls were once again experiencing
symptoms similar to those affected by witchcraft in Salem. Instead of claiming that witches were
at work, or even using prayer as a cure, Edwards declared that the supernatural symptoms were a
sign of providence from God himself. As New Englanders no longer desired accusations of
29 Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World (New York: Bell Publishing, reprint 1974), 18.
30 Callis, 203-204.
31 Ibid., 206.

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witchcraft to be flung about carelessly, this new interpretation gained momentum in the colony
and quickly sparked the First Great Awakening.32 By interpreting supernatural phenomenon as
holy, Edwards allowed the colonists to combine their long held belief in magic and otherworldly
happenings with their desire to break free of traditional Puritan theology. The shame inspired by
the Salem Witch Trials had already predisposed the people of New England toward
disillusionment with strict religious authority, and the emotive religious revival of the First Great
Awakening was a perfect outlet through which they could find expression.
The origins of the First Great Awakening were sparked in Northampton County, Massachusetts,
where Jonathan Edwards reported extraordinary religious happenings. Starting with a strange
flexibleness in the young people of [Northampton], and an unusual disposition to hearken to
council, the religious fervor quickly spread to the adults in the community and into the
surrounding towns by 1735.33 This unnatural flexibility described by Edwards fits in with the
earlier categories of symptoms of witchcraft. The fits experienced by the children in the
courtroom during the trials of both Tituba and Susannah Martin, as well as the children afflicted
by Grover in the preceding years, are related to the phenomenon that was now being described as
an extraordinary religious event. In response to the supernatural occurrences, hundreds of people
converted to the evangelical Christian beliefs preached by Edwards, which is generally seen as
the precursor to the major explosion that is the Great Awakening.34 Termed revivals, the
common symptoms that individuals experienced during the religious exhorting that took place
during the sermons all fit into the categories of symptoms of witchcraft, the memory of which
had burned itself into the consciousness of the people of New England.35
32 Callis, 206.
33 Frank Lambert, The First Great Awakening: Whose Interpretive Fiction?, The New England Quarterly 68, no.
4 (1995), 650-651.
34 Lambert, 651.
35 Callis, 213.

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The similarities between the people suffering under the power of witches and the people
exhorting under the grace of God are evident based on the accounts of the revivals taking place
in New England. Just like during the witch trials, women and children were more prone to
experience the spiritual fervor of the revivals. Boston minister Charles Chauncy wrote that
during the revivals it was Children, young People and Women, whose Passions are chiefly
prevail. An example of these women is Sarah Edwards, who felt so filled with Gods providence
that she could not forbear expressing aloud, to those near (her), (her) exultation of soul.
Revivals took on a theatrical quality on a public stage. The emotional outpourings of religious
zeal were so intense that Connecticut clergyman Jonathan Parsons asked his congregation to
practice greater restraint after Several stout men fell as though a cannon had been discharged,
and a ball had made its way through their hearts. Some young women were thrown into hysteric
fits.36 The uncontrollable body movements and convulsive fits that overtook the evangelicals in
the First Great Awakening match the symptoms of witchcraft that people unwillingly suffered
through four decades prior. The cries of the revivalists were so loud and so frequent that many
times the preacher could not be heard over the noise. During the religious exultations that took
place women began jumping up and down, falling to the ground as if they lost control of their
bodies, fainting, and generally being hysterical. One woman was in such wracking Horrer, and
Distress about her Soul, which she thot was dropping into Hell, that She Cryed out at that rate
She might be heard far off.37 The hysterical fits, uncontrollable body movements, and vivid
hallucinations so powerful that the one experiencing the supernatural effects devolves into a state

36 Catherine A. Brekus, Euroamerican Womens and Mens Experiences in the Great Awakening, in Major
Problems in American Colonial History, ed. Karen Ordahl Kupperman (Stamford, Connecticut: Cengage Learning,
2011), 282-284.
37 Brekus, 282-285.

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of terror, were the same symptoms that Puritans labeled witchcraft, resulting in the public
execution of many New Englanders.
The Salem Witch Trials left a lasting impression on the people of New England. The importance
of these trials lies not just in their ability to capture the imagination, but also in their affect on
religious freedom in the United States. The aftermath of the Salem trials left New Englanders
disillusioned with the Puritan emphasis on Satan and his influence on all things supernatural, as
well as with a deep sense of shame due to allowing this over-emphasis to result in needless
death. In an effort to move away from the strict religious doctrine that led to the executions,
supernatural occurrences experienced a rebranding, changing from the work of the Devil to the
love of God. Going against centuries of theological tradition, the colonists new interpretation of
their hysteria not only saved lives from persecution, but also furthered the trend toward religious
freedom in the colonies. The revivals of the colonists during the First Great Awakening had the
revolutionary effect of breaking down the restriction on their religious speech, for both men and
women.38 Without the Salem Witch Trials to inspire this change, participants in the First Great
Awakening could have not only been tried and executed for their heresy, but by Puritan
definition, practitioners of the art of witchcraft had a direct effect on the beginnings of
evangelical Christianity in the colonial United States of America.

38 Ibid., 284.

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Works Cited
Primary Sources:
Augustine, Saint, trans. M. Dods, The City of God (New York: Random House, 1950).
Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World (New York: Bell Publishing, reprint 1974).
Examination of Bridget Bishop in Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, ed., Salem Witchcraft
Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents (New York: De Capo Press, 1977).
Examination of Susannah Martin in Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, ed., Salem
Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents (New York: De Capo
Press, 1977).
Examination of Tituba in Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, ed., Salem Witchcraft Papers:
Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents (New York: De Capo Press, 1977).
Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World (London: Printed for Nath. Hillar, at
the Princess-Arms, in Leaden-Hall-Street, over against St. Mary-Ax, and Joseph Collier,
at the Golden Bible, on London Bridge, 1700).

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Walter Scott, Sir, Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft (London: Routledge and Sons, 1830).
William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft (Cambridge: Cantrell Legge,
1613).
William Phips, Letter to the Earl of Nottingham, February 21, 1693.
Secondary Sources:
Brian P. Levack, The Witchcraft Sourcebook (New York: Routledge, 2004).
Catherine A. Brekus, Euroamerican Womens and Mens Experiences in the Great Awakening,
in Major Problems in American Colonial History, ed. Karen Ordahl Kupperman
(Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2011).
Daniel G. Payne, Defending against the Indefensible: Spectral Evidence at the Salem Witch
Trials, Essex Institute historical collections 129, no. 1 (1993).
Frank Lambert, The First Great Awakening: Whose Interpretive Fiction?, The New England
Quarterly 68, no. 4 (1995).
Marc Callis, The Aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials in Colonial America, Historical Journal
of Massachusetts 33, no. 2 (2005).
Sean Purdy, Conjuring History: The Many Interpretations of the Salem Witchcraft Trials,
Rivier Academic Journal 3, no. 1 (2007).
*Payne and Callis texts received through Interlibrary Loan