Mysteries

Historical sketches of witchcraft and magic in England and Scotland. Study into England's famous magicians John Dee, Roger Bacon, and William Lily.

Investigation into the anamoly of the Highland witches of Scotland. Could they see beyond the veil?

The true story of witchcraft in old Connecticut has never been told. It has been hidden in the ancient records and in manuscripts in private collections, and those most conversant with the facts have not made them known, for one reason or another. It is herein written from authoritative sources, and should prove of interest and value as a present-day interpretation of that strange delusion, which for a half century darkened the lives of the forefathers and foremothers of the colonial days.

When first projected it was the writer's purpose to take up the subject of English witchcraft under certain general political and social aspects. It was not long, however, before he began to feel that preliminary to such a treatment there was necessary a chronological survey of the witch trials. Those strange and tragic affairs were so closely involved with the politics, literature, and life of the seventeenth century that one is surprised to find how few of them have received accurate or complete record in history. It may be said, in fact, that few subjects have gathered about themselves so large concretions of misinformation as English witchcraft.

THE MATERIAL for this book is drawn from some 2,500 single-typed pages of verbatim records. The latter are made up of communications from discarnate entities we called the Invisibles, mainly through the mediumship of one of us known as Betty. The latter had become a station for this sort of transmission only by dint of a rigorous twenty years of training.

The two very rare works reprinted in the present volume, written by two of the most celebrated of the early American divines, relate to one of the most extraordinary cases of popular delusion that modern times have witnessed. It was a delusion, moreover, to which men of learning and piety lent themselves, and thus became the means of increasing it. The scene of this affair was the puritanical colony of New England.