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A scholarly essay situates the New England witchcraft panic within a long-standing, widespread belief in diabolism, arguing contemporaries accepted the reality of witchcraft on theological, legal, medical, and philosophical grounds rather than because of a peculiar local theology. It compares prosecutions in England and New England, links outbreaks to social disorder, examines biblical interpretation and critics' arguments, and counsels against anachronistic rationalist judgments, treating the events as a brief, explicable episode of a persistent superstition.
Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been left unchanged. Dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged.
Unprinted punctuation and final stops missing at the end of abbreviations and sentences were added. Footnotes were moved to the end of the book.
Spelling correction: “maner” changed to “manner”