"for a Witch, which is not a Witch"

Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
August 9, 2023

While some people are screaming about witch hunts today because people have been accused by Grand Juries with evidence against them, they fail to understand that witch trials are being repeated, but not against those charged with crimes. Our laws require evidence because of the Salem Witch Trials. Another thing going on is some people claim their "religious" views should rule over all others. Again, all we have to do is look at the trials to see history has repeated itself but, yet again, they do not understand what really happened.

When Puritans tortured Quakers
Seacoastonline
J. Dennis Robinson
Feb. 20, 2020

Puritans saw themselves as the definers and protectors of “God’s law.” Quakers believed each individual had the right and ability to access the spirit of God.

We need to remember that while tens of thousands of Puritans had migrated to America for religious freedom they were not interested in religious freedom for anyone but themselves.

Quakers arriving in “The Lord’s Kingdom” (New England) in the mid-1600s could have an ear cut off just for showing up. A second ear would be cut off if they returned. A third offense meant having a hole drilled through the tongue with a hot iron. In Massachusetts, Quakers were persecuted, fined, tortured, driven out, and even hanged. learn more here

We have laws to protect the rights of all people to believe and worship, or not, as they see fit and not what others demand from them. No one is supposed to have the right to claim their faith is what all others must abide by. What we see today is not about religion. It is about control.

Apparently, some learned nothing because they want to repeat all of it. Religious freedom means only their faith matters. Accusations no longer need proof or evidence and truth. No matter what they have been shown, can be called a lie and they expect everyone else to believe them, instead of the truth. It is almost as if they have been possessed like Thomas Maule.

THOMAS MAULE, THE QUAKER WHO CRITICIZED THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS – AND GOT AWAY WITH IT

New England Historical Society

He did get fined, whipped and imprisoned

Thomas Maule, an outspoken Quaker, went to prison five times for criticizing Puritans in Salem, Mass. The Puritans also whipped him three times and fined him three times.

He believed in witches, but he also believed God would punish the Salem witch trial prosecutors for miscarrying justice.

He went to court on charges of slander and blasphemy. Historians view his trial as an important development in the freedom of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Maule and his wife Naomi believed in witches. When the Salem witch trials began they testified against Bridget Bishop, the first victim to be hanged. But Maule grew disillusioned with the prosecutors’ murderous frenzy. Twenty people were executed within four months, and 100 more awaited trial when Gov. William Phips returned to his senses and halted the trials

In 1695, several years after the release of the last accused witch, Thomas Maule published a pamphlet. He called it Truth Held Forth and Maintained. In cool and cutting sarcasm, he wrote that God would condemn the witch trial judges. He famously stated, “[F]or it were better that one hundred Witches should live than that one person be put to death for a Witch, which is not a Witch.” learn more here

How did they get away with it? At the time they were suffering from sickness, death, and being attacked by Naumkeag who already lived there. They focused on that while ignoring that it was their land long before the Puritans arrived. Ignoring how the Naumkeags taught them how to survive, they blamed them for the outcome.

"Still, the Naumkeag were not an aggressive people. They did not seek war with Conant’s crew over the misunderstanding, which, tragically and in retrospect, may have sealed their ultimate fate of being forcibly removed from their ancestral lands by colonists. 20th-century historian Sidney Perley describes the tribe as “affable and courteous and well-disposed, ready to devote the best of what they had to the general good.” This temperament was tested, but still remained, in the face of the loss of their homes and the devastation they faced from European diseases that decimated their numbers in the early 1600s. Despite the deaths of their own people, the Naumkeag treated the English with kindness, sharing with them the secrets of a good harvest in the local climate. Perley writes that the Naumkeag instructed the English in “the planting of corn, teaching them to select the finest seed, to observe the best season, to plant in the hills at a distance from each other and cultivate it through the season.” And all of this, again, while dealing with the illnesses foisted upon them unwittingly by the colonists they reached out to aid." (The Witch House)

At first, the Puritans thought all their suffering was about evil people attacking them. They didn't see that evil was attacking them and taking over their own minds. Deaths were blamed on sorcery and witchcraft sent by Satan. Crops failing were blamed on the same cause. After they tortured and killed the innocent people they accused, they turned around and blamed God by saying it was all about God punishing them for what they did. Head smack moment!

Researchers have pointed out that part of what came out of the witch trials was PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.) The villagers would have still been worried it could happen again and they could become the accused instead of the accuser. Those held in jail and tortured while waiting for their trial would have been dealing with it the torture invading their lives. The families of the accused would have been dealing with all of it. All that along with the illnesses, deaths, crop failures, and worried about more attacks even though they either caused or allowed all of it by their own actions. They needed someone to blame instead of facing the fact while they may not have caused it to happen, they caused it to continue.

I no longer wonder why so many people I helped over the years became offended when I asked them about being religious or not. The vast majority said they were not but they were spiritual. Most of them said they believed in God and Jesus but would never again set foot in a church. I also know a lot of "religious" people that put spirituality above the dictates of their chosen affiliation, and praying wherever they were directly to God.

The sad thing for me was when they blamed God for causing what they survived to happen. Those thoughts were caused by what they heard from "religious" people with absolutely as much understanding of the faith they claim to have as the Puritans.

How long all this goes on now is up to us and what we are willing to ignore.

Kathie Costos author of the Ministers Of The Mystery series. The Scribe Of Salem The Visionary Of Salem and the 13th Minister Of Salem.