As stated above, some of the testimony was incredible and would be ridiculous if the outcome had not been so tragic.  Let us read some bits from the record of those solemn trials.  Increase Mather in his Remarkable Providences related the following concerning the persecution of William Morse and wife at Newberry, Massachusetts:  “On December 8, in the Morning, there were five great Stones and Bricks by an invisible hand thrown in at the west end of the house while the Mans Wife was making the Bed, the Bedstead was lifted up from the floor, and the Bedstaff flung out of the Window, and a Cat was hurled at her....  The man’s Wife going to the Cellar ... the door shut down upon her, and the Table came and lay upon the door, and the man was forced to remove it e’re his Wife could be released from where she was."[26a]

Again, see the remarkable vision beheld by Goodman Hortado and his wife in 1683:  “The said Mary and her Husband going in a Cannoo over the River they saw like the head of a man new-shorn, and the tail of a white Cat about two or three foot distance from each other, swimming over before the Cannoo, but no body appeared to joyn head and tail together."[26b]

Cotton Mather in his Wonders of the Invisible World gives us some insight into the mental and physical condition of many of the witnesses called upon to testify to the works of Satan.  Some of them undoubtedly were far more in need of an expert on nervous diseases than of the ministrations of either jurist or clergyman.  “It cost the Court a wonderful deal of Trouble, to hear the Testimonies of the Sufferers; for when they were going to give in their Depositions, they would for a long time be taken with fitts, that made them uncapable of saying anything.  The Chief Judge asked the prisoner who he thought hindered these witnesses from giving their testimonies? and he answered, He supposed it was the Devil.”

It must have been a reign of terror for the Puritan mother and wife.  What woman could tell whether she or her daughter might not be the next victim of the bloody harvest?  Note the ancient records again.  Here are the words of the colonist, Robert Calef, in his More Wonders of the Invisible World:  “September 9.  Six more were tried, and received Sentence of Death; viz., Martha Cory af Salem Village, Mary Easty of Topsfield, Alice Parker and Ann Pudeater of Salem, Dorcas Hoar of Beverly, and Mary Bradberry of Salisbury.  September 1st, Giles Gory was prest to Death.”  And Sewall in his Diary thus speaks of the same barbarous execution just mentioned:  “Monday, Sept. 19, 1692.  About noon, at Salem, Giles Gory was press’d to death for standing Mute; much pains was used with him two days, one after another, by the Court and Capt.  Gardner of Nantucket who had been of his acquaintance, but all in vain."[27a]