Research source

Among the fruits of Puritanism, and of that frenzied state of mind which accompanied the Civil War, was a…

Date of account: Published 1894
Source: Cock Lane and Common-Sense
Reference: Cock Lane and Common-Sense · selected passage 68
Rights: public_domain
Language: English
Record updated: 2026-08-24

Record summary

Among the fruits of Puritanism, and of that frenzied state of mind which accompanied the Civil War, was a furious persecution of 'witches'

Published source text

Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.

Source passage

Source text · mention only

Among the fruits of Puritanism, and of that frenzied state of mind which accompanied the Civil War, was a furious persecution of 'witches'. In a rare little book, Select Cases of Conscience, touching Witches and Witchcraft, by John Gaule, 'preacher of the Word at Great Staughton in the county of Huntington' (London, 1646), we find the author not denying the existence of witchcraft, but pleading for calm, learned and judicial investigation. To do this was to take his life in his hand, for Matthew Hopkins, a fanatical miscreant, was ruling in a Reign of Terror through the country. The clergy of the Church of England, as Hutchinson proves in his Treatise of Witchcraft (second edition, London, 1720), had been comparatively cautious in their treatment of the subject. Their record is far from clean, but they had exposed some impostures, chiefly, it is fair to say, where Nonconformists, or Catholics, had detected the witch. With the Restoration the general laxity went so far as to scoff at witchcraft, to deny its existence, and even, in the works of Wagstaff and Webster, to minimise the leading case of the Witch of Endor.

Historical context

Contextual commentary · mention only

This comes from historical psychical research. Methods, witness handling and standards of evidence differ from present-day research and should be assessed from the cited passage and edition.

Modern context

Contextual commentary · mention only

The passage can support a history of claims and recurring descriptions. It does not establish a paranormal mechanism, and competing psychological, social and physical explanations remain relevant.

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