The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies

A long staff danced up and down in the chimney. The man's wife put the staff into the fire, but she could not keep it there, as it flew out with great force; however, after much effort and using all her strength, they managed to make it burn... A chair flew and finally landed on the table where food was ready to be eaten, and it likely would have spoiled everything; only by a quick catch did they save some meat.

A chest was moved from one place to another without anyone touching it. Two keys flew back and forth, making a loud noise as they crashed into each other... "While they lay in bed with their young child between them, a large stone from the floor of the loft was thrown onto the man's stomach, and after rolling it onto the floor, it was thrown onto him once more." On January 23, 1680, "his inkstand was taken from him while he was writing" (he was keeping a diary of these events), "and when despite all his searching he could not find it, at last he saw it fall from the air, next to the fire..."

On February 2, while he and his son were eating cheese, the pieces he had cut were snatched away from them. But as for the boy, he suffered greatly from these afflictions, for on December 18, while he was sitting next to his grandfather, he was forced to make great movements. The man made him stand between his legs, but the chair moved up and down and seemed to have thrown the man and the boy into the fire, and the boy was shaken back and forth in the air in such a way that they feared his brains would be knocked out."

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6 An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, by Increase Mather Increase Mather (1639–1723) was a powerful Puritan minister in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College.. Boston, 1684; London, Reeves & Turner, 1890, pp. 101-111.

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All these contortions of the child were apparently what Mr. Charcot Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), a French neurologist known as "the founder of modern neurology." calls "clownism" original: "payasadas" (clownish behavior/antics); a term used in 19th-century psychology to describe a stage of hysterical seizures.. 7

When they took him to a doctor's house, the boy "was free from disorders," which reappeared when he returned home. He barked like a dog, clucked like a hen, and spoke nonsense about "Powel," who pinched and mistreated him. While he was in bed with the elderly people, "a pot with its contents was thrown over them." They were grabbed by the hands, just like Mr. and Mrs. C. Once a voice was heard singing: "Revenge, revenge is sweet."

Finally, a ship's officer arrived, declared it was not fair to suspect the grandmother of being a witch, and offered to cure him if he were left alone with the boy. "The officer arrived early the next day and the boy was with him until evening; since then, according to Morse, his house has not been disturbed by evil spirits." Probably the officer used the end of a rope A euphemism suggesting the officer used corporal punishment (whipping) to stop the boy's trickery.: the boy was cured more quickly than Mr. H.

The phenomena are characteristic of playful or buffoonish beings, as Mr. Kirk says, and no one can doubt that the boy was behind the whole matter. But whether he was capable, when he was well and conscious, of such diversions is another question. Children like him provoked the famous witch mania in New England.

We have here, without a doubt, a well-documented case, analogous to Mr. H. In a modern case of bell-ringing, loud knocks, and the movement of objects, the agent was "a young woman who had never gone out to work in service before" and who spent the night in a state of tremendously agitated somnambulism sleepwalking, repeating the entire Church Service of the day. 8

Mather gives several other examples where motives for deception are evident, while we hear nothing about an epileptic or hysterical patient.

In most cases, ancient or modern, children are the agents. Thus we have "Physical phenomena obtained in a family circle," that of Mr. and Mrs. Davis, with their children, in Rio de Janeiro. 9

The date was 1888. Curiosity had been provoked by "the famous Henry Slade" A well-known 19th-century medium later exposed as a fraud.. There were "touches and handshakes." A table "ran after me" (Professor Alexander) "and tried to corner me," when only C., a girl, was—

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7 Diseases of the Nervous System, iii. 249. London, 1890.