We may not find in the old records as full and distinct evidence that she was constitutionally impressible by either mesmeric or spirit force, as many others are now seen to have been--we may miss conclusive _proof_ that she was a magnet either drawing to or emitting from itself psychological forces unconsciously, and thence either becoming herself psychologized or yielding out substances from her own system which might cause, or be made instrumental in causing, marked changes in other human organisms. Still, several facts indicate that she may be assigned a place among the sensitives.
Mrs. Nurse, Mrs. Easty, and Mrs. Cloyse--three sisters--whose maiden name was Towne, were eminently intelligent, efficient, respectable, and respected matrons, and yet were all accused, tried, and the elder two were executed because their spirit-forms or apparitions had been seen by clairvoyants. The records contain a statement made at the time, in these words: "It was no wonder they were witches, _for their mother was so before them_." Often "blood will out" whatever its quality. Three noble daughters bespeak a good mother, and yet, for some reason, Mrs. Towne had been called _a witch_. The properties of the parent reappeared in her children, and rendered them visible by the inner or clairvoyant sight of others. Perception of their spirit-forms and of influences thence emanating caused the accusing girls to name these good women as their tormentors. Visibility as spirits or apparitions, and effluxes from their systems, were their crimes.
Though members of the accusing circle had been demonstrative for several weeks, and probably had attracted to their bedsides or homes nearly every person in the town who could move abroad, yet, at the time of her examination, Mrs. Nurse had not been to see any of them. Her age and infirmities alone might well have excused her. But when asked why she had not visited the sufferers, she added to a statement of her years and debility, that "by reason of _fits_ that she formerly used to have," she had not been to see them. Remembrance of her own past fits--not recent--not impending fits--but fits which "she _formerly_ used to have," deterred her from going to the presence of the fit-afflicted. The question was repeated thus: "_Why_ did you never visit these afflicted persons?" _Ans._ "Because I was afraid _I should have fits, too_." Why afraid of such result? Obviously she felt a secret apprehension that her coming in contact with emanations from these mysteriously fit-afflicted ones, or into close sympathy with them, would bring upon herself again such fits as "she formerly used to have." From this comes forth spontaneously the inference that she suspected that the nature and source of her own former fits, and of those then transpiring in youthful forms, were so nearly allied, that under the general law which makes like produce its like, she was liable to have again generated within herself, in her old age, such sufferings as she had experienced some time in previous years. In our view she was correct in her supposition that she herself was constitutionally liable to just such handlings as the jumping-jack girls were receiving. Her own fears bespeak the probability that Mrs. Nurse was very impressible by mind not her own--that she was highly mediumistic; and we ascribe her persecution to her impressibility. Natural law led to designation of both this woman and her sisters as the devil's covenanted servants. Their creed blinded her persecutors to moral perceptions in certain emergencies, and made them reason falsely concerning the source and purport of spectral data. The presumed mediumistic properties of her mother, together with her own apprehension that presence with the girls might bring renewal of her own old fits, indicate that she probably was quite mediumistic. There is, however, no clear indication that she was at any time so far developed as to see or hear spirits or specters, nor that her own selfhood ever yielded up to another's use her physical organs of speech or action.