Mathers

Son of Increase Mather, Cotton became the youngest student accepted into Harvard at the age of twelve. Five years after graduating he was ordained at the Second Church of Boston to join his father. Cotton held this position until his death.
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Both Cotton and Increase were a big part of the Salem withcraft trials held in 1692. Cotton was voice heard when the court choose to listen to specter evidence. Spector evidence is a witness' testimony that the shape or spirit of the accused was seen doing harm rather than their physical bodies. There were twenty seven suspects for practicing witchcraft and the nineteen of them who refused to confess were executed.Increase wrote a book titled, Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits in 1693 about the trials. He wrote against the use of "spectral evidence." Increase thought that it was better for ten guilty witches to escape than for one innocent person to die. This helped end the trials. Near the end of his life, Cotton Mather became more tolerant of other religions and deism. Deism conveys scientific reason for things rather than superstition and mysticism. It originated from ideas of Isaac Newton and John Locke. These men showed that the world was operated in an orderly and rational way. Cotton wrote more than 450 books, many of which were about science. From these books, he showed his thoughts about the natural world. Cotton also explained that he didn't see a conflict between his religious beliefs and science because nature was the best cure for atheism.

I feel as though Cotton Mather was a man who was once open to the possibilities of the devil and pure evil, but then was introduced to the scientific side of things. It looks as if he had changed his mind very drastically from the Salem witchcraft trials to writing books discussing a more natural way of how things have come to be. In my opinion, the way Cotton supported deism near the end of his life reveals his true colors. Cotton came to realize that a lot of the superstitions he believed in, such as witches, wasn't authentic. I might believe in karma, but I don't think that there are such things as witches and magic. Maybe there is such thing as fate but science explains a lot and shows the interpretation of why things are the way they are.

McGuire, William, and Leslie Wheeler. "Cotton Mather." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 10 Feb. 2010. .