Erika Gasser is posing the argument that witchcraft and possession in the 17th century was a language of power where gender can be validated through disorder. Ministers were able to reaffirm the patriarchy by turning these “irrational episodes” into moments of religious and patriarchal authority.(Tea Aliu)

Gasser shows that witchcraft cases worked to reinforce patriarchal authority, not undermine it, and defined who could legitimately hold power. Through figures like Cotton Mathers, these narratives framed ministers as the only reliable interpreters of spiritual disorder, while people who were skeptical were cast out and seen as dangerous. It seemed every case shown would come back to reinforce male authority rather than challenge it. (Callie McAleese)

Gasser emphasizes how witchcraft operated as a culturally understood explanation for misfortune, bodily affliction, and spiritual disorder within Puritan communities. Accusations relied on shared beliefs about spectral evidence, the devil's book, and visible signs of bewitchment, allowing witchcraft to function as a socially legible narrative for fear and instability. By framing witchcraft as both a spiritual and physical threat, communities justified religious and legal intervention while reinforcing existing structures of authority. (Caitlyn Edwards)

In England, there was a resurgence in witchcraft and possession cases in the mid 17th century, and this increasing commonness of these phenomena was reflected in the colonies. Though the trials in Essex County and specifically Salem were of a notable intensity, witchcraft and possession cases were taking place across New England. The stories of these cases were often spread for religious reasons. They served as proof of the devil's power and the importance of faith, but also to encourage colonists to maintain their faith as a guard against preternatural events. These accounts often framed the devout as the only who could be left without blame, and the practice of praying and fasting as the only true cure to possession or other preternatural afflictions. (Cameron Spivy)

This reading introduces witchcraft as means of a social response to issues like church authority and gender/power structures. Gasser uncovers how witchcraft was used as a tool that allowed people to express anxieties and rationalize violence in a religious manner. According to Gasser, witchcraft was first assumed to be the result of the devil moving through spiritual and physical realms spreading illness and misfortune; affecting individuals and their families through public and performative actions. This idea promotes church intervention which resulted in prayer and exorcisms among other actions. The individuals affected were usually women due to the belief that they were weaker and vulnerable which allowed them to become vessels for spiritual conflict. This allowed women to express frustrations or disrupt powerful figures which undermined authority but also reinforced it.(Reiley Gibson)

George Burroughs had been an unordained minister in Salem, but, at the time of his arrest in 1692 was living in Maine. Accused of leading a group of witches in worshiping and attempting to take over New England for the Devil, he was brought back to Salem for trial. The evidence brought against him consisted both of accounts of witchcraft from the possessed or from confessed witches as well as accounts of his behavior that challenged his position as a patriarchal authority figure as a member of the clergy. (Cameron Spivy)

During Burroughs’ trial, two main groups of accusers formed who were (mostly) divided by gender. The first group was the afflicted female accusers who performed possession symptoms in order to prove Burroughs’ influence over them while maintaining their status as innocent victims. These inflicted women likely used their “possession” as an outlet to admit to spiritual weakness while also blaming their sinful behavior on someone else. The second group of accusers mainly consisted of nonafflicted men, though sometimes also women, who testified as witnesses to Burroughs’ cruel behavior towards people like his wives Hannah and Sarah. Both groups of accusers wielded Burroughs’ masculine power as a minister and husband against him, unmaking him from a respectable religious authority into a demonic witch. (Noah Rutkowski)

There was a sense that the ministers and magistrates had a pre-agreed upon notion of what bodily affliction and spectral visions look like and how they function in puritan society. (shared culture scripts on witchcraft- and agreed upon behaviors.) (Tea Aliu)

Multiple people testified that Burroughs had appeared to them and tried to force them to sign the devil's book. Confessed witches also identified him as a leader in worship of the devil, a perversion of his ministerial status. (Cameron Spivy)

Gasser describes George Burroughs' “sins” as excessive and deficient manhood simultaneously. What Puritan society valued most in men was their ability to be the head of a harmonious household. George Burroughs did not exactly fit this bill: he experienced financial difficulties throughout his life, and for a time, he boarded with another family while himself married. The idea that a married man should be reliant on others in this way was bad enough, but rumors of Burroughs' mistreatment of his wives abounded. Puritan society was deeply patriarchal, but in a paternalistic way, where the male head of household was to show a Christ-like love and mercy to his dependents, all the while ensuring their productivity and obedience. Cruelty and physical violence towards spouses violated this idea of a man's place in his home and in society. However, at the same time, Burroughs was charged with having a sinful pride in his male-coded accomplishments - physical strength and wisdom - that would have been understood as “excessive” manhood. A real Puritan man was strong and wise, but did not brag of being so in the way that Burroughs did. All of this combined to paint a picture of a man who, in the Puritan understanding, violated masculine codes of conduct in quite a severe way through a simultaneous inability to provide and a pride in himself despite his deficiencies. (Nick Thodal)

Accusers connected Burroughs' position of authority within the church to his witchcraft by placing him as a leader in a conspiracy of witches across New England. His masculine authority position, rather than defending him, exposed him to further accusations about his crimes and involvement with witchcraft more generally. (Cameron Spivy)

Many initial published accounts of Burroughs’ case were very convinced of his guilt, relying on the narrative of his unmaking as a man and minister to portray him as a dangerous, perverted authority figure. When describing the five witches who testified against Burroughs, author Cotton Mather used gendered insults like “hag” and maintained the notion of Martha Carrier being promised the role of the “queen of Hell.” Still, despite his obvious distaste for the female witches, Mather was so convinced of Burroughs’ ultimate guilt and power over the witches that he shortened his name to simply G.B., implying that the use of his full name could wield the Devil’s power. However, later writers like Robert Calef depicted earlier writers like Mather as deluded witch hunters, with some writers even defending some of the men executed as witches on the same day as Burroughs. (Noah Rutkowski)