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Folk Magic and Folk Religion in Early New England
Saying that early American colonial society was religious seems like a cliché, and for early New England doubly so. If an average person knows anything about early New England at all, they know it was founded by Puritans, and that Puritans were intensely, even fanatically, religious. One of the most common themes in historical scholarship is the influence of Puritan religiosity on social and political development of colonial and later American society. Examining established churches and congregations and other manifestations of organized religion is certainly important, and there's no denying it's influence on the intellectual history of the colonies - again, religious elements in foundational documents and early narratives are extremely important and extremely prominent. But those documents and narratives were the product of the intellectual elites. Once we start addressing the spiritual life of an individual, religiosity as a part of the colonial experience, focusing on established organized religious traditions and movements becomes woefully inadequate, since for most colonists this organized and to a degree intellectualized religion was not nearly as familiar or as important as one might assume. We do, on the other hand, have ample evidence for widespread presence and importance of other spiritual practices, other modes of religious experience. The first purpose of this article is to examine these practices and beliefs in early New England. How did they manifest in everyday life and how did they influence the colonial mind? Secondly, we would attempt to trace the influence of folk religion on the later development of colonial culture and society. While this task is undoubtedly far too large to be accomplished within one article, we hope our examination will at the very least outline the potential areas for future research.
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