In 1692, a group of malicious girls craving power and attention and aided by older men and women caused the deaths of innocent neighbors through the exploitation of something called “spectral evidence”. It is exactly what it sounds like: invisible evidence. They would claim the occurrence of events, witnessed by no one but themselves, or even that such events were occurring in the presence of those not attuned to detect them, and scream their victimhood out loud. To add drama, some would throw themselves on the ground, thrashing about, having pinched or pricked themselves with pins to give the appearance of a physical manifestation of their affliction.

They screamed and play-acted the loudest when the persons they wished to condemn were present in person. They would claim to see that person’s spirit sitting on a rafter, or transforming into an animal, taunting them. The chaos was intended to cause panic, since decent God-fearing people could not grasp that other members of the community, those allegedly so like them, could engage in such malignant fraud, with stakes so high. Believing the girls to be the picture of virtue, it was naturally concluded that the evil was being done to them, rather than being channeled through them as instruments.

The claims were patently absurd, but every attempt to examine the bases of the visions and apparitions was silenced by the screams of the girls, who knew well enough not to allow skeptical people to dig too deeply into the fraud. The longer this was allowed to go on, the more innocent people who were swept into the hysteria, unable to defend themselves against imaginary events of which they had no knowledge, because they never happened.

Not everyone was taken in. John Proctor, whose home still stands in the town in which I was raised, saw his wife accused by the girls. First, however, he had been heard to say that the girls had too much free time on their hands, and that he had the cure for what ailed them -- hard work.  Soon thereafter, Elizabeth Proctor, was accused of practicing witchcraft. The Proctors were exactly the sort of practical, no-nonsense people who built their existence out of nothing. They lived in a house on what was then the frontier, where Indian attacks were still a threat, and their home had secret doors and hiding places. They had no time for lies and liars.

Proctor immediately came to his wife’s defense, again urging the community not to be deceived by this nonsense but rather to put an end to it. For his troubles, Proctor himself was accused. He was eventually hanged for his honesty, while Elizabeth survived the hysteria in prison, spared during her pregnancy but having lost everything but her life, and that barely.

Here we are, more than three centuries after the Salem trials, and we are still watching the same charade being carried out by modern liars and frauds, hungry for power and control, determined to ruin however many lives are necessary for them to get what they want. Whether it is preposterous college students screaming about racial threats that never occurred, rapes that never happened, or feelings of danger and intimidation -- while endangering and intimidating others -- or radical Islamist defenders, or the purveyors of migrational invasion, or global warmists, the practical and pragmatic members of the community are being screamed and shouted down by the modern-day Salem accusers, whose lies and accusations strengthen all of these destructive causes. 

Those who bear the brunt of what the accusers demand, meaning the responsible and law-abiding members of the community, are deemed obstructionists, “deniers”, drowned out as before by the screams of those who recognize that scrutiny is the last thing they want. The innocent will lose their property, their rights and their freedom. For now. As witch hunts have progressed for thousands of years, the accusers grow bolder, and eventually people must die so that the accusers’ power can grow until enough people wake up. By then, of course, it is too late. The accusers are almost never stopped before it is too late, despite this same scenario having played out innumerable times over the course of history. People must always die for the sake of the accusers’ power.

Look at what is happening around us and ask yourselves, how have we allowed ourselves once again to be responding to amoral accusers who rely on nothing but spectral evidence? Only they see the wrongs about which they scream and thrash, but they are indulged. Undocumented, unproved claims and allegations are credited by those who have aligned themselves with the accusers, lest they themselves be targeted, as occurred in Salem in 1692. Thus, when the claims are made, they are granted instant validity, and form the basis for demands that the non-events be stopped or else there will be mayhem, which they will happily carry out.

Many of the college fraudsters have been rewarded with the resignations of administrators who, on the basis of spectral evidence, failed to cure an affliction no credible person ever witnessed. It was enough that they pointed to the rafters and claimed that the invisible spirit of racism sat there, taunting and offending them. Someone had to pay, and the accusers took another step toward seizing control and domination over the John Proctors of the world, who see them as the immoral poseurs that they are.

In a letter to the clergy of Boston before his execution, Proctor called what was occurring “delusions of the devil”. Ironically, it is often people pretending most aggressively toward morality and justice who are the devil’s most dedicated servants. Those attacking the voices of truth and logic know that scrutiny of evil always results in the eventual defeat of evil, albeit temporarily. Evil never dies, and Satan never rests. There are souls to take, whether by corruption or destruction. This is always the end game. It is why every plot that begins with the slander and defamation of the honest and innocent always progresses toward imprisonment, and ends up in the murder of those who know the truth, the more of them the better. It is the pattern of evil.     

What may seem foolish and harmless today will grow, both in size and malice. We must expose them now, because they are not just delusional college students, or global-warmists, or socialists, or communists, or Islamist apologists, or simply Democrats, an affiliation they all share. They are the latest instrument in a timeless fight between good and evil, between truth and lies, and between life and death. Like the anarchist and destroyer they serve, they never rest, and their goal is never met. The question is whether, this time, we will be the generation which stops them.