Wonders of the Invisible World

Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New England

By: Cotton Mather

Narrated by: Graham Dunlop

The Wonders of the Invisible World was a book written by Cotton Mather and published in 1693. It was subtitled, Observations As well Historical as Theological, upon the Nature, the Number, and the Operations of the Devils. The book defended Mather’s role in the witch hunt conducted in Salem, Massachusetts. It espoused the belief that witchcraft was an evil magical power. Mather saw witches as tools of the devil in Satan’s battle to “overturn this poor plantation, the Puritan colony”, and prosecution of witches as a way to secure God’s blessings for the colony.

Its arguments are largely derivative of Saducismus Triumphatus by Joseph Glanvill. A copy of Glanvill’s book was in Mather’s library when he died.

Public Domain (P)2023 Adultbrain Publishing

Unbelievably bad narration.

The bad ideas and worse theology were to be expected, but the reading is beyond unacceptable. The amount of mispronounced words is staggering, and missplaced accents abound. Just one example of each: (1) halcyon is pronounced by the reader as "hallikahn" (2) "hitherto" is frequently employed by Mathers and delivered by the narrator as "hih-THERE-too." To make matters worse, the reader will modulate his tone to indicate the end of a sentence and take an obvious breath...constantly. Mathers' writing is not very difficult and worth the trouble for those interested to just read it themselves. This was a waste of both time and money.