It's easy to see how nightmarish the idea of spectral evidence must have seemed to Miller back in 1953, when he wrote " The Crucible ."
22.
The new courts, with Stoughton still sitting as chief justice, began to handle the witchcraft cases in 1693, but were under specific instructions from Phips to disregard spectral evidence.
23.
Spectral evidence collected after 1945 showed that the distribution of the commonest chemical elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, neon, iron etc ., was fairly uniform across the galaxy.
24.
The later rejection of spectral evidence by Governor Phips, whose wife, Lady Mary Phips, came under suspicion herself, and its exclusion from trials beginning in January 1693 immediately brought about far fewer convictions.
25.
By this time the hysteria was dying down, and the court ( sometimes with Danforth leading after Stoughton temporarily removed himself in protest at the ban on spectral evidence and other reforms imposed by Governor Phips.
26.
This case became a model for, and was referenced in, the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, when the magistrates were looking for proof that spectral evidence could be used in a court of law.
27.
The Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a bill that year formally disallowing spectral evidence, but reversing attainder only for those who had filed petitions, which applied only to John and Elizabeth Proctor, and Rebecca Nurse.
28.
She was the author of six respected investigatory books, including the " The Last Nine Minutes " about a 1974 Paris plane crash and most recently " Spectral Evidence, " exploring truth and repressed memory.
29.
Spectral evidence was testimony that the accused witch's spirit ( i . e . " spectre " ) appeared to the witness in a dream or vision ( for example, a black cat or wolf ).
30.
Concurrent with the trials in Salem, spectral evidence was also used in a trial in colonial Rhode Island where Thomas Cornell, Jr ., son of Thomas Cornell, was convicted of matricide in what was likely an accidental death.
