Yale historian John Demos (raise your hand if you read "A LIttle Commonwealth" in college!) writes in the WSJ about attempts to posthumously (very posthumously) rehaibilitate an accused witch.

The piece takes a rather interesting turn in its last third. A meditation, with a startling opener:

With the so-called Enlightenment of the later 18th century came a new view of the Almighty; in effect, His presence in human affairs was scaled back. Henceforth His role would be likened to that of a "watchmaker"–essential in "making" the system, to begin with, but since then fixed in a posture of distant oversight. At the same time, and as part of the same process, the Devil too was distanced; indeed, for many in the 19th century and thereafter he was no longer a credible figure at all. Under these altered circumstances, the premodern idea of constant, cosmos-wide, moral warfare–Good vs. Evil, God vs. Satan, with witches as front-line combatants–made less and less sense. Thus was old-style witchcraft squeezed out of American religious culture.

Curiously, though, a new-style witchcraft has emerged in just the past few decades. Wicca is the name it usually claims for itself; and it does claim, too, the status of a religion. Its workings include: ecstatic communion with Nature and other intrinsic spiritual forces; "covens" of enthused believers making "good magic"; and the invocation of numerous benevolent gods (especially a "great Goddess"). Call it witchcraft with a smiling face.

But was Grace Sherwood smiling as she broke the surface of the river? And were her accusers smiling as they stood closely by? Not a chance. For all of them the moment was literally "dread-ful": intense, darkly mysterious, laden with anxious foreboding. Would the Devil be there to hold her up? And what might God himself be planning, as he looked down on this, their most earnest effort to unmask his (and their own) worst adversaries?