I know that near-all accused were entirely innocent of any wrongdoing, and that the stories surrounding the alleged "witches" were largely the result of a mix of hysteria, folklore, and outright lies, but I'm wondering if there are any accounts to suggest anybody living in the area at the time was in fact engaging in some kind of non-Christian mysticism, folk magic, and/or the occult.
Given that magical practices have endured throughout human history, I'm just curious as to whether any were in fact taking place in or around Salem at the time of the witch trials.
(And, just for clarification, I'm not asking about practices that may have been used by puritans to counter the acts of perceived witches; such as the use of witch bottles or similar - I'm specifically asking about practices that would have been condemned by the witch hunters and their supporters at the time, or otherwise would have fallen outside the norm of spiritual practices).
Looking for any and all insights you guys might have. Thanks :)
I'm currently in PhD student hell trying to get a paper written, so I'll give a shorter answer here, but I also answered a similar question a while back that you can find here. Is it procrastinating if my paper is also on Salem?
There actually were a lot of people who used fortune telling in the 17th century, despite general opposition by Puritan leaders. However, no society can stop all folklore so a lot of different kinds of acts occurred. Two of the executed victims explicitly told fortunes and similar acts. You can check out the case file of Samuel Wardwell where he faced accusations of fortune telling such as "I heard him tell James Bridges his fortune: that he love a girl at fourteen years old which said Bridges owned to be the truth, but could not imagine how said Wardwell knew for he never spoke of it." [I'm adapting the spelling and punctuation to make primary source quotations more readable throughout the answer.] Wardwell did confess to witchcraft but recanted at his trial. His wife and children were also named as suspects but survived.
Rebecca Johnson admitted to using a sieve to see if her brother Moses were dead or alive. "If the sieve turned he was dead, and so the sieve did turn, And my Daughter said that Mr. Bernard told her the way The words used were, By Saint Peter & Saint Paul, if Haggat be dead Let this sieve turn round; & so it did." Note- her brother was not dead, but this shows how common fortune telling was. in the region. People shared tricks since they lived in a world of wonders where the physical and supernatural interacted frequently. Johnson denied being a witch, but there were Andover suspects who confessed. In some cases, people, especially women, confessed thinking that although they did not knowingly give their souls to Satan, they may have accidentally done so- fortune telling like this is likely one of those transgressions that named suspects believed led them astray.
Even in narratives of the witch trials like Rev. John Hale's A Modest Enquiry into the Nature of Witchcraft, he mentions fortune telling. He describes the young girls who started the accusations learning fortune telling with an egg in a glass to see a shape depicting the future occupation of their husband. When one girl looked, she saw " a Specter in likeness of a Coffin" which frightened her into fits and brought on the witchcraft afflictions. This story is likely entirely nonsense made up by Hale following the trials to offer an explanation about what started the afflictions and accusations (side note- it was mostly fraud and lies in a contentious political environment where people believed they constantly faced mortal and supernatural dangers). Regardless of its fact, this story was published in 1697 and used by Hale since it was realistic and a warning. People engaged in a lot of these practices and ministers opposed them, often invoking the supernatural dangers of them.
This example is slightly different from your question, but trust me its relevant. Wilmot Redd also hanged in September 1692, alongside Wardwell. One deponent testified against her saying that Redd cursed Mrs. Simms, " the said Redd told her in my hearing, that she wished that she might never mingere [urinate], nor cacare [defecate], if she did not go, and some short time after the deponent observed that the said Mrs. Simms was taken with the distemper of the dry Bellyache, and so continued many months..." A number of suspects like Redd allegedly cursed people, and if it occurred close enough to something like sickness, crop failure, or a livestock death, people associated the person with the act. These were textbook examples of witchcraft so speculation and rumor harmed reputations and made it likely for these people to be named during the trials.
For further reading, I recommend checking out David Hall's Worlds of Wonder; Days of Judgment for more context on popular religion. You could also look at Damned Women by Elizabeth Reis and Marilynne Roach's books. Kamensky's Governing the Tongue is also a great book, more related to my tangent on Redd.