This series contains adult language and depictions of graphic violence.

Listener discretion is advised. It was a land carved from the wilderness, a place where the settlers of New England had sought refuge from the corruptions of Europe.

In their hearts, they believed they were God's chosen people.

Destined to build a shining city on a hill,

a beacon of righteousness in an untamed world.

The Puritans who founded towns like Salem, Boston, and Abington were fiercely devout. Their lives governed by a strict moral code, their every action

weighed against the Word of God.

But the wilderness was vast and unforgiving and in those dense forests ancient forces stirred

The settlers for all their faith could not escape the feeling that they weren't alone in this new land.

There were whispers of the unknown, of spirits and forces older than their religion

lurking in the shadows of those forests.

And as they struggled to tame the wild, their minds ever attuned to the unseen battles between

good and evil began to play tricks on them.

It was in this world of fear and religious fervor that the story of the Goodwin family unfolded, a story of possession, of dark forces that

invaded their quiet homestead and turned their lives upside down.

It's a story that would later serve as a precursor to the

infamous Salem witch trials, casting a long shadow over the fragile hearts and

minds of the Puritan settlers.

Welcome back to the Devil Within.

You're listening to the Goodwin possession.

John Goodwin was not an extraordinary man. He was like so many others in the Massachusetts Bay colony, a husband, a father, and a farmer, a very modest means.

He'd come to the new world seeking religious freedom and a place to raise his family in peace, far from the political and

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