Edgar Allen Poe's validity and reliability on the Spanish Inquisition can be made clearly through the text in "The Pit and the Pendulum". The narrator is valid because his story relates to the history of the Spanish Inquisition but unreliable because of his mental state. The Koch Blog says, " During the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, several thousand new Christians were condemned..." The narrator in the story was judged, put through hell, and tortured enough that he just wanted to end his life. As John Calvin states, "The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul."