A missionary among the New Zealanders says, "There is a class of people in New Zealand, called by the natives Areekee, and whom we very improperly call Priests. These men pretend to have intercourse with departed spirits, by which they are able to kill, by incantation, any person on whom their anger may fall. And it is a fact, that numbers fall a prey to their confidence in the efficacy of the curses of these men, and pine under the influence of despair, and die."

In less than fifteen years after the trial of the pretensions of Mesmer and his coadjutors, in regard to magnetism, there was originated in America, by a Mr. Perkins, a cause of delusion of precisely the same nature. It prevailed in all the United States, in Great Britain, Scotland, and Ireland, and to considerable extent on the continent of Europe. Mr. Perkins prepared two small pieces of diff. . . Read More