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474. If there be no such thing as "possession", in the ordinary sense of that term,-that is to say, cohabitation of two spirits in the same body--is it possible for one soul to find itself dominated, subjugated, obsessed by another soul to such a point as that its will is, so to say, paralyzed?
"Yes; and it is this domination which really constitutes what you call possession. But you must understand that this domination is never established without the participation of the spirit who is subjected to it, either through his weakness or his free-will. Men have often mistaken for cases of possession what were really cases of epilepsy or madness, demanding the help of the physician rather than of the exorciser."
The word possession, in its common acceptation, presupposes the existence of demons, that is to say, of a category of beings of a nature essentially evil, and the cohabitation of one of those beings with the soul of a man in the body of the latter. Since there are no such beings as demons in the sense just defined, and since two spirits cannot inhabit simultaneously the same body, there is no such thing as "possession" in the sense commonly attributed to that word. The word possessed should only be understood as expressing the state of absolute subjection to which a soul in flesh may be reduced by the imperfect spirits under whose domination it has fallen.