The Kabbalah as well as the Talmud contain full accounts of a kingdom of hell, opposed to the heavenly kingdom, with Smaal as head of all satanism or evil spirits, defying Jehovah. The latter are allowed to dwell upon earth side by side with the sons of Adam, and occasionally to possess them and to live in their souls as in a home of their own. In other cases it was the spirit of a deceased person which, condemned for sins committed during life to wander about as a demon, received permission to enter the soul of a living being. The New Testament mentions at least seven cases of possession, from the woman whose suffering was simply ascribed to the Devil's agency, to Mary Magdalene who was relieved of seven demons, and the Gadarene, who had a "legion" of devils. The Catholic Church also has always taught the existence of evil spirits; doctrinal works, however, mention only one, Diabolus or Satanas. Although the Church adheres consistently to the theory of actual possession, it teaches that demons cannot wholly take possession of a human soul, but only force it to obedience or accept voluntary submission. Hence their power over the body also never becomes absolute, but is always shared with the soul of the sufferer. Among Protestants many orthodox believers look upon possession as a mere delusion practised by the Evil One; others admit its existence, but attribute it to the souls of deceased persons and not to demons. This was the doctrine of the ancient Greeks, who, like the Romans, seem to have known but a few rare cases of possession, which they ascribed to departed spirits. Thus Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius (l. iii. ch. 38), mentions a young man who was for two years possessed by a demon pretending to be the spirit of a soldier killed in battle. Nearly all nations on earth have records of possession. Thus cases occurring in China and Japan and in the Indies are attributed to the influence of certain deities, as the Hindoos know neither a hell nor a devil. Early travelers, like Blom and Rochefort, report, in like manner, that in some of the islands of the Caribbean Sea evil spirits are believed to obtain at times possession of women and then to enable them to foretell the future. According to Ellis the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands were much plagued by evil spirits dwelling in some of their brethren. It was only towards the latter part of the last century that possession was found to be nothing more than a peculiar disease arising from the combination of an unsound mind with an unsound body. This discovery was first made by Farmer in England, and by Semler in Germany; since that time the symptoms of the character of the affection have been very generally studied and thoroughly investigated.