Jinni possession: A clinical enigma in mental health.

The concept of demonic and especially jinnic possession in causation of mental illness is prevalent in this modern era, both in the developing and the developed world which is evidenced in the literature. Jinni has been described as an entity that is living, but invisible to human beings, can assume various shapes, maintain culture and family and have capability to over power the human brain. This in turn, leads to different manifestations related to mental illness, but having the distinction of not being amenable to medical treatment.1 This concept is described in religious books dating back to the 16th century where two types of mental diseases were differentiated: those caused by natural reasons and those by jinni possession which manifested as hallucinatory diseases or disorders with a queer, unusual and antisocial behaviour, conditions of extreme unrest, vomiting of queer things, prediction of future, and talking foreign languages.2