ABSTRACT
There is an unusual experience which comes under many names—‘verbal and auditory hallucinations’, ‘hearing voices’ and ‘divine signs’ being just three of them. It has always been relatively uncommon, and today fewer than 5 per cent of the population will hear voices regularly at first hand and even then it is not an everyday happening, like, say, talking, thinking or imagining. The experience has been noted for more than 2,000 years, and the league of voice hearers is impressive. Pythagoras was a voice hearer, and Socrates heard a daemon nobody else could hear, and this daemon guided his actions. Voices were implicated in religious conversions of St Augustine and Hildegard of Bingen but they are by no means always mystical matters. They can figure in the bereavement process — Galileo, for instance, heard the voice of his dead daughter. Voices are not always benign, however, and they can be frightening experiences—Daniel Paul Schreber's voices boomed abuse at him and threatened him. Voices are relatively common in schizophrenia and they can be consequences of sexual abuse in childhood. Some voice hearers report that voices try to induce them to harm themselves or others. But then, as we shall document, there are voices which are resolutely mundane—Socrates heard the voice telling him which route to take to his friend's house.
