A lot of possession cases include the production of hysterical ailments. The person accused in a desire to attract attention and sympathy will readily cast an accusation to justify its own delirium.

While the paranoiac develops a distrust and fear of a particular person and then invents his injuries, the hysteric produces symptoms of injury and only then casts out around for a scapegoat on which the blame can be laid.

It seems possible that in some cases the hysteric is not completely unconscious about the origin of his self-induced afflictions and therefore finds it necessary to have a good explanation for himself.

There was little realization, in the centuries of persecution, that vomiting pains, disturbance of the senses, impotence, paralysis and fits could be hysterical and psychosomatic ailments. 

Usually believed by the subject himself to be genuine, they are provoked by the sufferer’s own fear and desire for attention rather than any organic interference.