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The delusion of being affected by an apparatus which emanates a controlling influence on one's thoughts and actions is a well-known schizophrenic thought formation. The classic paper on the subject was published by Victor Tausk in 1919 (4). In it he details the most frequently encountered characteristics of the influencing machine:
1It may make the patient see pictures.
2It may produce thoughts or feelings by means of waves, rays or mysterious forces, or it may "drain off" thoughts or feelings.
3It may produce a variety of motor phenomena, such as erections, clitoral movements, twitchings of limbs, etc.
4It may be responsible for physical illnesses like cutaneous eruptions, abcesses, etc.
5The purpose of the machine is usually to torture the patient, and it is operated by enemies.
6The operator is exclusively of the male sex and predominantly a physician by whom the patient has been previously treated.
7The patient can never explain the nature of the machine itself.
8Physical and ideational psychotic experiences always appear first. The patient then ascribes these to some outsider. The delusion of the influencing machine seems to originate in the patient's need for causality. Its appearance marks what is already a late stage in the evolution of the schizophrenic process.