The authors set out to verify Freud's hypothesis that paranoid psychotic symptoms develop as a defense against unconscious homosexual impulses, by testing four deduced consequences: 1, paranoid patients would be preoccupied with homosexual thoughts and wishes; 2, the persecutory object would be of the same sex; 3, they would show religious preoccupation; and 4, their delusions and hallucinations would show prominent sexual content. Material was drawn from the psychiatric records of one hundred fifty cases of paranoid schizophrenia and one hundred fifty nonparanoid controls. The first three consequences were strongly verified, the fourth equivocally, partly because comparison with a nondelusional control group was impossible. Since the coexistence of homosexuality and paranoid symptoms does not of itself prove a causal relationship, the authors feel that, despite their findings, Freud's hypothesis cannot be regarded as verified without further studies.