Dybbuk refers to spirit possession among Jews and has been reported since the sixteenth century. This study was based on the analysis of sixty-three cases over four hundred years. The author discusses spirit possession in terms of individual motivation and societal restraints. He found that the dybbuk idiom provided a means by which forbidden sexual wishes could be symbolized and expressed in way that decreased their threat both to the individual and to the community. The author also found non-sexual forbidden desires expressed by dybbuk. Exorcism is discussed in terms of strengthening social conformity and reinforcing social control over deviance. Dybbuk phenomena appear in traditional communities which exert extensive control over their members. Those individuals who fill the social role of the one possessed are probably hysterics, he concludes. Dybbuk should be considered an example of a culture-specific syndrome.