[Ignatius of Loyola--gifted or mentally ill?].

Subsequent to a severe injury and under the influence of religious reading, Loyola experienced a dramatic mental change in his spiritual values in the sense of a sublimation to an alternative knighthood. His behaviour patterns observed thereafter were determined by a totality of his attachment to God. Based on this certainty in his faith, which was free from any doubts, and on God, and with the background of fasting and praying, he had visionary and pseudo-hallucinatory experiences. As the founder of an order and head of the community of Jesuits, Ignatius of Loyola proved to be diplomatically highly talented. There is no evidence of any psychotic disease. Also, there is no probability of a personality disorder in the sense of a neurosis. The numerous unusual behaviour patterns of Ignatius cannot be interpreted as psychopathological symptoms. It is justified to call him a genius.