just my personal opinion....I think there is more to at least some percentage of hearing voices cases than mental illness....I don't know what the percentage might be....but I've seen enough cases and accounts that resemble these others I've seen that started from spirit communication.
This is something that I hope is looked into further someday.....as I think there's a connection there.
Sometimes to, you'll find cases where people start hearing voices after drug use....but the voices remain even after the person quits drugs. Does it in some way shatter our blinders or make us more open to other dimensions or planes?
there has been some examination to this.....of course it'll be controversial....but I think there's something to it at least in some cases.
a Doctor named Van Dusen wrote a paper many years back suggesting perhaps a link to something spiritual (see below) in many hearing voices cases
http://www.searchwithin.org/download...ce_spirits.pdf
These days...there's a retired doctor named Jerry Marzinsky who before he retired, worked with schizophrenia patients for years and came to the conclusion that in some of these cases...it very much seems like the voices are coming from an external source. He has a page on Facebook called The Presence of Other Worlds in Schizophrenia
He believes the voices may be some type of parasitic spiritual entity that feeds off of negative emotional energy
here's an interview with him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbhF4UhEeF8
I think he's on to something....at least in some of these cases.
Take Care,
Brian