The Three Christs of Ypsilanti

by Milton Rokeach

  We, the workers for the world, will keep on going, and, one beautiful day, there will not be an enemy left.

  This beautiful day will never come soon enough.

  I’ll see you in the next report.

  So long, I feel much better, thank you.

  —RICK MOODY

  [1]Pseudonyms all.

  [2]See, for example, page 62.

  [3]There are more devastating missed connections with this fictitious wife, but I’ll leave them to the reader to discover.

  Preface

  THE ACCOUNT presented herein concerns three men, all of whom claimed the same identity, and tells what happened in the two years they lived together. The report describes a scientific research project, but it is also a story worth telling in its own right. In many of its readers it may well provoke anxiety and tension; to most of us it seems a terrible thing for a person not to know who he really is. This is the only study on which I have ever worked that has aroused the interest of children. I shall never forget my neighbor’s children running after me to inquire whether the three men who had lost their identities and believed themselves to be Christ had made any progress in finding out who they really were.

  I have tried to tell this story in sufficient detail so that other behavioral scientists will find it useful for purposes other than those discussed in Chapters I, XI, and XIX. At the same time, it must be pointed out that the present account is necessarily a highly selective condensation of a far greater body of material consisting of hundreds of tape recordings, personal notes, case records, reports by research assistants, nurses, and aides, and reports and letters written by the subjects themselves.

  This project could never have been carried to a completion without the support, active co-operation, and encouragement of many individuals and institutions. I am happy to acknowledge my deep gratitude to the Social Science Research Council for its support through a Faculty Research Fellowship in 1960. This was supplemented by Michigan State University through a special grant from its Development Fund and also through additional annual grants from its All-University Research Fund.

  I am happy also to acknowledge the unstinting co-operation and encouragement of Vernon A. Stehman, M.D., Deputy Director of the Department of Mental Health in the state of Michigan, and of the psychiatric staff at Ypsilanti State Hospital. I am especially grateful to three psychiatrists under whose direction this work was carried out: O. R. Yoder, M.D., Medical Superintendent; Kenneth B. Moore, M.D., Clinical Director; and his successor, Alexander P. Dukay, M.D. Thanks are also due to Drs. John Olariu and Walter A. Brovins, resident psychiatrists, and to many nurses and aides, especially Caroline Gervais and Henry Westbrook.

  This work engaged the services of a number of research assistants for various periods of time. I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to them. Dr. Richard Bonier, Dr. Ronald A. Hoppe, Doris Raisenen, and Cheryl Normington worked on the study during the summer of 1959. Dr. Mark Spivak worked with me from September 1959 to October 1960. His extensive experience in the application of social-psychological theory and research in the mental-hospital setting was invaluable to me. Mary Lou Anderson worked with me from October 1960 until the termination of the project. The crucial role she played is recorded more fully in several chapters of this book.

  I wish to acknowledge further my deep indebtedness to Dinny Kell, who listened to all the tape recordings and prepared sensitive summaries of each. I have benefited greatly from many discussions I have had with her about the material, although we sometimes disagreed about interpretation.

  I alone must bear full responsibility for the experimental procedures employed and for the interpretations set forth in this work.

  It was my good fortune to spend the academic year 1961–62 as a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavorial Sciences. I wrote the present report in this scholarly and idyllic center of learning overlooking Stanford University. But my good fortune did not end here. Miriam Gallaher, of the Center staff, patiently showed me the many ways in which it was possible to communicate to the reader the drama of research without sacrificing scientific accuracy or integrity. Whatever literary merit this work possesses is due in large part to her editorial judgment and wisdom.

  I have also richly profited from my association with Professors David Krech and Richard S. Crutchfield, consulting editors for Knopf publications in psychology, and with Nancy E. Gross, Knopf’s trade editor. The final revision of this manuscript was a happy experience for me because I had the benefit of their many thoughtful and painstaking editorial suggestions.

  Finally, I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to Anna Tower, of the Center staff, and also to Alice Lawrence and Dixie Knoebel, of Michigan State University, for relieving me of all the cumbersome concerns connected with the preparation of this manuscript for publication.

  MILTON ROKEACH

  East Lansing, Michigan

  July 1, 1963

  THE THREE CHRISTS OF YPSILANTI

  TO THREE MEN

  WHO WILL HEREIN BE CALLED

  Clyde Benson

  Joseph Cassel

  Leon Gabor

  “Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.”

  BERTRAND RUSSELL

  Power

  Prologue

  THE ENCOUNTER

  THE THREE CHRISTS met for the first time in a small room off the large ward where they live. The date was July 1, 1959. All three had been transferred to Ward D-23 of Ypsilanti State Hospital a few days before and had been assigned to adjacent beds, a shared table in the dining hall, and similar jobs in the laundry room.

  It is difficult to convey my exact feelings at that moment. I approached the task with mixed emotions: curiosity and apprehension, high hopes for what the research project might reveal and concern for the welfare of the three men. Initially, my main purpose in bringing them together was to explore the processes by which their delusional systems of belief and their behavior might change if they were confronted with the ultimate contradiction conceivable for human beings: more than one person claiming the same identity. Subsequently, a second purpose emerged: an exploration of the processes by which systems of belief and behavior might be changed through messages purporting to come from significant authorities who existed only in the imaginations of the delusional Christs. These purposes were intimately connected with my own special field of interest in psychology. I am not a psychiatrist or a psychoanalyst, whose primary concerns are psychopathology and psychotherapy. My training is in social psychology and personality theory, and it is this background that led me to my meeting with the three Christs.

  I began the meeting by saying that for the next few months we would all be working together in the hope that they would feel better and that each of them would come to a better understanding of himself. Pointing to the tape recorder, I asked if they had any objections to its use. They offered none; all of them were familiar with it from prior interviews.

  The room in which we were meeting was a high-ceilinged, rectangular antechamber off the main recreation hall of D-23, one of several ordinarily used by patients to receive visitors. Arranged against the four bare walls were a dozen or so heavy wooden straight-backed chairs, and a matching wooden table, which we had moved from its position in the center of the room to give us more space. Two shadeless windows, the lower portion of which could be opened slightly for ventilation, looked out on the paved, tree-lined street that runs the length of the hospital grounds. Directly across the street one could see another brown-brick building which looked like the mirror image of D building.

  I suggested that we identify ourselves one by one, and to break the ice I introduced myself first. Next my research assistants—who were to be the three Christs’ constant companions from early morning until bedtime—offered their names. Then, turning to Joseph, I proposed that he introduce himself.

  Joseph was fifty-eight and had been hospitalized for almost two
decades. Of medium height and build, bald, and with half his front teeth missing, he somehow gave the impression of impishness. Perhaps this was due to the fact that, along with his wide grin, one noticed his bulging shirt and pants pockets filled to overflowing with various and sundry belongings: eyeglasses, books, magazines, letters, large white rags trailing from his pockets (he used them for handkerchiefs), cigarette papers, tobacco, pens, pencils.

  “My name is Joseph Cassel.”

  —Joseph, is there anything else you want to tell us?—

  “Yes. I’m God.”

  Clyde introduced himself next. He was seventy and had been hospitalized for seventeen years. Clyde was over six feet tall and, despite the fact that he was all but toothless, stated, whenever asked, that he was in excellent health—and he was. He spoke indistinctly, in a low, rumbling, resonant voice. He was very hard to understand.

  “My name is Clyde Benson. That’s my name straight.”

  —Do you have any other names?—

  “Well, I have other names, but that’s my vital side and I made God five and Jesus six.”

  —Does that mean you’re God?—

  “I made God, yes. I made it seventy years old a year ago. Hell! I passed seventy years old.”

  Leon was the last to introduce himself. Of the three, he looked the most like Christ. He was thirty-eight and had been committed five years before. Tall, lean, of ascetic countenance and intensely earnest expression, he walked silently, erectly, and with great dignity, often holding his hands in front of him, one hand resting gently on the other, palms up. When sitting, he held himself upright in his chair and gazed intently ahead. In his white coat and white trousers, he was indeed an imposing figure. When he spoke, his words flowed clearly, unhesitatingly, and often eloquently. Leon denied his real name vigorously, referring to it as his “dupe” name, and refusing to co-operate or have anything to do with anyone who used it in addressing him. We all called him Rex.

  “Sir,” Leon began, “it so happens that my birth certificate says that I am Dr. Domino Dominorum et Rex Rexarum, Simplis Christianus Pueris Mentalis Doktor. [This is all the Latin Leon knows: Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, Simple Christian Boy Psychiatrist.] It also states on my birth certificate that I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and I also salute, and I want to add this. I do salute the manliness in Jesus Christ also, because the vine is Jesus and the rock is Christ, pertaining to the penis and testicles; and it so happens that I was railroaded into this place because of prejudice and jealousy and duping that started before I was born, and that is the main issue why I am here. I want to be myself. I do not consent to their misuse of the frequency of my life.”

  —Who are “they” that you are talking about?—

  “Those unsound individuals who practice the electronic imposition and duping. I am working for my redemption. And I am waiting patiently and peacefully, sir, because what has been promised to me I know is going to come true. I want to be myself; I don’t want this electronic imposition and duping to abuse me and misuse me, make a robot out of me. I don’t care for it.”

  —Did you want to say something, Joseph?—

  “He says he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ,” Joseph answered. “I can’t get it. I know who I am. I’m God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, and if I wasn’t, by gosh, I wouldn’t lay claim to anything of the sort. I’m Christ. I don’t want to say I’m Christ, God, the Holy Ghost, Spirit. I know this is an insane house and you have to be very careful.”

  “Mr. Cassel—” Leon tried to interrupt.

  But Joseph continued: “I know what I’ve done! I’ve engineered the affairs of the stronghold in a new world here, the British province. I’ve done my work. I was way down, way down. I was way, way up. I’ve engineered, by God! I’ve taken psychiatrics. And nobody came to me and kissed my ass or kissed me or shook hands with me and told me about my work. No, sir! I don’t tell anybody that I’m God, or that I’m Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. I know what I am now and I know what I’m going to be. This is an insane house.”

  “Don’t generalize …” Leon interrupted.

  “I know who I am and I haven’t got a hell of a lot of power right now,” Joseph went on. “Christ! I do my work. The only thing I can do is carry on. I know what I am.”

  “Mr. Cassel, please!” Leon said. “I didn’t agree with the fact that you were generalizing and calling all people insane in this place. There are people here who are not insane. Each person is a house. Please remember that.”

  “This is an insane hospital, nevertheless,” Joseph insisted.

  “My belief is my belief and I don’t want your belief, and I’m just stating what I believe,” Leon said.

  “I know who I am.”

  “I don’t want to take it away from you,” Leon said. “You can have it. I don’t want it.”

  —Clyde, what do you think?—

  “I represent the resurrection. Yeh! I’m the same as Jesus. To represent the resurrection … [mumbling and pausing] I am clear … as saint … convert … you ever see. The first standing took me ten years to make it. Ah, forty cars a month. I made forty Christs, forty trucks.”

  —What did you make them out of?—

  “I think that means forty sermons, I think that that’s what it means,” Clyde answered.

  —Well, now, I’m having a little trouble understanding you, Mr. Benson.—

  “Well, you would because you’re probably Catholic and I’m Protestant up to a saint.”

  —Did you say you are God?—

  “That’s right. God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.”

  “I don’t know why the old man is saying that,” Joseph interrupted. He has it on his mind. He’s trying to discharge his mind. It’s all right, it’s all right as far as I’m concerned. He’s trying to take it out of his mind.”

  —Take what out of his mind?—

  “What he just said. He made God and he said he was God and that he was Jesus Christ. He has made so many Jesus Christs.”

  Clyde yelled: “Don’t try to pull that on me because I will prove it to you!”

  “I’m telling you I’m God!” Joseph was yelling, too.

  “You’re not!” Clyde shouted.

  “I’m God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost! I know what I am and I’m going to be what I am!”

  “You’re going to stay and do just what I want you to do!” Clyde said.

  “Oh, no! Oh, no!” Joseph insisted. “You and everybody else will not refrain me from being God because I’m God and I’m going to be God! I was the first in the world and I created the world. No one made me.”

  “There’s something in you, all right,” Clyde said. “I’m the first now to this bank, and Jesus the second. There’s two sides there. I’m on the testament side and the other the old Bible side, and if I wasn’t I couldn’t make, I couldn’t make my credits from up there.”

  As the session ended, Leon—who had been sitting attentive but motionless during the outburst between Joseph and Clyde—protested against the meeting on the grounds that it was “mental torture.” He announced that he was not coming to any more meetings. We had decided in advance that we would not try to make the men do anything against their will, even if it meant abandoning the research project. I hoped Leon would reconsider, however, because the first encounter had served only to arouse my curiosity. The confrontation had turned out to be less stormy than I had expected. Despite Leon’s remark and despite the differences of opinion which had emerged, the three Christs did not seem to be particularly upset as we adjourned. Perhaps they did not fully grasp the extraordinary nature of this confrontation—at least, not in the way we did.

  The next day when I entered the ward and informed the three men it was time for another meeting, Leon offered not the slightest protest. Like Clyde and Joseph, he followed me willingly. To open the session I proposed we resume the discussion where we had left off yesterday, and Clyde responded by repeating substantially what he had said
the day before. Then Joseph picked up with a new thread, gesturing toward Clyde.

  “He raised me up,” Joseph said. “He raised me up in England.”

  —What does that mean—he raised you up?—

  “Well, I died and I was reproduced by him.”

  “Oh, you’re a rerise?” Clyde asked, in wonderment.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I didn’t know that!” Clyde said. “See now, he is a rerise from the cemetery and I didn’t know that.”

  —Now, Joseph, as I understand what you said yesterday, you’re God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost. You created the world. Nobody made you, because you’re God.—

  “That’s correct.”

  —That means everybody was made by you?—

  “Right!”

  —Clyde, did you make the world, too?—

  “Well, I’m going to hold it now. I shoot—I shoot quicker than the devil. Now I’m in business. I won’t monkey with any patients.”

  “I don’t care,” Joseph interrupted. “I know what I am.”

  “I don’t think you do,” said Clyde. “I take all the credit. It takes a lot to rock my sanity. Why, there’s money coming from heaven and from the old country and from the sea of heaven. The carloads, trainloads, and boatloads. It’s seventy-seven hundred cars a mile and that runs from Upper Stock Lake…. God marked eight of our trails himself.”

  —Rex, what do you think of all this business?—

  “Sir, I sincerely acknowledge that they are hollowed-out instrumental gods,” Leon answered. “That’s my sincere belief.”

  —Are you an instrumental god, Joseph?—