The Three Christs of Ypsilanti

by Milton Rokeach

  “There is only one.”

  “Sir, according to what the book says, it states that there are two types of god: God Almighty who was spirit without a beginning and without an end—” Leon said.

  “Well, that is the right one.”

  “Sir, I was interrupted,” Leon continued. “I was going to say—there are two types of god. God Almighty, the spirit, without a beginning and without an end. Nobody created God, the God Almighty. Then there are creatures who are instrumental gods. There are some who aren’t hollowed out and there are some who are hollowed out.”

  “As far as your talk—it’s all right,” Clyde said. “Your psychology is all right.”

  “There are two types of psychology,” Leon went on. “I understand your situation pertaining to dying the death and making the person a hollowed-out instrumental god. You are correct there. As far as my understanding from what I have read, and from practical experience, it is that I am a creature and I have a beginning. A human spirit has a beginning and his body has a beginning, pertaining to its life as such; therefore, I cannot say that I am God Almighty, because if I do, I am telling myself a falsehood, and I don’t believe in telling myself a falsehood. I’m a creature, just a human spirit created by God before time existed.”

  —You are a creature, but you are also Christ?—

  “Yes, sir,” Leon answered. “I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the first human spirit.”

  “I think it is one of those things to laugh off,” Joseph said. “All this saying that one is God, one is Jesus Christ, just a matter of laughing about it.”

  Leon looked perplexed and anxious. “Sir, it so happens that I am the person who was the first human creature created, and then he insinuates that he was there beforehand. It’s injustice as far as I’m concerned, but I do respect these gentlemen.”

  —Why do you respect them?—

  “Because they are instrumental gods. It is my belief to respect the devil too, for what he is.”

  —Are you a god, too?—

  “An instrumental god, and so are you, Doctor, as I stated before, sir.”

  Clyde tried to interrupt with unintelligible mumbling, but Leon went on: “Jesus Christ! Let me get a word in, will you, please? I respect them as Jesus Christ.”

  “I AM HIM!” Clyde shouted. “See? Now, understand that!”

  “Man! maybe this is Jesus Christ,” Leon said. “I’m not denying it, sir.”

  “Well, I know your psychology,” Clyde said, “and you are a knick-knacker, and in your Catholic church in North Bradley and in your education, and I know all of it—the whole thing. I know exactly what this fellow does. In my credit like I do from up above, that’s the way it works.”

  “As I was stating before I was interrupted,” Leon went on, “it so happens that I was the first human spirit to be created with a glorified body before time existed.”

  “Ah, well, he is just simply a creature, that’s all,” Joseph put in. “Man created by me when I created the world—nothing else.”

  —Did you create Clyde, too?—

  “Uh-huh. Him and a good many others.”

  At this, Clyde laughed.

  “That doesn’t sound right to me,” Leon said. “I believe his habeas corpus in front of his face, that living cosmic parchment, states a person is what he is, and why he is what he is. That is my habeas corpus, sir.”

  —I would like to interrupt to ask a question: Why do you gentlemen suppose you were brought together?—

  Leon said: “Sir, I sincerely understand pertaining to reading between the lines, and stay behind the scenes. And I realize that those people who bring patients together to have one abuse the other through depressing—is not sound psychological reasoning deduction. Meaning a person who is set in his way, there is nobody on earth … God cannot change a person, either, because God Almighty respects free will; therefore, this man is so-and-so and I’m so-and-so, and on those merits to try to brainwash, what they call it, organic cosmics through the meeting of patients one against the other—that is not sound psychological deduction also. Therefore I give credit to those gentlemen where credit is due, and when a person speaks the truth it makes that person free. Meaning the other person cannot go against that person and try to take away a righteous conscience.”

  —Now are we all, are you, speaking the truth?—

  “Yes, sir, I definitely am,” Leon answered.

  —Is Joseph speaking the truth?—

  “Sir, he is an instrumental god. I respect him for that because I know he is a creature and a creature cannot be God Almighty.”

  —And Clyde?—

  “Sir, pertaining to his experience as being, of becoming, hollowed out, but becoming an instrumental god six times and Jesus Christ six times, that I admit.”

  “That don’t mean anything,” Clyde said. “I’m not hollowed out. Not hollowed out at all!”

  “Mr. Benson, sir,” Leon said, “you’re afraid to face the fact that on the merit you think I am taking something away from you whereas I’m not. I’m giving you something that is a reality in itself.”

  “I know what I am,” Joseph said. “I’m God, Christ, the Holy Ghost. If there is any opposition it’s just a matter of—just laugh it off—to laugh the opposition off.”

  —Joseph, why do you think we are all here together?—

  “Well, it’s just a matter to assemble and a discussion about my being God, and then to laugh it off, to laugh the opposition off.”

  —Is that why you think you were brought together?—

  “This is a hospital,” Joseph answered. “This is a visiting strong-hold, and it’s for the purpose of what I just said, that I’m God and the opposition is being laughed off.”

  —Clyde, why do you think you were brought here together?—

  After mumbling about ranches, kingdoms, riches, Clyde answered: “I own the hospital—the whole thing.”

  Meanwhile, Leon had been holding his head as if in pain. —Do you have a headache, Rex?—

  “No, I don’t, sir, I was ‘shaking it off,’ sir. Cosmic energy, refreshing my brain. When I grab cosmic energy from the bottom of my feet to my brain, it refreshes my brain. The doctor told me that’s the way I’m feeling, and that is the proper attitude. Oh! Pertaining to the question that you asked these two gentlemen, each one is a little institution and a house—a little world in which some stand in a clockwise direction and some in a counterclockwise, and I believe in a clockwise rotation.”

  —Do you all believe in the same things or in different things?—

  “I stated my belief, sir, and we all disagreed accordingly.”

  The discussion then turned to the question of resurrection. It was pointed out that they all believe they had been resurrected. How many Christs had been resurrected?

  “Only one. Just myself,” Joseph said.

  —Are we all in agreement that there was just one Christ who was resurrected?—

  “By God Almighty, that is correct,” Leon answered.

  “I’m one—not you,” said Clyde. “There’s something wrong with you.”

  “I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” Leon said. “My birth certificate says so; my habeas corpus says so.”

  —Is it possible that there is more than one reincarnation of Jesus Christ?—

  “There is only one that I know of,” Leon stated, “and I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and I was baptized as such, sir, and I have my baptismic certificate, sir, and it’s also in Dr. Yoder’s office if you care to look at it. I believe the others are instrumental gods, the hollowed-out person who became a Jesus Christ through being hollowed out as such.”

  “He is a rerise, he is a hick,” Clyde said. “He is next to me.”

  “I do not approve of duping to get prestige or material or popular gains in all directions,” Leon went on, “and it is also possible that some instrumental false ideas and false instrumental gods got struck dead by my unc
le, or they will kill through heart attacks or through duping.”

  “No!” Clyde said. “There is no false one in my body that has been raised. I got the spirit, the head.”

  “Here I am now and if there are any oppositions the only thing I can say is that I’m going to laugh it off,” Joseph put in.

  “Joseph, I want to give you some information,” Leon said. “The fourth of July is coming, Joseph, and there will be a big fireworks, and there’s going to be a lot of dung carried out of this place. It’s a lot of bodies—disfigured bodies—that are going to be carried out of this place.”

  “Well, I’m going to get out of here,” Joseph said. “I’m going to be dismissed from here and go back to England, and I’ll be awfully glad, because I know I belong to England. I’m from England originally. I want to go back there. I’ve done enough work here. I came here the twentieth of March, 1940, and now it’s 1959. I’ve been here nineteen years. I certainly deserve to be dismissed from this here hospital. I want to go back to England. You can deport me to England to a hospital. They have a hospital in London, don’t they? I worked for England right along. Darn right!”

  And Leon added: “I do not care to discuss any further on the merits that, pertaining to personality, I have cited my side of the story and I do not care to repeat and repeat, but pertaining to truth it pays to repeat. You are a dupe person against me.”

  —Nobody is against you.—

  “Sir, the indirect psychology—with that I agree,” Leon said.

  “Awfully nice!” Joseph commented.

  “Sir, I will not compromise,” Leon went on. “I believe that right is right and wrong is wrong. That’s why I do not care to discuss further, because I have already told the truth pertaining to these gentlemen. That’s my sincere belief. You don’t need any further discussion on my part, sir.”

  “Well, that’s who I am,” Joseph put in. “I know I’m God, Christ, the Holy Spirit. Joseph Cassel, House of England. I worked for England, the English, and I saved the world. It’s all right; there’s nothing wrong. It’s nice, sweet, swell!”

  “On the merits that interferences through duping and electronics are against me,” Leon said, “and that’s been going on ever since I was conceived—I found out that I died the death in 1953. In the six years I’ve been here, sir, I know what’s going on. I know what the finality is, how it’s going to terminate. And my uncle promised me that he is going to do the fireworks in a few days and I believe it is very possible that it will be on July fourth, and I’ve been waiting for my redemption for a long time. I know that after he strikes me dead I will be dead for three and a half days. God Almighty will raise me from the dead. That’s the promise I have been given better than six years ago.”

  —Do you still want to be Christ again after you die the death?—

  “I’m still He, and I’m still going to try my enemies through death, sir,” was Leon’s answer. “Sir, if you will excuse me, I do not care to sit in on any more discussions.”

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER I

  THE PROBLEM OF IDENTITY

  LET ME EMPHASIZE at the outset that my main purpose in bringing the three Christs together was scientific—the end result of investigations in which, as a social psychologist, I had a long-standing interest. On the theoretical side, these investigations concerned a problem basic to an understanding of human personality—the nature of the systems of belief that people hold. How do these systems develop? What functions do they serve? Why are some relatively open and others relatively closed? Under what circumstances can a system of belief—especially a closed system—be changed? If a system of belief does change, by what process does it do so? When it changes, does it change all at once or gradually? If it changes gradually, what sequence does the change follow? And is this sequence accidental or has it a definite pattern?[1]

  These questions are not easy to answer in view of the fact that a grown person has tens of thousands of beliefs, organized somehow into a unified system, and generally highly resistant to change.

  The present investigation is based on three simple assumptions. (1) Not all the beliefs a person holds are of equal importance to him; beliefs range from central to peripheral. (2) The more central—or, in our terminology, the more primitive—a belief, the more it will resist change. (3) If a primitive belief is somehow changed, the repercussions in the rest of the system will be wide—far wider than those produced by change in a peripheral belief.

  These assumptions are not unlike those made by the atomic physicist, who conceives of the atom as made up of electrons spinning in orbit around a central nucleus composed of particles held together in a stable structure. It is in the nucleus that the vast energy of the atom is contained; when this energy is released—through a process such as fission or fusion—the structures of the nucleus and of the atom itself are dramatically changed. If this analogy holds, primitive beliefs are the nucleus of any system of beliefs; if they can be made to change, the entire system will be altered.

  By what criteria can one decide which of a person’s countless beliefs are primitive? The essential factor is that they are taken for granted: a person’s primitive beliefs represent the basic truths he holds about physical reality, social reality, and himself and his own nature. Like all beliefs, conscious or unconscious, they have a personal aspect: they are rooted in the individual’s experience and in the evidence of his senses. Like all beliefs, they also have a social aspect: with regard to every belief a person forms, he also forms some notion of how many other people have the experience and the knowledge necessary to share it with him, and of how close the agreement is among this group. Unlike other beliefs, however, primitive beliefs are normally not open to discussion or controversy. Either they do not come up in conversation because everyone shares them and everyone takes them for granted, or, if they do come up, they are virtually unassailable by outside forces. The criterion of social support is totally rejected; it is as if the individual said: “Nobody else could possibly know or have experienced what I have.” Or, to quote a popular refrain: “Nobody knows the troubles I’ve seen.”

  A person’s primitive beliefs thus lie at the very core of his total system of beliefs, and they represent the subsystem in which he has the heaviest emotional commitment.

  I believe this is a table is the statement of a primitive belief about the physical world which finds complete social support. I believe this is my mother illustrates a similar belief about the social world. I believe I am of medium height, male, blond, and in my early forties is the statement of a cluster of primitive beliefs about the physical attributes of the self which finds complete social support. I believe my name is so-and-so, of such and such race, nationality, and religion, represents a cluster of primitive beliefs about the self in relation to the social world; it, too, is supported by total consensus among those in a position to know. Of course, not everyone is in a position to know. We would not expect a newborn baby to recognize a table when he sees one, or a stranger to know me or my mother. But, except for those not in a position to know, we expect everyone to recognize and acknowledge who and what we are. As Erik H. Erikson, the noted psychoanalyst, points out: “The conscious feeling of having a personal identity is based on two simultaneous observations: the immediate perception of one’s selfsameness and continuity in time; and the simultaneous perception of the fact that others recognize one’s sameness and continuity.”[2]

  Another way of describing primitive beliefs about physical reality, the social world, and the self is in terms of object constancy, person constancy, and self constancy. Even though I see this object—a rectangular table, for example—from many angles, each of which changes the appearance and shape of the table, I continue to believe that it is a table and that it is rectangular. Object constancy, moreover, is not merely a sensory phenomenon, as many perception psychologists have believed. It is a social phenomenon as well, developed in childhood side by side with person constancy. The child learns that objec
ts maintain their identity, and also that other people experience physical objects as he does. Thus, two sets of primitive beliefs develop together, one about the constancy of physical objects and the other about the constancy of people with respect to physical objects.

  Object constancy and person constancy both serve important functions for the growing child. They create within him a basic trust that the physical world will stay put, and also that people can at the very least be depended on to react to physical objects as he does.[3] It is as if nature and society had co-operated to provide him with a minimum guarantee of stability on the basis of which to build his own sense of self constancy.

  Actually, the child seems to need and to strive for far more person constancy than is provided by the fact that people constantly experience physical objects as he does. A child depends on his mother to remain his mother—with the pattern of behavior and all the feelings that the word implies—and on his family and social groups to remain his family and social groups no matter what variations of situation he finds them in.

  It may be supposed that any inexplicable disruption of these taken-for-granted constancies—physical or social or self—would lead a person to question the validity of his senses, his competence to cope with reality, or even his sanity. Put another way, violation of any primitive belief supported by unanimous consensus should lead ultimately to a disruption of beliefs about self constancy or the sense of one’s identity, and from this, other disturbances should follow.

  As Helen Merrell Lynd writes in On Shame and the Search for Identity: “[The child’s] developing sense of himself and the developing sense of the world about him increase concurrently. Expectation and having expectation met are crucial in developing a sense of coherence in the world and in oneself.

  “Sudden experience of a violation of expectation, of incongruity between expectation and outcome, results in a shattering of trust in oneself, even in one’s own body and skill and identity, and in the trusted boundaries or framework of the society and the world one has known. As trust in oneself and in the outer world develop together, so doubt of oneself and of the outer world are also intermeshed …