The Three Christs of Ypsilanti

by Milton Rokeach

  October 12. At the group meeting, Leon elaborates on the wedding banquet. There will be all types of food, including undertaker’s food, which is cut-off penis and testicles. He says he plans to keep an “open table” when he joins his wife in Hawaii. Day and night, people will come to visit and eat at this table.

  October 25. Leon writes the longest letter to date to his “light brothers”; it contains ideas we have not previously encountered. It begins: “In the spirit of ‘truthful energetic happiness’ I joyfully will to say some important things which will come to pass concerning myself,” and goes on to make the following points:

  1. Leon is about to “shake off so many hundred units of electronic duping imposition.”

  2. The highest form of blood genes are Yeti genes. The Yeti people are not stained with original sin. Leon identifies himself as a member of the Yeti people. He describes their eating habits: “Yeti people love rat meat and so do I. They frenzy a rat cosmically—shoot it, stamp, grab, squeeze, bite the head off the rat, drain the blood, eat them raw, fur and all.” He emphasizes that Yeti people “do not eat people, they eat rodents!”

  3. His light brother’s dupe name is Joseph Gabor. Joseph Gabor is in fact the name of Leon’s uncle—his father’s brother.

  4. He is apparently about to divorce his wife the Virgin Mary and marry her off to his light brother, Joseph Gabor. He recalls his light brother Joseph[2] saying: “I know I shall be killed for asking and taking your potential virginal wife for my wife, because you Rex, sir, do not believe in divorce, but I will do it fully knowing the consequences, and I assure you, sir, I will take good care of her.” Leon then expresses gratitude to Joseph for his “self-sacrifice to make Dr. Blessed Virgin Mary of Nazareth happy.”

  5. At his wedding banquet he will give of his seed to some of his light sisters of the Yeti people, “none penis injection, through a thistle tube. There will be no bodily contact.”

  6. The Virgin Mary is married to his light brother Joseph. “My dear Righteous idealed light brother and your wife Dr. Blessed Virgin Mary of Nazareth,” he writes, “please come visit me at Ypsilanti State Hospital at your convenience. Bring some cooked or relished rat meat sandwiches. I would like to rejoice with you, if I may ask, bring a few Bankers Choice cigars also.”

  October 30. I ask Leon if he is married. He replies that he is betrothed, but not married to the Virgin Mary. He adds that his uncle said he could get a wife from the Yeti if he wanted to. Leon is unusually relaxed as he discusses his relations to the Yeti people.

  November 8. Leon announces that his home town is in the Himalaya Mountains, home of the righteous idealed Yeti people. November 10. Leon’s preoccupation with his identity and his gradual identification with the Yeti people again emerge in a letter:

  Dear “Righteous idealed light brother” husband of Dr. Blessed Virgin Mary of Nazareth, in the name of manliness the penis and testicles Jesus Christ our instrumental lord. I ask you Sir and as you Sir said you Sir will do me “Justice” against the dupe name Leon M. Gabor who used to live at [address] and put the correction acknowledgement paper’(s) through the proper law channel, and I do denounce the dupe name Leon M. Gabor imposed upon me against my will, and I denounce such forever, because my instrumental “Devine Habeas Corpus” living cosmic parchment in front of my face “Says” I was baptised Dr. Domino Dominorum et Rex rexarum Simplus Christianus Puer Mentalis Doktor Jesus Christ of Nazareth (re-incarnation of), the “Old Man” and so I will to be called forever.

  November 21, Leon begins another long letter, which he finishes on December 20. It is addressed to his Yeti people and opens with his thanks for their visit to him when he was thirteen years old and near death because the “Old Witch” had put arsenic into his food and drink. His foster father, who had previously been a white dove, becomes a rat in this letter: “Some people started calling me a ‘rat’ not differentiating my human soul from the fact that my human body is a part evolution conception through the seed of our foster father a ‘Righteous idealed Jeriboa rat.”’ He associates the Yeti people with royalty, England, and tremendous power. “Our beloved couple royal Yeti light brother and sister, I mean Sir Prince Charles the commoner and his foster sister wife Madam Princess Anne, of England, as I read in the paper that they let off some healthy instinctive steam typical of Yeti blood and wrecked part of Bukingham palace. As for me I know that—that—healthy—instinctive steam shall be brought out of me during your Olympic festivities—lifting and shot put throwing, of mountain boulder rocks.”

  This is the last we are to hear of Leon’s English light brother and sister. The delusion does not come up again. Neither does the idea that the Yeti people have royal blood. The Yeti delusion itself, however, persists for many months. Leon elaborates on the Yeti.

  The Yeti people are accustomed to eating raw rat meat and their body hair has a lustrous sheen “because of the organic gelatin plastic substance in rodent fur and bones. Our heavenly Father certainly has packed a lot of organic energy heat into the body of the rodent rat. I understand why our home town is located in the high cool mountains.”

  What do the Yeti people stand for? “I am heartily sorry for speaking against and deploring our ‘Righteous idealed Tribal Law’; I now say it is the best ‘Law’ because it is a hundred per cent plus in favor of the Ten Commandments of God Who is Spirit without a beginning, without an end.”

  Who are the enemies of the Yeti people? Leon’s answer—Joseph Cassel.

  Also undergoing change is Leon’s attitude toward his mother. The same projection mechanism that enabled him to explain away his sickness as due to “duping” now enables him to explain away his mother’s behavior on the same grounds. He now finds excuses for her rejection of him—she was sick and under the influence of duping. “The Old Witch when she was a girl dented the top of her head when her head hit a rock while diving in a pond, and after that she suffered severe migraine headaches and climax of it epilepsy at various times. She dupingly infused such against me as a boy and I thought such came from my head.”

  Moreover, Leon now has three mothers: “The Old Witch has been, is disowned and replaced by Dr. Blessed Virgin Mary of Nazareth and by-through my Righteous idealed Yeti mother.”

  November 23. Today, Leon announces in the letter he began on November 21, is his wedding day. His bride is the “righteous idealed Yeti woman,” and on his honeymoon, “instead of sowing ‘wild oats’ I sowed good idealed seed that shall grow up a credit, leaders for the four quarters of the world of righteous idealed society.”

  November 24. Leon says that he will marry the Blessed Virgin Mary if her husband dies.

  November 27. More changes. Leon fertilizes “without direct contact.” This is called “quasi-spirit sexual intercourse.” Leon’s main foster father is still a white dove and the jerboa rat is an assistant foster father, thereby accounting for the fact that Leon has many of the characteristics of the jerboa rat.

  December 2. Leon explains how he came to look like a rat: “The Old Witch asked me when I was nine-and-a-half years old, ‘Do you want to become like me?’ I said, ‘Yes, I want to be like you.’ She said, ‘Go up on the second landing of the stairs.’ I was pushed off the stairs and shaken up the first time. The second time my head was dented in. I did that out of love for the Old Witch. It shows what I was willing to go through, how much love I had for her, that I was willing to disfigure my body.”

  December 8. Leon elaborates further on his Yeti delusion. Yeti people are cave-dwelling hermits who do not use fire, utensils, furniture or money; they have no anxiety about money, food, clothing or shelter.

  December 17. Leon announces that he is almost ready to die the death. He is probably referring to the fact that he is about to come forth with a new identity.

  December 28. Leon says, though at the time he says it we do not realize its full significance: “As for as I’m concerned, I consider myself a big pile of truthful shit, and I face the fact and admit it.”

  He als
o announces his marriage to a woman who is his foster mother: “My mother is my wife. I call her Madame Yeti, first lady of the Universe.” When told that the records show that Mary Gabor was his mother, Leon replies: “The Old Witch isn’t my mother. She came three weeks ago. [Actually her visit had occurred almost four months before.] I told her to go back where she came from.”

  January 11, 1960. At the meeting, Joseph asks if he can speak into the tape recorder. He then makes a speech about having saved the world. Leon decides that he wants to make a speech too. He talks to the machine, mouth close to microphone, and asks: “What do you think of this name, Dr. Righteous Idealed Dung?” Clyde laughs, and Leon responds: “I think it’s comical to a certain degree. The psychology is when you say ‘Dr. Righteous Idealed Dung’ they say ‘What kind of a doctor is he? Is he a Doctor of Shit? Why doesn’t he go on a farm and work?”’

  When Leon is asked what he wants to be called, he replies: “It’s all included. You can call me Rex, R. I. Shit or Dung.”

  Clyde is still laughing. Joseph, who hasn’t said anything, asks Leon to go find the song sheets.

  “Dr. Righteous Idealed Shit at your service, sir,” Leon replies.

  January 14. The meeting opens with the three men arguing over who is to be chairman. We ask what happened to the Chairman List.

  “I gave it to Rex,” Joseph complains.

  “I don’t have it,” says Leon. “It was done away with because of the negative insinuendo.”

  —Insinuendo?—

  “Insinuendo is insinuation toward innuendo. The implication of reincarnation through negativism. According to the particular day, Joseph, Mr. Cassel here, through indirect impression implied he was reincarnated. I tore it up to counteract the negative ideal.”

  —Does this mean you and Joseph are not getting along?—

  “As I said, it was the negative insinuendo. The fact that he came back from the grave in another body. He gave the impression of over-all superiority and I didn’t care for that.”

  A few moments later, Leon interrupts me as I am speaking. He waves a card in my face. “I have an announcement to make!” he proclaims. “When I was a child of nine or ten I went to court and I wanted to sign my name Dr. Rex Rexarum and I couldn’t. Positive infusion was telling me to sign Dr. Righteous Idealed Dung, Sir, and I didn’t. So if I go to court again that’s the name I gotta sign right there, sir.” He shows me his new calling card:

  A Truthfull salute to all the Jesus Christ’s

  “Manliness”: from:

  Dr. Righteous Idealed Dung Sir

  Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis

  Doktor

  —Does this mean your name isn’t Rex?—

  It’s included in this.”

  —What do you want us to call you?—

  “If you want to say Dr. Dung, sir, that’s your privilege.”

  —Is Rex incorrect?—

  “If you care to say ‘Rex,’ I’ll say ‘Dung salutes Rex’; that’s manliness, sir.”

  —What did you do with your other calling card?—

  “I’ve done away with them, sir. It’s embodied in that, sir, Dr. R. I. Dung for short.”

  “There is only one God,” says Joseph, “and nobody seems to know where He is.”

  “He’s right here,” Leon replies. “Nobody else seems to know it.”

  “I’m the One! I’m the big One!” yells Clyde.

  —If I were to call you Leon, would you still object?—

  “It’s not my name, sir. My name is Dr. Righteous Idealed Dung, sir. Dung for short. It sounds comical, but that is the finale of what I have experienced.”

  [1]There are innumerable references to light in the Bible. E.g., Psalms 97:11, “Light is sown for the righteous…”; John 8:12. “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”; John 12:36, “… Believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light.” See also footnote, Chapter VIII, p. 149.

  [2] It may be well to point out that this Joseph, who is about to marry Mary, has no connection with “Joseph Cassel”—his name, the reader will remember, is a pseudonym—also, that Leon’s mother is named Mary.

  CHAPTER VIII[1]

  R. I. D.

  AT ABOUT THE SAME TIME that Leon announced his change of name, a plan I had made long before was put into effect, and the three Christs were transferred from Ward D-23 to Ward D-16. This made it possible for them to spend more time alone together. Their new quarters provided them with a private sitting-dining room, which they all liked very much; Leon described it as “more peaceful,” and Joseph as “better, more private.” During the first few weeks, Leon and Joseph cleaned the room daily, Joseph wiping the table and Leon sweeping up. These two spent most of the day in their private sitting room, on occasion conversing with each other, but more often saying little. Joseph and Leon were to sit here together for the next six months, for the most part segregating themselves from the other patients on the ward. Only infrequently did they visit the large adjoining day room to watch television or just to sit. Clyde, on the other hand, used the private room only for meals and the meetings. The rest of the time he was generally to be found wandering around or sitting somewhere in the day room.

  Almost immediately after changing his identity, Leon informed everyone in the hospital—doctors, nurses, aides, and patients—of this fact. Not only did he insist on being addressed as Dung; he refused to respond to or co-operate with anyone who did not call him by that name. His behavior also showed changes whose meaning was self-evident. He began to go to the toilet frequently and to stay there for long periods. We generally had to call him from there to get him to the daily meetings; during the meeting he would leave several times, claiming that he had cramps, and when the meeting was adjourned he usually went back to the toilet. He continued to write weekend reports—but now on toilet paper. He found a new method of shaking off interferences: he would stick his head in the toilet bowl, as if symbolically flushing himself down.

  And how did Clyde and Joseph react to Leon’s change of name? Immediately after Leon presented his new calling card on January 14, I asked them.

  Clyde laughed. “He’s gotten hold of something. I don’t know.”

  “I think it’s a bit too strong,” Joseph said. “I’m God, Christ, Holy Ghost—everything.”

  This enraged Clyde. “You aren’t anything!” he shouted.

  For a time they yelled at each other, until finally Joseph said: “I think it’s a waste of time to argue about it.”

  Leon had observed the brief exchange without any apparent feeling, but when it was over, he said: “I know I’m a creature.”

  Later, after their initial responses to the change of name had had time to become firm, we interviewed Clyde and Joseph separately to learn their reactions in somewhat more detail.

  Clyde said: “I don’t like it. His name is Rex, and all of a sudden Joseph goes to the hospital and Rex gets that notion and won’t change it. Dung is a dirty word.”

  —Does Rex still say he is Jesus Christ?—

  “I don’t know; but he couldn’t be that, anyway, There can’t be more than one.”

  —Where is the one?—

  “Right here.”

  —Are you glad or sorry that Rex isn’t saying he’s Jesus Christ anymore?—

  “Doesn’t matter to me. I don’t call him anything now because I don’t like to say that word. Why should he change from Rex?”

  Joseph, on the contrary, liked the change. “I think it’s a good idea because when you call him Rex he gets all the values in the world, and when you call him Dung—well, there’s no value there. That other name was too effective against the other fellow, the psychology of it.” He added that he was glad Leon had changed his name because “this has made me more restful”; it had bothered him, he said, when Leon called himself King. “He claimed to be the reincarnation of everything. Now he’s nice. You as
k him for a light, ‘Dr. Dung, may I have a light?’ and he’s very nice. I know what dung means; it means shit.” Joseph laughed.

  —What do you think of a man calling himself ‘Shit’?—

  Joseph replied that he didn’t think much of it, but that Leon couldn’t help it. It was my presence, he said, that had persuaded Leon not to call himself Rex any longer, and he added that he felt sure Leon was happier now that he was Dung. When I asked him which of the two he thought was Leon’s real name, he replied: “R. I. Dung.”

  Leon Negotiates With the Head Nurse

  No human being finds it easy to call another Dung, even if that person insists on it. The female nurses especially balked at it and persisted in calling Leon by his real name. Leon’s reaction was to become generally negativistic and unco-operative. He complained bitterly that the ward personnel were mistreating him and calling him by his “dupe name.”

  On January 21, a week after Leon’s formal announcement of his change of name, we invited the head nurse, Mrs. Parker, to attend the group meeting to see if we could come to some agreement as to the name by which the ward personnel would address him.

  Leon, as chairman, first signed the Chairman List with his new name—Dr. R. I. Dung, Sir. Then he began the meeting by suggesting they sing the second verse of America. Joseph wanted the first verse. Leon gave in. Following the song, Leon said robustly: “And what’s on your chest this evening, gentlemen? You can get it off if you want to.”

  —Do you all know Mrs. Parker?—

  “I’ve seen her in the office,” Leon said. “I do not know her by name.”