The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [105]
You should also know that I plan to continue my contacts with you, my dear husband. You will hear from me often and I want you to know that everything I will write you and suggest to you will be for your redemption and well-being.
Farewell for now, my dear husband. In the meantime, be of good cheer, for I am squelching the interferences, and spread good truthful cheer wherever you may go.
Truthfully yours,
Madame Yeti Woman
Immediately after reading this, Leon rushes to the library and comes back with a hymn book. An hour later, in a private interview, he reiterates that God is both male and female, but he now adds some significant ideas: “There is sanity in God and insanity in God. I spoke against the insanity that God Almighty knows and does support, and now I have to acknowledge that God Almighty does have insanity pertaining to his knowing negativism. I’m accepting things that were hard to face for a while. Now that I’ve accepted them, I see the truth of the matter and I’m in accordination with it.”
—What have you found hard to accept?—
“Concerning the divinity of God Almighty in human shape and the fact that God Almighty wants to be loved and that God Almighty is my wife, and the particular intimacies with others, and I had to face the fact that it’s so whether I like it or not.”
—What intimacies?—
“I’m referring to the fact that when you speak about physical love you mean sexual intercourse pertaining to a creature with its Creator. Ruth of Boaz was other than a person in human form. So I figure that Ruth was God Almighty in human form in those days too.”
—Is Ruth an hermaphrodite?—
“Yes, she’s God and she does have both sexes. I mean God has two sexes. She is my wife, my father, and my foster woman. I am the offspring of morphodite Eve and she in turn intercoursed God, carried these seeds until fertilized cosmically. Her feminine side is still the Old Witch and Mary Gabor.”
I bring up the subject of the letters containing money that Leon has received. He says that his wife told him to treat Clyde and Joseph and to spend the rest as he wishes. I tell him that I don’t believe he has a wife and that I would find it easier to believe if he produced a letter from her.
“Sir, when you mention your wife, I don’t ask questions. I take it for granted. If you don’t accept my word, that piece of paper doesn’t mean a thing.”
—I have to agree with you. You are saying in the final analysis that I have to have faith in you.—
As the interview draws to a close, Leon is asked if the impositions have increased, decreased, or stayed the same since we came, over a year ago. He replies: “It has decreased, sir. However, there are large temptations sometimes.”
Later in the day, at the meeting, Leon, as chairman, opens the proceedings with the hymn book before him. They all sing Onward Christian Soldiers. But he makes no effort to have them sing other songs during the course of the meeting. From past experience, I suspect this is due mainly to the fact that Leon has difficulty carrying a tune. They close, this time, with Onward Christian Soldiers.
From this day forward, the three men open and close their meetings with Onward Christian Soldiers every third day, whenever Leon is chairman. On the other days they sing America. This pattern does not vary.
By now it had become clear that our attempts to control and reshape Leon’s behavior had been successful far beyond our expectations. As a result