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as such, but with the general nature of systems of belief and the conditions under which they can be modified. Because it is not feasible to study such phenomena with normal people, it seemed reasonable to focus on delusional systems of belief in the hope that, in subjecting them to strain, there would be little to lose and, hopefully, a great deal to gain. At the same time, it should not be overlooked that we do not as yet have much understanding of the nature of psychotic systems of belief, or the conditions leading to their formation, organization, development, or modification; nor, for that matter, of normal systems of belief. The problem has thus far been largely ignored by experimentally-minded social psychologists, undoubtedly because of its tremendous complexity. Instead, present theory and research has typically focused on the problem of single beliefs and attitudes and the conditions under which they change; these beliefs and attitudes, moreover, have by and large been of the kind we have here called peripheral or inconsequential and typically involve short-range changes.[14]

Because theory and knowledge in this field are so limited, all that could reasonably be stated in advance was that bringing together several persons who claimed the same identity would provide as untenable a human situation as is conceivable, and that in a controlled environment wherein escape was not possible, something would have to give. If delusional primitive beliefs are violated, will this lead to other changes in beliefs? to a return to reality? to even greater retreats from reality? If the original reasons for the psychotic state continue to exist, could the pressures lead to the adoption of other false, rather than true, identities? The study of what would have to give, and in what sequence, should at the least prove of scientific interest and possibly lead to advances in the treatment of the mentally ill.

Two Earlier Reports on Confrontation

Two brief accounts have been found of what happens when two people who claim the same identity meet. The first is told by Voltaire in his Commentary to Cesare Beccaria’s Essay on Crimes and Punishment. The story concerns Simon Morin, who was burned at the stake in 1663.

He was a deranged man, who believed that he saw visions; and even carried his folly so far as to imagine, that he was sent from God, and gave out that he was incorporated with Jesus Christ.

The parliament, very judiciously, condemned him to imprisonment in a mad-house. What is exceeding singular, there was, at that time, confined in the same mad-house, another crazy man who called himself the eternal father. Simon Morin was so struck with the folly of his companion, that his eyes were opened to the truth of his own condition. He appeared, for a time, to have recovered his right senses; and having made known his penitence to the magistrates of the town, obtained, unfortunately for himself, a release from confinement.

Some time afterwards he relapsed into his former state of derangement, and began to dogmatize.[15]

The second is told by the psychoanalyst Robert Lindner in his well-known case history, The Jet-Propelled Couch. This story concerns a psychotic physicist named Kirk who goes off on imaginary trips to outer space and visits other planets. Lindner decides to play along with Kirk’s delusional system of belief and justifies this in the following passage:

...It is impossible for two objects to occupy the same place at the same time. It is as if a delusion such as Kirk’s has room in it only for one person at one time, as if a psychotic structure, too, is rigidly circumscribed as to “living space.” When, as in this case, another person invades the delusion, the original occupant finds himself literally forced to give way.

This fantastic situation can also be represented by imagining an encounter between two victims of, let us say, the Napoleonic delusion. The conviction of each that he is the real Napoleon must be called into question by the presence of the other, and it is not unusual for one to surrender, in whole