The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [28]
To the question “Why are you in this hospital?” Clyde contined to reply that he owned it and all its adjacent lands and properties, and that he was in the hospital to look after them. Joseph sometimes said that he was “sick in the head but not insane”; at other times that: “The hospital is an English stronghold. I protect for the English against the enemy ‘gunshots.’ I have never been sick in the head. I haven’t any hallucinations, nobody says anything to me about my being insane. I’m logical.” Asked what he meant by “logical,” he explained that this meant saying the right things at the right time. “I never contradict myself. I’m darn proud of myself. I can take care of myself. I certainly haven’t been insane for quite a while.”
As for Leon, his reply was usually that he is in a mental hospital because of prejudice, jealousy, duping, etc.; occasionally he said he was sent to the hospital by his uncle, the reincarnation of the Archangel Michael, to investigate conditions.
Clyde was the only one who was completely unable to answer the question “Why do you suppose I brought you all together?” Joseph and Leon, however, developed their initial reactions into consistent perceptions of the purpose of the confrontation.
Joseph persisted in saying that my purpose was “to iron out that I’m the one and only God.” He further stated that I had brought them together to help him convince Clyde and Leon that they were crazy, so that he could do his work “with greater tranquility.”
Leon had a different answer: “I understand that you would like us three gentlemen to be a melting pot pertaining to our morals, but as far as I’m concerned I am myself, he is him, and he is him. Using one patient against another, trying to brainwash and also through the backseat driving of electronic voodooism. That has an implication of two against one, or one against two.” Leon’s main objection to this procedure was that it was an effort to change someone’s mind when his convictions were firm. “You can’t push a person into heaven by an organic thrust into God. This is not a hospital in the true sense; it is noted for brainwashing.”
On one occasion, following an argument, Leon abruptly stood up and said that he didn’t want to discuss the matter any further, and that he was wasting his time here. With a little effort he was persuaded to stay, but as he sat down he proclaimed: “I know what’s going on here. You’re using one patient against another, and this is warped psychology.”
While all three were superficially aware of being in a mental hospital, none of them had even the vaguest insight into the meaning of their situation. Only Leon was able to grasp—and with a sensitivity that amazed us—the purpose of the research project in reasonably realistic terms: that we had come “to agitate one against the other” for the purpose of trying to alter their beliefs. Almost immediately after the initial encounter, all three were able to produce rationalizations that explained away the others’ claims to be God or Christ. It is clear that these three psychotic men, like all men, were stimulated by their environment and responded to it. Like all men, they immediately perceived their personal and social situation, were affected by it, tried to understand it, thought about it, and formulated hypotheses designed to explain it. The three Christs were, if not rational men, at least men of a type we had all encountered