The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [46]
“We should follow the habeas corpus in front of our face,” said Leon. “If it specifies that the person is worthy of death, he should die. It is all right to kill all the people who conspired with anyone who killed or stole. The Israelites bashed in the heads of babies of their enemies and bathed in their blood. They, the Israelites, had strong hearts.”
On art. Modern art, Leon said, represents the suppressed desires that would get a person in trouble if he acted upon them. “An unconscious desire may slip into paintings because the artist needs release; a reflected, indirect suppression expression.”
On hallucinations and delusions. “It’s like a mirror of life, but it’s different than the mirror of life,” said Joseph. “Hallucinations are not ideas that a person should have in life. It should be discouraged.”
“Why sure, I work on the air,” Clyde said. “I hear them all over. It’s the spirit coming close. I talk to people spiritually. I know them without their telling their name. They see me better than I see them.”
“Hallucinations,” said Leon, “represent a subconscious desire to have someone to talk to, something to drink or eat, which puts whatever the person wants in front of him as a picture. With a hundred per cent concentration, I have heard of the picture actually becoming real. I admit seeing things through duping. I do acknowledge it when it happens—I don’t care for it.”
On changing into other shapes. “I prefer to be a swallow,” Joseph said, “a bird that comes north in the summer and goes south in the winter. A little swallow so they won’t see you or bother you.”
“At the State Fair in Detroit,” said Leon, “I came to the cage where they had the largest type of pouter dove, a white dove. I saw myself in the dove. Me and my wife changed into doves. We vacationed in Acapulco.”
Joseph said: “A man’s a man, a woman’s a woman, a child’s a child. I don’t believe in changing things around.”
“It’s my sincere belief,” Leon said, “that Clyde’s foster father is a sandpiper.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Clyde. “Castles are built on sand. We build on a solid foundation.”
“I was an elephant once in Cambodia,” said Joseph, “and I was a lion once, in the Congo, among the old gunshots there. There was a lion there. He was formerly a man and he changed himself into a lion, and he always wanted to take my place as God. So I kind of had to talk to him for a while, and I finally took enough power out of him and I finally changed myself into a lion so as to be near him and beat him. We had a fight there and I got my godliness back and I left.”
Several days later Leon remarked: “Mr. Cassel, you mentioned that you changed into the shape of an elephant or a lion?”
“Jesus Christ! How would I turn into the shape of an elephant?”
“You can check it,” Leon said. “It’s on the tape recorder several days back. And now you deny it. That shows you have a short memory.”
“I’m not an elephant!”
“I didn’t say you were.”
On tape recorders. Joseph said: “I was in the tape recorder once. There is a world in the machine.”
—Would you like me to play back the tape?—
“Yes,” agreed Joseph.
“I’m for it,” Leon said, “if you are going to study the truth and I’m against it if it is put on for a big laugh.”
—Where did you get that idea?—
“Two attendants on Ward C laughed at me in a maniacal cackle when I was writing my self-analysis, which took me a year and some months.”
After the playback the men were asked what they thought of it.
“Excellent speech!” said Leon.
Joseph protested. “There was an enemy in that machine. We finally stopped him. Someone impersonating me. All my words are being said by someone else. There is only one God, not anybody else. I am God.”
“I am the one,” said Clyde.
“Don’t worry,” Joseph said, “if a patient says he’s God.”
Leon and Clyde agreed that