The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [61]
Repentence brings back—instantly—lost male, female, parts as such with respect to age, for ovaries! “Relapse into such brings ten hours of justifiable punishment.”
…Respectfully,
Dr. Domino dominorum et Rex rexarum Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doktor—re-incarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth
Leon’s continuing need to proclaim his identity—or at least to deny the others’ claims—was evidenced by his behavior when Joseph read a weekend report in which he mentioned he was God. Although he did not argue Joseph’s claim, he did get up from his chair to whisper in the research assistant’s ear that Joseph was only an instrumental god.
Joseph, too, felt the need to proclaim his identity in devious ways. Several times he asked to make a speech into the tape recorder. With his back to Leon and Clyde and with the microphone close to his mouth, he would boom: “This is me, God!” whereupon Clyde would mutter and Leon would say: “That’s your belief, sir.” Like Leon, Joseph also began to assert his identity in written communications. But instead of addressing no one in particular, as Leon did, Joseph wrote to important personages such as Prime Minister Diefenbaker of Canada and President Eisenhower. To the President he wrote:
Dear President,
I have been wondering why you do not answer my letters; I have written several of them throughout my campaign for I am God and John Michael Ernahue, of the Great House of England and I, along with the English, have saved the world!
I am sure that I have done my best in everything I have endeavored for the country, and it would be nice to obtain a letter from you. I go under the name of Joseph Cassell, Ward D-23, Ypsilanti State Hospital, Ypsilanti, Michigan, Box A.
Joseph Cassel
[1] Carlson has shown experimentally that a subject’s attitude toward an object undergoes modification when he perceives it as instrumental toward the achievement of goals he shares in common with others. E. R. Carlson: “Attitude Change Through Modification of Attitude Structure,” J. Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 52 (1956), pp. 256–61.
[2] Cf. Chapters XIII and XVI for a discussion of changes under certain experimental conditions.
CHAPTER VII
EXIT DR. REX
OF ALL the changes that were initiated by the rotating chairmanship, the most profound were those that occurred in Leon. During the first two months of storm and stress in daily confrontation, there had been only one very trivial change in his delusional beliefs. But within three weeks of the calmer atmosphere of the rotating chairmanship, his beliefs began to undergo major alterations. This process of change continued for four months, and culminated, in the middle of January 1960, with his adoption of an entirely new name.
The changes were, however, gradual and at times almost imperceptible. We suspected that they proceeded at a slow pace because Leon himself thus hoped that neither he nor we would notice any change at all; the gradualness may well have served the purpose of preserving Leon’s image of himself as a consistent, rational being. This need, as far as we could tell, was no less strong in Leon than in any normal person. We had no idea of what these snail-like changes meant as they occurred, nor did we suspect that they would culminate in a change of name. Their meaning emerged only months later as additional events unfolded and could be related to what had gone before. In the meantime we were in a position, by virtue of our observational procedures, to trace precisely the chronology of the changes that Leon underwent.
We first became aware of these changes through “announcements” Leon made at the daily