The Three Christs of Ypsilanti - Milton Rokeach [99]
The “Double-Entry Bookkeeping” Hypothesis
Consider first a central concept introduced in Chapter I—the concept of primitive belief. We have proposed two kinds of primitive beliefs: beliefs that are supported by unanimous social consensus, and those for which there is a complete absence of social consensus. Since we have been dealing here with psychotic subjects, our main interest has necessarily been with the latter kind of primitive belief. What evidence is there to suggest that a deluded believer knows no one else believes as he does and that he actually believes in his delusions?
On many occasions we had asked Leon and Joseph: “Who else believes what you believe?” or some variant of this question. Their answers strongly indicated that both of them knew that no one else believed their assertions.
Leon, for example, said such things as: “Truth is truth, no matter if only one person speaks it”; “Now what do you think of all this stuff I’m talking? Do you think it’s true? … Look at the wonderful things it’s done for me”; “Well, I guess I’m the only one who believes that.” And, of course there was the obverse, his recurring refrain: “That’s your belief, sir.”
Once when Joseph said he had been present at a meeting between Americans and Englishmen during the War of Independence, I asked him whether he thought I believed him. At first he said it was possible, and then that he was quite sure I did not. On another occasion I asked him if he believed me when I asserted he was God. “Believe you?” Joseph replied. “I believe myself.” And he also frequently reiterated that he must keep his mouth shut, because he wouldn’t be believed. “You keep things to yourself, inside.”
It is because all three men knew they would not be believed that they resisted so strenuously my suggestion that they publicly declare their identity as God or Christ. Each of them was apparently realistically aware of the implications of such an open declaration and each would go to great lengths to avoid it. “My name is Clyde Benson; that’s my name straight.” “I go under the name of Joseph Cassel.” And Leon, long before he became Dung, called himself Rex, rather than Christ, and insisted that others call him Rex too. In this respect, Leon was more subtle and clever than the others, since most of those who called him Rex were unaware of what the name really meant. Yet the principle would seem to be the same for all three; apparently they knew that no one else believed what they believed.
It should be noted, nevertheless, that Leon and Joseph made some interesting exceptions. Leon sometimes asserted that his uncle shared his beliefs, and Joseph once said that “other Englishmen” believed what he believed. But since these exceptions refer to delusional referents, they were in fact lacking in any social support and therefore immune to controversy by real referents.
How is it possible for a human being to believe something which does not exist in reality, and which no one else believes? In addition to Bleuler’s statement that psychotics use a “double-entry bookkeeping” system, I have heard the opinion, on the part of people knowledgeable on the subject, that psychotics voice their delusions with tongue in cheek. On the other hand, Norman Cameron, in speaking of the paranoid pseudo-community, clearly takes an opposite position. Two considerations lead me to feel that Cameron’s position is the more valid. First, Leon’s behavior, from our observation, strongly suggests that he believed his wife really existed. Our data do not