ISBN: 0-231-050271-5
by Milton Rokeach
"Yes sir. I mentioned that I was introduced to god twenty years ago by a reincarnation of Bart Maverick [TV cowboy star]. He said, 'what would you do if you met God in human flesh?' and I said I would love God. 'Are you sure?' he said. I said yes. As soon as he had said those words, a woman approached, elderly looking, with a slightly long nose, not hard to look at, and he said, 'Theree's God. Now love her!' And because of duping I was interfered with and she told me, 'I'll see you in twenty years at Y.S.H. So it came true."
{YSH would stand for Ypsilanti State Hospital}
"Sir, to me a man is an instrumental God. I have to see the relationship to infinity. If I can see that, I'm satisfied."
October 25. Leon writes the longest letter to date to his "light brothers"; it contains ideas we have not previously encountered. It begins: "In the spirit of 'truthful energetic happiness' I joyfully will to say some important things which will come to pass concerning myself," and goes on to make the following points:
1. Leon is about to "shake off so many hundred units of electronic duping imposition".
2. The highest form of blood genes are Yeti genes. The Yeti people are not stained by original sin. Leon identifies himself as a member of the Yeti people. He details their eating habits
3. His light brother's dupe name is Joseph Gabor. Joseph Gabor is actually Leon's uncle - his father's brother.
4. He apparently is about to divorce his wife the Blessed Virgin Mary and marry her off to his light brother. He recalls his light brother saying, "I know I shall be killed for asking and taking your potential virginal wife for my wife because you Rex, sir, do not believe in divorce, but I will do it fully knowing the consequences, and I assure you, sir, I will take good care of her." Leon then expresses his gratitude to Joseph for his "self sacrifice to make Dr. Blessed Mary of Nazareth happy."
5. At his wedding banquet he will give of his seed to some of his light sisters of the Yeti people, "none penis injection, through a thistle tube. There will be no bodily contact."
6. The Virgin Mary is married to his light brother Joseph. "My dear Righteous idealed light brother and your wife Dr. Blessed Mary of Nazareth, please come visit me at Ypsilanti State Hospital at your convenience. I would like to rejoice with you, if I may ask, bring a few Banker's Choice also."
... Leon announces that his home town is in the Himalaya mountains, home of the righteous idealed Yeti people.
... November 21. Leon begins another long letter, which he finishes on December 20. It is addressed to his Yeti people and begins with his thatnks for their vist to him when he was thirteen years old and near death because the "Old Witch" had put arsenic into his food and drink.
"I love truth even though it hurts," Leon says. "If it hurts too much," Joseph replies, "man is wise to turn away from it."
"That's your belief, sir."
... Leon defines the word parable. "Parables go from higher level ideas to lower level expression so that a person with less education can understand."
Leon comments that there might be an infringement on his emotional life, and that he has to wait to find out whether this was really his wife or whether the aide is only trying to amuse himself.
"I believe in truthful bullshit," Leon says. "There are two types of bullshit. The genuine is truth and truth can be compared to dung: it looks like dung, smells like it, and acts like it. When you put it on top of soil, it makes it grow."
... Of the rationalisations offered by the htree Christs, Leons were obviously the least stable. Whereas Clyde said consistently that the other two were dead, and Joseph that they were crazy, Leon had to employ a variety of explanations - Davy Jones, duping, insanity, instrumental gods, prestige motives.
"That's your belief, sir."
"It is not my belief," Clyde asserted. "I got proof of what I say."
"That's what you think."
"I'm gonna kill you-you-son-of-a-gun! I'm gonna kill you, you son of a bitch!"
"I'm afraid that's impossible. My fther was a white dove and so was my mother, and later she became a witch. But your foster father was a sandpiper."
"I'm really going to let you have it," Clyde shouted. "You don't know what you're talking about!" And he shook his fist and put it right next to Leon's chin.
"Sit down - sit down. You're creating a disturbance."
Clyde cooled off and sat down. After a moment Leon resumed: "You can't help it if you're under the influence of electronic duping."
"I am not. I'm Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, and God almighty himself," and he drew his arm as if to hit Leon.
"Sit down, sir, sit down. Sir, do you have a cigarette paper to give me."
"I have no use for money," he once informed us, "I don't want no part of it. I don't want a thing that don't belong to me." Nor would he accept his small weekly allowance from us, or money from any other source. As he explained it: "Where thy treasure is, there is thy heart. If you are absorbed with engrams of thought that deal with money, you are a stumbling block unto yourself in most instances - anxiety, worry comes with it after you obtain money, and your desire to have more money, and then your desire to have it protected - all these bring about something which is not helpful to the physical, mental and spiritual. I was making a hundred twenty-five dollars a week, and then to have that lame-brain Eve squander it on pimps. No, I don't approve of that. The particular person that misused money, why, she made me sick towards money."
{Matthew 6:21}
Meeting. Today's visitor is Mr. Zandt, a graduate student in psychology. Leon asks him: "You really think you're cutout to be a psychologist?" and goes on to say that a psychologist must have spiritual insight; can't just say, go see the chaplain.
"It's too impossible what you fellows want. It's alright for me. I can carry it. But they can't, so I ask Dr Rokeach's permission to carry on as we have been carrying on."
- Suppose that each of us follows his own free will. My free will tells me to call you Mr Dung, Mr God and Mr Christ
"You're agitating," Leon said. "You're trying to bring out the inner emotional desires of expression, sir. I understand that, but the fact remains that the other person, when he hears that in the presence of Mr Benson, he'll say, 'Am I left out? I consider myself doing something too.' It's frictional psychology."
Later in the afternoon, at the meeting, Leon announces to Miss Andersonthat he was killed last night and got another body. Joseph disputes Leon's claim, stating that Leon has the same body he had yesterday. "Pertaining to external appearances, yes," Leon replies, "but pertaining to internal construction it's a different body. I was shot by God Almighty and I dropped like a sack of shit." Once again oseph disagrees. The exchange between them continues.
"Sex is a basic component of humanbehaviour."
"I'm not a homosexual so I don't have to worry."
"That's not the point, Mr Cassell. Don't put the penis in the wrong hole or you'll become a isfigured midget."
"That's a bit strong, Mr Dung. There is Miss Anderson to consider."
"Excuse the expression, but it's coming out of me and I believe it's best to let out pressure, and if i have hurt your feelings through rude expression it was due to using a word that Mr Cassell can more readily understand and strike at."
After admission, Leon remained, and is still, alert to his surroundings, well-oriented in time and space. He was, for example able to discuss the meaning of proverbs in remarkably good fashion. When asked to interpret "People in galss houses should not throw stones", Leon replied: "Why see the mite in another man's eye when there is a bean [sic] in your own."
"What I didn't like about the Devil is he would say: 'You're not seeing me. You're just imagining.' Then I would say, 'Now be a good sport, we've always been good friends and worked together. Somebody has to take care of those condemned to hell. Why don't you go back to your business and take care of that.'" It had taken him years, Joseph said, to convince the Devil to go back to hell, and he had worked day and night to get conditions set up right in hell. "The fallen angels are in charge now, paid by the government there to take care of the fires and run things."
"God sets conditions in hell!" Leon countered vehemently.
"Have you ever met Satan who was walking around in human form? Do you know who he is? I want to see how well you're equipped on your deviltry."
"Satan?"
"He's a colored fellow, works in the hospital in Detroit. If you're so well informed, what's his name?"
"He's controlled. He's restricted to hell, not walking around. He's in hell."
"He's in a hospital in Detroit."
"Where is all the power that I had before? That's what I'm trying to do, deport myself back to England. I can't do it. I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm the God that took a psychiatric. Later on, I'll be a different God when I get my power back."
Joseph wrote a long letter which proceeds in part:
I remain, your truly,
(signed) Joseph Cassell
Additional: Please do not send me home for just a week, but permanently.
It was because I wanted at all costs to forestall this and to assure, as much as possble, that Miss Anderson's presence would from the very beginning have a maximum therapeutic affect, that I had planned to have the news of her arrival come from Leon's omniscient, if delusional uncle, rather than from us. But leon's refusal to listen to his uncle on the telephone forced me to abandon this plan and to substitute it for another, which we put into operation the next day.
It may be difficult to imagine the three christs showing any positive feelings towards one another but, paradoxically, they did so from time to time. My research assistants and I often saw the three of them sitting near one another in the spacious recreation room, which was large enough to seat a hundred men around its periphery. The men were free to wander aimlessly about or sit wherever they wished. They could watch television, play ping-pong, listen to the radio, read, play cards, or just sit and do nothing. There was a large table against the wall, with a chair at one end, it's back against the wall. Joseph would always sit in this chair. There was a second chair immediately around the corner of the table, facing the same direction os Joseph's chair. Leon sat in this chair, next to Joseph but with his back to him.
Clyde more often wandered about the room, but when he settled down he would pick a chair near Joseph's and leon's, often the chair next to Leon, which faced in the same direction. The three men rarely spoke to each other at these times, but they borrowed and loaned state-issue tobacco, cigarette papers and lights more frequently amongst themselves than with anyone else. Leon would say: "Mr Benson, could I beg a cigarette from you, I'm out of cigarette paper, if you could help me out with that ... Thank you, sir." Once when Clyde broke his pipe, Leon gave him his.
A nurse confirms that a very aggressive homosexual patient did approach Leon. Leon says: "I don't care for his musty body. I mean he is trying to seduce me and I don't like it." He adds that if the aides do not do something to prevent future recurrences, he will drop the Ten Commandments on the patient tonight and the patient will be carried out dead in the morning.
Afterward, at the post-meeting conference with Miss Anderson, he discusses at some length the morality of various kinds of sexual behaviour. The way he terminates this discussion suggests that Miss Anderson is becoming, increasingly, a real, external, positive reference person for him. "I approached you," he concludes, "because I do respect the authority in you, but the answers you gave me - I haven't thoroughly made up my mind what I want to tell myself - the answers you gave me are not sufficient."
"So MUCH imposition has been shaken off ... I feel like dancing."
This exuberant exclamation, so unlike Leon, marked the beginning of a bitter struggle that was to rage within him for many months. The struggle centred around the question of how he was to relate himself to Miss Anderson, whom, we have seen, Leon had endowed with god-like properties. To allow himself to trust her or not? to love her or not? Before long, he began to link these these issues with a broader one: to return to reality or not?
... "I listen to you as if it were a lecture sometimes."
"I try to make it as interesting as possible. I can sense it to a degree when you're listening, and if you're not - is there anything you didn't understand?"
"Well, if I didn't I can't even ask you about it."
"If you studied metaphysics you'd understand, sir. You wouldn't have to ask."
There is no question that Clyde enjoyed and looked forward to the meetings, if for no other reason than that they provided attention and human companionship. Actually, he was on farily good terms with both the other men; apparently he admired them for their education. The least accessible of the three, the least easily aroused, he was content to sit back and watch the other two interact. Neither especially friendly nor especially hostile to either, he seemed to like being physically close to them.
Group meeting. Joseph brings a Mother Goose book and remarks that it might be of interest to Leon. Leon leafs through it and says: "I'll read the one about Humpty Dumpty." After he reads it: "Now, there's some worthwhile psychology. The truth in it is that an egg can break."
"I cherish the beautiful dream, or I would be awfully gleeful if the reality came about so that there would be just singing and preaching in the churches - no crosses."
"It's a durty shame they do not recognise reincarnation. It isn't the building that sanctifies the person ..."
Possibly because the paranoid psychotic has been tremendously hurt by significant referents of his earlier life, he has renounced all positive referents outside himself. The only external referents he has are negative ones ...
"Sir, there's indirect warped psychology here ...
"When psychology is used to agitate, it's not sound psychology any more. You're not helping the person. You're agitating. When you agitate you belittle your intelligence."
If you wanna see some scans ...
click here
Or for my list of 'interesting' mental health sites, why not
click here
For my own reference here's the page nos of excerpts I may or may not get to some time ...
*** Cross them off as we come to them ...
Page 196 to 199 - ethics versus potential benefit
{I decided 2 divide each page into A B C D}
Page 230 A -
Page 163 A - waste of time
Page 168 C - atmosphere of wellness
Page 170 B - serenity & tranquillity
Page 225 D - complications
Page 151 -
Page 156 & 7 -
Page 199 - ameliorate
Page 135 - name change
Page 336 C - curing me of God-like delusion :)
Page 178 B - cosmic photographs
Page 108 C - war going on
Page 85 - theatre & cosmic robot image
Page 59 C - pertaining
Page 88 C - ponder over that
Page 113 B - never felt silly
Page 22 - last para
Page 5 onward -
Page 61 - final line
Page 70 C - they who hate
Page 166 A - deplore
Page 29 D - experiment
Page -
Perhaps, however, you can send me home to my wife. I hope so. I should be most gleeful if you, Dr Yoder, would be so kindly as to send me home to my wife. This would alleviate the sorrowness that I have for my not going home to England, the land of my profound love.
Ward D-16
Ypsilanti State Hospital
Ypsilanti, Mich.
Send me home for good. Send me home to stay. Please
don't let me come back to the hospital, to any hospital!