The Three Christs of Ypsilanti (3 page)

I began the meeting by saying that for the next few months we would all be working together in the hope that they would feel better and that each of them would come to a better understanding of himself. Pointing to the tape recorder, I asked if they had any objections to its use. They offered none; all of them were familiar with it from prior interviews.

The room in which we were meeting was a high-ceilinged, rectangular antechamber off the main recreation hall of D-23, one of several ordinarily used by patients to receive visitors. Arranged against the four bare walls were a dozen or so heavy wooden straight-backed chairs, and a matching wooden table, which we had moved from its position in the center of the room to give us more space. Two shadeless windows, the lower portion of which could be opened slightly for ventilation, looked out on the paved, tree-lined street that runs the length of the hospital grounds. Directly across the street one could see another brown-brick building which looked like the mirror image of D building.

I suggested that we identify ourselves one by one, and to break the ice I introduced myself first. Next my research assistants—who were to be the three Christs' constant companions from early morning until bedtime—offered their names. Then, turning to Joseph, I proposed that he introduce himself.

Joseph was fifty-eight and had been hospitalized for almost two decades. Of medium height and build, bald, and with half his front teeth missing, he somehow gave the impression of impishness. Perhaps this was due to the fact that, along with his wide grin, one noticed his bulging shirt and pants pockets filled to overflowing with various and sundry belongings: eyeglasses, books, magazines, letters, large white rags trailing from his pockets (he used them for handkerchiefs), cigarette papers, tobacco, pens, pencils.

“My name is Joseph Cassel.”

—
Joseph, is there anything else you want to tell us?
—

“Yes. I'm God.”

Clyde introduced himself next. He was seventy and had been
hospitalized for seventeen years. Clyde was over six feet tall and, despite the fact that he was all but toothless, stated, whenever asked, that he was in excellent health—and he was. He spoke indistinctly, in a low, rumbling, resonant voice. He was very hard to understand.

“My name is Clyde Benson. That's my name straight.”

—
Do you have any other names?
—

“Well, I have other names, but that's my vital side and I made God five and Jesus six.”

—
Does that mean you're God?
—

“I made God, yes. I made it seventy years old a year ago. Hell! I passed seventy years old.”

Leon was the last to introduce himself. Of the three, he looked the most like Christ. He was thirty-eight and had been committed five years before. Tall, lean, of ascetic countenance and intensely earnest expression, he walked silently, erectly, and with great dignity, often holding his hands in front of him, one hand resting gently on the other, palms up. When sitting, he held himself upright in his chair and gazed intently ahead. In his white coat and white trousers, he was indeed an imposing figure. When he spoke, his words flowed clearly, unhesitatingly, and often eloquently. Leon denied his real name vigorously, referring to it as his “dupe” name, and refusing to co-operate or have anything to do with anyone who used it in addressing him. We all called him Rex.

“Sir,” Leon began, “it so happens that my birth certificate says that I am
Dr. Domino Dominorum et Rex Rexarum, Simplis Christianus Pueris Mentalis Doktor
. [This is all the Latin Leon knows: Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, Simple Christian Boy Psychiatrist.] It also states on my birth certificate that I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and I also salute, and I want to add this. I
do
salute the manliness in Jesus Christ also, because the vine is Jesus and the rock is Christ, pertaining to the penis and testicles; and it so happens that I was railroaded into this place because of prejudice and jealousy and duping that started before I was born, and that is the main issue why I am here. I want to be
myself. I do not consent to their misuse of the frequency of my life.”

—
Who are “they” that you are talking about?
—

“Those unsound individuals who practice the electronic imposition and duping. I am working for my redemption. And I am waiting patiently and peacefully, sir, because what has been promised to me I know is going to come true. I want to be myself; I don't want this electronic imposition and duping to abuse me and misuse me, make a robot out of me. I don't care for it.”

—
Did you want to say something, Joseph?
—

“He says he is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ,” Joseph answered. “I can't get it. I know who I am. I'm God, Christ, the Holy Ghost, and if I wasn't, by gosh, I wouldn't lay claim to anything of the sort. I'm Christ. I don't want to say I'm Christ, God, the Holy Ghost, Spirit. I know this is an insane house and you have to be very careful.”

“Mr. Cassel—” Leon tried to interrupt.

But Joseph continued: “I know what I've done! I've engineered the affairs of the stronghold in a new world here, the British province. I've done my work. I was way down, way down. I was way, way up. I've engineered, by God! I've taken psychiatrics. And nobody came to me and kissed my ass or kissed me or shook hands with me and told me about my work. No, sir! I don't tell anybody that I'm God, or that I'm Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost. I know what I am now and I know what I'm going to be. This is an insane house.”

“Don't generalize …” Leon interrupted.

“I know who I am and I haven't got a hell of a lot of power right now,” Joseph went on. “Christ! I do my work. The only thing I can do is carry on. I know what I am.”

“Mr. Cassel, please!” Leon said. “I didn't agree with the fact that you were generalizing and calling all people insane in this place. There are people here who are not insane. Each person is a house. Please remember that.”

“This is an insane hospital, nevertheless,” Joseph insisted.

“My belief is my belief and I don't want your belief, and I'm just stating what I believe,” Leon said.

“I know who I am.”

“I don't want to take it away from you,” Leon said. “You can have it. I don't want it.”

—
Clyde, what do you think?
—

“I represent the resurrection. Yeh! I'm the same as Jesus. To represent the resurrection … [mumbling and pausing] I am clear … as saint … convert … you ever see. The first standing took me ten years to make it. Ah, forty cars a month. I made forty Christs, forty trucks.”

—
What did you make them out of?
—

“I think that means forty sermons, I think that that's what it means,” Clyde answered.

—
Well, now, I'm having a little trouble understanding you, Mr. Benson.
—

“Well, you would because you're probably Catholic and I'm Protestant up to a saint.”

—
Did you say you are God?
—

“That's right. God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.”

“I don't know why the old man is saying that,” Joseph interrupted. He has it on his mind. He's trying to discharge his mind. It's all right, it's all right as far as I'm concerned. He's trying to take it out of his mind.”

—
Take what out of his mind?
—

“What he just said. He made God and he said he
was
God and that he was Jesus Christ. He has made so many Jesus Christs.”

Clyde yelled: “Don't try to pull that on me because I will prove it to you!”

“I'm telling you I'm God!” Joseph was yelling, too.

“You're not!” Clyde shouted.

“I'm God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost! I know what I am and I'm going to be what I am!”

“You're going to stay and do just what I want you to do!” Clyde said.

“Oh, no! Oh, no!” Joseph insisted. “You and everybody else will not refrain me from being God because I'm God and I'm going to be God! I was the first in the world and I created the world. No one made me.”

“There's something in you, all right,” Clyde said. “I'm the first now to this bank, and Jesus the second. There's two sides there. I'm on the testament side and the other the old Bible side, and if I wasn't I couldn't make, I couldn't make my credits from up there.”

As the session ended, Leon—who had been sitting attentive but motionless during the outburst between Joseph and Clyde—protested against the meeting on the grounds that it was “mental torture.” He announced that he was not coming to any more meetings. We had decided in advance that we would not try to make the men do anything against their will, even if it meant abandoning the research project. I hoped Leon would reconsider, however, because the first encounter had served only to arouse my curiosity. The confrontation had turned out to be less stormy than I had expected. Despite Leon's remark and despite the differences of opinion which had emerged, the three Christs did not seem to be particularly upset as we adjourned. Perhaps they did not fully grasp the extraordinary nature of this confrontation—at least, not in the way we did.

The next day when I entered the ward and informed the three men it was time for another meeting, Leon offered not the slightest protest. Like Clyde and Joseph, he followed me willingly. To open the session I proposed we resume the discussion where we had left off yesterday, and Clyde responded by repeating substantially what he had said the day before. Then Joseph picked up with a new thread, gesturing toward Clyde.

“He raised me up,” Joseph said. “He raised me up in England.”

—
What does that mean—he raised you up?
—

“Well, I died and I was reproduced by him.”

“Oh, you're a rerise?” Clyde asked, in wonderment.

“Yes.”

“Well, I didn't know that!” Clyde said. “See now, he is a rerise from the cemetery and I didn't know that.”

—
Now, Joseph, as I understand what you said yesterday, you're God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost. You created the world. Nobody made you, because you're God
.—

“That's correct.”

—
That means everybody was made by you?
—

“Right!”

—
Clyde, did you make the world, too?
—

“Well, I'm going to hold it now. I shoot—I shoot quicker than the devil. Now I'm in business. I won't monkey with any patients.”

“I don't care,” Joseph interrupted. “I know what I am.”

“I don't think you do,” said Clyde. “I take all the credit. It takes a lot to rock my sanity. Why, there's money coming from heaven and from the old country and from the sea of heaven. The carloads, trainloads, and boatloads. It's seventy-seven hundred cars a mile and that runs from Upper Stock Lake…. God marked eight of our trails himself.”

—
Rex, what do you think of all this business?
—

“Sir, I sincerely acknowledge that they are hollowed-out instrumental gods,” Leon answered. “That's my sincere belief.”

—
Are you an instrumental god, Joseph?
—

“There is only one.”

“Sir, according to what the book says, it states that there are two types of god: God Almighty who was spirit without a beginning and without an end—” Leon said.

“Well, that is the right one.”

“Sir, I was interrupted,” Leon continued. “I was going to say—there are two types of god. God Almighty, the spirit, without a beginning and without an end. Nobody created God, the God Almighty. Then there are creatures who are instrumental gods. There are some who aren't hollowed out and there are some who are hollowed out.”

“As far as your talk—it's all right,” Clyde said. “Your psychology is all right.”

“There are two types of psychology,” Leon went on. “I understand your situation pertaining to dying the death and making the person a hollowed-out instrumental god. You are correct there. As far as my understanding from what I have read, and from practical experience, it is that I am a creature and I have a beginning. A human spirit has a beginning and his body has a beginning, pertaining to its life as such; therefore, I cannot say that I am God Almighty, because if I do, I am telling myself a falsehood, and I don't believe in telling myself a falsehood. I'm a creature, just a human spirit created by God before time existed.”

—
You are a creature, but you are also Christ?
—

“Yes, sir,” Leon answered. “I am the reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the first human spirit.”

“I think it is one of those things to laugh off,” Joseph said. “All this saying that one is God, one is Jesus Christ, just a matter of laughing about it.”

Leon looked perplexed and anxious. “Sir, it so happens that I am the person who was the first human creature created, and then he insinuates that he was there beforehand. It's injustice as far as I'm concerned, but I do respect these gentlemen.”

—
Why do you respect them?
—

“Because they are instrumental gods. It is my belief to respect the devil too, for what he is.”

—
Are you a god, too?
—

“An instrumental god, and so are you, Doctor, as I stated before, sir.”

Clyde tried to interrupt with unintelligible mumbling, but Leon went on: “Jesus Christ! Let me get a word in, will you, please? I respect them as Jesus Christ.”

“I AM HIM!” Clyde shouted. “See? Now, understand that!”

“Man! maybe this is Jesus Christ,” Leon said. “I'm not denying it, sir.”

“Well, I know your psychology,” Clyde said, “and you are a knick-knacker, and in your Catholic church in North Bradley and in your education, and I know all of it—the whole thing. I know
exactly what this fellow does. In my credit like I do from up above, that's the way it works.”