num_pages: 338
description: On July 1, 1959, at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan, the social psychologist Milton Rokeach brought together three paranoid Clyde Benson, an elderly farmer and alcoholic; Joseph Cassel, a failed writer who was institutionalized after increasingly violent behavior toward his family; and Leon Gabor, a college dropout and veteran of World War II.The men had one thing in each believed himself to be Jesus Christ. Their extraordinary meeting and the two years they spent in one another’s company serves as the basis for an investigation into the nature of human identity, belief, and delusion that is poignant, amusing, and at times disturbing. Displaying the sympathy and subtlety of a gifted novelist, Rokeach draws us into the lives of three troubled and profoundly different men who find themselves “confronted with the ultimate contradiction conceivable for human more than one person claiming the same identity.”-
language: English
title: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study
titlecomplete: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study
genres: 20th Century, Science, History, American, Medical, Philosophy, Mental Health, Psychology, Nonfiction, Mental Illness
ratings_count: 986
places: Ypsilanti, Michigan
publisher: Columbia Univ Pr