The Three Christs Of Ypsilanti
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''The Three Christs of Ypsilanti'' (1964) is a book-length
psychiatric Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry. Initial psychi ...
case study A case study is an in-depth, detailed examination of a particular case (or cases) within a real-world context. For example, case studies in medicine may focus on an individual patient or ailment; case studies in business might cover a particular fi ...
by
Milton Rokeach Milton Rokeach (born in Hrubieszów as Mendel Rokicz, December 27, 1918 – October 25, 1988) was a Polish-American social psychologist. He taught at Michigan State University, the University of Western Ontario, Washington State University, and t ...
, concerning his experiment on a group of three males with
paranoid schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. ...
at
Ypsilanti State Hospital The Ypsilanti State Hospital housed and treated patients for mental health disorders. The hospital complex was located at the northeast corner of Platt and Willis roads, in York Charter Township; one mile south of the boundary with Pittsfield C ...
in Ypsilanti,
Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...
. The book details the interactions of the three patients—Clyde Benson, Joseph Cassel, and Leon Gabor—each of whom believed himself to be
Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
.


Synopsis

Rokeach got the idea from an article in ''
Harper's Magazine ''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...
'' describing two women who both believed they were the Virgin Mary. After being assigned as psychiatric hospital roommates, one of the women recovered from her delusion as a result of conversations with the roommate and was discharged. Rokeach was also influenced by
Cesare Beccaria Cesare Bonesana di Beccaria, Marquis of Gualdrasco and Villareggio (; 15 March 173828 November 1794) was an Italian criminologist, jurist, philosopher, economist and politician, who is widely considered one of the greatest thinkers of the Age ...
's essay ''
On Crimes and Punishments ''On Crimes and Punishments'' ( it, Dei delitti e delle pene ) is a treatise written by Cesare Beccaria in 1764. The treatise condemned torture and the death penalty and was a founding work in the field of penology. History Beccaria and th ...
'', concerning the subject of Simon Morin, who was claimed to have been potentially cured in a similar way. As a similar study of
delusion A delusion is a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence. As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, confabulation, dogma, illusion, hallucination, or some o ...
al belief systems, Rokeach brought together three men who each claimed to be Jesus Christ and confronted them with one another's conflicting claims, while encouraging them to interact personally as a support group. Rokeach also attempted to manipulate other aspects of their delusions by inventing messages from imaginary characters. He did not, as he had hoped, provoke any lessening of the patients' delusions, but did document a number of changes in their beliefs. While initially the three patients quarreled over who was holier and reached the point of physical altercation, they eventually each explained away the other two as being patients with a mental disability in a hospital, or dead and being operated by machines. The graduate students who worked with Rokeach on the project have been strongly critical of the morality of the project because of the amount of dishonesty and manipulation by Rokeach and the amount of distress experienced by the patients. Rokeach added a comment in the final revision of the book that, while the experiment did not cure any of the three Christs, "It did cure me of my godlike delusion that I could manipulate them out of their beliefs."


Editions

''The Three Christs of Ypsilanti'' was first published in 1964. Rokeach came to think that his research had been manipulative and unethical, and he offered an apology in the afterword of the 1984 edition of the book: "I really had no right, even in the name of science, to play God and interfere round the clock with their daily lives." The book was re-published by
New York Review Books New York Review Books (NYRB) is the publishing division of ''The New York Review of Books''. Its imprints are New York Review Books Classics, New York Review Books Collections, The New York Review Children's Collection, New York Review Comics, N ...
in 2011.


Cultural impact

The book served as inspiration for the song "Ypsilanti" on the Detroit band
Protomartyr A protomartyr (Koine Greek, ''πρότος'' ''prótos'' "first" + ''μάρτυρας'' ''mártyras'' "martyr") is the first Christian martyr in a country or among a particular group, such as a religious order. Similarly, the phrase the Protom ...
's debut album ''
No Passion All Technique ''No Passion All Technique'' is the debut album by American post-punk band Protomartyr. Released through Urinal Cake Records in 2012, the album went quickly out of print and subsequently became a "collector's item". In May 2019, the band reissued ...
''. The book also served as the inspiration for the memory play Trinity by Gary C. Hopper with music by Tim Kloth. The title is also mentioned in
Anne Sexton Anne Sexton (born Anne Gray Harvey; November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974) was an American poet known for her highly personal, confessional verse. She won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1967 for her book '' Live or Die''. Her poetry details ...
's poem 'Rapunzel' in her 1971 book Transformations.


Movie adaptation

A
drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...
film based on the book, ''
Three Christs ''Three Christs'', also known as ''State of Mind'', is a 2017 American drama film directed, co-produced, and co-written by Jon Avnet and based on Milton Rokeach's nonfiction book '' The Three Christs of Ypsilanti''. It screened in the Gala Pre ...
'', starring
Peter Dinklage Peter Hayden Dinklage (; born June 11, 1969) is an American film, television and stage actor. He received international recognition for portraying Tyrion Lannister on the HBO television series ''Game of Thrones'' (2011–2019), for which he wo ...
,
Richard Gere Richard Tiffany Gere ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in '' Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977) and a starring role in ''Days of Heaven'' (1978). He came to prominence with ...
,
Walton Goggins Walton Sanders Goggins Jr. (born November 10, 1971) is an American actor. He has starred in a number of television series, including ''The Shield'' (2002–2008), '' Justified'' (2010–2015), ''Vice Principals'' (2016–2017), ''The Righteous ...
and
Bradley Whitford Bradley Whitford (born October 10, 1959) is an American actor and producer. He is best known for his portrayal of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman in the NBC television political drama ''The West Wing'' (1999–2006), for which he w ...
, and directed by
Jon Avnet Jonathan Michael Avnet (born November 17, 1949), is an American director, writer and producer. Early life and education Avnet was born in Brooklyn, the son of Joan Bertha (née Grossman) and Lester Francis Avnet, a corporate executive with Avnet ...
, was released on September 12, 2017.


See also

*
Folie à deux Folie à deux ('folly of two', or 'madness haredby two'), also known as shared psychosis or shared delusional disorder (SDD), is a collection of rare psychiatric syndromes in which symptoms of a delusional belief, and sometimes hallucinations, ...
*
Religion and schizophrenia The relationship between religion and schizophrenia is of particular interest to psychiatrists because of the similarities between religious experiences and psychotic episodes; religious experiences often involve auditory and/or visual phenomena ...
*
Religious delusion A religious delusion is defined as a delusion, or fixed belief not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence, involving religious themes or subject matter., cited in: Religious faith, meanwhile, is defined as a belief in God or a religi ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Three Christs Of Ypsilanti Psychology books 1964 non-fiction books Non-fiction books adapted into films Psychology experiments Alfred A. Knopf books