The three Christs of Ypsilanti

Resource Information

The work The three Christs of Ypsilanti represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Calgary Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The three Christs of Ypsilanti

Statement of responsibility

Milton Rokeach ; introduction by Rick Moody

Creator

• Rokeach, Milton

Subject

• Attitude change -- Case studies
• Belief and doubt -- Case studies
• Electronic books
• Hallucinations and illusions -- Case studies
• Psychology, Pathological -- Case studies
• Schizophrenia -- Case studies
• Attitude (Psychology) -- Case studies

Genre

• Electronic books
• Case studies

Language

eng

Summary

On July 1, 1959, at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan, the social psychologist Milton Rokeach brought together three paranoid schizophrenics: 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 common: 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 beings: more than one person claiming the same identity."

Member of

• New York Review Books classics

Cataloging source

SDD

Dewey number

616.89/09

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

no index present

LC call number

BF773

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

dictionaries

Series statement

New York Review Books classics