On July 1, 1959, at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan, the social psychologis
t Milton Rokeach brought together three paranoid schizophrenics: Clyde Benson, a
n elderly farmer and alcoholic; Joseph Cassel, a failed writer who was instituti
onalized 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 investi
gation into the nature of human identity, belief, and delusion that is poignant,
amusing, and at times disturbing. Displaying the sympathy and subtlety of a gif
ted novelist, Rokeach draws us into the lives of three troubled and profoundly d
ifferent men who find themselves confronted with the ultimate contradiction conc
eivable for human beings: more than one person claiming the same identity.
