The Three Christs of Ypsilanti (42 page)

O
UR RESEARCH PROJECT
was nearing its end. It was now time to terminate our experimental procedures with Joseph and to prepare the three men for our departure. With the discontinuation of the potent-valuemiocene, the exchange of letters between Joseph and Dr. Yoder had dwindled sharply. Joseph still received letters, in which Dr. Yoder reaffirmed his fatherly interest. The original placebo capsules continued too, but were gradually reduced, each reduction being preceded by a letter from Dr. Yoder informing Joseph of the move, and explaining that, since Joseph was feeling so much better, he did not need all these capsules.

Joseph responded immediately to this loss of contact with his delusional referent. Clearly in compensation for his diminished correspondence with Dr. Yoder, he began to write unusually long reports of the weekend meetings—reports which ran from forty to sixty pages and consisted for the most part of extensive listings of books: title, author, publisher, year of publication, Library of Congress number, and, in the case of paperbacks, catalogue number. The reports eventually included every book in the hospital library, and when these were exhausted, every paperback Joseph could find in the hospital store and in the various patients' lounges. Interspersed with this information, which included short summaries
of each volume, were various other materials which threw additional light on Joseph's character, his motivations for writing these voluminous reports, and the nature of his confusion about his identity.

Joseph himself was able to enlighten us partially about the reasons for these reports. “Psychologically speaking,” he wrote, “the switch was made from writing long letters to Dr. Yoder, to writing long reports.” What he was aiming at, Joseph continued, was to “obtain the values of the classics and of the authors.” He claimed that virtually all the authors whose work he was “copying”—and this included Aristotle, H. G. Wells, Freud, and Balzac—were imposters who had stolen from Joseph. By copying all this bibliographic material, Joseph hoped, magically, to beat and kill these enemies and “gunshots” and thus to regain his “values,” and once again become a strong God.

Yes, we have killed enemies … and then the word was said, ‘To work.' To work we have, and the enemies are getting more beatings. So many beatings that one day we will have control of the whole geographical spaces in the many worlds … I must write that the geography in the original world is different than the geography in this world. However, in that beautiful world, there is absolutely no Eisenhower … Yes, as God, I have engineered, and I have taken so very much from the enemies that I now protect one world. Way up above this world, and way down below this world are more of the enemies but they will be beaten too. I am in a center called a mechanic which looks like the original but we have gained so much that this mechanic which is secondary to a place that looks like it, and is the original, that one day we will have full control over it as we have in the world which was regained by the originals, and which is below and above this one world which we call a center.

On Thursday, June 1st, 1961, in the evening, sometime after seven o'clock I was stopped by the boss at the hospital store, from copying books … I tried to persuade him to let me continue copying books, but it was to no avail … The reason for copying was that I had thrown values there at the trinket; it was one thing that I could not help. And all kinds of values were going to the paper-bound, pocket book trinket from what was in the other entities in the department … Thus I copied from the pocket books for about a month.

This center, so-called, is one of three worlds, the other worlds being below the center which I have created and above the center.

The science that Freud
discovered
was the science of psycho-analysis. It is the unconscious that is at work, and one being unaware of it, gets sickly. So, one goes to a psychoanalyst and one gets treated, and one gets well. Thus, this report is about the Life and Work of Sigmund Freud.

To me, science is not the interpretation of dreams of Sigmund Freud, but the realization of dreams.

I must say that Freud—must say that there was a Freud, amongst the “old gun shots” that was an enemy, and that I remember that he was mad at me, in that he said something like: “When you get to the office in the library you will have the end of us, that is, when you got to my life and work so, you'll never get there. Because I got your godliness and what I got of you, will prevent you from getting to the office in the library, will prevent you to get to my life and work.

Well, Freud has been defeated and is dead, and I got to the library, into the office of it, and found his life and work, and copied notes from it, and thus, I have won, so has the world, after I have campaigned for saving the world.

He's dead, good. How lovely to know that this is so.

The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud in 3 volumes by Ernest Jones, M.D. Published by New York Basic Books, Inc., publishers. Copyright, 1953, by the author. Library of Congress Catalog Card number: 53–8700. Designed by Marshall Lee Volume 1: The Formative Years and the Great Discoveries, 1856–1900. Volume 2: Years of Maturity, 1901–1919. Volume 3: The Last Phase, 1919–1939. Freud was not appreciative of aesthetics.

If the one concerned will look at the reports, he will find that the reports are composed of different books, which I copied at the library. This has been going on for quite some time. These reports were written with the purpose of beating the enemy, and to protect an original world, which I have recreated in my campaign as God.

I ask Joseph why he is writing such long reports of the weekend meetings. “It's a double,” he replies, “it's been done one thousand years ago.”

—
For whom did you write the reports?
—

“They're not addressed to anyone—nobody is gonna read them.”

—
I read them, and Miss Anderson reads them
.—

“I don't believe it. Nobody reads them now—fifteen thousand, twenty-five thousand years from now or maybe longer, they will bring out the old reports and make corrections. They will need these reports to know what was going on here.”

—
They are not supposed to be read now?
—

“It's a record—to be put away.”

What I have aimed in this writing is to obtain the values of the classics and of the authors. This is psychologically speaking, so I can also make a usability for the values of the world. These writings are not a history of literature by all means; they are simply a work for my usability—a work
for
the usability of the world, a work for the honest workers of the world, for I am God and I have engineered to beat the enemies for the betterment of the world.

Joseph has copied the titles of forty-six volumes of detective stories, giving resumés and quotations from nearly every volume. On the back of many of the pages of this forty-one-page report he has done extensive “doodling”—thousands of dots that fill up every bit of the paper, from top to bottom, and from margin to margin.

This report must be read on the whole in order to understand it. One must say that the copying of the detective books was so enticing for beating the enemies that I, the writer of this report, Joseph Cassel, continue to copy
more
books, to beat the enemies. …

And the next shelf, coming down, has foreign books of German and Latin and French. There are about 200 books in this book case.

This bookcase has 243 books. It is supposed to be of philosophy, religion, social sciences, etceteraes. It has some books on religion, all right, maybe one on philosophy, some on politics, the rest are of general subjects.

In this library, there are approximately 3,900 books.

In announcing our impending departure, we had been deliberately vague about what would happen after we were gone. We hoped to keep track, through other hospital personnel, of what
the three men would do on their own initiative. As the time for our departure drew closer, a related, supplementary theme emerged in Joseph's voluminous reports. He showed an increasing concern with the conduct of future meetings without us.

The meeting is being held, every day, with Miss Anderson in charge, and Dr. Rokeage comes at the meeting 2 times a week, but on Saturday and Sunday, Miss Anderson does not attend the meeting, thus I have to make a report on the day she does not show up. There are 3 patients who attend the meetings daily and they are R. I. Dung, Clyde Benson, and myself. The meeting is for the purpose of meeting, symbolically speaking, for the right meetings in the world.

But with us gone, Joseph wondered apprehensively, who would keep the meetings going, who would keep track of the lists, and write the reports? And, most important, who would get the credit for writing them? There were not only the long-dead enemies who had stolen his values but also two live ones to be reckoned with.

For quite a while I have written these reports and I have been the only one who has worked for the subjects. Thus the reports on the books are solely my work. But the two fellows I am working with are sickly and they have shoved to me bad illiterary effects—all kinds of bad effects. They attend the meetings with me every day, and one of them might have taken the list of classics, for all I know. Their names are R. I. Dung, and Clyde Benson. We sleep adjacent to each other and we eat together in the same room.

I, Joseph Cassel, also God, have for quite some time written the meeting reports. I have withal copied all of the books which are listed in the reports … I have done this alone. I have also instigated the meetings; I have to see that the meetings are held, especially when Miss Anderson and Dr. Rokeage are not showing up.

It must be known that the two other fellows, R. I. Dung and Clyde Benson have made reports, though, it was quite a while ago, that were not acceptable, so I ask not to be confused with these two men, who assist at the meeting and who are chairman, by turn, but who do not write reports, but just sign their names to the chairman list, sign by turns. And I must be careful so illy effects will not be thrown to me, by them, for their heads are unwell, and very incomparable to mine.

Joseph was the only one who seemed upset by our leaving. He had thought that the meetings would go on forever. He didn't like the pattern broken, he explained.

What I wish to write is that next month Dr. Rokeage will go to Palo Alto, California and will not attend our meetings, for he goes away for at least a year. And Miss Anderson will not attend any more meetings, either. However, I must write that Dr. Rokeage has told R. I. Dung that he will have to write his own meeting report. He has not written a report for a year.

I must say that Dung is not to be trusted with the reports nor can Benson for that matter. And Dung has a habit of using other people's values so much that he can use my name on his report instead of his. He simply is not to be trusted. So I warn all those concerned that Dung is not to get credit for not writing bad reports.

This was bad enough: they did more: they have shoved me so many illy entities to me, at one time or another, that I then realized that their unvalues would affect me so much that if I did not do anything about it, I would then be unabled to write well my reports. I straightened myself up. I noticed, afterwards, that my reports were better, due to my having straightened up, but my work showed an effect. However, I persevered, thus, I have not a bad record in my reports, my meetings, my writings of letters to Dr. O. R. Yoder. But I must ask pardon if there are some reports which are, in spots, incorrect. I must also write that they have written to Dr. Yoder letters, in which they have been impostering by posing as God: I am God; they are not, and if one will look at the reports of Dung and Benson, one will find out how bad their reports are. Dung has even written letters to my wife; he has even received my wife as a visitor in this hospital. He would receive my letters from my wife and if it contained a dollar, he kept it for himself. I say that Dung and Benson are sick. And they wish too much to be God.

So Dung will write reports again. How bad this is. His reports are so illly written. I, as God, Joseph Cassel, remember that prior to my campaign, I coerced Dung to do certain things in my campaign; this was conducive to his writing reports, but, of course, I
must
say that this was not too lovely, for the reports were bad, and he even signed my
name to his reports. He must be watched closely. I say to the authorities, Watch this patient. He is
not to be
trusted. He wants to be this or that; he wants to be this fellow or the other fellow. He
wants
to be this woman or the other woman. He is an enemy. He cannot be trusted. He wants to destroy the world. He wants to be God. Watch.

Watch Dung and Benson, they are two enemies. They want to be God. I am God, the writer and worker for materials for these reports. Watch them.

There was an enemy who was sporting my godliness or posing or impostering as God, who went under the name of Joseph Cassel, but the English and I saw to it that he died. We have killed him in the hospital—here in Ypsilanti State Hospital.

It is I, God, who have, for quite a while, been gathering materials for the reports. It is I, alone, who have written all of the reports; who have started the meetings; who have seen to it that the chairman list was signed, properly. It is I who have carried the list, in my pocket, so Liszt, a musician, and others, too, for the matter, would be defeated. My name is Joseph Cassel, but I am God, and my English name is John Michael Ernahue. Joseph Cassel is a name that I always used in France and in the province of Quebec, in Canada, and it was in Quebec that the enemies, who had jumped down from a country above
France
, unseen and in space and watched upon, went to live, after they had crossed both immigration lines without visas or passports. Afterwards, they invaded me and the rest of the world. So, they killed and raped and stole.