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Selects: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti Experiment · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, it's your old pal Josh. For this week's
0:03
Speaker 1: Select I've chosen our episode from August of twenty twenty one,
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Speaker 1: where we take a look at one of the most
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Speaker 1: unethical social psychology experiments in the history of the field,
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Speaker 1: where doctor Martin roe Keach assembled three men who each
0:16
Speaker 1: believed he was christ, put them in a room together
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Speaker 1: and sat back and waited for the fireworks to start.
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Speaker 1: And what came out of it is both an indictment
0:25
Speaker 1: and an inspiring affirmation of humanity. And on a personal note,
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Speaker 1: I would like to wish my sweet sweet wife Yum,
0:32
Speaker 1: a very big happy birthday. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You
0:41
Speaker 1: Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to
0:50
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Dave is
0:54
Speaker 1: here with us today and we're all just quietly holding hands.
0:58
Speaker 1: Now we have to stop and I'm into the real
1:00
Speaker 1: world and start talking to you find people for this
1:04
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff You Should Know. My lip got caught
1:10
Speaker 1: in my tooth when I said you, and it came
1:12
Speaker 1: out a little weird.
1:14
Speaker 2: It's funny. My daughter finally lost her first tooth and
1:18
Speaker 2: it's you know, it's changing the way she talks. She's
1:20
Speaker 2: got a little funny little lisp and she's always tongue
1:23
Speaker 2: in on it, and I'm like, I'm gonna be there
1:24
Speaker 2: with you soon, you know, I gotta get this front
1:26
Speaker 2: one redone right. So yeah, I'm gonna wait till write
1:31
Speaker 2: before we have live shows so I could pull that
1:35
Speaker 2: front tooth again.
1:36
Speaker 1: Nice. That'll be a special treat for everybody, especially me.
1:41
Speaker 2: Oh, you were used to it.
1:43
Speaker 1: I really was. The worst was when when you had
1:46
Speaker 1: that little case that you would put it in and
1:49
Speaker 1: that they had events so the smell could waft out
1:52
Speaker 1: of it.
1:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. I gave up after the first one on wearing
1:56
Speaker 2: that thing. I was just like, who cares?
1:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it's great. It was very liberating.
2:01
Speaker 2: It was, as is this podcast episode.
2:04
Speaker 1: I think this is going to be a good one
2:06
Speaker 1: because Chuck, I've been wanting to talk about this for
2:08
Speaker 1: a really long time. This is one of those things
2:10
Speaker 1: that you like hear about and you're like, wait what
2:13
Speaker 1: that can't be right, And then you read a little
2:16
Speaker 1: more about it, and a little more and it just
2:17
Speaker 1: keeps getting worse and worse. But yet it's it's just
2:21
Speaker 1: kind of one of the like a landmark study in
2:25
Speaker 1: the field of psychology that we're talking about today.
2:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Three Christs of Hypsilanti, and I study this.
2:35
Speaker 2: I remember this from studying it in psychology class in
2:37
Speaker 2: college and got kind of into it at the time, and.
2:43
Speaker 1: You started wearing like Three Christ t shirts and stuff.
2:46
Speaker 2: I followed them on tour. It was great. I don't
2:51
Speaker 2: for some reason, I thought I read the book. But
2:54
Speaker 2: I don't think I read the book. I think we
2:55
Speaker 2: just covered the book in college and in the psychology class, Like,
2:59
Speaker 2: I don't think they major read the whole book. We
3:01
Speaker 2: basically just kind of went over it. But I had
3:03
Speaker 2: been pretty fascinated for years, and you know, eventually, when
3:07
Speaker 2: Hollywood made a movie about it four years ago, I
3:10
Speaker 2: was excited and even paid to rent that thing.
3:14
Speaker 1: How'd that work out? Pretty good?
3:17
Speaker 2: I watched the first half hour and realize, oh man,
3:21
Speaker 2: they've just sort of disneyfied this thing and it's not good. Yeah,
3:25
Speaker 2: Ohtho or Budd Kevin Pollack isn't it And he's always great?
3:28
Speaker 1: Hey, that guy can steal a scene better than the Hamburglar.
3:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. The movie, just so everyone knows, is called The
3:36
Speaker 2: Three Christ of Hipsolani from John Abnett starring Richard gear
3:40
Speaker 2: as the name changed doctor and then the Three Christ
3:44
Speaker 2: in the movie you're portrayed by Peter Dinklage, one of
3:48
Speaker 2: my favorite actors, Walton Goggins.
3:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's great, man, I went back. I told you
3:53
Speaker 1: I was watching The Shield again. That guy was amazing
3:55
Speaker 1: in that.
3:56
Speaker 2: Oh was he in that?
3:57
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, he played one of the main characters.
4:00
Speaker 2: He's just the best. And then, uh, what's a guy's
4:03
Speaker 2: named Bradley Whitford who's also great. Everyone in it is good.
4:07
Speaker 2: It just it's one of those movies that they I
4:09
Speaker 2: think just over sanitized and should have made a documentary instead.
4:15
Speaker 1: But they didn't, and that's okay, and we don't have
4:17
Speaker 1: to talk about that movie ever again now that we'll
4:20
Speaker 1: have instead, I think we should start by giving a
4:23
Speaker 1: little background on the guy whose idea the Three Christs
4:26
Speaker 1: of if Silani experiment was, and it was a researcher,
4:30
Speaker 1: a psychologist, a social psychologist, your favorite named Milton Rokeach.
4:37
Speaker 1: And Milton Rokeach had some ideas about what it was
4:42
Speaker 1: to make up an identity, what made up a person's
4:45
Speaker 1: sense of who they were. Yeah, and he basically had
4:48
Speaker 1: broken it out into beliefs, a series of different kinds
4:52
Speaker 1: of beliefs, which we'll kind of talk about here there
4:54
Speaker 1: a little more. But there's this anecdote that's frequently passed
4:57
Speaker 1: around that kind of like lays the early groundwork for
5:01
Speaker 1: this idea that someone's belief in who they are could
5:06
Speaker 1: conceivably be challenged. And it came one night when he
5:09
Speaker 1: was sitting around the dinner table with his wife and
5:11
Speaker 1: his two young daughters, and he accidentally, in like a
5:15
Speaker 1: moment of frustration telling them to settle down at dinner,
5:19
Speaker 1: called one another by their opposite names, and the girls
5:23
Speaker 1: just thought that was like the funniest thing that I
5:24
Speaker 1: ever heard.
5:25
Speaker 2: At first, Yes, was that is that my cue?
5:31
Speaker 1: Yeah? I even stuck my finger up like all right
5:33
Speaker 1: now you but you can't see it, can you?
5:35
Speaker 2: No, because we just listened to each other, Yeah, at first,
5:38
Speaker 2: and that was a little fun game. And then I
5:40
Speaker 2: think the five year old even said, you know, this
5:43
Speaker 2: is just a game, right dad, And Dad said no,
5:47
Speaker 2: it's real, and I hear him saying it in that voice,
5:51
Speaker 2: and you know, pretty soon they were begging for him
5:53
Speaker 2: to stop. And I can verify that this is a
5:56
Speaker 2: thing I've been I think as a parents, sometimes you'll
5:59
Speaker 2: call your kid by another name as a joke, like
6:03
Speaker 2: I know I've done it, like called my daughter my
6:06
Speaker 2: dog's name. If she's like she'll come into the room
6:08
Speaker 2: and like bark or something as a joke. So, oh,
6:11
Speaker 2: you're Nico, and she'll say, yeah, I'm Nico, and then
6:14
Speaker 2: for a few minutes later, I'm like, hey, come here, Nico,
6:16
Speaker 2: and then it's fun for about five minutes and then
6:19
Speaker 2: she's like no, like I am not. So there is
6:23
Speaker 2: very much a thing to a child's identity, especially from
6:27
Speaker 2: their parents, where they kind of get their identity and
6:30
Speaker 2: seek their identity. When that is challenged, it is very
6:33
Speaker 2: quickly kind of traumatic.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he learned a couple of things that One, you
6:38
Speaker 1: can very quickly challenge somebody, or you can very quickly
6:42
Speaker 1: push someone to a state of like trauma or anxiety
6:45
Speaker 1: or panic even Yeah, by just by simply challenging their
6:49
Speaker 1: identity by calling them the wrong name purposefully.
6:52
Speaker 2: That's right, Jerry.
6:53
Speaker 1: He also right, Yeah, I know, Jerry, call each other.
6:58
Speaker 2: Jerry, I think it would cancel e you there, out.
7:00
Speaker 1: Do it one more time and I will crumble, okay, Jachiffer,
7:03
Speaker 1: Oh god, but he also learned like, Okay, there's consequences
7:08
Speaker 1: to this. You can't take somebody with a with a
7:10
Speaker 1: well formed, well developed sense of identity and I guess
7:13
Speaker 1: a normal sense of identity and push push them to
7:17
Speaker 1: the edge, mess around with that sense of identity. There's
7:20
Speaker 1: there's harmful consequences to that. So he's starting to kind
7:25
Speaker 1: of explore this, and like I was saying, like he
7:27
Speaker 1: had broken everybody's belief system into a handful of different
7:32
Speaker 1: types of beliefs, and the belief that you are who
7:36
Speaker 1: you are, which is what we call our identity. He
7:39
Speaker 1: ascribed to primitive beliefs, which are just like basic truths
7:42
Speaker 1: in the same neighborhood as you know, I'm wearing a
7:47
Speaker 1: headphone on one ear and I have the other one
7:49
Speaker 1: behind my head. Right now, I have brown hair. My
7:51
Speaker 1: name is Josh, your chuck, Like, just basic truths of
7:55
Speaker 1: the universe that anyone you talk to is going to
7:59
Speaker 1: generally agree with. Right, That's where the personality comes from.
8:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that that is the very bedrock and foundation
8:08
Speaker 2: of how we think about ourselves. And he already saw
8:12
Speaker 2: messing with that can be bad, So he was like, hey,
8:16
Speaker 2: why not take it a step further.
8:19
Speaker 1: Right right, So what I was saying a minute ago
8:21
Speaker 1: with like how we saw that there's consequences to messing
8:23
Speaker 1: with saying person I just made air quotes. If you
8:27
Speaker 1: couldn't tell from my intonation messing with a sane person's identity,
8:32
Speaker 1: you can't really do that. But this is the mid
8:35
Speaker 1: century in America, and there's a whole group of people
8:38
Speaker 1: that you can do basically whatever you want to with
8:41
Speaker 1: as far as mental stuff goes. And that were people
8:44
Speaker 1: who are suffering from mental conditions who were locked up
8:47
Speaker 1: in state institutions at the time. And so Rokeach came
8:52
Speaker 1: up with this idea like, Okay, wait a minute, what
8:55
Speaker 1: if I got my hands on some mentally unstable people,
8:59
Speaker 1: some possibly diagnosed people, and messed with their sense of identity,
9:04
Speaker 1: took their delusion and challenged it. That could be okay,
9:08
Speaker 1: because hey, their lives are basically useless anyway, I'm paraphrasing
9:12
Speaker 1: Rokeich here, and if something does come of it, there's
9:16
Speaker 1: a good chance that it could be positive instead. So
9:19
Speaker 1: let me have it, let me add them basically.
9:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a quote here from the book, And big
9:25
Speaker 2: thanks to Dave Ruse for putting this one together. I
9:27
Speaker 2: know this was a huge it's a tough one to wrangle,
9:29
Speaker 2: but he did a great job. Here's the quote from
9:32
Speaker 2: the book. Because it is not feasible to study such
9:34
Speaker 2: phenomena with normal people, he didn't even put in quotes.
9:38
Speaker 2: It seemed reasonable to focus on delusional systems of belief
9:41
Speaker 2: in the hope that in subjecting them to strain, that
9:44
Speaker 2: would be little to lose and hopefully a great deal
9:47
Speaker 2: to gain. And like, I read that sentence and I'm like,
9:51
Speaker 2: stop there, dude, right, yeah.
9:53
Speaker 1: That's like the perfect motto for the misguided intentions of
9:57
Speaker 1: this study.
9:58
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, he is like, and die himself with that
10:00
Speaker 2: one quote.
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Speaker 1: Exactly, just right out of the gate. And I read
10:04
Speaker 1: this commentary magazine article from nineteen sixty four by Oh
10:09
Speaker 1: I can't remember who it was. I don't have it
10:11
Speaker 1: pulled up, but he's a famous poet at the time,
10:14
Speaker 1: and he was basically saying, like, you know, surely ro Keach,
10:17
Speaker 1: the guy who's writing the book, well, it understands that
10:21
Speaker 1: roe Keach, the character this doctor is like out of
10:23
Speaker 1: his mind, and he likes he's like slowly realizing, oh wait,
10:26
Speaker 1: this guy, even the author of the book has no
10:29
Speaker 1: idea that the doctor character who's himself has has any
10:32
Speaker 1: idea just how unethical this is. And that's a that's
10:35
Speaker 1: a that's a great example of it, that demonstrates it
10:38
Speaker 1: right off the bat.
10:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's a I don't know if you listened
10:42
Speaker 2: to the Snap judgment on this, did you hear that?
10:45
Speaker 1: No? Huh?
10:46
Speaker 2: It was good step, you know, great podcast or public
10:49
Speaker 2: radio program turned podcast.
10:51
Speaker 1: Sure, I've heard public radio before. Yeah, I used to.
10:56
Speaker 2: I used to listen to a lot more of it.
10:58
Speaker 1: Same here, fresh Air. I always still love fresh Air. Yeah,
11:01
Speaker 1: but it's one of those things where I just bulk
11:04
Speaker 1: it up and then, like when I'm painting a room
11:06
Speaker 1: in our house, I listened to just fresh Air the
11:08
Speaker 1: whole time or something, you know what I mean?
11:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, what is dairy GROW's going to have us on?
11:11
Speaker 2: Do we need to get to twenty years? Would that
11:14
Speaker 2: do it?
11:15
Speaker 1: Yeah? I wouldn't even begin to bother her until we
11:18
Speaker 1: hit twenty years and then maybe yeah, and.
11:20
Speaker 2: Then we just start asking basically hi, Terry Hi.
11:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.
11:25
Speaker 2: So in that Snap judgment, they pointed out that he
11:30
Speaker 2: that Roki actually read a Harper's article about two women
11:34
Speaker 2: who believe they were the Virgin Mary, and that put
11:37
Speaker 2: an idea into his head. And I know that. In
11:39
Speaker 2: his book he also talked about being inspired a little
11:43
Speaker 2: bit by some stuff that Voltaire wrote about it.
11:45
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, there was a man in the seventeenth century
11:48
Speaker 1: that Voltaire wrote about named Simone Morin who was deranged
11:53
Speaker 1: in the parlance at the time, and he thought that
11:55
Speaker 1: he was Christ. And so he was locked up in
11:58
Speaker 1: a mad house and he met in that place, in
12:02
Speaker 1: that institutional asylum, another man who thought he was Christ.
12:07
Speaker 1: And Simone Morin saw just how like crazy this guy
12:11
Speaker 1: seemed and was like, wait a minute, maybe I'm crazy.
12:14
Speaker 1: And in confronting this other guy who claimed to have
12:17
Speaker 1: the same identity, he regained his sanity to a certain extent,
12:21
Speaker 1: and unfortunately he relapsed and ended up being burned at
12:24
Speaker 1: the stake for heresy. But there was a moment there
12:29
Speaker 1: where he had kind of like been knocked out of
12:32
Speaker 1: his delusion. That's a huge deal. Like if you have
12:37
Speaker 1: schizophrenia or delusional beliefs, like if your mental disorder is
12:42
Speaker 1: to the degree where you hold delusions, and we should
12:45
Speaker 1: say a delusion is not like, you know, a made
12:48
Speaker 1: up belief where you know you made your belief up,
12:51
Speaker 1: like this is what you think is real. It is
12:54
Speaker 1: real to you, and you will defend it when it's challenged.
12:57
Speaker 1: So the idea that somebody who was delusional could be
13:00
Speaker 1: knocked out of their delusion by being confronted with somebody
13:03
Speaker 1: else who had the same delusion, that is groundbreaking. And
13:07
Speaker 1: I can see why roe Keach was like, there we go,
13:10
Speaker 1: that's it, there's my there's my methodology for this or
13:13
Speaker 1: for this this experiment.
13:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm sure he was, you know, he was
13:19
Speaker 2: turned on a little bit about the idea of three
13:21
Speaker 2: Christs or however many Christs he could find.
13:24
Speaker 1: He thought so hot.
13:26
Speaker 2: Well, I mean not even like that, you know what
13:28
Speaker 2: I mean though, But as a social psychologists he was
13:30
Speaker 2: probably like, you know, this would make for a pretty
13:34
Speaker 2: mind blowing experiment.
13:36
Speaker 1: Plus a great book title. It's one of the great
13:39
Speaker 1: understated book titles of all time.
13:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was not like the three Richard Nixon's of
13:44
Speaker 2: his Bilante.
13:45
Speaker 1: No, And I mean like Yipsilani is like this just
13:48
Speaker 1: this town outside of ann Arbor where you know, that's
13:51
Speaker 1: where one of the mental asylums were in Michigan at
13:55
Speaker 1: the time, And it's just like you know, it might
13:59
Speaker 1: as well be Walla, Walla or Lakawana, or it's just
14:03
Speaker 1: an unusual name in a town that doesn't really have
14:07
Speaker 1: much of a claim to anything, you know what I mean.
14:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure all three of those towns are like,
14:13
Speaker 2: is he insulting all of us or none of us?
14:15
Speaker 1: No, No, it's not an insult. It's just it's just
14:19
Speaker 1: it's not like a hot happen in town and it's
14:21
Speaker 1: been like the Three Christs of New York that loses
14:23
Speaker 1: something or the Price of London. It's just a rather
14:28
Speaker 1: generally unremarkable place, guys, ipsil Any if you live there
14:32
Speaker 1: and you don't know that it's generally unremarkable, I'm sorry
14:35
Speaker 1: to be breaking this news to you. I don't mean
14:37
Speaker 1: it in an unkind way at all.
14:40
Speaker 2: I know you don't. And I think generally back then,
14:43
Speaker 2: that's where a lot of these institutions were because they
14:45
Speaker 2: needed like lots of land. And so they'll just leave
14:49
Speaker 2: it at that, and okay, maybe take a break.
14:53
Speaker 1: Okay to let everybody really stew on what I said
14:56
Speaker 1: that we'll.
14:56
Speaker 2: Take a break and we'll find out how he found
14:59
Speaker 2: his pacetions right after this, all right, So we're back.
15:29
Speaker 2: There were twenty five thousand total patients in the system
15:34
Speaker 2: in Michigan State, in Michigan State hospitals, and he went
15:38
Speaker 2: through all of these, you know, he sort of tried
15:41
Speaker 2: to cull them down to ideally to Christ figures. He'd
15:46
Speaker 2: found a man who thought he was Cinderella, he found
15:49
Speaker 2: a Missus God, and then about six people who thought
15:53
Speaker 2: they were Christ. And three of them were really into
15:58
Speaker 2: this idea and really consistent with belief that they were Jesus.
16:02
Speaker 2: And two of them happened to be at Hipsolani. So
16:05
Speaker 2: he was like, this is perfect, I'll just transfer the
16:07
Speaker 2: third in and we'll get going.
16:09
Speaker 1: Yeah. And so these guys being inmates of the state
16:12
Speaker 1: at a time where Ipsilani had like four thousand people,
16:16
Speaker 1: four thousand patients in just this one institutions. And if
16:22
Speaker 1: you were already like on the margins society and then
16:25
Speaker 1: moved into a place where you're with four thousand other
16:27
Speaker 1: people on the margins of society, it's a really good
16:29
Speaker 1: place to get lost, to not get any real help.
16:34
Speaker 1: And so one of the things that was part of
16:38
Speaker 1: this experiment design is to make participating in these discussions.
16:44
Speaker 1: This group of these three Christs as attractive to these
16:48
Speaker 1: three men as possible. So they were moved toward d
16:51
Speaker 1: twenty three. They were given their own private day room
16:54
Speaker 1: to eat in, to sleep or not sleeping, but to
16:56
Speaker 1: hang out in away from everybody else. They got some
16:59
Speaker 1: like place to stretch out and to have some company.
17:03
Speaker 1: We got a lot of attention, a lot of perks.
17:06
Speaker 1: Like basically their lives were changed in like incalculable ways
17:12
Speaker 1: by being part of the study. And so when they
17:14
Speaker 1: say like these were voluntary meetings and these men were
17:17
Speaker 1: voluntary members of the study, that's that's definitely true. There
17:20
Speaker 1: were voluntary participants, but the perks on offer were just
17:24
Speaker 1: so amazing they like you would you could not turn
17:27
Speaker 1: down you know, participating in some degree.
17:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So they were willing participants insofar as yeah,
17:35
Speaker 2: they got these great perks worth running out. So he
17:39
Speaker 2: changed the names of the guys to protect their families
17:43
Speaker 2: and to protect them to some degree. But we should
17:46
Speaker 2: go over sort of the bios of the three men.
17:50
Speaker 2: Should we say who played them in the movies? Willout
17:52
Speaker 2: help people?
17:53
Speaker 1: I don't think so? Okay, I don't want to disparage
17:58
Speaker 1: those great actors' names.
17:59
Speaker 2: Again, Well, I mean the acting, they did a good job.
18:02
Speaker 2: It was just the material. They're all great actors, you know, Sure, yeah,
18:06
Speaker 2: I know, it's just when you write it. I don't
18:08
Speaker 2: want to call out the scriptwriter. But it wasn't there good.
18:13
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, because I didn't see
18:15
Speaker 1: the movie. Was it like and I loved the fact
18:17
Speaker 1: that they made a movie about Freddy Mercury and the
18:20
Speaker 1: other members of Queen, But was it like in the
18:27
Speaker 1: in the movie what was the name of that movie.
18:30
Speaker 2: The Queen Movie? That's what I called it.
18:33
Speaker 1: Okay, well in but Heymian in Mars City, that's right.
18:37
Speaker 1: Do you remember like every time like Freddy Mercury did
18:40
Speaker 1: something brilliant, they would have Brian May, they'd do a
18:43
Speaker 1: pan in close up of him just looking like in
18:46
Speaker 1: awe and astonished. And that's maybe pushing it doing that
18:50
Speaker 1: once in a movie, but they did that every like
18:53
Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty minutes. Was it kind of like that
18:56
Speaker 1: same sentiment?
18:57
Speaker 2: It wasn't so much that, And again I only watched
18:58
Speaker 2: the first act before I realized it was just it
19:01
Speaker 2: was just really sanitized and like a feel good type
19:05
Speaker 2: of thing.
19:07
Speaker 1: Got so, yeah, so you're similar, yeah, right, exactly. This
19:12
Speaker 1: is not a this is not a feel good story.
19:14
Speaker 1: I wonder if it was performance art you accidentally stumbled upon.
19:17
Speaker 2: I mean, was there was some tough stuff in there.
19:19
Speaker 2: It's not like it was completely like, hey, this is great,
19:21
Speaker 2: but it kind of reeked of like an Awakenings kind
19:25
Speaker 2: of thing.
19:25
Speaker 1: And I liked Awakening I got it all right, all right,
19:27
Speaker 1: I liked Awakenings too, But it sounds like what you're
19:30
Speaker 1: describing is more along the line of the Greatest Showman,
19:32
Speaker 1: like that kind of sanitization. I didn't see that, Okay,
19:36
Speaker 1: did you no? But he did that episode just tearing
19:40
Speaker 1: it apart. Yeah, yeah, we hadn't even seen it.
19:42
Speaker 2: More comfortable doing that at times.
19:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind kind of.
19:45
Speaker 2: So. The first guy was in his late fifties, Joseph
19:49
Speaker 2: Kassel fifty eight. He had been in the hospital for
19:53
Speaker 2: about twenty years and was Canadian born and raised in Quebec.
19:57
Speaker 2: And he was named after his after Josephine, his female
20:02
Speaker 2: relative in his family named Joseph, And I think the
20:06
Speaker 2: big takeaway from his childhood was that it was not good.
20:11
Speaker 2: A very abusive father, very quick tempered man who abused
20:15
Speaker 2: his mom, and his mom actually died while giving birth
20:18
Speaker 2: to her ninth kid, and so he had a rough
20:21
Speaker 2: go of it from the beginning.
20:23
Speaker 1: I think his name actually was Josephine as well, and
20:26
Speaker 1: he went by Joseph. So he wanted to be a writer.
20:30
Speaker 1: I think, did you say he was fifty eight at
20:32
Speaker 1: the time, Yeah, okay, and he did not really take
20:38
Speaker 1: to working outside of the house. He and his wife
20:43
Speaker 1: did not have a very good relationship. Necessarily, he didn't
20:47
Speaker 1: want kids, she did. They ended up having three daughters,
20:50
Speaker 1: and he later on came to believe that they were
20:53
Speaker 1: not his children after all, and that may have been correct.
20:58
Speaker 1: But then things started to take kind of a turn
20:59
Speaker 1: for the worse, and that he started to become really paranoid.
21:04
Speaker 1: He started to accuse people of poisoning his food. He
21:07
Speaker 1: became a bit of a hoarder, especially with books, and
21:11
Speaker 1: probably the greatest crime a man could commit in the
21:13
Speaker 1: mid century America, he did not want to work right,
21:16
Speaker 1: So that was basically that he ended up getting sent
21:20
Speaker 1: to an asylum in Canada and then on to Ipsilany eventually,
21:26
Speaker 1: and he'd been been in Ipseilany for I think about
21:31
Speaker 1: twenty years, or at least in and out of the
21:33
Speaker 1: hospital system for about twenty years, and for about ten
21:36
Speaker 1: of those years he had been he had decided that
21:39
Speaker 1: he was God or Jesus Christ or both.
21:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, And by the time he got around to Rokeach,
21:46
Speaker 2: or Rokeach found him, he was in a pretty bad state.
21:49
Speaker 2: After those twenty years, he had about half of his
21:52
Speaker 2: teeth left in his mouth. He was still hoarding books,
21:56
Speaker 2: carrying around books everywhere, and when, you know, when asked
22:01
Speaker 2: who he was, he said his name was Joseph, and
22:04
Speaker 2: he said that I am God, and I guess Rokeach said, well,
22:08
Speaker 2: you'll do just.
22:08
Speaker 1: Fine, very splendid. Yeah. So Joseph, despite you know, his
22:15
Speaker 1: inability to take care of himself and you know the
22:19
Speaker 1: fact that he hoarded and all of that, he was
22:21
Speaker 1: a very sharp person. So yeah, remember remember to keep
22:25
Speaker 1: that in mind. Like that he was. He was very
22:27
Speaker 1: sharp and a good writer as well. Clyde and these
22:31
Speaker 1: are these men's names were changed. Clyde Benson. He was seventy,
22:36
Speaker 1: he'd been hospitalized for the last seventeen years.
22:39
Speaker 2: He was in pretty rough shape.
22:41
Speaker 1: He really was. And I wrote, Keatch definitely starts to
22:43
Speaker 1: recognize that pretty quickly after meeting Clyde, and ends up
22:48
Speaker 1: almost letting him just stay in the group even though
22:51
Speaker 1: he's not really participating any longer. But Clyde was apparently
22:56
Speaker 1: raised in an overprotected manner and didn't really learn how
23:00
Speaker 1: to make his own decisions and kind of ended up
23:02
Speaker 1: stunted as a result. Which you can make your way
23:07
Speaker 1: through life like that if you if you want to.
23:10
Speaker 1: But he ended up turning to alcohol and became a
23:14
Speaker 1: really hardcore alcoholic to where it was starting to wreck
23:18
Speaker 1: his life. And apparently that came into collision with a
23:26
Speaker 1: diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia at some point.
23:29
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And you know, it seems like the drinking
23:32
Speaker 2: was the anytime you have an undiagnosed condition like this
23:37
Speaker 2: and you pour alcoholism on top of it or any
23:40
Speaker 2: kind of you know, drug addiction, it's gonna it's just
23:43
Speaker 2: gonna be even worse. And eventually he was arrested for
23:47
Speaker 2: public drunkenness. It was a pretty violent arrest and in
23:51
Speaker 2: jail he was violent, and he was saying he was
23:54
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, that he was God, and that he was
23:57
Speaker 2: reborn through his first wife. Surely I believe she had
24:01
Speaker 2: passed away, and he did get remarried, and it was
24:04
Speaker 2: surely the queen of heaven. And at this point they
24:07
Speaker 2: committed him to a mental hospital when he was fifty three,
24:11
Speaker 2: where he got that diagnosis, and he was the one
24:15
Speaker 2: that was easily the most far gone and toughest to
24:20
Speaker 2: reach and sort of walked around mumbling. He also didn't
24:23
Speaker 2: have many, if any of his teeth, but occasionally would
24:29
Speaker 2: like still have that violence in him where he would
24:31
Speaker 2: have these sort of violent outbursts but then kind of
24:34
Speaker 2: calm down again.
24:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when he did, he was very direct and
24:38
Speaker 1: to the point. And I don't think he was actually
24:41
Speaker 1: physically violent, was he.
24:42
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think it just could be
24:44
Speaker 2: scary at times.
24:45
Speaker 1: Right, So he would say things like I am him.
24:48
Speaker 1: See now understand that, Like that was the extent of
24:52
Speaker 1: how he would explain that he was God. He didn't
24:54
Speaker 1: need it to be challenged, and if you did try
24:56
Speaker 1: to challenge it, he would just shut you down kind
24:58
Speaker 1: of thing, in a very yeah, like you said, kind
25:01
Speaker 1: of a scary way.
25:03
Speaker 2: So Leon was perhaps one of the saddest of the
25:07
Speaker 2: three cases, and that he was had only been hospitalized
25:10
Speaker 2: for about five years. He was younger, he was thirty
25:13
Speaker 2: eight years old, and he was the snap judgment is
25:18
Speaker 2: great because they had his two initial graduate assistants on,
25:22
Speaker 2: Richard Bonnier and Ron Hoppey, so like real firsthand experience
25:27
Speaker 2: on the podcast, and they were saying that he was
25:29
Speaker 2: the one that broke their heart the most because he
25:33
Speaker 2: was the one that most likely could have been rehabilitated,
25:36
Speaker 2: and it just tore them up that they and they
25:40
Speaker 2: liked him a lot. He was a real personable guy
25:43
Speaker 2: and it was very engaging with his stories and they
25:46
Speaker 2: really thought that they could have helped him had it
25:48
Speaker 2: not been you know, in part by what happened with Rokeach.
25:52
Speaker 1: Which is sad because that means that Rokeach made things
25:55
Speaker 1: much much worse. Yeah, these people, and that's something to
25:57
Speaker 1: really understand. That there were three men who were living,
26:00
Speaker 1: you know, their delusional lives in this statemental hospital, but
26:04
Speaker 1: they were generally unmolested until they were dragged into this
26:08
Speaker 1: study and messed with like in ways that you just
26:12
Speaker 1: don't do to other people, you know, and that their
26:14
Speaker 1: lives probably were worse, far worse than they would have
26:18
Speaker 1: been had they never met Milton Roki.
26:20
Speaker 2: Yeah. So Leon's deal was his mother was almost certainly
26:25
Speaker 2: schizophrenic as well. And had delusions, religious delusions. So he
26:30
Speaker 2: was raised in a household with these with basically a
26:34
Speaker 2: religious fanatic, and that impacted him from the very beginning.
26:40
Speaker 2: Of course, he was ended up diagnosed with schizophrenia as well,
26:44
Speaker 2: but growing up, I mean in that kind of environment, definitely,
26:47
Speaker 2: I think led to the Christ thing for sure.
26:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he had like there was a time where
26:53
Speaker 1: he was living a normal life. He served in World
26:55
Speaker 1: War Two, he worked at different jobs back in Detroit,
27:01
Speaker 1: he tried to go to college. He was trying to
27:03
Speaker 1: make a life for himself, but he suffered from fatigue,
27:07
Speaker 1: which I looked up is apparently a really tough comorbidity
27:11
Speaker 1: with psychotic disorders, and it's like got a terrible positive
27:16
Speaker 1: feedback where you know, the more tired you get, the
27:20
Speaker 1: worshier disorder is, and the worship disorder is, the harder
27:22
Speaker 1: it can be to sleep, and it's just not good.
27:25
Speaker 1: So he had that, and then he also started hearing
27:28
Speaker 1: voices himself that we're telling him that he was Jesus Christ,
27:33
Speaker 1: and that didn't really jibe very well with his mother's
27:35
Speaker 1: own religious fanaticism because he saw that she was, you know,
27:39
Speaker 1: worshiping these other what he considered idols, and he went
27:43
Speaker 1: on a bit of a violent tear once, removing all
27:48
Speaker 1: the pictures of the saints and breaking all of the
27:50
Speaker 1: figurines and all that stuff, and demanding that his mother
27:53
Speaker 1: worship him as Jesus Christ, and threatening that as she didn't,
27:57
Speaker 1: he would strangle her. And so that was enough to
28:00
Speaker 1: get him locked up for good. He'd already been locked
28:02
Speaker 1: up one time for a brief period, and then about
28:05
Speaker 1: six months after that he was locked up from then
28:09
Speaker 1: until the time that he met Milton roe Keach, right.
28:12
Speaker 2: And that was Walton goggins.
28:14
Speaker 1: Man.
28:15
Speaker 2: Sorry.
28:16
Speaker 1: So he he went by not Leon, and again Leon
28:20
Speaker 1: was a fake name that ro Keach gave him for
28:22
Speaker 1: the book. But he went by doctor Domino Dominorum at
28:27
Speaker 1: rex reserum simplest Christianist, purist mentalist doctor, which is Latin
28:32
Speaker 1: for lord of lords, king of King's simple Christian boy psychiatrist.
28:36
Speaker 1: But he asked everyone to call him Rex for short, and.
28:39
Speaker 2: They said thanks sure.
28:42
Speaker 1: And he was he was, like you said, like the
28:44
Speaker 1: most probably the most personable. He liked Joseph. He was
28:47
Speaker 1: very sharp too, but also like from a very early
28:53
Speaker 1: stage he saw quite clearly what Roe Keach was trying
28:57
Speaker 1: to do, and he thought that it was morally repugnant,
29:01
Speaker 1: that it was not a nice thing to do to somebody,
29:04
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't mess with people like that, and he
29:06
Speaker 1: said as much multiple times throughout the study.
29:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is when he hires those two grad assistants,
29:12
Speaker 2: is when he finds the guys, gets this experiment going
29:16
Speaker 2: in earnest and you know, his hypothesis was that if
29:22
Speaker 2: I can have these three men confront one another about
29:26
Speaker 2: them being the real Christ, that it could rock them
29:30
Speaker 2: into what he saw as reality and get them out
29:34
Speaker 2: of these delusions. And that didn't happen. Well, it didn't
29:39
Speaker 2: happen at all through the experiment, But initially they what
29:42
Speaker 2: they did was they really dug in, and they each
29:46
Speaker 2: had their own way of doing so, but they each
29:48
Speaker 2: dug in and said no, no, no, I am the
29:51
Speaker 2: real Christ. And they each had different sort of methods
29:54
Speaker 2: of dealing with the others, but none of them wavered initially.
29:58
Speaker 1: No. And it was really, really it was kind of
30:03
Speaker 1: in and of itself, just that finding that not only
30:06
Speaker 1: did they not have their identity shattered, but they just
30:09
Speaker 1: rebuilt and reinforced their identities. However, they could find a
30:14
Speaker 1: way to do it to their own satisfaction. That's a
30:16
Speaker 1: pretty big psychological finding in and of itself, you know,
30:19
Speaker 1: although it doesn't seem worth putting these men through that
30:22
Speaker 1: just to find that out.
30:23
Speaker 2: You know, Yeah, for sure, I think Joseph said. Joseph
30:29
Speaker 2: was more one to sort of laugh it off. He said,
30:33
Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong. Yesterday I knew I was what I am. Today,
30:37
Speaker 2: I am what I am. I'm not worried about losing
30:39
Speaker 2: my identity. And we also should point out that Joseph,
30:43
Speaker 2: and this was portrayed in the movie too by Peter Dinklage.
30:46
Speaker 2: He was spoke with an English accent. He thought he
30:49
Speaker 2: was convinced himself that he was from England, that he
30:53
Speaker 2: was descendant of royalty, and that the hospital was an
30:56
Speaker 2: English stronghold.
30:58
Speaker 1: Don't think I didn't notice you just slipped Peter Inklige
31:00
Speaker 1: in there.
31:00
Speaker 2: I know that only leaves one more, so I don't
31:03
Speaker 2: need to do the third.
31:05
Speaker 1: So one of the other things about Joseph was his
31:10
Speaker 1: interpretation of why they were there in this study. Why
31:12
Speaker 1: the three of these men had been brought together was
31:15
Speaker 1: so that they could sort out with the other two
31:17
Speaker 1: that they weren't Christ, that he was the one who
31:20
Speaker 1: was actually Christ, so he could do his work here
31:22
Speaker 1: on earth better without having these two basically harassing him
31:27
Speaker 1: or whatever. So then Leon, like I was saying, Leon,
31:31
Speaker 1: was the one who kind of saw the most through
31:34
Speaker 1: ro Keach's saw ro Kech's intentions and saw that they
31:38
Speaker 1: were just wrong. And like Clyde, I think Clyde said
31:45
Speaker 1: that that they were a rerise, that's what he considered
31:50
Speaker 1: the other two, or a hick. Joseph said, you know,
31:54
Speaker 1: I am who I am, and also, by the way,
31:56
Speaker 1: we all know that I'm really God. And the Leon
31:58
Speaker 1: he said that, he said the the other two were
32:00
Speaker 1: instrumental gods. They were hallowed out gods. They were possibly
32:05
Speaker 1: dead already, and machines were operating them and making them
32:09
Speaker 1: say these things. But even in that like, he wasn't
32:12
Speaker 1: attacking them personally. It was what he felt forced to
32:16
Speaker 1: explain his position, and so that's what he said his
32:18
Speaker 1: position was. But as he was saying this, he would
32:22
Speaker 1: turn to Joseph. He would turn to Clyde, and he
32:25
Speaker 1: would say, you know, I mean this, you know, respectfully,
32:29
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be to tear you down. Whatever
32:32
Speaker 1: your belief is your belief and I don't want it.
32:34
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to take it from you. I have
32:36
Speaker 1: my beliefs and you have your beliefs, and that's good enough.
32:40
Speaker 1: And so through that kind of like truce that was
32:47
Speaker 1: kind of established between these three men, they basically kept
32:50
Speaker 1: the researchers at bay. The researchers would try to come
32:52
Speaker 1: in and bust things up and get them to like
32:54
Speaker 1: argue or you know, make them confront one another. But
32:58
Speaker 1: if when left alone, those three men just generally did
33:01
Speaker 1: not argue about who was God. They avoided the subject
33:04
Speaker 1: altogether and just let the other ones be and just
33:07
Speaker 1: kind of entered this live and let live kind of position,
33:11
Speaker 1: which I think is pretty heartening, you know it is.
33:14
Speaker 2: And that was one of the things that came through
33:16
Speaker 2: on that snap judgment with the two research assistants was
33:21
Speaker 2: that their take was that these men were generally, like
33:24
Speaker 2: after the initial sort of denial stuff, that they were
33:28
Speaker 2: generally pretty respectful and wanted to give each other the
33:31
Speaker 2: space to believe that they were christ if they wanted to.
33:35
Speaker 2: And what that showed was empathy and that's something that
33:38
Speaker 2: none of them saw coming at this point. Rokeach is
33:43
Speaker 2: being kind of hassled by these two grad assistants saying, hey, listen, man,
33:50
Speaker 2: these guys are kind of okay with this, and you're
33:52
Speaker 2: taking this thing too far. And eventually he was he
33:55
Speaker 2: ignored them basically, and eventually they quit before this phase starts.
34:01
Speaker 2: Oh okay, And because they didn't agree with what was
34:04
Speaker 2: going on, because they saw these three guys that were
34:06
Speaker 2: generally respectful for one another, they saw ro Kech would
34:10
Speaker 2: do things like a journalist wrote a story about them
34:12
Speaker 2: at one point that was obviously not flattering at all
34:16
Speaker 2: to the three Christs, and Rokeach read this aloud to
34:19
Speaker 2: them like he was just trying to push their buttons
34:22
Speaker 2: and initiate this conflict, and the two grat assistants eventually
34:25
Speaker 2: are like, we're out of here.
34:26
Speaker 1: Yeah. That story, in particular, it was about how ro
34:29
Speaker 1: Keach was treating three psychotic men who thought they were
34:32
Speaker 1: christ and to read that to them is it's really mean. Again.
34:36
Speaker 1: He was trying to see what would happen if they
34:39
Speaker 1: were confronted with their identities being considered delusional by other people,
34:43
Speaker 1: and Leon in particular didn't like that. He said that
34:48
Speaker 1: a doctor is or a person who's supposed to be
34:50
Speaker 1: a doctor, is supposed to lift up, build up, guide,
34:53
Speaker 1: direct inspire. He said that what you've just done is deploring,
34:57
Speaker 1: and roe Keach said, you know, deploring. I've try leveled
35:00
Speaker 1: seventy five miles in snow and storm to come see you.
35:03
Speaker 1: And Lee had said, yes, but what was your intention
35:05
Speaker 1: in coming to see me, sir? And so he didn't
35:09
Speaker 1: put up with Roketch's bs at all, which is pretty cool,
35:12
Speaker 1: you know, to hold delusions and to have your delusions
35:16
Speaker 1: attacked like that, and then to be able to push
35:19
Speaker 1: back but also in still a respectful way. Is I
35:21
Speaker 1: think Leon's one of these one of the great unsung
35:24
Speaker 1: heroes of twentieth century America.
35:27
Speaker 2: Totally. Should we take a break before phase two?
35:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, I say we take a break man, all right.
35:32
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. So before stage two starts, when
36:02
Speaker 2: things get really unethical, well not before this was kind
36:06
Speaker 2: of part of the unethical. The two grat assistant assistants
36:09
Speaker 2: had left, and he hires this new young pretty woman
36:12
Speaker 2: as a grad assistant and basically tells her to flirt
36:16
Speaker 2: with Leon and to see if he can make her
36:19
Speaker 2: make him fall in love with her. And that's exactly
36:22
Speaker 2: what happened, and Leon fell in love with her and
36:25
Speaker 2: was destroyed when he basically came to realize on his
36:28
Speaker 2: own that that was never gonna happen for him.
36:31
Speaker 1: Man, it's just brutal keeps getting better and better.
36:34
Speaker 2: Yeah.
36:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, when those when those grad assistants said you've gone
36:38
Speaker 1: too far, I think Rokeach probably said something along the
36:40
Speaker 1: lines of too far. I haven't begun to go too far.
36:43
Speaker 1: Richard gears to watch What's next? Yeah, but there was like.
36:46
Speaker 2: Upbeat music, Yeah, like Salisbury Hill.
36:51
Speaker 1: Exactly. That is exactly what I was thinking of. Thank
36:55
Speaker 1: you for putting it into words, Chuck.
36:56
Speaker 2: So what happened next?
36:58
Speaker 1: So what happened next is as follows. They're Rokets basically
37:01
Speaker 1: saw like, these guys are not going for this. For this,
37:04
Speaker 1: the level of prodding that I've been doing, I'm going
37:07
Speaker 1: to really kind of turn up the heat. And he
37:09
Speaker 1: wondered if you took the members people that were part
37:15
Speaker 1: of these patient's delusional belief systems and personified them, like
37:20
Speaker 1: pretended you were them, say he started communicating with them
37:22
Speaker 1: through letters or whatever, Yeah, what would happen? Could you
37:26
Speaker 1: conceivably get these people to abandon their delusions under the
37:30
Speaker 1: guidance of these authority figures that were actually part of
37:33
Speaker 1: their delusions. It's really kind of mind boggling when you
37:36
Speaker 1: lay it out in like a float chart like that.
37:38
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, that this like just kept getting worse
37:40
Speaker 2: and worse. So he identified these authority figures in all
37:44
Speaker 2: three of them. I guess to his credit, he laid
37:48
Speaker 2: off of Clyde because, I mean, I don't know if
37:52
Speaker 2: it was so much empathy as it was, he knew
37:54
Speaker 2: he wasn't getting very far with.
37:56
Speaker 1: Clyde, or maybe he was scared of what would happen
37:58
Speaker 1: if Clyde.
37:59
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, because Clyde was definitely could be a little scary.
38:02
Speaker 2: But so he laid off of Clyde. But he found
38:05
Speaker 2: that Joseph said that a superintendent of the hospital named
38:10
Speaker 2: doctor Yoder yod E r. Was his dad. And Leon
38:15
Speaker 2: said that he had a wife. He had a couple.
38:17
Speaker 2: His wife the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was an uncle
38:22
Speaker 2: reincarnated as Michael, the archangel archangel arch angel.
38:27
Speaker 1: Those are two different. So he was married to the
38:29
Speaker 1: Blessed Virgin Mary and had that uncle.
38:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had those two.
38:33
Speaker 1: But there was he wasn't married to his uncle. He
38:36
Speaker 1: had another wife later on named Madam Yetti Woman after
38:41
Speaker 1: he stopped being married to the Blessed Virgin Mary because
38:44
Speaker 1: his uncle, Michael the Archangel married Blessed the Blessed Virgin Mary.
38:49
Speaker 2: Right, it sounds a little confusing, but when you're dealing
38:52
Speaker 2: with stuff like this, I think it just has to
38:54
Speaker 2: be a little confusing.
38:55
Speaker 1: Well, the upshot of it is Rokeach started posing as
39:00
Speaker 1: as Madame Yetti Woman and started a letter writing campaign
39:05
Speaker 1: as Madame Yetti Woman, basically reaching out to say, Hey, Leon,
39:10
Speaker 1: I just want to say hi, and I'm thinking of
39:12
Speaker 1: you and let's start talking. So there was correspondence that
39:17
Speaker 1: was established as as Leon's delusion like wife Madame Yetti Woman.
39:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we should point out that he supposedly had
39:28
Speaker 2: gotten not supposedly, I think he did get the hospital's
39:31
Speaker 2: permission to sign off on this as long as he said, listen,
39:35
Speaker 2: it's all going to be positive stuff. I'm not going
39:37
Speaker 2: to be writing them letters saying to go start a
39:39
Speaker 2: fight or anything like that. So I'm gonna send them
39:42
Speaker 2: positive message messages and I'm going to stop if this
39:46
Speaker 2: becomes upsetting to these guys. And so they said, sure, go.
39:48
Speaker 1: Ahead, yeah, and so he did. He did go ahead
39:52
Speaker 1: first with Leon, I believe, and by this time Leon
39:55
Speaker 1: had One of the things that he had done to
39:58
Speaker 1: transform his identity was to become doctor Righteous Ideal Dung
40:03
Speaker 1: or doctor ri I Dong. And apparently the head nurse
40:06
Speaker 1: asked him directly, like can I please not call you
40:08
Speaker 1: doctor Dong? And he said, yes, you can call me Ri,
40:12
Speaker 1: but everybody else called him doctor ri I Dong. And
40:15
Speaker 1: he did this, Rokeach concluded, to basically make himself not
40:19
Speaker 1: worthy of being harassed anymore. But he was still secretly god,
40:24
Speaker 1: like he knew he was God. He was just pretending
40:27
Speaker 1: to be something else. And during that period he became
40:29
Speaker 1: married to Madame Yetti woman. So ro Keech started addressing
40:33
Speaker 1: letters is to doctor ri I Dong and basically saying,
40:38
Speaker 1: you know, here's a dollar, why don't you go buy
40:41
Speaker 1: yourself something nice in the hospital store and then share
40:43
Speaker 1: the change with Clyde and Joseph and or. One of
40:48
Speaker 1: the things that they would do is they would take
40:50
Speaker 1: turns between the three patients. Is who was going to
40:53
Speaker 1: lead the session that day. And one of the things
40:55
Speaker 1: you did when you led the session was you chose
40:57
Speaker 1: what song everybody sung at the beginning and at the
41:00
Speaker 1: end of the session, which is adorable, and so Madame
41:03
Speaker 1: Yetti Woman suggested that he choose Onward Christian Soldiers, and
41:08
Speaker 1: he chose Onward Christian Soldiers, and so like to rokech
41:11
Speaker 1: he's seeing like there's this there's like an actual influence
41:16
Speaker 1: that is being exerted by this delusional figure. And also
41:20
Speaker 1: it demonstrates that that Leon is showing like he definitely
41:23
Speaker 1: believes Madame Yetti Woman's a person for sure.
41:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, And eventually what broke it was as posing as
41:30
Speaker 2: Madame Yetti Woman asked Leon to stop using the name
41:34
Speaker 2: doctor Dung. The name thing seems to have been a
41:38
Speaker 2: sticking point with a lot of people. Or maybe he
41:40
Speaker 2: just thought that that would since he held onto that
41:43
Speaker 2: so strongly, that would have been like the toughest thing
41:45
Speaker 2: to make him do.
41:47
Speaker 1: And.
41:49
Speaker 2: That was sort of it. He was asked about the letter,
41:51
Speaker 2: and Leon doesn't really say anything about asking to be
41:56
Speaker 2: to drop the name doctor Doung. He just starts talking
41:59
Speaker 2: more and more about God being both male and female,
42:02
Speaker 2: insane and insane and said I don't care for the
42:05
Speaker 2: insanity of God, and then said I don't want any
42:08
Speaker 2: more letters and basically kind of shut it down.
42:10
Speaker 1: And so with those with Leon's letters in particular, there
42:14
Speaker 1: was a couple of like really sad things, like the
42:16
Speaker 1: whole thing was sad to begin with. But there's this
42:19
Speaker 1: passage in the book where Leon gets a letter and
42:23
Speaker 1: roe Keach realizes that he's holding back tears and he
42:27
Speaker 1: starts to ask him, like, why are you, like, you know,
42:30
Speaker 1: are you happy? He said, yes, I'm very happy. It's
42:32
Speaker 1: a very pleasant feeling to have someone think of you
42:36
Speaker 1: like like he was. He was moved to tears by
42:39
Speaker 1: the idea that Madame Yetti woman was writing to him
42:42
Speaker 1: and talking about caring for him and sending him money
42:44
Speaker 1: to go buy himself things with. And rather than just
42:49
Speaker 1: say like, oh, we might want to back this off,
42:52
Speaker 1: ro Kech used it to step that up and arranged
42:55
Speaker 1: for a meeting with Madame Yetti Woman. Yeah, but there
42:58
Speaker 1: was no Madame Yetti woman who was supposed to show up.
43:01
Speaker 1: He was just he was going to get stood up
43:03
Speaker 1: from the outset. But still Leon went to go meet
43:09
Speaker 1: Madame Yetti Woman and had his heart broken. I think
43:11
Speaker 1: it was after that that he stopped responding to the letters.
43:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, when he said I don't want
43:17
Speaker 2: these letters anymore. I don't want to receive them. You
43:19
Speaker 2: would think that that's when Rokeach would say, all right, well,
43:22
Speaker 2: let's just stop this all together. But he didn't because
43:25
Speaker 2: he remembered that Leon had another authority figure in his life,
43:30
Speaker 2: which was his uncle, George Bernard Brown aka the archangel Michael,
43:37
Speaker 2: and so he said, hey, I'll have someone call and
43:40
Speaker 2: pose as his uncle now. And this didn't work from
43:43
Speaker 2: the beginning, Leon, I guess the voice was just so
43:47
Speaker 2: far off, or maybe Leon was just really wise to
43:49
Speaker 2: it at this point said you know, no, no, no,
43:52
Speaker 2: this isn't this is even close to the voice, goodbye,
43:56
Speaker 2: and hung up. And then they asked him about the call,
43:59
Speaker 2: and he said, I don't believe in mental torture, sir.
44:01
Speaker 2: So it seems like he was sort of onto him
44:04
Speaker 2: at this point, or you know, it was on to
44:05
Speaker 2: him from the beginning, but onto him about this ruse.
44:08
Speaker 1: I don't think he was on to him from the beginning.
44:11
Speaker 2: I think that he no, I mean from the beginning
44:13
Speaker 2: of the experiments, he was wearing, Oh.
44:15
Speaker 1: I gotcha, I see what you're saying. But yeah, but
44:17
Speaker 1: it's really easy to forget because you're reading roe Keach's
44:19
Speaker 1: accounts that these men weren't in on the idea that
44:23
Speaker 1: it was from roe Keach. They believed that these letters
44:26
Speaker 1: were coming from sure their delusional figures.
44:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the whole point, which makes it.
44:31
Speaker 1: Just even more gut wrenching when you stop and remember that,
44:34
Speaker 1: you know.
44:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
44:36
Speaker 1: So then he says, okay, all right, Leon's done. I'm
44:39
Speaker 1: done writing letters to him. Who can I write letters
44:41
Speaker 1: to next? And he moves on to Joseph.
44:43
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, so this was the one where the superintendent,
44:47
Speaker 2: the fictional doctor Yoder, was the authority figure for Joseph,
44:53
Speaker 2: who he saw as a father figure. And so of
44:56
Speaker 2: course Rokeach is gonna play up this whole father figure
44:59
Speaker 2: thing in the letters, saying that he loved him like
45:01
Speaker 2: his son. He just wanted the best things for him.
45:05
Speaker 2: And if you remember from the original sort of quick bio,
45:08
Speaker 2: Joseph's father was awful and abusive, So he's really playing
45:13
Speaker 2: into his deepest sort of insecurities here.
45:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, be assured that I will always love you,
45:19
Speaker 1: just exactly like a father who deeply loves his own son.
45:22
Speaker 2: It's really tough to even research this stuff.
45:25
Speaker 1: Yeah. So so just like with Leon, through these letters,
45:31
Speaker 1: as doctor Yoder, he tried to get Joseph to start
45:34
Speaker 1: doing stuff, innocuous stuff at first, like saying stop. He didn't,
45:38
Speaker 1: he stopped saying that he was from England and he
45:40
Speaker 1: was from Quebec, started going to church services, that kind
45:44
Speaker 1: of stuff. So there was an influence on Joseph, just
45:46
Speaker 1: like there was on Leon, using their delusional characters or
45:51
Speaker 1: delusional friends, authority figures, whatever. And I think even doctor
45:56
Speaker 1: Yoder prescribed for the fake Doctor Yoder prescribed placebo for
46:01
Speaker 1: Joseph's stomach ailments. He had, like digestive problems or stomach hurt,
46:05
Speaker 1: and these placebo pills just fixed him right up.
46:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the stomach pills placebo supposedly worked. And then
46:14
Speaker 2: he said, all right, well that worked, so I'm going
46:16
Speaker 2: to give you pills to basically cure your mind. And
46:20
Speaker 2: if you want to fix fix yourself for good, take
46:23
Speaker 2: these pills. Which is I mean, this is so far
46:28
Speaker 2: off the charts of unethical, like I can't even describe
46:32
Speaker 2: how far off the charts it is. And he said, basically,
46:36
Speaker 2: I think he said he gave him an ultimatum. He
46:38
Speaker 2: says I'm only going to continue to give these pills
46:41
Speaker 2: that will supposedly make your mind right if you admit
46:46
Speaker 2: that you're in a mental hospital. And it's not an
46:48
Speaker 2: English stronghold. And Joseph finally said, like, sign something, and
46:52
Speaker 2: Joseph said no, I'm not going to sign this, and
46:55
Speaker 2: he cut off this placebo medication that he believed might
46:58
Speaker 2: be fixing his brain. And it kind of petered out
47:01
Speaker 2: after that, and it was just like, it's just brutal
47:04
Speaker 2: to think about these guys going through this like hope
47:06
Speaker 2: that they're getting better and it was all fake.
47:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, he apparently stopped writing to doctor Yoder and moved
47:14
Speaker 1: on to JFK, started writing letters to JFK asking to
47:17
Speaker 1: be one of his speech writers, because remember he was
47:19
Speaker 1: a writer as well, right, So ro Keech is like, okay,
47:22
Speaker 1: all right, let's see what's next. Oh, nothing's next. This
47:25
Speaker 1: is the end of the line. He finally realized, like, okay,
47:28
Speaker 1: this is not going anywhere. Not only had he not
47:32
Speaker 1: at all moved Clyde's delusions or Joseph's delusions. The only
47:37
Speaker 1: persons whose delusions had changed at all was Leon's, and
47:40
Speaker 1: his had just gotten more complex and intricate, certainly not
47:44
Speaker 1: any closer to reality. They got further away from reality
47:47
Speaker 1: because of this influence from ro Kechen is his experiment,
47:54
Speaker 1: and he has like a pretty rich little admission in
47:58
Speaker 1: the book that he says that we do not know
48:01
Speaker 1: to what extent our very presence, behavior and questions may
48:05
Speaker 1: have influenced the results obtained, which is bizarre to say,
48:09
Speaker 1: because the whole point of the experiment was to influence
48:13
Speaker 1: these people through this experiment. So it's a really weird
48:17
Speaker 1: thing that even put it in there from some of
48:20
Speaker 1: the stuff that I've read kind of picking apart this
48:23
Speaker 1: book at the end, it really just kind of peters
48:25
Speaker 1: out and like he's just kind of slashing in the
48:28
Speaker 1: air with his sword trying to figure out, you know,
48:30
Speaker 1: what the point was of all this stuff, and even
48:33
Speaker 1: without like a satisfying conclusion or end, and ended up
48:38
Speaker 1: getting published in nineteen sixty four and became like a
48:41
Speaker 1: really big success in the field psychology, but also got
48:45
Speaker 1: widely criticized right out of the gate because even though
48:48
Speaker 1: this was mid century America and we're talking about mental
48:50
Speaker 1: patients in mid century America who have very little rights
48:54
Speaker 1: or were treated very poorly, like there was still like
48:58
Speaker 1: a lot of people around, Really, you don't do this
49:00
Speaker 1: to human beings. This is not okay, not everybody did,
49:03
Speaker 1: but some, you know, some critics definitely came out immediately.
49:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. It took Rokeich a long time, though, to really
49:11
Speaker 2: kind of come to terms with what he had done,
49:13
Speaker 2: and he eventually did though, about seventeen years later. They
49:18
Speaker 2: reissued the book in nineteen eighty one, and he wrote
49:22
Speaker 2: a new ForWord. He admitted in interviews in other places
49:25
Speaker 2: as well, that he was also, you know, innocent, suffering
49:31
Speaker 2: from godlike delusions and that he was playing God with
49:34
Speaker 2: these men and regretted it. He regretted publishing. He said,
49:39
Speaker 2: I regret having written and published a study when I did.
49:43
Speaker 2: I don't know if that means that he wishes he
49:44
Speaker 2: could have reflected more on it or what.
49:46
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know either.
49:48
Speaker 2: He did sort of recant and say he didn't do
49:50
Speaker 2: the right thing. It's worth pointing out that this was
49:54
Speaker 2: six years into his suffering from spinal cants, so I
50:00
Speaker 2: don't know if that had, you know, knowing the end
50:03
Speaker 2: was near for him had something to do with his
50:06
Speaker 2: sort of self reflection. But he eventually died in nineteen
50:09
Speaker 2: eighty eight at the age of seventy after a thirteen
50:11
Speaker 2: year battle with spinal cancer, and you know, left the
50:17
Speaker 2: social psychology world sort of rocked. Like like I said,
50:22
Speaker 2: I studied this in college, and it became sort of
50:25
Speaker 2: like the Stanford prison experiment, right, it became worth studying,
50:30
Speaker 2: but not for the reasons that they initially launched the
50:32
Speaker 2: study to begin with.
50:34
Speaker 1: No, he finally figured out the point of the book,
50:36
Speaker 1: and the point of the book where was for him
50:37
Speaker 1: to figure out that it was unethical what he was doing,
50:40
Speaker 1: and you finally come to terms with what he'd done
50:42
Speaker 1: to these poor men, and that you have a right
50:44
Speaker 1: to just be left alone and not have your identity
50:47
Speaker 1: challenged no matter what you believe you are who you
50:49
Speaker 1: believe you are. And so he actually changed his methods.
50:53
Speaker 1: His general belief in the idea of belief systems remained
50:59
Speaker 1: the same, but he changed his tactics in that he
51:03
Speaker 1: got involved in self confrontation, where you try to present
51:06
Speaker 1: people with you know, self examination where they would examine
51:10
Speaker 1: what their values were, what their beliefs were, and then
51:13
Speaker 1: they would kind of be challenged on that like, Okay,
51:16
Speaker 1: you believe in freedom, you place a high value on freedom,
51:19
Speaker 1: but you also rated equality pretty low. But isn't equality
51:23
Speaker 1: freedom for everybody? So you care about your freedom but
51:26
Speaker 1: not other people's freedom. How does that really jibe? And
51:28
Speaker 1: then the hope was that they would go back and
51:30
Speaker 1: self reflect and be like, no, I really do care
51:32
Speaker 1: about freedom, I do care about other people. Maybe I
51:34
Speaker 1: should care about more about equality and improve as a person.
51:37
Speaker 1: And that's ultimately how he ended up making his name
51:40
Speaker 1: starting in the seventies.
51:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I gotta tell you, when you read some
51:44
Speaker 2: of his regret about it, he says things like or
51:50
Speaker 2: he said things like you know, and in the end,
51:53
Speaker 2: someone was cured and it was me. It's it just
51:58
Speaker 2: that all bothered me a little bit too. How he
52:00
Speaker 2: he still made it about himself somehow, even though he
52:04
Speaker 2: did say he regretted it and everything. I just I
52:07
Speaker 2: never heard as much regret about these three men and
52:13
Speaker 2: just and putting them in the positions of like they
52:17
Speaker 2: were the ones who helped me out in the end.
52:18
Speaker 2: It was just I didn't like that.
52:21
Speaker 1: I know exactly what you mean. It just it's still
52:23
Speaker 1: smacks of self involvement. And you get to see, Yeah,
52:25
Speaker 1: and also like what happened to these men. After the
52:28
Speaker 1: experiment was done, they're just cast right back into the
52:31
Speaker 1: general populations, right, like used clean nex basically to deal
52:35
Speaker 1: with what they'd just been through. It's just it's just
52:39
Speaker 1: rotten all around for sure. And at the very least
52:42
Speaker 1: it does exist to make Milton Roekeach feel better. Right,
52:48
Speaker 1: You got anything else? No?
52:49
Speaker 2: I mean, if you want to see some of his
52:51
Speaker 2: later work that you were talking about the value stuff,
52:53
Speaker 2: there are all kinds of really wacky YouTube videos from
52:56
Speaker 2: people about that stuff.
52:57
Speaker 1: Nice And if you want to see the movie that
53:00
Speaker 1: they remade about this, don't. Yeah, Well, since I said
53:06
Speaker 1: don't see that movie, it's time, of course for listener
53:09
Speaker 1: mail everybody.
53:12
Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this a guy who has the same
53:16
Speaker 2: step on a crack thing as I do. Okay, this
53:19
Speaker 2: is from Jared Miller. Hey, guys, I gotta say, Chuck
53:22
Speaker 2: is the only other person I've heard to express the
53:25
Speaker 2: same compulsion that I have. If I step on a
53:27
Speaker 2: surface that is different from the majority of where I'm walking,
53:30
Speaker 2: I try to get my other foot to have the
53:31
Speaker 2: same sensation. This can be the line between the sidewalk segments,
53:35
Speaker 2: or a traction sticker, an unpaved patch, et cetera. I
53:39
Speaker 2: gotta say, Jared, it's the same with me. It's not
53:41
Speaker 2: just cracks, can be anything, sure, even which part of
53:45
Speaker 2: the foot is affected. Same with me, Dude. If I
53:48
Speaker 2: do it on my heel, I have to do the
53:49
Speaker 2: next one with my heel. It's very interesting. I've even
53:52
Speaker 2: found myself doing it with the colors of tiles on
53:55
Speaker 2: a patterned floor. Same here for me. It's about symmetrical sensations.
54:00
Speaker 2: I sometimes realize I'm doing it when I'm eating and
54:03
Speaker 2: have equal chewing time on each side. I don't do that.
54:07
Speaker 1: Once a chill like cherry, you're so weird.
54:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're really out there. Once I became aware of
54:12
Speaker 2: it at a fully conscious level, I also became self
54:15
Speaker 2: conscious about it and tried different things to break myself
54:17
Speaker 2: of the habit. At times, it's been an extreme, as
54:21
Speaker 2: extreme as forcing myself to maintain an even gait no
54:24
Speaker 2: matter what. Yeah, I've done that while consciously reminding myself
54:28
Speaker 2: that sensations are temporary and that it will even even
54:33
Speaker 2: out or go away, especially if I ignore it. Thanks
54:35
Speaker 2: for all the hours of entertainment you were in early
54:37
Speaker 2: discovery of mine in the podcast world back in two
54:40
Speaker 2: thousand and nine, and almost none of the shows I
54:43
Speaker 2: started listening to back then are still going. That's our mono, Jared,
54:48
Speaker 2: just keep doing.
54:48
Speaker 1: It no matter what. If everybody tells you to stop,
54:51
Speaker 1: please God stop.
54:52
Speaker 2: Don't quit.
54:53
Speaker 1: You just you don't listen.
54:55
Speaker 2: So that's Jared and Anaheim by way of Idaho.
54:58
Speaker 1: Way to go, Jared from all over the.
55:00
Speaker 2: Place or was it Iowa? I don't remember, Sorry Idaho,
55:04
Speaker 2: I know how. The worst thing to confuse apologize.
55:08
Speaker 1: So let's see. If you want to get in touch
55:10
Speaker 1: with this, like Jared did, please email us, won't you?
55:15
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to stuff podcast at
55:18
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio dot com.
55:23
Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
55:26
Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
55:30
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.