In July 1959, social psychologist Milton Rokeach gathered three psychiatric patients in a room at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan.
Each man had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
And each man believed, with absolute conviction, that he was Jesus Christ.
Rokeach’s hypothesis was straightforward: when confronted with two other people making the same claim, at least one of them would experience cognitive dissonance strong enough to crack their delusion. Face-to-face with contradictory evidence, reality would reassert itself.
He kept them together for two years.
None of them changed their minds.
The Three Christs
The first was Joseph Cassel, 58 years old, who called himself Joseph Cassel, also known as God.
The second was Clyde Benson, 70, who identified as Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
The third was Leon Gabor, 38, who claimed to be not only Jesus Christ but also the reincarnation of various historical figures including the first woman and the current rightful ruler of the world.
All three had been institutionalized for years. All three had delusions that were fixed, elaborate, and central to their identity.
Rokeach brought them together and told them they’d be meeting regularly to discuss their beliefs.
The First Meeting
The first encounter went about as awkwardly as you’d expect.
Rokeach introduced them: “Three men, each believing himself to be Jesus Christ.”
Leon spoke first: “Yes, I’m the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.”
Joseph: “He says he is, but I’m the only one who is.”
Clyde: “I can’t argue with you gentlemen because you’re just not in a position to know.”
There was no dramatic confrontation. No crisis of faith. Just three men, each calmly certain that the other two were mistaken.
As the meetings continued daily, the interactions became more fascinating—and more depressing.
The Logic of Delusion
Each Christ developed elaborate explanations for why the others were wrong while maintaining absolute certainty in their own identity.
Joseph decided that Clyde and Leon were patients who were confused and mentally ill. He felt sorry for them.
Clyde determined that the other two were “dupes” or “dead people” being manipulated by external forces to test him.
Leon, the most verbose and complex in his delusions, claimed the others were merely using the name Jesus Christ but weren’t actually Jesus Christ. Only he was the original.
What’s remarkable is how logical the reasoning was within the framework of the delusion.
Each man could recognize that the others’ claims didn’t make sense. Each could articulate reasonable arguments for why two different people can’t both be Jesus Christ.
But none of them applied that logic to their own belief.
When Joseph was asked, “If there are three Jesus Christs here, how can you all be the same person?” he responded: “Simple—they’re crazy, and I’m not.”
Perfect circular reasoning. Unbreakable.
The Attempted Interventions
Rokeach tried various approaches to create cognitive dissonance that might crack the delusions.
He staged confrontations where the men had to directly address the contradiction.
He presented logical arguments: “If you’re Jesus Christ and he’s Jesus Christ, you must be the same person. But you’re clearly different people. How do you explain this?”
Leon: “The other two are suffering from delusions of grandeur. I, on the other hand, am actually Jesus Christ.”
He had the men work together on tasks, hoping cooperation would build relationships that might make them question their conflicting claims.
Instead, each man simply worked while maintaining their belief system.
He even had the men receive “messages from God” (staged by staff) that contradicted their delusions.
Leon declared the messages must be from a false god or the devil.
Joseph ignored them.
Clyde interpreted them to fit his existing worldview.
The Interactions
Over two years, the three Christs developed routines and relationships—while remaining three separate Christs.
They’d argue theology. Each had extensive, complex religious frameworks that justified their claims and discredited the others.
They’d work together on tasks around the hospital—farming, cleaning, projects—and would cooperate functionally while maintaining that the others were deluded.
They expressed concern for each other. Leon in particular would talk about the “poor men” who thought they were Christ, expressing genuine sympathy for their mental illness.
The cognitive dissonance that Rokeach expected—the psychological tension of holding contradictory beliefs—never materialized strongly enough to change anything.
Why?
Because each man didn’t actually hold contradictory beliefs.
From Joseph’s perspective: I am God. These other two are mentally ill patients. No contradiction.
From Clyde’s perspective: I am Jesus Christ. These others are dead people or actors testing me. No contradiction.
From Leon’s perspective: I am Jesus Christ. These others are using the name but aren’t actually Jesus. No contradiction.
The human mind is remarkably good at maintaining consistency within a delusional system, no matter how inconsistent that system appears from outside.
What Changed
By the end of two years, there were some changes—but not the ones Rokeach expected.
Leon’s delusions became slightly less grandiose. He started occasionally referring to himself by his actual name. His claims became marginally more modest (though still delusional).
Joseph and Clyde showed essentially no change.
But all three became more socially isolated and withdrawn. The constant confrontation with their beliefs seemed to make them retreat further into their delusions, not question them.
Rokeach later admitted the experiment was probably unethical and may have caused more harm than good.
He’d brought together three isolated men and forced them into daily conflict about their core identities. He’d used deception (the fake messages from God) without consent.
And he’d failed to help any of them.
The experiment ended not because anyone was cured, but because it became clear nothing was going to change.
The Nature of Belief
The Three Christs case reveals something profound about how beliefs work:
Contradictory evidence doesn’t destroy beliefs. It gets incorporated into the belief system.
This isn’t unique to delusions. It’s how human cognition works.
When faced with information that contradicts what we believe, we don’t automatically abandon our beliefs. We:
- Dismiss the contradictory evidence as flawed or false
- Reinterpret it to fit our existing beliefs
- Generate new explanations that preserve our core belief while accounting for the contradiction
The three Christs did exactly this.
Confronted with two other Jesus Christs, they didn’t think: “Maybe I’m not Jesus Christ after all.”
They thought: “Those two are obviously not Jesus Christ. I wonder what’s wrong with them?”
Each piece of contradictory evidence—another person claiming to be Christ—was processed in a way that reinforced their original belief rather than challenging it.
The Clinical Reality
From a clinical perspective, all three men were experiencing delusions as part of their schizophrenia.
These weren’t philosophical or religious beliefs. They were symptoms of mental illness.
Delusions in schizophrenia are typically:
- Fixed (unchanging despite evidence to the contrary)
- False (objectively not true)
- Held with absolute conviction
- Central to the person’s identity and worldview
The three Christs exhibited all these features.
But here’s what’s haunting: within the structure of their delusions, they were rational.
Leon could carry on complex, logical conversations about theology, politics, and philosophy. His reasoning was sophisticated and internally consistent.
He just started from a premise that was false (I am Jesus Christ), and built everything from there.
Joseph could manage practical tasks, maintain relationships with staff, and participate in daily life.
He just happened to believe he was God.
Clyde was calm, articulate, and thoughtful in most contexts.
Except about his identity as Jesus Christ, which he knew with certainty.
The delusion wasn’t a failure of reasoning. It was a failure at the level of belief formation—accepting as true something that wasn’t true, then reasoning perfectly logically from that false foundation.
The Ethical Questions
Looking back, Rokeach’s experiment raises serious ethical concerns:
He used these men as subjects in an experiment without meaningful informed consent (they couldn’t provide it given their mental state).
He subjected them to ongoing psychological stress by forcing confrontation with their core beliefs.
He used deception to try to manipulate their beliefs.
And he did it all in pursuit of a hypothesis that, if he’d thought it through more carefully, probably wouldn’t have worked anyway.
People’s core beliefs—especially delusional beliefs—don’t change simply from exposure to contradictory evidence.
If they did, nobody would hold false beliefs at all. We’d all update our worldviews the moment we encountered information that contradicted them.
But that’s not how humans work.
Rokeach learned this the hard way, at the expense of three men who were already suffering from severe mental illness.
What We Can Learn
Despite its ethical problems, the Three Christs experiment revealed important truths:
Reality is not self-evident. You can put three contradictory claims in a room together, and each person will leave still believing their own claim.
Belief is resilient. Core beliefs, especially those tied to identity, don’t yield to evidence. They adapt to incorporate evidence.
Delusions are logical. The problem isn’t reasoning—it’s the foundation. Bad premises + good logic = false conclusions.
Cognitive dissonance has limits. The psychological tension of holding contradictory beliefs only works if the person recognizes the contradiction as contradicting their own beliefs. The three Christs didn’t experience dissonance because, from each of their perspectives, there was no contradiction.
The Aftermath
Joseph Cassel remained in institutional care and died still believing he was God.
Clyde Benson similarly lived out his years in the hospital, maintaining his identity as Jesus Christ.
Leon Gabor eventually was released to outpatient care. His delusions persisted but became less central to his daily functioning. He died in the 1980s.
Milton Rokeach published his findings in 1964 as “The Three Christs of Ypsilanti,” which became a classic in psychology.
He later expressed regret about the ethical dimensions of the experiment and the suffering it may have caused.
The book is still studied today—not as a successful intervention, but as a window into the nature of belief, identity, and delusion.
The Mirror
The reason this case is so compelling isn’t because it’s about three mentally ill men with an unusual delusion.
It’s because it’s about all of us.
We all hold beliefs that we maintain despite contradictory evidence.
We all reinterpret information to fit our existing worldviews.
We all think that people who disagree with us are obviously wrong, while we are obviously right.
The three Christs were just an extreme version of something everyone does constantly.
The difference is one of degree, not kind.
They believed they were Jesus Christ.
You believe… what? That your political party is right and the other is wrong? That your religion is true and others are false? That your life choices are justified and others who chose differently are mistaken?
Whatever you believe, if confronted with two people who believed contradictory things with equal certainty, would you conclude you might be wrong?
Or would you conclude they’re deluded and you’re not?
The Uncomfortable Truth
The Three Christs experiment failed to change anyone’s beliefs.
But it succeeded in demonstrating something profound:
There is no amount of contradictory evidence that will change a sufficiently deeply held belief.
Not in the delusional. Not in the religious. Not in the political. Not in anyone.
Beliefs change, when they change at all, from internal processes—not external evidence.
Something shifts inside. A doubt creeps in. An alternative becomes thinkable.
But no amount of confrontation with contradictory reality will force that shift.
The three Christs sat in a room together for two years, each one living proof that the others were wrong.
And all three left exactly as they entered.
Still Christ. Still certain. Still unable to see what was obvious to everyone else.
Just like the rest of us.
Sources:
- Rokeach, M. (1964). The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study. Alfred A. Knopf.
- Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.
- McNally, R. J. (2016). “The Legacy of The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.” History of Psychology, 19(3), 235-238.
- American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.).
Next in the series: Foreign Accent Syndrome - When your brain rewrites how you speak after injury, and you wake up with an accent you never had.