Research, Cont.

Now I’m reading The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. It chronicles a study that was done on three schizophrenics in 1959 – right about the time I was born, as a matter of fact. All these of these men thought they were Jesus Christ. The purpose of the study is to see what these men do when they meet each other. The book unfolds over the course of twenty-five months. The researcher/author assembles his protagonists daily, at first with the intention of bringing about a collision of their “primitive beliefs,” in the hopes of shocking them into some kind of recognition of the truth. I’m about halfway through the book. The three men look forward to their meetings, but each is convinced that the other two are incorrect in their self-assessment. That is, contrary to their strongly held belief, they in fact are not Christ. Each thinks the other two men are deluded, in other words. (One of the men tells another one, “You are just an instrumental God.” That’s crazy talk.) It’s interesting to see these men deal with the cognitive dissonance they encounter through their meetings. Cognitive dissonance will feature in my novel, as the protagonist has his “world view” shaken.