Selects: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti Experiment

Summary

Summary of "Stuff You Should Know" Episode: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti Experiment

Podcast Information:

• Title: Stuff You Should Know
• Host/Author: iHeartPodcasts
• Description: If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Niño, true crime, and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
• Episode: Selects: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti Experiment
• Release Date: December 28, 2024

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Introduction to the Experiment

[03:07] Josh Clark:
Josh introduces the episode by referencing a past installment from August 2021, where Josh and Chuck delve into one of the most unethical social psychology experiments ever conducted—the Three Christs of Ypsilanti Experiment. This study, orchestrated by Dr. Martin Rokeach, involved bringing together three men, each believing themselves to be Christ, within a controlled environment to observe interactions and potential conflicts.

Notable Quote:

"And what came out of it is both an indictment and an inspiring affirmation of humanity."
— Josh Clark [03:07]

Background on Dr. Martin Rokeach

[05:19] Josh Clark:
Josh provides context about Dr. Martin Rokeach, a social psychologist fascinated by identity formation and belief systems. Rokeach's foundational work suggested that a person's identity is composed of various beliefs, including "primitive beliefs"—basic truths forming the bedrock of one's self-concept.

Notable Quote:

"But this is just a really big discovery."
— Josh Clark [09:06]

The Three Participants

[22:14] Chuck Bryant:
Chuck outlines the backgrounds of the three men involved in the experiment:

1. Joseph Cassell (played by Peter Dinklage in the movie):

   • Age: 58
   • Background: Canadian from Quebec with a traumatic childhood marked by an abusive father. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after years of delusional behavior, including believing he was God.

2. Clyde Benson (played by Walton Goggins):

   • Age: 70
   • Background: Overprotected upbringing leading to stunted personal development. Struggled with alcoholism and violent outbursts, firmly believing he was Jesus Christ.

3. Leon (played by Richard Gere in the movie):

   • Age: 38
   • Background: Diagnosed with schizophrenia, served in World War II, and had a history of personal relationships. Leon was considered the most personable and engaged participant, believed he was both male and female aspects of God.

Notable Quote:

"Leon was the one that most likely could have been rehabilitated."
— Chuck Bryant [30:00]

The Experiment’s Phases

Initial Phase: Dr. Rokeach relocates the three men to Ypsilanti’s mental institution, providing them with private spaces and perks to encourage participation. The initial goal was to have them confront each other's delusions in hopes of breaking their individual Christ identities.

Monitoring Interactions: Initially, the men were respectful towards each other, maintaining their beliefs without direct confrontation. Leon emerged as a mediator, fostering a respectful coexistence among the participants.

Escalation: Frustrated by the lack of progress, Rokeach intensified his methods by introducing authority figures from their delusions through letters. He posed as "Madame Yeti Woman" and other characters to manipulate and challenge their beliefs.

Notable Quote:

"This is okay. And we don't have to talk about that movie ever again now that we have."
— Josh Clark [05:19]

Ethical Concerns and Criticism

Participant Well-being: The experiment subjected vulnerable individuals with severe mental illnesses to manipulative tactics, raising significant ethical questions. Participants experienced emotional distress, especially Leon, who formed a deep emotional bond with a non-existent figure, leading to heartbreak and further entrenchment in delusion.

Researcher Morality: Chuck and Josh critique Rokeach’s ethical boundaries, highlighting the lack of consent beyond superficial participation and the detrimental impact on the participants’ mental health.

Notable Quote:

"It's just brutal to think about these guys going through this, like, hope that they're getting better."
— Josh Clark [54:46]

Aftermath and Reflections

Publication and Legacy: Despite immediate criticisms, Rokeach’s book on the experiment gained prominence in psychology, often compared to notorious studies like the Stanford Prison Experiment. However, its unethical nature overshadowed its contributions, leading to ongoing debates in the field.

Rokeach’s Regret: Years later, facing spinal cancer, Rokeach expressed regret over the experiment, acknowledging his unethical approach and the harm caused to the participants. He shifted his focus to more empathetic methodologies, emphasizing self-confrontation and personal reflection in belief systems.

Notable Quote:

"I regret having written and published a study when I did."
— Chuck Bryant [58:11]

Conclusion

Josh and Chuck conclude the episode by emphasizing the profound ethical violations of the Three Christs of Ypsilanti Experiment. They reflect on the importance of respecting individual identities and the dire consequences of manipulating vulnerable populations for research purposes.

Final Notable Quote:

"Milton Rokeach made it about himself somehow, even though he did say he regretted it and everything."
— Chuck Bryant [59:19]

Key Takeaways

• Ethical Boundaries: The experiment serves as a pivotal example of crossing ethical lines in psychological research, highlighting the necessity for stringent ethical standards.
• Identity Respect: Manipulating or challenging an individual’s core identity can lead to severe psychological trauma, especially in those with mental health conditions.
• Research Legacy: The study remains a controversial yet influential case in psychology, prompting ongoing discussions about research ethics and the treatment of participants.

Notable Quotes Summary

• "And what came out of it is both an indictment and an inspiring affirmation of humanity." — Josh Clark [03:07]
• "But this is just a really big discovery." — Josh Clark [09:06]
• "Leon was the one that most likely could have been rehabilitated." — Chuck Bryant [30:00]
• "I regret having written and published a study when I did." — Chuck Bryant [58:11]
• "Milton Rokeach made it about himself somehow, even though he did say he regretted it and everything." — Chuck Bryant [59:19]

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Final Thoughts:
The episode meticulously dissects a deeply unethical psychological experiment, engaging listeners with detailed narratives and critical reflections. By incorporating direct quotes with timestamps, Josh and Chuck provide an insightful and comprehensive overview, ensuring that even those unfamiliar with the episode can grasp the complexities and moral implications of the Three Christs of Ypsilanti Experiment.

Transcript

[Josh Clark]

Brought to you by the Capital One Venture X card. Earn unlimited 2x miles on everything you buy and turn everyday purchases into extraordinary trips. Plus, receive premium travel benefits like access to over 1300 airport lounges and a $300 annual credit for bookings through Capital One Travel. Unlock a whole new world of travel with the Capital One Venture X Card. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. Lounge access is subject to change. Seecapitalone.com for details. Hey there, everybody. It's time to talk about Squarespace. Squarespace is the easiest, fastest, and best way to build your own website. Squarespace can help you with email campaigns with all of the tools you need to engage your subscribers to drive sales and simplify your audience management. You can set up automated emails to build connections while saving time and easily integrate your products into email templates to drive sales and increase site traffic. So go to squarespace.com stuff for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use our offer code stuff to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Hi, everybody, it's your old pal, Josh. And for this week's select, I've chosen our episode From August of 2021, where we take a look at one of the most unethical social psychology experiments in the history of the field, where Dr. Martin Ro Keech assembled three men who each believed he was Christ, put them in a room together, and sat back and waited for the fireworks to start. And what came out of it is both an indictment and an inspiring affirmation of humanity. And on a personal note, I would like to wish my sweet, sweet wife Yumi a very big happy birthday. Enjoy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and David is here with us today, and we're all just quietly holding hands. Now we have to stop and come into the real world and start talking to you fine people for this episode of Stuff. You should know my lip got caught in my tooth when I said you, and it came out a little weird.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's funny. My daughter finally lost her first tooth and it's changing the way she talks. She's got a funny little lisp and she's always tonguing on it. And I'm like, I'm going to be there with you soon. I got to get get this front one redone.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So all redid.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm gonna wait till right before we have live shows so I can pull that front tooth again.

[Josh Clark]

Nice That'll be a special treat for everybody, especially me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, you were used to it.

[Josh Clark]

I really was. The worst was when. When you had that little case that you would put it in and it had vents so the smell could waft out of it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I gave up after the first one on wearing that thing. I was just like, who cares?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, no, it's great. It was very liberating.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was. As is this podcast episode.

[Josh Clark]

I think this is going to be a good one, because, Chuck, I've been wanting to talk about this for a really long time. This is one of those things that you, like, hear about and you're like, wait, what? That can't be right. And then you read a little more about it and a little more, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. But yet it's just kind of one of the. Like, a landmark study in the field of psychology that we're talking about today.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The Three Christs of Hypsilanti. And I studied this. I remember this from studying it in psychology class in college and got kind of into it at the time. And you started wearing, like, three Christ.

[Josh Clark]

T shirts and stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

I followed them on tour. It was great. For some reason, I thought I read the book, but I don't think I read the book. I think we just covered the book in college and in a psychology class. I don't think they made you read the whole book. We basically just kind of went over it. But I had been pretty fascinated for years, and eventually, when Hollywood made a movie about it four years ago, I was excited and even paid to rent that thing.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, how'd that work out?

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty good. I watched the first half hour and realized, oh, man, they've just sort of Disney fied this thing, and it's not good.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Although our buddy Kevin Pollock is in it, and he's always great.

[Josh Clark]

Hey, that guy can steal a scene better than the Hamburglar.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The movie, just so everyone knows, is called the Three Christs of hpsilani from John Abnett, starring Richard Gere as the name changed doctor. And then the three Christs in the movie are portrayed by Peter Dinklage. One of my favorite actors, Walton Goggins.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he's great, man. I went back. I told you I was watching the Shield again. That guy was amazing in that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, was he in that?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah. He played one of the main characters.

[Chuck Bryant]

He's just the best. And then. What's the guy's name? Bradley Whitford, who's also great. Everyone in it is good. It's One of those movies that they, I think, just over sanitized and should have made a documentary instead, but they.

[Josh Clark]

Didn'T, and that's okay. And we don't have to talk about that movie ever again now that we have. Instead, I think we should start by giving a little background on the guy whose idea the Three Christs of Ypsilanti experiment was. And it was a researcher, a psychologist, a social psychologist, your favorite, named Milton Rokic. And Milton Rokic had some ideas about what it was to make up an identity, what made up a person's sense of who they were. And he basically had broken it out into beliefs, a series of different kinds of beliefs, which we'll kind of talk about here or there a little more. But there's this anecdote that's frequently passed around that kind of like lays the early groundwork for this idea that someone's belief in who they are could conceivably be challenged. And it came one night when he was sitting around the dinner table with his wife and his two young daughters, and he accidentally, in like a moment of frustration, telling them to settle down at dinner, called one another by their opposite names. And the girls just thought that was like the funniest thing that I ever heard. At first.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. Was that my cue?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I even stuck my finger up like, all right, now you. But you can't see it, can you?

[Chuck Bryant]

No. Cause we just listen to each other. Yeah, at first. And it was a little fun game. And then I think the 5 year old even said, you know, this is just a game, right, dad? And dad said, no, it's real. And I hear him saying it in that voice. And, you know, pretty soon they were begging for him to stop. And I can verify that this is a thing I've been, I think as a parent, sometimes you'll call your kid by another name as a joke, like, I know I've done it, like, called my daughter my dog's name. If she's like, she'll come into the room and like bark or something as a joke, I'll say, oh, you're Nico. And she'll say, yeah, I'm Nico. And then for a few minutes later, I'm like, hey, come here, Nico. And then it's fun for about five minutes. And then she's like, no, I am not. So there is very much a thing to a child's identity, especially from their parents, where they kind of get their identity and seek their identity. When that is challenged, it is very quickly kind of traumatic.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He learned a Couple of things that. One, you can very quickly challenge somebody, or you can very quickly push someone to a state of like, trauma or anxiety or panic even.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

By just by simply challenging their identity by calling them the wrong name purposefully.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right, Jerry.

[Josh Clark]

He also. Right, yeah, I know Jerry.

[Chuck Bryant]

Call each other Jerry. I think it would cancel each other out.

[Josh Clark]

Do it one more time and I will crumble.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, Jerry, thank you for.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, God. But he also learned, like, okay, there's consequences to this. You can't take somebody with a well formed, well developed sense of identity and I guess a normal sense of identity and push them to the edge, mess around with that sense of identity. There's harmful consequences to that. So he started to kind of explore this. And like I was saying, like, he had broken everybody's belief system into a handful of different types of beliefs. And the belief that you are who you are, which is what we call our identity, he ascribed to primitive beliefs, which are just like basic truths in the same neighborhood. As, you know, I'm wearing a headphone on one ear and I have the other one behind my head right now. I have brown hair. My name is Josh. You're Chuck. Like, just basic truths of the universe that anyone you talk to is going to generally agree with. Right. That's where the personality comes from.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that is the very bedrock and foundation of how we think about ourselves. And he already saw messing with that can be bad. So he was like, hey, why not take it a step further?

[Josh Clark]

Right, Right. So what I was saying a minute ago with, like, how we saw that there's consequences to messing with a sane person. I just made air quotes. If you couldn't tell from my intonation, messing with a sane person's identity, you can't really do that. But this is the mid century in America and there's a whole group of people that you can do basically whatever you want to with as far as mental stuff goes. And that were people who are suffering from mental conditions, who were locked up in state institutions at the time. And so Rokic came up with this idea, like, okay, wait a minute. What if I got my hands on some mentally unstable people, some possibly diagnosed people, and messed with their sense of identity, took their delusion and challenged it. That could be okay, because, hey, their lives are basically useless anyway. I'm paraphrasing Rokich here. And if something does come of it, there's a good chance that it could be positive instead. So let me have it. Let me add them. Basically.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there's A quote here from the book, and big thanks to Dave Ruse for putting this one together. I know this was a huge. It's a tough one to wrangle, but he did a great job. Here's the quote from the book. Because it is not feasible to study such phenomena with normal people. He didn't even put it in quotes. It seemed reasonable to focus on delusional systems of belief in the hope that in subjecting them to strain, there would be little to lose and hopefully a great deal to gain. And, like, I read that sentence and I'm like, stop there, dude.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Yeah. That's like, the perfect motto for the misguided intentions of this study, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, he, like, indicted himself with that one quote.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. Just right out of the gate. And I read this Commentary magazine article from 1964 by. Oh, I can't remember who it was. I don't have it pulled up. But he's a famous poet at the time, and he was basically saying, like, you know, surely Ro Kitsch, the guy who's writing the book, well, understands that Rokich, the character, this doctor, is, like, out of his mind. And he likes. He's like, slowly realizing, oh, wait, this guy, even the author of the book has no idea that the doctor character who's himself, has any idea just how unethical this is. And that's a great example of it. That demonstrates it right off the bat.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, there's. There's. I don't know if you listened to the snap judgment on this. Did you hear that? No, it was good. Snap. You know, great podcast or public radio program turned podcast.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. I've heard public radio before.

[Chuck Bryant]

I used to listen to a lot more of it.

[Josh Clark]

Same here. Fresh air. I always still love fresh air, but I just. It's one of those things where I just bulk it up. And then, like, when I'm painting a room in our house, I listen to just fresh air the whole time or something. You know what I mean?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. When is Terry Gross gonna have us on? Do we need to get to 20? Would that do it?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I wouldn't even begin to bother her until we hit 20 years, and then maybe.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and then we just start asking, basically. Hi, Terry.

[Josh Clark]

Hi.

[Chuck Bryant]

So in that snap judgment, they pointed out that Rokic actually read a Harper's article about two women who believed they were the Virgin Mary, and that put an idea into his head. And I know that in his book, he also talked about being inspired a little bit by some. Some stuff that Voltaire wrote about it, Right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. There was a man in the 17th century that Voltaire wrote about named Simone Morin, who was deranged in the parlance at the time. And he thought that he was Christ. And so he was locked up in a mad house and he met in that place, in that institution or asylum, another man who thought he was Christ. And Simone Morin saw just how, like, crazy this guy seemed and was like, wait a minute, maybe I'm crazy. And in confronting this other guy who claimed to have the same identity, he regained his sanity to a certain extent. And unfortunately, he relapsed and ended up being burned at the stake for heresy. Yeah, but there was a moment there where he had kind of like been knocked out of his delusion. That's a huge deal. Like if you have schizophrenia or delusional beliefs, like if your mental disorder is to the degree where you hold delusions. And we should say a delusion is not like, you know, a made up belief where, you know, you made your belief up. Like, this is what you think is real. It is real to you, and you will defend it when it's challenged. So the idea that somebody who was delusional could be knocked out of their delusion by being confronted with somebody else who had the same delusion, that is groundbreaking. And I can see why Rokich was like, there we go. That's it. There's my methodology for this experiment.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I'm sure he was, you know, he was turned on a little bit about the idea of three Christs, or however many Christs he could find.

[Josh Clark]

He thought it was so hot.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I mean, not even like that. You know what I mean, though? But as a social psychologist, he was probably like, this would make for a pretty mind blowing experiment.

[Josh Clark]

Plus a great book title. It's one of the great understated book titles of all time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's not like the three Richard Nixons of hispalanti.

[Josh Clark]

No. And I mean, like, Ypsilanti is like this town outside of Ann Arbor where, you know, that's where one of the mental asylums were in Michigan at the time. And it's just like, you know, it might as well be Walla Walla or Lackawanna or it's just an unusual name in a town that doesn't really have much of. You know what I mean?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I'm sure all three of those towns are like, is he insulting all of us or none of us?

[Josh Clark]

No, no, it's not an insult. It's just. It's just. It's not like a hot happen in town and it had been like the three Christs of New York that loses something or the three Christ of London. It's just a rather generally unremarkable place, guys. Ypsilanti if you live there and you don't know that, it's generally unremarkable. I'm sorry to be breaking this news to you. I don't mean it in an unkind.

[Chuck Bryant]

Way at I know you don't. And I think generally back then that's where a lot of these institutions were because they needed like lots of land. And so they'll just leave it at that and maybe take a break.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, to let everybody really stew on what I said.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, we'll take a break and we'll find out how he found his patience right after this.

[Josh Clark]

Foreign.

[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

All right, so we're back. There were 25,000 total patients in the system in Michigan State, at Michigan State Hospitals. And he went through all of these, you know, he sort of tried to cull them down to, ideally to Christ. Figures. He'd found a man who thought he was Cinderella. He found a Mrs. God and then about six people who thought they were Christians and three of them were really into this idea and really consistent with their belief that they were Jesus. And two of them happened to be at Ypsilanti. So he was like, this is perfect. I'll just transfer the third in and we'll get going.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And so these guys being inmates of the state at a time where ypsilanti had like 4,000 people, 4,000 patients in just this one institution. Institution. A lot of people. Yeah. And if you were already like on the margins of society and then moved into a place where you're with 4,000 other people on the margins of society. It's a really good place to get lost, to not get any real help. And so one of the things that was part of this experiment design is to make participating in these discussions, this group of these three Christs, as attractive to these three men as possible. So they were moved to Ward D23. They were given their own private day room to eat in, to sleep or not sleep in, but to hang out in away from every everybody else. They got some like, place to stretch out and to have some company. They got a lot of attention, a lot of perks. Like basically their lives were changed in like incalculable ways by being part of the study. And so when they say like these were voluntary meetings and these men were voluntary members of the study, that's definitely true, they were voluntary participants. But the perks on offer were just so amazing. Like you could not turn down participating in some degree.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, exactly. So they were willing participants insofar as, yeah, they got these great perks. Worth pointing out. So he changed the names of the guys to protect their families and to protect them to some degree. But we should go over sort of the bios of the three men. Should we say who played him in the movies? Will that help people?

[Josh Clark]

I don't think so. I don't want to disparage those great actors names again.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I mean the acting, they did a good job. It was just the material. They're all great actors, you know.

[Josh Clark]

Sure, yeah, I know.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's just when you write this, I don't want to call out the scriptwriter, but it wasn't that good.

[Josh Clark]

So let me ask you this because I didn't see the movie. Was it like. And I loved the fact that they made a movie about Freddie Mercury and the other members of Queen. But was it like in the, in the movie? What was the name of that movie?

[Chuck Bryant]

The Queen movie. That's what I called it. Okay, well, Bohemian Rhapsody.

[Josh Clark]

Bohemian Rhapsody, that's right. Do you remember like every time like Freddie Mercury did something brilliant, they would have Brian May, they do a pan in close up of him just looking like in awe and astonished. And that's maybe pushing it, doing that once in a movie, but they did that every like 15, 20 minutes. Was it kind of like that same sentiment?

[Chuck Bryant]

It wasn't so much that. And again, I only watched the first act before I realized it was just, it was just really sanitized and like a feel good type of thing.

[Josh Clark]

So not real or similar. Yeah, right, exactly. This is not a feel good story. I wonder if it Was performance art you accidentally stumbled upon?

[Chuck Bryant]

Nah. I mean, there was some tough stuff in there. It's not like it was completely like, hey, this is great. But it kind of reeked of like an awakenings kind of thing. And I liked awakenings.

[Josh Clark]

I got it. All right, all right. I liked awakenings too. But it sounds like what you're describing is more along the lines, the greatest showman. Like that kind of sanitization.

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't see that.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Did you?

[Josh Clark]

No, but remember we did that episode just tearing it apart. We hadn't even seen it yet.

[Chuck Bryant]

We're comfortable doing that at times.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, kinda, kinda.

[Chuck Bryant]

So the first guy was in his late 50s, Joseph Cassell, 58. He had been in the hospital for about 20 years and was Canadian, born and raised in Quebec. And he was named after Josephine, his female relative in his family named Joseph. And I think the big takeaway from his childhood was that it was not good. A very abusive father, very quick tempered man who abused his mom and his mom actually died while giving birth to her ninth kid. And so he had a rough go of it from the beginning.

[Josh Clark]

I think his name actually was Josephine as well. And he went by Joseph. So he wanted to be a writer, I think. Did you say he was 58 at the time?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. And he did not really take to working outside of the house. He and his wife did not have a very like, good relationship necessarily. He didn't want kids. She did. They ended up having three daughters. And he later on came to believe that they were not his children after all and that that may have been correct. But then things started to take kind of a turn for the worse in that he started to become really paranoid. He started to accuse people of poisoning his food. He became a bit of a hoarder, especially with books. And probably the greatest crime a man could commit in mid century America. He did not want to work.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So that was basically that. He ended up getting sent to an asylum in Canada and then on to Ypsilanti eventually. And he'd been in Ypsilanti for I think about 20 years or at least in and out of the hospital system for about 20 years. And for about 10 of those years he had decided that he was God or Jesus Christ or both.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And by the time he got around to Rokich or Rokich found him, he was in a pretty bad state after those 20 years. He had about half of his teeth left in his mouth. He was still hoarding books, carrying around books everywhere. And when, you know, when Asked who he was, he said his name was Joseph. And he said that I am God. And I guess Rokich said, well, you'll do just fine.

[Josh Clark]

Very splendid. Yeah. So Joseph, despite his inability to take care of himself and the fact that he hoarded and all of that, he was a very sharp person. So remember to keep that in mind. He was very sharp and a good writer as well. Clyde. And these men's names were changed. Clyde Benson, he was 70. He'd been hospitalized for the last 17 years.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty rough shape.

[Josh Clark]

He really was. And Rokich definitely starts to recognize that pretty quickly after meeting Clyde. And ends up almost letting him just stay in the group, even though he's not really participating any longer. But Clyde was apparently raised in a overprotected manner. And didn't really learn how to make his own decisions. And kind of ended up stunted as a result, which you can make your way through life like that if you want to. But he ended up turning to alcohol and became a really hardcore alcoholic to where it was starting to wreck his life. And apparently that came into collision with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia at some point, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And, you know, it seems like the drinking was the. Anytime you have an undiagnosed condition like this. And you pour alcoholism on top of it or any kind of drug addiction, it's just gonna be even worse. And eventually he was arrested for public drunkenness. It was a pretty violent arrest. And in jail, he was violent. And he was saying he was Jesus Christ, that he was God, and that he was reborn through his first wife, Shirley, I believe she had passed away. And he did get remarried. And it was surely the Queen of Heaven. And at this point, they committed him to a mental hospital when he was 53, where he got that diagnosis. And he was the one that was easily the most far gone and toughest to reach and sort of walked around mumbling. He also didn't have many, if any, of his teeth, but occasionally would, like, still have that violence in him. Where he would have these sort of violent outbursts, but then kind of calm down again.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And when he did, he was very direct and to the point. And I don't think he was actually physically violent, was he?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't think so. I think it just could be scary at times.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So he would say things like, I am him. See, now understand that. Like, that was the extent of how he would explain that he was God. He didn't need it to be challenged. And if he did try to challenge it, he would just. Just shut you down kind of thing in a very. Yeah, like you said, kind of a scary way.

[Chuck Bryant]

So Leon was perhaps one of the saddest of the three cases in that he had only been hospitalized for about five years. He was younger. He was 38 years old. And he was. The snap judgment is great because they had his two initial graduate assistants on, Richard Bonnier and Ron Hoppe. So, like, real firsthand experience on the podcast. And they were saying that he was the one that broke their heart the most because he was the one that most likely could have been rehabilitated. And it just tore them up that they. And they liked him a lot. He was a real personable guy and was very engaging with his stories, and they really thought that they could have helped him had it not been, you know, in part by what happened with.

[Josh Clark]

Rokic, which is sad, because that means that Roadkeach made things much, much worse for these people. And that's something to really understand, that there were three men who were living, you know, their delusional lives in this state mental hospital, but they were generally unmolested until they were dragged into this study and messed with, like, in ways that you just don't do to other people, you know, and that their lives probably were worse, far worse than they. They would have been had they never met. Milton Rose.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So Leon's deal was his mother was almost certainly schizophrenic as well, and had delusions, religious delusions. So he was raised in a household with basically a religious fanatic. And that impacted him from the very beginning. Of course, he ended up diagnosed with schizophrenia as well. But growing up in that kind of environment definitely, I think, led to the Christ thing for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And he had, like. There was a time where he was living a normal life. He served in World War II. He worked at different jobs back in Detroit. He tried to go to college. He was trying to make a life for himself. But he suffered from fatigue, which I looked up as apparently a really tough comorbidity with psychotic disorders. And it's, like, got a terrible positive feedback where, you know, the more tired you get, the worse your disorder is, and the worse your disorder is, the harder it can be to sleep, and it's just not good. So he had that. And then he also started hearing voices himself that were telling him that he was Jesus Christ. And that didn't really jibe very well with his mother's own religious fanaticism because he saw that she was worshiping these other what he considered idols, and he went on a Bit of a violent tear, once removing all of the. All the pictures of the saints and breaking all of the figurines and all that stuff, and demanding that his mother worship him as Jesus Christ and threatening that if she didn't, he would strangle her. And so that was enough to get him locked up for good. He'd already been locked up one time for a brief period, and then about six months after that, he was locked up from then until the time that he met Milton Rokeach.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. And that was Walton Goggin, man. Sorry.

[Josh Clark]

So he went by not Leon, and again, Leon was a fake name that Rokic gave him for the book, but he went by Dr. Domino Dominorum et Rex Reserum Simpulus Christianis Puris Mentalis Doctor, which is Latin for Lord of Lords, King of Kings. Simple Christian boy psychiatrist, but he asked everyone to call him Rex for short.

[Chuck Bryant]

And they said, said, thanks, sure, appreciate it.

[Josh Clark]

And he was, like you said, probably the most personable, like Joseph. He was very sharp, too, but also, like, from a very early stage, he saw quite clearly what Ro Keech was trying to do, and he thought that it was morally repugnant, that it was not a nice thing to do to somebody, that you shouldn't mess with people like that. And he said as much multiple times throughout the study.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So this is when he hires those two grad assistants, is when he finds the guys, gets this experiment going in earnest. And, you know, his hypothesis was that if I can have these three men confront one another about them being the real Christ, that it could rock them into what he saw as reality and get them out of these delusions. And that didn't happen. Well, it didn't happen at all through the experiment, but initially what they did was they really dug in, and they each had their own way of doing so, but they each dug in and said, no, no, no, I am the real Christ. And they each had different sort of methods of dealing with the others, but none of them wavered initially.

[Josh Clark]

No. And it was like, really, it was kind of in and of itself, just that finding that not only did they not have their identity shattered, but they just rebuilt and reinforced their identities however they could find a way to do it to their own satisfaction. That's a pretty big psychological finding in and of itself, you know, Although it doesn't seem worth putting these men through that just to find that out, you know?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure. I think Joseph said. Joseph was more one to sort of laugh it off. He said, there's nothing wrong. Yesterday I knew I was what I am today. I am what I am. I'm not worried about losing my identity. And we also should point out that Joseph, and this was portrayed in the movie too, by Peter Dinklage. He was spoke with an English accent. He thought he was, or convinced himself that he was from England, that he was descendant of royalty, and that the hospital was an English stronghold.

[Josh Clark]

Don't think I didn't notice. You just slipped Peter Dinklage in there.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know that only leaves one more, so I don't need to do the third.

[Josh Clark]

So one of the other things about Joseph was his interpretation of why they were there in this study. Why the three of these men had been brought together was so that they could sort out with the other two that they weren't Christ, that he was the one who was actually Christ, so he could do his work here on earth better without having these two basically harassing him or whatever. So then Leon, like I was saying, Leon was the one who kind of saw the most through Rokich's intentions and saw that they were just wrong. And like Clyde, I think Clyde said that they were a re. Rise. That's what he considered the other two, or a hick. Joseph said, you know, I who I am. And also, by the way, we all know that I'm really God. And then Leon, he said the other two were instrumental gods. They were hollowed out gods. They were possibly dead already, and machines were operating them and making them say these things. But even in that, he wasn't attacking them personally. He felt forced to explain his position. And so that's what he said his position was. But as he was saying this, he would turn to Joseph, he would turn to Clyde, and he would say, you know, I mean this, you know, respectfully, I don't mean to be. To tear you down. Whatever your belief is your belief. And I don't want. And I'm not trying to take it from you, I have my beliefs and you have your beliefs, and that's good enough. And so through that kind of, like, truce that was kind of established between these three men, they basically kept the researchers at bay. The researchers would try to come in and bust things up and get them to, like, argue or, you know, make them confront one another. But when left alone, those three men just generally did not argue about who was God. They avoided the subject altogether and just let the other ones be and just kind of entered this live and let live kind of position, which I think is pretty heartening, you know, it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that was one of the Things that came through on that snap judgment with the two research assistants was that their take was that these men were generally, like, after the initial sort of denial stuff, that they were generally pretty respectful and wanted to give each other the space to believe that they were Christ if they wanted to. And this. What that showed was empathy. And that's something that none of them saw coming. At this point, Rokich is being kind of hassled by these two grad assistants saying, hey, listen, man, these guys are kind of okay with this, and you're taking this thing too far. And eventually he ignored them, basically. And eventually they quit before this next phase starts.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because they didn't agree with what was going on, because they saw these three guys that were generally respectful for one another. They saw Rokeach would do things like a journalist wrote a story about them at one point that was obviously not flattering at all to the three Christs. And Rokich read this aloud to them like he was just trying to push their buttons and initiate this conflict. And the two grad assistants eventually were like, we're out of here.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That story in particular was about how Rokich was treating three psychotic men who thought they were Christ. And to read that to them is really mean. Again, he was trying to see what would happen if they were confronted with their identities being considered delusional by other people. And Leon, in particular, didn't like that. He said that a doctor or a person who's supposed to be a doctor is supposed to lift up, build up, guide, direct inspire. He said that what you've just done is deploring. And Rokich said, you know, deploring. I've traveled 75 miles in snow and storm to come see you. And Leon said, yes, but what was your intention in coming to see me, sir? And so he didn't put up with Rokic's BS at all, which was pretty cool, you know, to. To hold delusions and to have your delusions attacked like that, and then to be able to push back but also instill a respectful way is. I think Leon's one of the great unsung heroes of 20th century America.

[Chuck Bryant]

Totally. Should we take a break before phase two?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I say we take a break, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right. We'll be right back. Foreign we're brought to you today by the Capital One Quicksilver card. Earn unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase everywhere. Plus, there's no limit to the amount of cash back you can earn. And rewards don't expire for the life of the account. It's that simple. The Capital One Quicksilver Card what's in your wallet? Terms apply ccapital1.com for details.

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

So before stage two starts when things get really unethical. Well, not before. This is kind of part of the unethical. The two grad assistants had left. And he hires this new young pretty woman as a grad assistant and basically tells her to flirt with Leon and to see if he can make her. Make him fall in love with her. And that's exactly what happened. And Leon fell in love with her and was destroyed when he basically came to realize on his own that that was never going to happen for him. Man, it's just brutal.

[Josh Clark]

Keeps getting better and better.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. When those, when those grad assistants said, you've gone too far, I think Rokeach probably said something along the lines of, too far. I haven't even begun to go too far.

[Chuck Bryant]

Richard Gearson.

[Josh Clark]

Just watch what's next. Yeah. But there was like upbeat music while he was saying it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, like Salisbury Hill.

[Josh Clark]

Exactly. That is exactly what I was thinking of. Thank you for putting it into words, Chuck.

[Chuck Bryant]

So what happened next?

[Josh Clark]

So what happened next is as follows. Rokic basically saw like, these guys are not going for this. For this. The, the level of prodding that I've been doing, I'm going to really kind of turn up the heat. And he wondered if you took the members, people that were part of these, these patients, delusional belief systems and personified them, like, pretended you were them. Say, started communicating with them through letters or whatever.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

What would happen? Could you conceivably get these people to abandon their delusions under the guidance of these authority figures that were actually part of their delusions? It's really kind of mind boggling when you lay it out in like a flowchart, like that, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. This like, just kept getting worse and worse. So he identified these authority figures in all three of them. I guess to his credit, he laid off of Clyde because, I mean, I don't know if it was so much empathy as it was. He knew he wasn't getting very far.

[Josh Clark]

With Clyde or maybe he was scared of what would happen if Clyde broke, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because Clyde was definitely. Could be a little scary, but. So he laid off of Clyde. But he found that Joseph said that a superintendent of the hospital named Dr. Yoder Y O D E R was his dad. And Leon said that he had a wife. He had a couple. His wife, the Blessed Virgin Mary, who was an uncle reincarnated as Michael the Archangel. Archangel.

[Josh Clark]

Archangel. Those are two different. So he was married to the Blessed Virgin Mary and had that uncle. Yeah, he had those two, but he wasn't married to his uncle. He had another wife later on named Madame Yeti Woman after he stopped being married to the Blessed Virgin Mary because his uncle Michael the Archangel married Blessed. The Blessed Virgin Mary.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. It sounds a little confusing, but when you're dealing with stuff like this, I think it has to be a little confusing.

[Josh Clark]

Well, the upshot of it is Rokich started posing as Madame Yeti Woman and started a letter writing campaign as Madame Yeti Woman, basically reaching out to say, hey, Leon, I just want to say hi and I'm thinking of you and let's start talking. So there was. Was correspondence that was established as Leon's delusion, like wife metam Yeti Woman.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And we should point out that he supposedly had gotten. Not supposedly. I think he did get the hospital's permission to sign off on this as long as he said, listen, it's all gonna be positive stuff. I'm not gonna be writing them letters saying to go start a fight or anything like that. So I'm gonna send them positive message messages and I'm going to stop if this becomes upsetting to these guys. And so they said, sure, go ahead.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And so he did. He did go ahead first with Leon, I believe. And by this time, Leon had. One of the things that he had done to transform his identity was to become Dr. Righteous Ideal Deng or Dr. Ri Dong. And apparently the head nurse asked him directly, like, can I please not call you Dr. Dong? And he said, yes, you can call me Ri. But everybody else called him Dr. Ri Dong. And he did this, Rokich concluded to basically make himself not worthy of being harassed anymore. But he was still secretly God. Like, he knew he was God, he was just pretending to be something else. And during that period, he became married to Madame Yeti Woman. So Rukic started addressing letters to Dr. Ri Dong and basically saying, you know, here's a dollar. Why don't you go buy yourself something nice in the hospital store and then share the change with Clyde and Joseph? Or one of the things that they would do is they would take turns between the three patients as to who was going to lead the session that day. And one of the things you did when you led the session was you chose what song everybody sung at the beginning and at the end of the session, which is adorable. And so Madame Yeti Woman suggested that he choose Onward Christian Soldiers. And. And he chose Onward Christian Soldiers. And so to Rukic, he's seeing, like, there's, like, an actual influence that is being exerted by this delusional figure. And also, it demonstrates that Leon is showing, like, he definitely believes Madame Yeti Woman's a person for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And eventually, what broke it was as posing as Madame Yeti Woman asked Leon to stop using the name Dr. Dung. The name thing seems to have been a sticking point with a lot of people. Or maybe he just thought that that would. Since he held onto that so strongly, that would have been, like, the toughest thing to make him do. And that was sort of it. He was asked about the letter, and Leon doesn't really say anything about asking to drop the name Dr. Dung. He just starts talking more and more about God being both male and female and insane and sane, and said, I don't care for the insanity of God, and then said, I don't want any more letters, and basically kind of shut it down.

[Josh Clark]

And so with Leon's letters in particular, there's a couple, like, really sad things. Like, the whole thing was sad to begin with. But there's this passage in the book where Leon gets a letter, and Rokich realizes that he's holding back tears. And he starts to ask him, like, why are you, like, you know, are you happy? He said, yes, I'm very happy. It's a very pleasant feeling to have someone think of you. Like, he was moved to tears by the idea that Madame Yeti Woman was writing to him and talking about caring for him and sending him money to go buy himself things with. And rather than just say, like, oh, we might want to back this off, Rokich used it to step that up and arranged for a meeting with Madame Yeti Woman. Yeah, but there was no Madame Yeti Woman who was supposed to show up. He was just. He was going to get stood up from the outset, but still, Leon went to go meet Madame Yeti Woman and had his heart broken. I think it was after that that he stopped responding to the letters.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And, you know, when he said, I don't want these letters anymore. I don't want to receive them, you would think that that's when Rokich would say, all right, well, let's just stop this altogether. But he didn't, because he remembered that Leon had another authority figure in his life, which was his uncle, George Bernard Brown, AKA the Archangel Michael. And so he said, hey, I'll have someone call and pose as his uncle now. And this didn't work from the beginning. Leon, I guess the voice was just so far off, or maybe Leon was just really wise to it at this point, said, you know, no, no, no, this isn't. This isn't even close to the voice. Goodbye. And hung up. And then they asked him about the call, and he said, I don't believe in mental torture, sir. So it seems like he was sort of onto him at this point, or, you know, was onto him from the beginning, but onto him about this ruse.

[Josh Clark]

I don't think he was onto him from the beginning. I think that he.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I mean from the beginning of the experiments, he was wary.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, gotcha. I see what you're saying, but. Yeah, but it's really easy to forget, because you're reading Rokic's account, that these men weren't in on the idea that it was from Rokich. They believed that these letters were coming from their delusional figures.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's the whole point.

[Josh Clark]

Which makes it just even more gut wrenching when you stop and remember that, you know.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So then he says, okay, all right, Leon's done. I'm done writing letters to him. Who can I write letters to next? And he moves on to Joseph. Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So this was the one where the superintendent, the fictional Dr. Yoder, was the authority figure for Joseph, who he saw as a father figure. And so, of course, Rokich is going to play up this whole father figure thing in the letters, saying that he loved him like his son, he just wanted the best things for them. And if you remember from the original sort of quick bio, Joseph's father was awful and abusive. So he's really playing into his deepest sort of insecurities here.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He said, be assured that I will always love you just exactly like a father who deeply loves his own son.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's really tough to even research this stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So. So just like with. With Leon, through these letters as Dr. Yoder, he tried to get Joseph to start doing stuff, innocuous stuff at first, like, it saying stop. He didn't. He stopped saying that he was from England and that he was from Quebec. Started going to church services, that kind of stuff. So there was an influence on Joseph, just like there on Leon, using their delusional characters or delusional friends, authority figures, whatever. And I think even Dr. Yoder prescribed, or the fake Dr. Yoder prescribed a placebo for Joseph's stomach ailments. He had, like, digestive problems or stomach hurt. And these placebo pills just fixed him right up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So the stomach pills, placebo supposedly worked. And then he said, all right, well, that worked. So I'm gonna give you pills to basically cure your mind. And if you wanna fix yourself for good, take these pills. Which is. I mean, this is so far off the charts of unethical. Like, I can't even describe how far off the charts it is. And he said, basically, I think he said. He gave him an ultimatum. He says, I'm only gonna continue to give these pills that will supposedly make your mind right if you admit that you're in a mental hospital and it's not an English stronghold. And Joseph finally said, like, sign something. And Joseph said, no, I'm not going to sign this. And he cut off this placebo medication that he believed might be fixing his brain. And it kind of petered out after that. And it was just like. It's just brutal to think about these guys going through this, like, hope that they're getting better. And it was all fake.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. He apparently stopped writing to Dr. Yoder and moved on to JFK, started writing letters to JFK, asking to be one of his speechwriters because, remember, he was a writer as well.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So Rokeach is like, okay, all right, let's see what's next. Oh, nothing's next. This is the end of the line. He finally realized, like, okay, this is not going anywhere. Not only had he not at all moved Clyde's delusions or Joseph's delusions, the only persons whose delusions had changed at all was Leon's. And his had just gotten more complex and intricate. Certainly not any closer to reality. They got further away from reality because of this influence from Rokich and his experiment. And he has, like, a pretty rich little admission in the book that he says that we do not know to what extent our very presence, behavior and questions may have influenced the results obtained, which is bizarre to Say, because the whole point of the experiment was to influence these people through this experiment. So it's a really weird thing that he even put it in there. From some of the stuff that I've read, kind of picking apart this book at the end, it really just kind of peters out. Like he's just kind of slashing in the air with his sword, trying to figure out, you know, what the point was of all this stuff. And even without like a satisfying conclusion or end, it ended up getting published in 1964 and became like a really big success in the field of psychology, but also got widely criticized right out of the gate. Because even though this was mid century America and we're talking about mental patients in mid century America who have very little rights or were treated very poorly, like there was still like a lot of people around were like, you don't do this to human beings. This is not okay. Not everybody did. But some critics definitely came out immediately.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It took Rokich a long time though, to really kind of come to terms with what he had done. And he eventually did, though about 17 years later. They reissued the book in 1981, and he wrote a new forward. He admitted in interviews in other places as well that he was also, in a sense, suffering from godlike delusions and that he was playing God with these men and regretted it. He regretted publishing. He said, I regret having written and published a study when I did. I don't know if that means that he wishes he could have reflected more on it or what, but, yeah, I don't know either. He did sort of recant and say he didn't do the right thing. It's worth pointing out that this was. Was six years into his suffering from spinal cancer. So I don't know if that had, you know, if knowing the end was near for him had something to do with his sort of self reflection. But he eventually died in 1988 at the age of 70 after a 13 year battle with spinal cancer. And, you know, left. The social psychology world sort of rocked. Like I said, I studied this in college and it became sort of like the Stanford Prison Experiment. It became worth studying, but not for the reasons that they initially launched the study to begin with.

[Josh Clark]

No, he finally figured out the point of the book. And the point of the book was for him to figure out that it was unethical what he was doing and to finally come to terms with what he'd done to these poor men and that you have a right to just be left alone and not have your identity challenged. No matter what you believe you are, who you believe you are. And so he actually changed his methods. His general belief in the idea of belief systems remained the same, but he changed his tactics in that he got involved in self confrontation where he would try to present people with self examination, where they would examine what their values were, what their beliefs were, and then they would kind of be challenged on that. Like, okay, you believe in freedom, you place a high value on freedom, but you also rated equality pretty low. But isn't equality freedom for everybody? So you care about your freedom but not other people's freedom? How does that really jibe? And then the hope was that they would go back and self reflect and be like, no, I really do care about freedom. I do care about other people. Maybe I should care more about equality and improve as a person. And that's ultimately how he ended up making his name, starting in the 70s.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I gotta tell you, when you read some of his regret about it, he says things like. Or he said things like, you know, and in the end someone was cured and it was me. It just. That all bothered me a little bit too, how he still made it about himself somehow, even though he did say he regretted it and everything. I just. I never heard as much regret about these three men and just putting them in the positions of like. Like they were the ones who helped me out in the end. It was just. I didn't like that.

[Josh Clark]

I know exactly what you mean. It just, it still smacks of self involvement and egotism. And also, like, what happened to these men after the experiment was done? They were just cast right back into the general population, like used Kleenex, basically, to deal with what they just been through. It's just. It's just rotten all around for sure. And it, at the very least, it does exist to. To make Milton Rokeach feel better.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

You got anything else?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I mean, if you want to see some of his later work that you were talking about, the value stuff, there are all kinds of really wacky YouTube videos from people about that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Nice. And if you want to see the movie that they remade about this, don't.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nah.

[Josh Clark]

Well, since I said don't see that movie, it's time, of course, for listeners. Mail everybody.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm gonna call this a guy who has the same step on a crack thing as I do.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is from Jared Miller. Hey, guys. I gotta say, Chuck is the only other person I've heard to express the same compulsion that I have. If I step on a surface that is different from the majority of where I'm walking, I try to get my other foot to have the same sensation. This can be the line between the sidewalk segments, or a traction stick sticker, an unpaved patch, etc. I gotta say, Jared, it's the same with me. It's not just cracks, can be anything. Sure, even which part of the foot is affected. Same with me, dude. If I do it on my heel, I have to do the next one with my heel. It's very interesting. I've even found myself doing it with the colors of tiles on a patterned floor. Same here. For me, it's about symmetrical sensations. I sometimes realize I'm doing it when I'm eating and have equal chewing time on each side. I don't do that.

[Josh Clark]

Once you're like, Jared, you're so weird.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, you're really out there. Once I became aware of it at a fully conscious level, I also became self conscious about it and tried different things to break myself of the habit. At times it's been as extreme as forcing myself to maintain an even gait no matter what. Yeah, I've done that. While consciously reminding myself that sensations are temporary and that it will even even out or go away. Especially if I ignore it. Thanks for all the hours of entertainment. You were an early discovery of mine in the podcast world back in 2009, and almost none of the shows I started listening to back then are still going. That's our motto, Jared. Just keep doing it.

[Josh Clark]

Just no matter what everybody tells you, stop, please, God, stop.

[Chuck Bryant]

Don't quit.

[Josh Clark]

You just keep. You don't listen.

[Chuck Bryant]

So that's Jared in Anaheim by way of Idaho.

[Josh Clark]

Way to go, Jared. From all over the place.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think Idaho. Or was it Iowa? I don't remember.

[Josh Clark]

Sorry, Idaho.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know that's the worst thing to confuse. Apologize.

[Josh Clark]

So let's see. If you want to get in touch with us like Jared did, please email us, won't you? You can send us an email to stuff podcast@iheartradio.

[Chuck Bryant]

Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Josh Clark]

This is Tracy V. Wilson from Stuff.

[Chuck Bryant]

Youf Missed in History class.

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

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[David]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Chuck Bryant]

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[Josh Clark]

Therapy I think a lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships, that could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody. There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody.

[Chuck Bryant]

Find out if therapy is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com today. That's betterhelp.com.