I had two Jesus Christs on the ward. And they both spent the entire day explaining, “I am Jesus Christ.” They buttonholed everybody and explained, “I am the real Jesus Christ.”
And so I put John and Alberto on a bench and told them, “You sit there. Now, each of you tells me you’re Jesus Christ. Now, John, I want you to explain to Alberto that you, not he, are Jesus Christ. Alberto, you tell John, you are the real Jesus Christ and he is not; you are.”
I kept them sitting on that bench, explaining to each other all day long that they were the true Jesus Christ. And after about a month, John said, “I’m Jesus Christ and that crazy Alberto says that he is Jesus Christ.”
I said to John, “You know, John, you say the same thing he says. And he says the same things that you say. Now, I think that one of you is crazy, because there is only one Jesus Christ.”
John thought that over for a week. He said, “I’m saying the same things as that crazy fool is saying. He’s crazy and I’m saying what he says. That must mean I’m crazy too; and I don’t want to be crazy.”
…Erickson places John in situations where he can discover for himself that his ideas are delusional…[Rosen's commentary]
My Voice Will Go With You – The Teaching Tales of Milton Erickson, edited by Sidney Rosen, p201. Norton, 1991
Now, if we could only sit theists of different persuasions on benches..
‘Now, A, you believe your God is the one and only true God, and B, you believe your God is the one and only true God. Now I want you to..’
