#The unlikely encounter took place on 1 July 1959 on Ward D-23 at the State Psychiatric Clinic at Ypsilanti near Detroit (picture), Michigan. The three men, whom the psychologist Milton Rokeach brought together in a small, plainly furnished visiting room at the institute, introduced themselves in turn. The first to do so was a 58-year-old with a bald head and gappy teeth. "My name is Joseph Cassel. I’m God." Next up was a 70-year-old, whose mumbled introduction was hard to make out. "My name is Clyde Benson. I made God." Finally, a 38-year-old man with an emaciated body and grave expression stepped forward, but refused to give his real name, Leon Gabor. "It states on my birth certificate that I am the reincarnation of Jesus of Nazareth". Thus began one of the most bizarre experiments in the history of psychology. The proposition was to find out what happens when people are confronted with the most extreme paradox imaginable, namely with another person who claims to have the same identity? How would the three men react to the realization that, all of a sudden, there was more than one Jesus? (God and Jesus were identical as far as they were concerned). Milton Rokeach had already spent a long time investigating the relationship between a person’s identity and his innermost beliefs. What internal canons of behaviour are central to determining one’s personality? Which of these can be altered without any consequences? And what happens when one of the main planks of a person’s belief system comes under threat? Rokeach had seen from the example of his own children how sensitive people were to any violation of their identity. One time, when he jokingly mixed his two daughters’ names up, their laughter was soon replaced by unease. "Daddy, this is a game, isn’t it?" the younger daughter asked nervously. He answered no, it wasn’t, and soon afterwards both girls were begging him to stop. Rokeach had attacked the very core of their innermost conviction, namely their sense of Self. Rokeach could only hazard a guess at what would have happened if he had kept on mixing their names up for a whole week. Clearly, conducting an experiment along these lines was out of the question on ethical grounds. Yet reports from Chinese prisons, where brainwashing was carried out using similar techniques, suggested that the effects on a person’s identity were severe. In casting around for an experiment that would give no cause for concern, Rokeach suddenly called psychotics to mind: that is, people who think they’re someone else. If he could bring together under one roof several of them who all claimed to be the same person, this would cause two fundamental beliefs to collide: their false conviction as to who they were and their correct conviction that two people can’t have the same identity. In psychological literature, Rokeach found two brief examples of such cases: in the 17th century, two men who both thought they were Jesus Christ met by chance in a lunatic asylum. Three hundred years later, also in a psychiatric institution, two Virgin Marys also came face to face. In both cases, the meeting was said to have led to a partial recovery. Rokeach hoped that the experiment would not only reveal more about people’s internal belief system but also suggest new therapeutic possibilities for patients with severe personality disorders. He made enquiries at all five of the psychiatric facilities in the state of Michigan in his search for two psychotics who claimed to have the same identity. Among the 25,000 patients, there was only a handful of such cases. There were no Napoleons, no Khrushchevs and no Eisenhowers. There were just a few people who thought they were members of the Ford or Morgan dynasties, plus a female God, a Snow White and a dozen Christs. Of the three men who thought they were Christ and who were suitable subjects for the experiment, two were resident at the clinic in Ypsilanti. The third one was transferred there. Over a period of two years, they slept in adjacent beds, ate at the same dining table and were assigned similar duties in the hospital laundry. Leon Gabor had grown up in Detroit. His father had run off and left the family, while his mother was a religious fanatic. She spent the whole day praying in church, and left the children to fend for themselves at home. Gabor enrolled at a seminary for a short time before enlisting in the army. Later, he went back to live with his mother, who completely dominated him. In 1953, at the age of 32, he began to hear voices telling him that he was Jesus. One year later he fetched up in a psychiatric hospital. Clyde Benson grew up in the Michigan countryside. When he was 24, his wife, his father-in-law and his parents all died. His eldest daughter married and moved away. Benson started drinking and remarried, lost everything he owned, became violent and eventually landed in gaol, where he claimed to be Jesus Christ. In 1942, aged 53, he was referred to a psychiatric institution. Joseph Cassel was born in the Canadian province of Quebec. He was something of a misanthrope, burying himself in his books and making his wife take a job to support him while he worked on writing his own book. He and his family moved in with his in-laws, where he lived in constant fear of being poisoned. It was this delusion that brought him to Ypsilanti in 1939. At the time, Cassel was 39 years old. Ten years later he started to believe that he was the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. After just a few encounters, each of the three had a ready explanation for the fact that the other two claimed to be Jesus. Thus, Benson claimed: "They are really not alive. The machines in them are talking. Take the machines out of them and they won’t talk anything". Meanwhile, Cassel’s explanation was disarmingly logical: Gabor and Benson couldn’t be Jesus because they were self-evidently patients in a psychiatric institution. Gabor had various explanations for the others’ impossible identity. For example: they only made out they were Jesus to gain prestige. Even so, he did go so far as to concede that they might be "hollowed-out instrumental gods with a small ‘g’". To get to now the three men better, Rokeach set the topics for discussion at each of their daily sessions. They talked about families, their childhood, their wives and – repeatedly – about their own identity. Heated debates ensued, which after three weeks led to the first violent clash: when Gabor claimed that Adam was a negro, Benson clouted him. After two further physical altercations – between Benson and Cassel and Cassel and Gabor respectively – the three Jesuses conducted themselves peaceably for the rest of the experiment. However, they stuck to their guns on the question of who they believed themselves to be. Only Gabor, presumably influenced by the smack in the mouth Benson gave him, changed his mind about Adam, conceding that he might not, after all, have been Black. After two months, Rokeach let the three men lead the discussions. Each of them in turn chaired the daily meetings, chose the topic for discussion and handed out the daily cigarette ration. They covered a broad spectrum of subjects: films, communism and religion, for example, but never touched on the question of their own identity again. And if one of them just happened to mention in passing that he was God, the others deftly changed the subject. Yet all this did nothing to shake the conviction of each of them that he was the real Christ. Gabor showed the hospital staff his handwritten visiting card, on which he had inscribed: ‘Dr Domino dominorum et Rex rexarum, Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doctor, reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth’. However, in a surprise move in January 1960, about six months after the first meeting, Gabor changed his name. Now the visiting card read: ‘Dr Righteous Idealed Dung Sir Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doctor. "What do you want us to call you?" asked Rokeach. "If you want to say Dr Dung, sir, that’s your privilege," replied Gabor. This name caused some difficulties in the clinic. The nurses refused to call a patient ‘Dung’, but Gabor wouldn’t answer to any other name. Finally, he and the matron settled on the name ‘R.I.’, from ‘Righteous Idealed’. Rokeach immediately asked himself whether the name change betokened a change of identity on Gabor’s part. But in all likelihood his motivation was simply to remove himself from the firing line and remove any grounds for further confrontation. In the course of the experiment, Rokeach deliberately intervened on several occasions in an attempt to learn more about what made the men tick. For instance, he proposed taking their stated identities at face value and differentiating between them by calling Cassel ‘Mr God’ and Benson ‘Mr Christ’. The men turned this suggestion down. They were evidently well aware that no-one except them shared their conviction, and that an official name change would only cause more problems. Another time he read them an article about the experiment from the local paper. Rokeach then asked Benson: "Do you know who they are?" "No, I don’t," replied Benson. "Do you have any idea?" "No, their names aren’t in the article". "What about the one who’s better?" asked Rokeach, meaning Gabor. "He is not wasting his time trying to be Jesus Christ." "Why is it a waste of time?" Benson stuttered a little as he responded: "Why should a man try to be somebody else, when he’s not even himself? Why can’t he be himself?" Later in this discussion, Benson made it clear that he thought the three men in the article belonged in a mental hospital. In April 1960, Gabor announced that he was waiting for a letter to arrive from his wife. Rokeach immediately spotted an opportunity to broaden the experiment, since the wife only existed in Gabor’s imagination: he had never been married. Rokeach wanted to find out whether really believed in her existence, and if so, whether he would renounce his false identity if she asked him to. And so he began writing Gabor letters that he signed ‘sincerely Madame Dr R.I. Dung’. Gabor really was convinced that he had a wife. He dutifully went to the meeting-places mentioned in the letters, where of course she never showed up. About a week after the first letter, he explained to Rokeach that his wife was actually God. Rokeach, alias Madame Dr R.I. Dung, also issued instructions in the letters he sent, telling Gabor for example to sing a particular song or share his money with the other men. At the beginning, he dutifully followed his wife’s orders, though he never complied with his wife’s request to drop the name Dr R. I. Dung. On 15 August 1961, two years after their first meeting, the three Christs of Ypsilanti – which incidentally was also the title of Rokeach’s book on the experiment – met for the last time. Rokeach had abandoned all hope of returning them to normality through therapy. He had also recognized that the three men preferred simply to live in peace with one another rather than trying to resolve the matter of their identities once and for all. back to 10 Weirdest Experiments Ever i-do-not-think-it-can-be-questioned Posted on October 29, 2011
http://psychiatricmayhem.blogspot.com/2010/10/i-do-not-think-it-can-be-questioned.html
The Three Christs of Ypsilanti
by Milton Rokeach
I just thought of one book I (surprisingly) left off my list. It’s a book few people have ever heard of, even within the mental health field. It’s called “The Three Christs of Ypsilanti” and tells the story from the 1950′s (long before the modern catch-phrase of de-institutionalisation) where they brought together three long-term schizophrenic patients onto the same ward in a hospital in (you guessed it) Ypsilanti Hospital.
Anyway, each of these three patients was suffering from the delusion that they were Jesus Christ. The book is the chronicle of their interaction with each other and the staff as they each tried to maintain and defend their ‘identity’. I have never read anything quite like it as a ‘case study’. And given the latest trends in the field, it is probably an unrepeatable undertaking.
It’s a fascinating read – or at least I found it so. I actually carried it around for several years as a kind of “Bible”. Not for the so-called psychiatric insights but for the dialogue & interplay between 3 human beings all claiming to have the same identity. Actually, I found very little on the web about this book except one classic comment:
Maybe “Leon” of Ypsilanti really WAS Jesus… and everybody tried to “CURE” Him!!
I did identify with Leon in many ways.
I may one day get the time & energy & inclination to type up the best bits of this book. In the meantime, enjoy a few scans of some old photcopies I have. I found it’s tough to scan a thick book but not so tough to scan photocopies of that thick book. You learn something every day. Well, read these excerpts and you’ll learn a thing or two. Call Leon ‘deluded’ if you must, but I think he has one of the most creative minds you would ever wish to encounter. Reading these words again, I am reminded of that song about Van Gogh, ‘this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you’. But enough of my ramblings, here’s some of Mr. Rokeach’s …
Mind you, even this smattering gives just a taste of the book’s contents. You’ll have to hunt down a copy to get the total experience. The ISBN is … well, on second thoughts, click here for the book info.
Pages 216 & 7
Pages 144 & 5
Pages 146 & 7
Pages 136 & 7
Pages 138 & 9
Pages 74 & 5
Pages 72 & 3
Pages 80& 1
Pages 82 & 3
Pages 130 & 1
Pages 128 & 9
Pages 104 & 5
Pages ?? – where Leon says ‘I have to see the relationship to infinity. If I can see that, I’m satisfied.’, which may be as profound a statement you’ll ever hear from someone who is supposedly ‘deluded’ and ‘out-of-touch’ with ‘reality’ … unfrotunately I sliced the scanned image up a little bit so I haven’t found what page it comes from … so be patient … all will be revealed in the fullness of time …
Pages 160 & 1
Pages 144 & 145 – scanned from the actual book rather than from the photocopies …
Pages 150 & 1
Pages 152 & 3
Pages 154 & 5
Pages 156 & 7
Pages 158 & 9
Pages 214 & 5
Pages 164 & 5
Pages 168 & 9
Pages 224 & 5
Pages 230 & 1
Pages 234 & 5 – need re-doing but almost legible
Pages 250 & 1
Pages 252 & 3
Pages 254 & 5
Pages 256 & 7
Pages 310 & 1 – mentions Laing
Pages 336 & 7 – reflections ‘twenty years later’ …
Page 338
Page 238 – has ‘the relationship to infinity’ but I need to re-scan it …
More scans soon … unless I happen to be abducted by advanced intergalactic travelers who have zeroed in on my brainwaves from the vastness of interstellar space. But that’s probably not going to happen in the next five
Some Links
Most of the following come from a search using the Google search engine -
Quote from Milton Rokeach
Article about the identity of Christ mentions the book
Interesting discussion of the book {added May 17, 2002}
{Or click here}
Rapunzel – a poem which mentions the book
Myths about psychiatric drugs
The message I mentioned previously suggesting maybe Leon actually WAS Christ
Article at Successful Schizophrenia site
The Politics of Experience by R.D. Laing
Swami Beyondananda Karma Talk
Another discussion
Interesting message at a dicussion board
An article called Rogue Messiahs
How to evaluate our beliefs
Another site which mentions the book
More info on Dr Rokeach
Since the beginnings of recorded history, man has been fascinated with the insane, with their deranged feeling, thinking, and behaviour. Insane people with fanciful delusions have at times attracted large numbers of adherents, who looked upon their psychotic leaders as prophets or as saviours of some sort. The alluring properties of the “prophet’s” message may be more than just a beckoning of a way to escape from the boredom of everyday life. I suspect that many followers are riveted by a peculiarly intoxicating quality of psychotic ecstasy conveyed by the “mad” leader. ……..
The psychiatric disease that converts man into an other-worldly creature – at once wiser than the wisest of the sane and yet so deeply troubled that he suffers more than a terminal cancer patient – is surely schizophrenia. Because of his bizarre loss of contact with everyday reality, the schizophrenic can appeal to us as a messiah bearing the message of the infinite. For our conception of the universe is bounded by the straitjacket of conventional thinking processes. A schizophrenic’s self-perception is so fragmented that he seems to function at a different plane of consciousness from the rest of humanity. Some psychiatrists who have dealt extensively with schizophrenics even wonder whether the schizophrenic’s “psychotic” perception of the world might not conform more to ultimate reality than does our sane vision.
Because of such doubts, Ronald Laing, a Scottish psychiatrist, questions whether schizophrenia should be viewed as a disease at all in the ordinary sense. He feels that the schizophrenic experience may be quite a natural one. In schizophrenia, individuals, for unclear reasons, have entered into an “inner world” that part of their psyche which is unconscious most of the time and which contains many of the primitive instinctual elements “discovered” by Freud. …… He views the schizophrenic episode as a potentially enriching experience, perhaps reminiscent of a psychedelic trip on LSD. “This journey is experienced as going further in, as going back through one’s personal life and back and through and beyond into the experience of all mankind, of the primal man, of Adam and pehaps even further into the beings of animals, vegetables and minerals” If society would only allow them to embark on this journey unimpeded by social pressures, psychiatrists or tranquilizing drugs, they would emerge from it as better people.
March 2001 Update -
Here are a couple of collages of photocopies from this book which I just found in an old notebook. Enjoy.
Collage 1
Collage 2
More may follow …
Just in case those scans aren’t legible to you … here is the gist of what they say …
‘ … which we clasp rather tenuously. To learn how delicate are your claims on reality, all you need do is ingest a moderate dose of LSD. The most frightening and yet most uplifting experience that psychedelic drugs elicit is the merging of the self with the universe. After first being fascinated with the perceptual changes produced by the drug, you may begin to wonder about the boundaries of your own body and soul. You feel yourself shrink to a pinpoint or expand to fill the room. Soon you begin to wonder where you leave off and the rest of the world begins. The ultimate consequence of this sensation – which is almost impossible to describe in words – is a fusion of the self with the infinite, man with God, your body with the rest of the universe. This is the ultimate beatific experience of Eastern and Christian mystics, something they strive for during years of meditation, but …’
‘Only when Laing’s utopian age of nonpsychiatry comes to pass will everyone presumably realise that schizophrenia need not be a disease but instead a uniquely enriching life experience, like sexual intercourse. He argues, “The laugh’s on us. They [the ex-schizophrenics] will see that what we call ‘schizophrenia’ was one of the forms in which, often through quite ordinary people, the light began to break through the cracks in our all-too-closed minds … perhaps we will learn to accord to the so-called schizophrenics who have come back to us, perhaps after years, no less respect than the often no less lost explorers of the renaissance.’
‘If you think about it for a while, it should be evident that your sense of identity as a distinct individual is extremely important in enabling you to function in the everyday world. Being certain that …’
Unfortunately (or maybe not), our library seems to have misplaced this book. Either that or somebody has eaten it or just didn’t feel like returning it to the library. Have’nt found all that much about it on the world-wide-web so you’ll just have to be satisfied with those glimpses …
I believe the author’s name was Solomon Snyder.
For more about R.D. Laing, click here
@ A few more quotes &
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” George Orwell (1903–50), British author. Nineteen Eighty-Four, pt. 2, ch. 9 (1949), extract from Goldstein’s book. See Fitzgerald on Intelligence.
“All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a long, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.” George Orwell (1903–50), British author. “Why I Write” (1947; repr. in Collected Essays, 1961).
“We are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world— mad, even, from an ideal standpoint we can glimpse but not adopt.” R. D. Laing (1927–89), British psychiatrist. The Politics of Experience, Introduction (1967).
“If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.” Thomas Szasz (b. 1920), U.S. psychiatrist. The Second Sin, “Schizophrenia” (1973).
“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates.” Thomas Szasz (b. 1920), U.S. psychiatrist. The Second Sin, “Personal Conduct” (1973).
“There is in every madman a misunderstood genius whose idea, shining in his head, frightened people, and for whom delirium was the only solution to the strangulation that life had prepared for him.” Antonin Artaud (1896–1948), French theater producer, actor, theorist. Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society (1947; repr. in Selected Writings, pt. 33, ed. by Susan Sontag, 1976).
“And what is an authentic madman? It is a man who preferred to become mad, in the socially accepted sense of the word, rather than forfeit a certain superior idea of human honor. So society has strangled in its asylums all those it wanted to get rid of or protect itself from, because they refused to become its accomplices in certain great nastinesses. For a madman is also a man whom society did not want to hear and whom it wanted to prevent from uttering certain intolerable truths.” Antonin Artaud (1896–1948), French theater producer, actor, theorist. Van Gogh, the Man Suicided by Society, (1947; repr. in Selected Writings, pt. 33, ed. by Susan Sontag, 1976).
From Politics of Experience by R.D.Laing -
Is there anywhere such a thing as a normal man?
Modern society clamps a straitjacket of conformity on every child that’s born. In the process, man’s potentialities are devastated and the terms ‘sanity’ and ‘madness’ become ambiguous. The schizophrenic may simply be someone who has been unable to suppress his normal instincts and conform to an abnormal society
{May type more of this book later – excellent case history & analysis}
Here’s an excerpt from the script of the movie “Network” with Peter Finch. I’d like to get the book – I’m not sure who wroted it. ….. “I’m imbued with some special spirit. It’s not a religious feeling at all. It’s a shocking eruption of great electrical energy. I feel vivid and flashing as if suddenly I’ve been plugged into some great electromagnetic field. I feel connected to all living things – to flowers, birds … all the animals of the world. I’m linked to some great unseen living force – what I think the Hindus call Prana. But it’s not a breakdown. I’ve never felt more orderly in my life. It is a shattering and beautiful sensation. It is the exulted flow of the space-time continuum, save that it is spaceless and timeless and of such loveliness … I feel on the verge of some great ultimate truth….”
Schizophrenia
This article submitted by John Landau.
Email: drmarcial@aol.com
Literally, the fractal mind. A logos that affirms multiplicity and the occupation of all possible points. The schizophrenic is like the electron : if we predict the position, we cannot predict the velocity ; if we predict the velocity, we cannot predict the position. Like a nomad travelling through smooth space, the schizophrenic, like the electron in an electron cloud, may appear anywhere within the field, occupying all positions while singularly fluctuating between positions aleatorily. Schizophrenia is a Cageian simultaneity of happenings: the nose runs, the mouth babbles, the hands fiddle, the eyes roll, the feet shuffle, the diaphragm laughs or hiccups, the Eucalyptus adds its scent to the moment, the moon at that angle in the sky … Schizophrenia is a process of compiling lists and letting go of syntax. Social schizophrenia is a simultaneity of spontaneities, a flux of ad-hoc organizings of activity, a surrealist engagement of “collective self-management” as the transtruction [ construction - deconstruction process] of dissipative structures. All of this is distinguished from clinical schizophrenia, which is alienated, repressed schizophrenia isolated from desiring-production and collective creativity. Liberated schizophrenia is schizophrenia that has come into its own as an Escherian, topological celebration of fractal generativity!
Singularity
This article submitted by John Landau on 10/11/97.
Email: drmarcial@aol.com
A singularity is a virtual potentiality existing at the zero point which begins to actualize, upsetting the habit patterns of momentum which struggle to keep time as a linear progression, a stable identity where moment begets moment. Yet time is a discontinuity. Each moment dies and is reborn at the zero point, the Schrodinger space. All possibilities compress at this dense intensity. A singularity is a possibility that escapes compression into actualization. It is a sign of difference-in-itself. Since A is never equal to A, since a thing both is and is not what it is, identity never captures being and self-sameness is impossible b self-similarity generates nano-variations that become amplified in time. Molar identity attempts to scan and surgically remove such nano-variations b becoming involves creatively amplifying them. Because singularities demonstrate that identity is only and always approximate, the State has an ill will towards them.
Back to my list of interesting mental health sites
Labels: PATIENTS PUT OUT TO DIE in MICHIGAN
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Livestock Management
I do not think it can be questioned that sympathy is a genuine motive, and that some people at some times are made somewhat uncomfortable by the sufferings of some other people. It is sympathy that has produced the many humanitarian advances of the last hundred years. We are shocked when we hear stories ofthe ill-treatment of lunatics, and there are now quite a number of asylums in which they are not ill-treated. Prisoners in Western countries are not supposed to be tortured, and when they are, there is an outcry if the facts are discovered. We do not approve of treating orphans as they are treated in Oliver Twist. Protestant countries disapprove of cruelty to animals. In all these ways sympathy has been politically effective. If the fear of war were removed, its effectiveness would become much greater. Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy.
Summation
The time has come to sum up our discussion. Politics is concerned with herds rather than with individuals, and the passions which are important in politics are, therefore, those in which the various members of a given herd can feel alike. The broad instinctive mechanism upon which political edifices have to be built is one of cooperation within the herd and hostility towards other herds. The co-operation within the herd is never perfect. There are members who do not conform, who are, in the etymological sense, “egregious”, that is to say, outside the flock. These members are those who have fallen below, or risen above, the ordinary level. They are: idiots, criminals, prophets, and discoverers. A wise herd will learn to tolerate the eccentricity of those who rise above the average, and to treat with a minimum of ferocity those who fall below it.
As regards relations to other herds, modern technique has produced a conflict between self-interest and instinct. In old days, when two tribes went to war, one of them exterminated the other, and annexed its territory. From the point of view of the victor, the whole operation was thoroughly satisfactory. The killing was not at all expensive, and the excitement was agreeable. It is not to be wondered at that, in such circumstances, war persisted. Unfortunately, we still have the emotions appropriate to such primitive warfare, while the actual operations of war have changed completely. Killing an enemy in a modern war is a very expensive operation. If you consider how many Germans were killed in the late war, and how much the victors are paying in income tax, you can, by a sum in long division, discover the cost of a dead German, and you will find it considerable. In the East, it is true, the enemies of the Germans have secured the ancient advantages of turning out the defeated population and occupying their lands. The Western victors, however, have secured no such advantages. It is obvious that modern war is not good business from a financial point of view. Although we won both the world wars, we should now be much richer if they had not occured. If men were actuated by self-interest, which they are not – except in the case of a few saints – the whole human race would cooperate. There would be no more wars, no more armies, no more navies, no more atom bombs. There would not be armies of propagandists employed in poisoning the minds of Nation A against Nation B, and reciprocally of Nation B against Nation A. There would not be armies of officials at frontiers to prevent the entry of foreign books and foreign ideas, however excellent in themselves. There would not be customs barriers to ensure the existence of many small enterprises where one big enterprise would be more economic. All this would happen very quickly if men desired their own happiness as ardently as they desired the misery of their neighbours. But, you will tell me, what is the use of these utopian dreams ? Moralists will see to it that we do not become wholly selfish, and until we do the millenium will be impossible.
I do not wish to seem to end upon a note of cynicism. I do not deny that there are better things than selfishness, and that some people achieve these things. I maintain, however, on the one hand, that there are few occasions upon which large bodies of men, such as politics is concerned with, can rise above selfishness, while, on the other hand, there are a very great many circumstances in which populations will fall below selfishness, if selfishness is interpreted as enlightened self-interest.
And among those occasions on which people fall below self-interest are most of the occasions on which they are convinced that they are acting from idealistic motives. Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power. When you see large masses of men swayed by what appear to be noble motives, it is as well to look below the surface and ask yourself what it is that makes these motives effective. It is partly because it is so easy to be taken in by a facade of nobility that a psychological inquiry, such as I have been attempting, is worth making. I would say, in conclusion, that if what I have said is right, the main thing needed to make the world happy is intelligence. And this, after all, is an optimistic conclusion, because intelligence is a thing that can be fostered by known methods of education.
From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1969 ( http://www.nobel.se/nobel/nobel-foundation/publications/lectures/index.html )
Notes from XahLee.org
This is Bertrand Russell’s Nobel Lecture, on December 11, 1950. The subsection division, subsection headings, and annotations are added by Xah Lee, 2005-03, for the purpose of study and verification.
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GET OUT OF MY MIND!!! MIND PARASITES! MIND PARASITES!
Posted on October 29, 2011
CRUELITY to MENTAL PATIENTS- thrown out to DIE!
HOME / Science : The state of the universe.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
In the late 1950s, three men who identified as the Son of God were forced to live together in a mental hospital. What happened?
On June 16, 1930 construction for the hospital had begun. Albert Kahn was the architect that had designed the building. Kahn had his own design firm in Detroit, Michigan. The hospital was opened a year after construction had begun. Over the course of the first year the hospital had admitted 922 patients. The estimated cost of living was about eighty cents per day. At the end of World War II The Ypsilanti State Hospital had built two new wards with over 4,000 patients. After adding the two wards, this still brought the hospital over capacity. In 1991, Governor John Engler cut all funding for state hospitals. The Ypsilanti State Hospital was the first to be shut down.[1] The forensic center stayed open until 2001, but when the hospital closed this left many patients homeless. They were left with nothing; most of the patients had lost contact with family and friends too.
In the late 1950s, psychologist Milton Rokeach was gripped by an eccentric plan. He gathered three psychiatric patients, each with the delusion that they were Jesus Christ, to live together for two years in Ypsilanti State Hospital to see if their beliefs would change. The early meetings were stormy. “You oughta worship me, I’ll tell you that!” one of the Christs yelled. “I will not worship you! You’re a creature! You better live your own life and wake up to the facts!” another snapped back. “No two men are Jesus Christs. … I am the Good Lord!” the third interjected, barely concealing his anger.
Frustrated by psychology’s focus on what he considered to be peripheral beliefs, like political opinions and social attitudes, Rokeach wanted to probe the limits of identity. He had been intrigued by stories of Secret Service agents who felt they had lost contact with their original identities, and wondered if a man’s sense of self might be challenged in a controlled setting. Unusually for a psychologist, he found his answer in the Bible. There is only one Son of God, says the good book, so anyone who believed himself to be Jesus would suffer a psychological affront by the very existence of another like him. This was the revelation that led Rokeach to orchestrate his meeting of the Messiahs and document their encounter in the extraordinary (and out-of-print) book from 1964, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.
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Although by no means common, Christ conventions have an unexpectedly long history. In his commentary to Cesare Beccaria’s essay “Crimes and Punishments,” Voltaire recounted the tale of the “unfortunate madman” Simon Morin who was burnt at the stake in 1663 for claiming to be Jesus. Unfortunate it seems, because Morin was originally committed to a madhouse where he met another who claimed to be God the Father, and “was so struck with the folly of his companion that he acknowledged his own, and appeared, for a time, to have recovered his senses.” The lucid period did not last, however, and it seems the authorities lost patience with his blasphemy. Another account of a meeting of the Messiahs comes from Sidney Rosen’s book My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson. The renowned psychiatrist apparently set two delusional Christs in his ward arguing only for one to gain insight into his madness, miraculously, after seeing something of himself in his companion. (“I’m saying the same things as that crazy fool is saying,” said one of the patients. “That must mean I’m crazy too.”)
These tales are surprising because delusions, in the medical sense, are not simply a case of being mistaken. They are considered to be pathological beliefs, reflecting a warped or broken understanding that is not, by definition, amenable to being reshaped by reality. One of most striking examples is the Cotard delusion, under which a patient believes she is dead; surely there can be no clearer demonstration that simple and constant contradiction offers no lasting remedy. Rokeach, aware of this, did not expect a miraculous cure. Instead, he was drawing a parallel between the baseless nature of delusion and the flimsy foundations we use to construct our own identities. If tomorrow everyone treats me as if I have an electronic device in my head, there are ways and means I could use to demonstrate they are wrong and establish the facts of the matter—a visit to the hospital perhaps. But what if everyone treats me as if my core self were fundamentally different than I believed it to be? Let’s say they thought I was an undercover agent—what could I show them to prove otherwise? From my perspective, the best evidence is the strength of my conviction. My belief is my identity.
Milton Rokeach’s The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.
In one sense, Rokeach’s book reflects a remarkably humane approach for its era. We are asked to see ourselves in the psychiatric patients, at a time when such people were regularly locked away and treated as incomprehensible objects of pity rather than individuals worthy of empathy. Rokeach’s constant attempts to explain the delusions as understandable reactions to life events require us to accept that the Christs have not “lost contact” with reality, even if their interpretations are more than a little uncommon.
But the book makes for starkly uncomfortable reading as it recounts how the researchers blithely and unethically manipulated the lives of Leon, Joseph, and Clyde in the service of academic curiosity. In one of the most bizarre sections, the researchers begin colluding with the men’s delusions in a deceptive attempt to change their beliefs from within their own frame of reference. The youngest patient, Leon, starts receiving letters from the character he believes to be his wife, “Madame Yeti Woman,” in which she professes her love and suggests minor changes to his routine. Then Joseph, a French Canadian native, starts receiving faked letters from the hospital boss advising certain changes in routine that might benefit his recovery. Despite an initially engaging correspondence, both the delusional spouse and the illusory boss begin to challenge the Christs’ beliefs more than is comfortable, and contact is quickly broken off.
In fact, very little seems to shift the identities of the self-appointed Messiahs. They debate, argue, at one point come to blows, but show few signs that their beliefs have become any less intense. Only Leon seems to waver, eventually asking to be addressed as “Dr Righteous Idealed Dung” instead of his previous moniker of “Dr Domino dominorum et Rex rexarum, Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doctor, reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.” Rokeach interprets this more as an attempt to avoid conflict than a reflection of any genuine identity change. The Christs explain one another’s claims to divinity in predictably idiosyncratic ways: Clyde, an elderly gentleman, declares that his companions are, in fact, dead, and that it is the “machines” inside them that produce their false claims, while the other two explain the contradiction by noting that their companions are “crazy” or “duped” or that they don’t really mean what they say.
In hindsight, the Three Christs study looks less like a promising experiment than the absurd plan of a psychologist who suffered the triumph of passion over good sense. The men’s delusions barely shifted over the two years, and from an academic perspective, Rokeach did not make any grand discoveries concerning the psychology of identity and belief. Instead, his conclusions revolve around the personal lives of three particular (and particularly unfortunate) men. He falls back—rather meekly, perhaps—on the Freudian suggestion that their delusions were sparked by confusion over sexual identity, and attempts to end on a flourish by noting that we all “seek ways to live with one another in peace,” even in the face of the most fundamental disagreements. As for the ethics of the study, Rokeach eventually realized its manipulative nature and apologized in an afterword to the 1984 edition: “I really had no right, even in the name of science, to play God and interfere round the clock with their daily lives.”
Although we take little from it scientifically, the book remains a rare and eccentric journey into the madness of not three, but four men in an asylum. It is, in that sense, an unexpected tribute to human folly, and one that works best as a meditation on our own misplaced self-confidence. Whether scientist or psychiatric patient, we assume others are more likely to be biased or misled than we are, and we take for granted that our own beliefs are based on sound reasoning and observation. This may be the nearest we can get to revelation—the understanding that our most cherished beliefs could be wrong’
=============================================================================================
The Three Christs’s of Ypsilanti
===============================================================================================
I was thrilled to read Vaughan Bell’s short essay at Slate about Milton Rokeach’s rarely encountered 1964 book, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. It’s one of my all time favorite books, but alas, one that no one else I’ve ever met has heard of or read. It’s nearly impossible to find for a reasonable price. The Three Christs of Ypsilanti is a psychiatric case study by Rokeach, a detailing of his experiment with a trio of schizophrenic patients at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The three men—who each harbored the delusional belief that he was Jesus Christ returned—were forced to live with each other in a mental hospital to see if their beliefs could be challenged enough to effect a break-through in at least one of them.
But it wasn’t that simple, as Rokeach found out. Bell writes:
But the book makes for starkly uncomfortable reading as it recounts how the researchers blithely and unethically manipulated the lives of Leon, Joseph, and Clyde in the service of academic curiosity. In one of the most bizarre sections, the researchers begin colluding with the men’s delusions in a deceptive attempt to change their beliefs from within their own frame of reference. The youngest patient, Leon, starts receiving letters from the character he believes to be his wife, “Madame Yeti Woman,” in which she professes her love and suggests minor changes to his routine. Then Joseph, a French Canadian native, starts receiving faked letters from the hospital boss advising certain changes in routine that might benefit his recovery. Despite an initially engaging correspondence, both the delusional spouse and the illusory boss begin to challenge the Christs’ beliefs more than is comfortable, and contact is quickly broken off.
In fact, very little seems to shift the identities of the self-appointed Messiahs. They debate, argue, at one point come to blows, but show few signs that their beliefs have become any less intense. Only Leon seems to waver, eventually asking to be addressed as “Dr Righteous Idealed Dung” instead of his previous moniker of “Dr Domino dominorum et Rex rexarum, Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doctor, reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.” Rokeach interprets this more as an attempt to avoid conflict than a reflection of any genuine identity change. The Christs explain one another’s claims to divinity in predictably idiosyncratic ways: Clyde, an elderly gentleman, declares that his companions are, in fact, dead, and that it is the “machines” inside them that produce their false claims, while the other two explain the contradiction by noting that their companions are “crazy” or “duped” or that they don’t really mean what they say.
In hindsight, 
looks less like a promising experiment than the absurd plan of a psychologist who suffered the triumph of passion over good sense. The men’s delusions barely shifted over the two years, and from an academic perspective, Rokeach did not make any grand discoveries concerning the psychology of identity and belief. Instead, his conclusions revolve around the personal lives of three particular (and particularly unfortunate) men. He falls back—rather meekly, perhaps—on the Freudian suggestion that their delusions were sparked by confusion over sexual identity, and attempts to end on a flourish by noting that we all “seek ways to live with one another in peace,” even in the face of the most fundamental disagreements. As for the ethics of the study, Rokeach eventually realized its manipulative nature and apologized in an afterword to the 1984 edition: “I really had no right, even in the name of science, to play God and interfere round the clock with their daily lives.”
There’s another piece I found mentioning the book that’s worth bringing in here, too, because it uses the Three Christs of Ypsilanti as a microcosm of how the world’s major religions all believe they have the one truth and worship the one true god. A guy named Steve Bhaerman who writes a humor column under the pen name “Swami Beyondananda” at a New Age website called InnerSelf had a profound insight about the book, seeing the three messianically-challenged protagonists as stand-ins for the world’s big three religions, each under the delusion that their “truth” is the true truth and it’s the other guy’s religion that is superstitious bullshit:
I hadn’t thought about that book for years, until I was reminded of it by two seemingly unrelated news items. The first involved the Middle East peace process, which recently has been neither peaceful nor much of a process. A huge seemingly unresolvable dispute involves Jerusalem, which houses the sacred sites of three major religions. Someone had the enlightening suggestion that Jerusalem be ruled by God. Of course, the next question was, whose God?
The other news item was about the Catholic church declaring that for all intents and purposes, IT alone is the one sure way to heaven—and perhaps more important, the only certain way to avoid hell. A friend of mine who owns a marketing business (and incidentally grew up Catholic) says, “I can only dream of having such an unbeatable marketing premise. Buy my product, go to heaven. Buy the other guy’s, go to hell.” Not to single out the Catholics, though. Fundamentalists of every stripe play out a dyslexic version of that childhood taunt, “My dog’s better than your dog.” Except that “my God’s better than your God” has caused millions of deaths and oceans of tears.
And that’s when it occurred to me that the three major religious systems are like the Three Christs of Ypsilanti. Each lives in a delusional system that it alone is the One True Path. And now, God has placed them all in a therapy group to see if they can accommodate one another.
Brilliant. If you are interested, some parts of The Three Christ of Ypsilanti can be read online here.
The Three Christs of Ypsilanti (InnerSelf)
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus: In the late 1950s, three men who identified as the Son of God were forced to live together in a mental hospital. What happened? (Slate)
The interesting story from this book which you have shared here encourage me to read all parts of this The Three Christ of Ypsilanti book. I shall read it on line tonight and whenever I free.
=====================================================================
Now Im freaked out. I swear , last night before falling asleep I thought:
“I have to Google “The Three Christ’s of Yipsilanti” tomorrow. I loved that book…”
GET OUT OF MY MIND!!! MIND PARASITES! MIND PARASITES!
May 28, 2010
me-me says:
I’ll never hear this song in the same way:
Excellent article. Reminds me of When Rabbit Howls – which described one woman’s struggle with multiple personalities.
I found it difficult reading, but fascinating nonetheless.
I, too, can add a fourth to this list. While tripping on 5 grams of psychedelic mushrooms in a ritual setting, my friend proceeded to have a siezure due to his stopping medication prior to the trip. A week later, his parents admitted him to the Ypsilanti psych ward. While there, he developed the de(il)lusion that he was in fact Jesus Christ.
Having seen him recently, however, I can enlighten you to know that he has returned to Earth, successfully teaches rock guitar, and is way over JC. Custom Email SiteBuilder
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment | Edit
Posted on October 29, 2011
CRUELITY to MENTAL PATIENTS- thrown out to DIE!
HOME / Science : The state of the universe.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
In the late 1950s, three men who identified as the Son of God were forced to live together in a mental hospital. What happened?
On June 16, 1930 construction for the hospital had begun. Albert Kahn was the architect that had designed the building. Kahn had his own design firm in Detroit, Michigan. The hospital was opened a year after construction had begun. Over the course of the first year the hospital had admitted 922 patients. The estimated cost of living was about eighty cents per day. At the end of World War II The Ypsilanti State Hospital had built two new wards with over 4,000 patients. After adding the two wards, this still brought the hospital over capacity. In 1991, Governor John Engler cut all funding for state hospitals. The Ypsilanti State Hospital was the first to be shut down.[1] The forensic center stayed open until 2001, but when the hospital closed this left many patients homeless. They were left with nothing; most of the patients had lost contact with family and friends too.
In the late 1950s, psychologist Milton Rokeach was gripped by an eccentric plan. He gathered three psychiatric patients, each with the delusion that they were Jesus Christ, to live together for two years in Ypsilanti State Hospital to see if their beliefs would change. The early meetings were stormy. “You oughta worship me, I’ll tell you that!” one of the Christs yelled. “I will not worship you! You’re a creature! You better live your own life and wake up to the facts!” another snapped back. “No two men are Jesus Christs. … I am the Good Lord!” the third interjected, barely concealing his anger.
Frustrated by psychology’s focus on what he considered to be peripheral beliefs, like political opinions and social attitudes, Rokeach wanted to probe the limits of identity. He had been intrigued by stories of Secret Service agents who felt they had lost contact with their original identities, and wondered if a man’s sense of self might be challenged in a controlled setting. Unusually for a psychologist, he found his answer in the Bible. There is only one Son of God, says the good book, so anyone who believed himself to be Jesus would suffer a psychological affront by the very existence of another like him. This was the revelation that led Rokeach to orchestrate his meeting of the Messiahs and document their encounter in the extraordinary (and out-of-print) book from 1964, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.
Advertisement
Although by no means common, Christ conventions have an unexpectedly long history. In his commentary to Cesare Beccaria’s essay “Crimes and Punishments,” Voltaire recounted the tale of the “unfortunate madman” Simon Morin who was burnt at the stake in 1663 for claiming to be Jesus. Unfortunate it seems, because Morin was originally committed to a madhouse where he met another who claimed to be God the Father, and “was so struck with the folly of his companion that he acknowledged his own, and appeared, for a time, to have recovered his senses.” The lucid period did not last, however, and it seems the authorities lost patience with his blasphemy. Another account of a meeting of the Messiahs comes from Sidney Rosen’s book My Voice Will Go With You: The Teaching Tales of Milton H. Erickson. The renowned psychiatrist apparently set two delusional Christs in his ward arguing only for one to gain insight into his madness, miraculously, after seeing something of himself in his companion. (“I’m saying the same things as that crazy fool is saying,” said one of the patients. “That must mean I’m crazy too.”)
These tales are surprising because delusions, in the medical sense, are not simply a case of being mistaken. They are considered to be pathological beliefs, reflecting a warped or broken understanding that is not, by definition, amenable to being reshaped by reality. One of most striking examples is the Cotard delusion, under which a patient believes she is dead; surely there can be no clearer demonstration that simple and constant contradiction offers no lasting remedy. Rokeach, aware of this, did not expect a miraculous cure. Instead, he was drawing a parallel between the baseless nature of delusion and the flimsy foundations we use to construct our own identities. If tomorrow everyone treats me as if I have an electronic device in my head, there are ways and means I could use to demonstrate they are wrong and establish the facts of the matter—a visit to the hospital perhaps. But what if everyone treats me as if my core self were fundamentally different than I believed it to be? Let’s say they thought I was an undercover agent—what could I show them to prove otherwise? From my perspective, the best evidence is the strength of my conviction. My belief is my identity.
Milton Rokeach’s The Three Christs of Ypsilanti.
In one sense, Rokeach’s book reflects a remarkably humane approach for its era. We are asked to see ourselves in the psychiatric patients, at a time when such people were regularly locked away and treated as incomprehensible objects of pity rather than individuals worthy of empathy. Rokeach’s constant attempts to explain the delusions as understandable reactions to life events require us to accept that the Christs have not “lost contact” with reality, even if their interpretations are more than a little uncommon.
But the book makes for starkly uncomfortable reading as it recounts how the researchers blithely and unethically manipulated the lives of Leon, Joseph, and Clyde in the service of academic curiosity. In one of the most bizarre sections, the researchers begin colluding with the men’s delusions in a deceptive attempt to change their beliefs from within their own frame of reference. The youngest patient, Leon, starts receiving letters from the character he believes to be his wife, “Madame Yeti Woman,” in which she professes her love and suggests minor changes to his routine. Then Joseph, a French Canadian native, starts receiving faked letters from the hospital boss advising certain changes in routine that might benefit his recovery. Despite an initially engaging correspondence, both the delusional spouse and the illusory boss begin to challenge the Christs’ beliefs more than is comfortable, and contact is quickly broken off.
In fact, very little seems to shift the identities of the self-appointed Messiahs. They debate, argue, at one point come to blows, but show few signs that their beliefs have become any less intense. Only Leon seems to waver, eventually asking to be addressed as “Dr Righteous Idealed Dung” instead of his previous moniker of “Dr Domino dominorum et Rex rexarum, Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doctor, reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.” Rokeach interprets this more as an attempt to avoid conflict than a reflection of any genuine identity change. The Christs explain one another’s claims to divinity in predictably idiosyncratic ways: Clyde, an elderly gentleman, declares that his companions are, in fact, dead, and that it is the “machines” inside them that produce their false claims, while the other two explain the contradiction by noting that their companions are “crazy” or “duped” or that they don’t really mean what they say.
In hindsight, the Three Christs study looks less like a promising experiment than the absurd plan of a psychologist who suffered the triumph of passion over good sense. The men’s delusions barely shifted over the two years, and from an academic perspective, Rokeach did not make any grand discoveries concerning the psychology of identity and belief. Instead, his conclusions revolve around the personal lives of three particular (and particularly unfortunate) men. He falls back—rather meekly, perhaps—on the Freudian suggestion that their delusions were sparked by confusion over sexual identity, and attempts to end on a flourish by noting that we all “seek ways to live with one another in peace,” even in the face of the most fundamental disagreements. As for the ethics of the study, Rokeach eventually realized its manipulative nature and apologized in an afterword to the 1984 edition: “I really had no right, even in the name of science, to play God and interfere round the clock with their daily lives.”
Although we take little from it scientifically, the book remains a rare and eccentric journey into the madness of not three, but four men in an asylum. It is, in that sense, an unexpected tribute to human folly, and one that works best as a meditation on our own misplaced self-confidence. Whether scientist or psychiatric patient, we assume others are more likely to be biased or misled than we are, and we take for granted that our own beliefs are based on sound reasoning and observation. This may be the nearest we can get to revelation—the understanding that our most cherished beliefs could be wrong’
=============================================================================================
The Three Christs’s of Ypsilanti
===============================================================================================
I was thrilled to read Vaughan Bell’s short essay at Slate about Milton Rokeach’s rarely encountered 1964 book, The Three Christs of Ypsilanti. It’s one of my all time favorite books, but alas, one that no one else I’ve ever met has heard of or read. It’s nearly impossible to find for a reasonable price. The Three Christs of Ypsilanti is a psychiatric case study by Rokeach, a detailing of his experiment with a trio of schizophrenic patients at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The three men—who each harbored the delusional belief that he was Jesus Christ returned—were forced to live with each other in a mental hospital to see if their beliefs could be challenged enough to effect a break-through in at least one of them.
But it wasn’t that simple, as Rokeach found out. Bell writes:
But the book makes for starkly uncomfortable reading as it recounts how the researchers blithely and unethically manipulated the lives of Leon, Joseph, and Clyde in the service of academic curiosity. In one of the most bizarre sections, the researchers begin colluding with the men’s delusions in a deceptive attempt to change their beliefs from within their own frame of reference. The youngest patient, Leon, starts receiving letters from the character he believes to be his wife, “Madame Yeti Woman,” in which she professes her love and suggests minor changes to his routine. Then Joseph, a French Canadian native, starts receiving faked letters from the hospital boss advising certain changes in routine that might benefit his recovery. Despite an initially engaging correspondence, both the delusional spouse and the illusory boss begin to challenge the Christs’ beliefs more than is comfortable, and contact is quickly broken off.
In fact, very little seems to shift the identities of the self-appointed Messiahs. They debate, argue, at one point come to blows, but show few signs that their beliefs have become any less intense. Only Leon seems to waver, eventually asking to be addressed as “Dr Righteous Idealed Dung” instead of his previous moniker of “Dr Domino dominorum et Rex rexarum, Simplis Christianus Puer Mentalis Doctor, reincarnation of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.” Rokeach interprets this more as an attempt to avoid conflict than a reflection of any genuine identity change. The Christs explain one another’s claims to divinity in predictably idiosyncratic ways: Clyde, an elderly gentleman, declares that his companions are, in fact, dead, and that it is the “machines” inside them that produce their false claims, while the other two explain the contradiction by noting that their companions are “crazy” or “duped” or that they don’t really mean what they say.
In hindsight, the Three Christs study looks less like a promising experiment than the absurd plan of a psychologist who suffered the triumph of passion over good sense. The men’s delusions barely shifted over the two years, and from an academic perspective, Rokeach did not make any grand discoveries concerning the psychology of identity and belief. Instead, his conclusions revolve around the personal lives of three particular (and particularly unfortunate) men. He falls back—rather meekly, perhaps—on the Freudian suggestion that their delusions were sparked by confusion over sexual identity, and attempts to end on a flourish by noting that we all “seek ways to live with one another in peace,” even in the face of the most fundamental disagreements. As for the ethics of the study, Rokeach eventually realized its manipulative nature and apologized in an afterword to the 1984 edition: “I really had no right, even in the name of science, to play God and interfere round the clock with their daily lives.”
There’s another piece I found mentioning the book that’s worth bringing in here, too, because it uses the Three Christs of Ypsilanti as a microcosm of how the world’s major religions all believe they have the one truth and worship the one true god. A guy named Steve Bhaerman who writes a humor column under the pen name “Swami Beyondananda” at a New Age website called InnerSelf had a profound insight about the book, seeing the three messianically-challenged protagonists as stand-ins for the world’s big three religions, each under the delusion that their “truth” is the true truth and it’s the other guy’s religion that is superstitious bullshit:
I hadn’t thought about that book for years, until I was reminded of it by two seemingly unrelated news items. The first involved the Middle East peace process, which recently has been neither peaceful nor much of a process. A huge seemingly unresolvable dispute involves Jerusalem, which houses the sacred sites of three major religions. Someone had the enlightening suggestion that Jerusalem be ruled by God. Of course, the next question was, whose God?
The other news item was about the Catholic church declaring that for all intents and purposes, IT alone is the one sure way to heaven—and perhaps more important, the only certain way to avoid hell. A friend of mine who owns a marketing business (and incidentally grew up Catholic) says, “I can only dream of having such an unbeatable marketing premise. Buy my product, go to heaven. Buy the other guy’s, go to hell.” Not to single out the Catholics, though. Fundamentalists of every stripe play out a dyslexic version of that childhood taunt, “My dog’s better than your dog.” Except that “my God’s better than your God” has caused millions of deaths and oceans of tears.
And that’s when it occurred to me that the three major religious systems are like the Three Christs of Ypsilanti. Each lives in a delusional system that it alone is the One True Path. And now, God has placed them all in a therapy group to see if they can accommodate one another.
Brilliant. If you are interested, some parts of The Three Christ of Ypsilanti can be read online here.
The Three Christs of Ypsilanti (InnerSelf)
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus: In the late 1950s, three men who identified as the Son of God were forced to live together in a mental hospital. What happened? (Slate)
The interesting story from this book which you have shared here encourage me to read all parts of this The Three Christ of Ypsilanti book. I shall read it on line tonight and whenever I free.
====================================
Now Im freaked out. I swear , last night before falling asleep I thought:
“I have to Google “The Three Christ’s of Yipsilanti” tomorrow. I loved that book…”
GET OUT OF MY MIND!!! MIND PARASITES! MIND PARASITES!
way:
HOW PSYCHE DRUGS WERE DISCOVERED
Posted on October 29, 2011
In 1948 the pharmaceutical researcher Peter N. Witt discovered quite by chance that spiders builHOW PSYCHE DRUGS WERE DISCOVERED In 1948 the pharmaceutical researcher Peter N. Witt discovered quite by chance that spiders build quite different webs when under the influence of drugs than they do otherwise. The psychiatrists at the Friedmatt Sanatorium and Nursing Home in Basle, Switzerland, were aware of Witt’s work and hit on the idea of trying to get to the bottom of schizophrenia using spiders. It was a mystery – and remains so to this day – what the precise trigger was for the onset of this mental illness. However, fifty years ago scientists thought that they had found a promising lead: after taking drugs such as mescaline or LSD, healthy patients began to show symptoms similar to those exhibited by schizophrenics. These chemical substances induced short-term hallucinations and personality disorders. Could it be that such substances were permanently present in the metabolism of those suffering from schizophrenia? In other words, were schizophrenics on a constant ‘high’ due to a mere whim of their body chemistry? So, at the start of the 1950s, researchers in Basle began to examine the urine of schizophrenics in an effort to discover what this chemical compound might be. Urine was chosen as the basic material for their investigations “so that we ‘d never be stuck for large quantities to work on,” as one of the team involved later wrote. But how on earth were they supposed to find a substance that, for one, they weren’t even sure existed in the first place and, for another, they had no idea what it consisted of? The biologist Hans Peter Rieder collected and prepared 50 litres’ worth of urine samples from fifteen schizophrenics. The resulting urine concentrate was fed to spiders and the webs that they spun were then compared to those constructed by spiders that had been given researchers’ urine instead. If any systematic difference was evident in the webs made by these two groups, then it might well be that the substance they were trying to find was responsible. Moreover, if the webs also resembled those spun by spiders under the influence of LSD and mescaline, they the scientists would at least what type of substance they were looking for. The experiment was conducted several times with various different concentrations of urine, but the results were disappointing: although the spiders certainly constructed different webs when under the influence of urine than they did otherwise, no systematic difference was apparent between researchers’ and schizophrenics’ urine. After a further series of experiments, the team came to the conclusion that the geometry of spiders’ webs just wasn’t a suitable tool for diagnosing mental illnesses. Multiple Maniacs from Carny Town on Vimeo. But the researchers did find out one thing: namely, that the concentrated urine “must taste extremely unpleasant, despite all the sugar that was added”. The spiders’ behaviour left no room for doubt: “After taking just a sip, the spiders exhibited a marked abhorrence for any further contact with this solution; they left the web, rubbed any residual drops off on the wooden frame, only returned to the web after having given their pedipalps and mouthparts a thorough cleaning, and could scarcely be persuaded to take another drop of the stuff”. d quite different webs when under the influence of drugs than they do otherwise. The psychiatrists at the Friedmatt Sanatorium and Nursing Home in Basle, Switzerland, were aware of Witt’s work and hit on the idea of trying to get to the bottom of schizophrenia using spiders.
It was a mystery – and remains so to this day – what the precise trigger was for the onset of this mental illness. However, fifty years ago scientists thought that they had found a promising lead: after taking drugs such as mescaline or LSD, healthy patients began to show symptoms similar to those exhibited by schizophrenics. These chemical substances induced short-term hallucinations and personality disorders. Could it be that such substances were permanently present in the metabolism of those suffering from schizophrenia? In other words, were schizophrenics on a constant ‘high’ due to a mere whim of their body chemistry?
So, at the start of the 1950s, researchers in Basle began to examine the urine of schizophrenics in an effort to discover what this chemical compound might be. Urine was chosen as the basic material for their investigations “so that we ‘d never be stuck for large quantities to work on,” as one of the team involved later wrote. But how on earth were they supposed to find a substance that, for one, they weren’t even sure existed in the first place and, for another, they had no idea what it consisted of?
The biologist Hans Peter Rieder collected and prepared 50 litres’ worth of urine samples from fifteen schizophrenics. The resulting urine concentrate was fed to spiders and the webs that they spun were then compared to those constructed by spiders that had been given researchers’ urine instead. If any systematic difference was evident in the webs made by these two groups, then it might well be that the substance they were trying to find was responsible. Moreover, if the webs also resembled those spun by spiders under the influence of LSD and mescaline, they the scientists would at least what type of substance they were looking for.
The experiment was conducted several times with various different concentrations of urine, but the results were disappointing: although the spiders certainly constructed different webs when under the influence of urine than they did otherwise, no systematic difference was apparent between researchers’ and schizophrenics’ urine.
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment | Edit
Posted on July 9, 2011
In May, 1920, Charles A. Stanley, president of the Cosradio Company
and operator of amateur radio station 9BW in Wichita, Kansas, was
told by his minister, Dr. Clayton B. Wells, that if Stanley’s daily
broadcasts were going to include Sundays, he should at least be
promoting religious activities. So Stanley began broadcasting Dr.
Wells’ sermons on Sunday evenings. (The Cosradio Company would later
operate broadcasting station WEY in 1922-1923).
This article uses a number of radio operator abbreviations: QST–
General transmission of interest to everyone (i.e. a broadcast); QSA–
Strong signals; CUL–”See you later”, O. M.–”Old man”, “the ‘bug’”–
enthusiasm for the radio hobby. Also, some of the oddly spelled
words, like “droppt” for dropped”, are due to Radio News’ advocacy of
phonetic spelling.
Radio News, November, 1920, pages 270, 312:
Enter–The Radio Preacher [ Location: Tijuana. Col.Aleman, B.C., Mexico 98 Year Old Cherokee Indian, GLOBAL WARMING IS CAUSED BY SIN, ATHEISTS, AGNOSTICS, ANTI-SEMITES and OTHER PERSECUTORS of THE FOLLOWERS of the BIBLE! ANTI-CHRIST CREATES GLOBAL WARMING by causing GREAT NUMBERS of SINNERS to GO TO HELL! HELL IS PLUMB JAM PACKED FULL OF the SCREAMING TORTURED SOULS of UNSAVED HEATHEN INFIDELS!!! THERE'S LITERALLY SO MANY DAMNED SINNERS PACKED and CRAMMED DOWN THERE IN HELL that OUR EARTH IS MELTING DOWN, it's in CRITICAL MASS!]
Propganda
by Edward Bernays
(originally published in 1928)
p37
The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits
and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic
society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society
constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of
our country.
We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical
result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast
numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to
live together as a smoothly functioning society.
Our invisible governors are, in many cases, unaware of the identity
of their fellow members in the inner cabinet.
They govern us by their qualities of natural leadership, their
ability to supply needed ideas and by their key position in the
social structure. Whatever attitude one chooses toward this
condition, it remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily
lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social
conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively
small number of persons-a trifling fraction of our hundred and twenty
million-who understand the mental processes and social patterns of
the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public
mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and
guide the world.
It is not usually realized how necessary these invisible governors
are to the orderly functioning of our group life. In theory, every
citizen may vote for whom he pleases. Our Constitution does not
envisage political parties as part of the mechanism of government,
and its framers seem not to have pictured to themselves the existence
in our national politics of anything like the modern political
machine. But the American voters soon found that without organization
and direction their individual votes, cast, perhaps, for dozens of
hundreds of candidates, would produce nothing but confusion.
Invisible government, in the shape of rudimentary political parties,
arose almost overnight. Ever since then we have agreed, for the sake
of simplicity and practicality, that party machines should narrow
down the field of choice to two candidates, or at most three or four.
In theory, every citizen makes up his mind on public questions and
matters of private conduct. In practice, if all men had to study for
themselves the abstruse economic, political, and ethical data
involved in every question, they would find it impossible to come to
a conclusion without anything. We have voluntarily agreed to let an
invisible government sift the data and high-spot the outstanding
issue so that our field of choice shall be narrowed to practical
proportions. From our leaders and the media they use to reach the
public, we accept the evidence and the demarcation of issues bearing
upon public question; from some ethical teacher, be it a minister, a
favorite essayist, or merely prevailing opinion, we accept a
standardized code of social conduct to which we conform most of the
time.
In theory, everybody buys the best and cheapest commodities offered
him on the market. In practice, if every one went around pricing, and
chemically tasting before purchasing, the dozens of soaps or fabrics
or brands of bread which are for sale, economic life would be
hopelessly jammed. To avoid such confusion, society consents to have
its choice narrowed to ideas and objects brought to it attention
through propaganda of all kinds. There is consequently a vast and
continuous effort going on to capture our minds in the interest of
some policy or commodity or idea.
It might be better to have, instead of propaganda and special
pleading, committees of wise men who would choose our rulers, dictate
our conduct, private and public, and decide upon the best types of
clothes for us to wear and the best kinds of food for us to eat. But
we have chosen the opposite method, that of open competition. We must
find a way to make free competition function with reasonable
smoothness. To achieve this society has consented to permit free
competition to be organized by leadership and propaganda.
***
p59
Who are the men, who, without our realizing it, give us our ideas,
tell us whom to admire and whom to despise, what to believe about the
ownership of public utilities .. about immigration who tell us how
our houses should be designed, what furniture we should put into
them, what menus we should serve at our table, what kind of shirts we
must wear, what sports we should indulge in, what plays we should
see, what charities we should support, what pictures we should
admire, what slang we should affect, what jokes we should laugh at?
p60
A presidential candidate may be “drafted” in response to “around
popular demand,” but it is well known that his name may be decided
upon by half a dozen men sitting L.. around a table in a hotel room.
p61
A man buying a suit of clothe imagines that he is choosing, according
to his taste and his personality, the kind of garment which he
prefers. In reality, he may be obeying the orders of an anonymous
gentleman tailor in London. This personage is the silent partner in a
modest tailoring establishment, which is patronized by gentlemen of
fashion and princes of blood. He suggest to British noblemen and
others a blue cloth instead of gray, two buttons instead of three, or
sleeves a quarter of an inch narrower than last season. The
distinguished customer approves of the idea.
But how does this fact affect John Smith of Topeka?
The gentleman tailor is under contract with a certain large American
firm, which manufactures men’s suits, to send them instantly the
designs of the suits chosen by the leaders of London fashion. Upon
receiving the designs, with specifications as to color, weight, and
texture, the firm immediately places an order with the cloth makers
for several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of cloth. The suits made
up according to the specifications are then advertised as the latest
fashion. The fashionable men in New York Chicago, Boston, and
Philadelphia wear them. And the Topeka man, recognizing this
leadership, does the same.
Women are just as subject to the commands of invisible government as
men. A silk manufacturer, seeking a new market for its product,
suggested to a large manufacturer of shoes that women’s shoes should
be covered with silk to match their dresses. The idea was adopted and
systematically propagandized. A popular actress was persuaded to wear
the shoes. The fashion spread. The shoe firm was ready with the
supply to meet thee created demand. And the silk company was ready
with the silk for more shoes.
p63
The new profession of public relations has grown up because of the
increasing complexity of modern life and the consequent necessity for
making the actions of one part of the public understandable to other
sectors of the public. It is due, too, to the increasing dependence
of organized power of all sorts upon public opinion. Governments,
whether they are monarchical, constitutional, democratic or
communist, depend upon acquiescent public opinion for the success of
their efforts and, in fact, government is government only by virtue
of public acquiescence. Industries, public utilities, educational
movements, indeed all groups representing any concept or product,
whether they are majority or minority ideas, succeed only because of
approving public opinion. Public opinion is the unacknowledged
partner in all broad efforts.
The public relations counsel, then, is the agent who, working with
modern media of communications and the group formations of society,
brings an idea to the consciousness of the public.
***
p71
The systematic study of mass psychology revealed t7 students the
potentialities of invisible government of society by manipulation of
the motives which actuate man in the group. Trotter and Le Bon, who
approached the subject in a scientific manner, and Graham Wallas,
Walter Lippmann, and others who continued with searching studies of
the group mind, established that the group has mental characteristics
distinct from those of the individual, and is motivated by impulses
and emotions which cannot be explained on the basis of what we know
of individual psychology. So the question naturally arose. If we
understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not
possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will
without their knowing about it?
p73
If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their
conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which
they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a
public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences
of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels
himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room
with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have
been stamped on it by the group influences.
p73
Trotter and Le Bon concluded that the group mind does not think in
the strict send of the word. In place of thoughts it has impulses,
habits, and emotions. In making up its mind, its first impulse is
usually to follow the example of a trusted leader. This is one of the
most firmly established principles of mass psychology. It operates in
establishing the rising or diminishing prestige of
p74
But when the example of the leader is not at hand and the herd must
think for itself, it does so by means of clichés, pat words or images
which stand for a whole group of ideas or experiences. Not many years
ago, it was only necessary to tag a political candidate with the word
interests to stampede millions of people into voting against him,
because anything associated with “the interests” seemed necessary
corrupt. Recently the word Bolshevik has performed a similar service
for persons who wished to frighten the public away from a line of
action.
By playing upon a old cliché, or manipulating a new one, the
propagandist can sometimes swing a whole mass group emotions.
p75
It is chiefly the psychologists of the school of Freud( who have
pointed out that many of man’s thoughts and actions are compensatory
substitutes for desires which has been obliged to suppress. A thing
may be desired not for its intrinsic worth or usefulness, but because
he has unconsciously come to see in it a symbol of something else,
the desire for which he is ashamed to admit to himself. A man buying
a car may think he wants it for purposes of locomotion, whereas the
fact may be that he would really prefer not to be burdened with it,
and would rather walk for the sake of his health. He may really want
it because it is a symbol of social position, an evidence of his
success in business, or a means of pleasing his wife.
This general principle, that men are very largely actuated by motives
which they conceal from themselves, is as true of mass as of
individual psychology. It is evident that the successful propagandist
must understand the true motives and not be content to accept the
reasons which men give for what they do.
p75
Human desires are the steam which makes the social machine work. Only
by understanding them can the propagandist control that vast, loose-
jointed mechanism which is modern society.
p84
… while, under the handicraft of small-unit system of production
was that typical a century ago, demand created the supply, today
supply must actively seek to create its corresponding demand. A
single factory, potentially capable of supplying a whole continent
with its particular product, cannot afford to wait until the public
asks for its product; it must maintain constant touch, through
advertising and propaganda, with the vast public in order to assure
itself the continuous demand which alone will make its costly plant
profitable. This entails a vastly more complex system of distribution
than formerly.
***
p109
No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the
people expresses any divine or specially wise and lofty idea. The
voice of the people expresses the mind of 3 the people, and that mind
is made up for it by the group leaders in whom it believes and by
those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It
is composed of inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and
verbal formulas supplied to them by the leaders.
Fortunately, the sincere and gifted politician is able, by the
instrument of propaganda, to mold and form the will of the people.
p110
The political apathy of the average voter, of which we hear so much,
is undoubtedly due to the fact that the politician does not know how
to meet the conditions of the public mind. He cannot dramatize
himself and his platform in terms which have real meaning to the
public. Acting on the fallacy that the leader must slavishly follow,
he deprives his campaign of all dramatic interest. An automaton
cannot arouse the public interest. A leader, a fighter, a dictator,
can. But, given our present political conditions under which every
office seeker must cater to the vote of the masses, the only means by
which the born leader can lead is the expert use of propaganda.
Whether in the problem of getting elected to office or in the problem
of interpreting and popularizing new issues, or in the problem of
making the day-to-day administration of public affairs a vital part
of the community life, the use of propaganda, carefully adjusted to
the mentality of the masses, is an essential adjunct of political
life.
p119
It is not necessary for the politician to be the slave to the
public’s group prejudices, if he can learn how to mold the mind of
the voters in conformity with his own ideas of public welfare and
public service. The important thing for the statesman of our age is
not so much to know how to please the public, but know how to sway
the public.
p120
Good government can be sold to a community just as any other
commodity can be sold.
p120
One reason, perhaps, why the politician today is slow to take up
methods which are a commonplace in business life is that he has such
ready entry to the media of communication on which his power depends.
The newspaperman looks to him for news. And by his power of giving or
withholding information the politician can often effectively censor
political news. But being dependent, every day of the year and for
year after year, upon certain politicians for news, the newspaper
reporters are obliged to work in harmony with their news sources.
p123
Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to
say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear.
p123
The criticism is often made that propaganda tends make the President
of the United States so important that he becomes not the President
but the embodiment of the idea of hero worship, not to say deity
worship. I quite agree that this is so, but how are you going to stop
a condition which accurately reflects the desires of a certain part
of the public? The American people rightly senses the enormous
importance of the executive’s office. If the public tends to make of
the President a heroic symbol of that power, that is not the fault of
propaganda but lies in the very nature of the office and its relation
to the people.NIGGER RAP LYRCS AND VIOLENCE WE ARE LIVING IN AN AGE when many, especially the youth, have made an idol of thuggery. The word thug is, by definition, “one of a fraternity of robbers and assassins in India who practiced secret murder as an act of propitiation to the goddess Kaliâ€. The word thug also means “a ruffian and an assassinâ€. The word ruffian means “a brutal, boisterous fellow; any base, low character, as a robber, etc.†Then the word assassin means “one who slays treacherously or by covert assault; one who kills, or attempts to kill, secretly as the agent of another or others, or for rewardâ€. The word assassinate means “to killâ€.
So we see that in all of these definitions of the idol of our age, is nothing but the end goal of murder, robbery, brutality, low character and boisterous vileness. While the youth of today are led about by rap music in all of its variations and think that they have discovered something new, they are simply dupes for demonic powers which have nothing in mind but to kill, steal and destroy.
The mesmerizing powers of the demon goddess Kali are well known worldwide, as the adherents to Kali’s demand for blood sacrifice are still in action today. Having been to India, I remember I was shocked when I first saw men, countless men with their fingernails painted bright red. When I inquired what the reason for this was, I was told that the followers of Kali must offer her blood, and human blood is her first preference. Of course it is claimed that no longer are her followers allowed to commit their murders in order to appease the demands of this wicked and cruel goddess. Now it is stated that her followers offer her goats. However, there is plenty of evidence that thuggery is as common now as it has ever been in that her known followers are still committing murder to appease her demands for blood.
Now, since this type of murder stems back to Hinduism and this goddess, one would think, how in the world could such a thing have anything to do with the passion for murder and bloodshed that is prevailing in the western nations and even worldwide? The truth is that satan has one agenda and he repeats that agenda for all who will fall prey to his wicked devices.
The fascination of the youth with death, the absorption in crime and murder is only too evident that the roots of rap are evil and those who adhere to the ultimate messages are adhering to the demands of goddess spirits every bit as cruel and blood thirsty as Kali, goddess queen of Hinduism.
While youth proudly parade in their shirts and other clothing items which symbolize their faithfulness to their idols, do they ever stop and consider that the thugs they are worshiping are taking them into a lifestyle that can only end in imprisonment, harm to others as well as one’s self, and death? Does anyone stop and consider that the thugs who are enticing them to follow in the same lifestyle are often the victims of the very murder they are enticing others to commit?
How deceptive are the ancient demons that have invaded through the music which is so base and thrilling in its message of destruction whereby the unsuspecting give themselves to demonic powers that are base, vile and completely boisterous in the message they give forth. It does not take much mentality to kill, to steal, to hurt and harm others, it simply takes a fool who will follow the commands of demons who are devising evil on every hand.
Has anyone really stopped to consider that the idolatry of thuggery, which so many have given themselves unto, is nothing but the work of demons under the command of satan? And that while the youth and even some beyond youth are giving themselves over to murder, to robbery, to vileness and rottenness, that they are nothing but the fools who will perish in their sins? The Bible strictly forbids the very things which those involved in thuggery see as their goals in life. When they burn in Hell, will they boast of how many they have murdered, how many they have robbed and violated? Or will they be too absorbed in their own agonies, which will cause them torment, and the burning in the flames of Hell as their evil deeds are replayed over and over before their eyes and they will never escape the judgment they have received for the same?
If you have been deceived by the idolatry of thuggery, you can confess your sins and repent before the Lord Jesus Christ today. He desires to free you from the burden of your sins, and if you repent He will set you free. It is stupid to go in a way of destruction when you could turn from idolatry and turn to the Lord. The Lord will hear you as you pray simply, “Jesus, I ask you to forgive me for my sins and the idolatry of thuggery which has caused those sins; please come into my heart and be my Savior and guide my life.†Amen.
+ The Greatest Racket in History
THE POWER OF THE BLOOD OF JESUS
by H.A. Maxwell Whyte
JESUS was the only begotten of the Father (John 1:14) and His body was formed and fashioned wonderfully in the womb of Mary His mother; but the LIFE that was in Jesus Christ came alone from the Father by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, this life which flowed in the veins of the Lord Jesus Christ came from God. No wonder He said, “I am the LIFE.” God imparted His own life into the Bloodstream of Jesus. Adamic blood is corrupt and was carried by Mary, who declared that Jesus her Son was “God my Saviour” (Luke 1:47). Mary was the chosen carrier of the body of her Son, but all the Blood came from God. I do not know how many categories of human blood have been catalogued by medical science, but I do know that the “Blood type” of the Lord Jesus Christ was entirely different. The Blood that flowed in His veins was perfect, for it was not contaminated by Adam’s sin which brought sin and sickness into human blood.
If Adam had not sinned, he would not have died. But by his sin, he introduced death into the human family. The human body, therefore, became subject to corruption and decay, and death ultimately comes to each one of us. It is at the time of death that the life that is in the blood takes its departure with the spirit and soul of man.
Jesus Christ has no sin in His body, but He allowed Himself to die for the sins of a sinful humanity. He gave the perfect life that was in His perfect Blood to redeem poor mankind who carried death in their bodies -pure Blood for imperfect, contaminated blood. Life for life, for the life is in the blood. This is why Jesus is described as the last Adam. God sent Him to earth in the likeness of sinful Adam, but with pure uncontaminated Blood in his veins. God sent Him so that He might shed that pure Blood of His for the life of humanity. It is highly important for us to understand that the category of Jesus’ Blood was different. Peter rightly describes it as “precious blood” (1 Peter 1:19). It is not possible to evaluate the Blood of Jesus by human values. It is priceless. It is God’s price for the redemption of the whole human race.
A great miracle takes place when a man trusts in Jesus and accepts Him as his personal Savior. Immediately, a great cleansing takes place, and the sin that is in the blood stream is purged. “For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the Lord dwells in Zion” (Joel 3:21). When we receive Jesus, the Bible declares that the heart is cleansed by the Blood of Jesus. This may be more literal than some would dare to believe. If the sin which is in our blood stream is purged and spiritual filth is washed out, then certainly the very heart which pumps the blood may be spoken of as being cleansed. By the miracle of salvation, we receive both eternal life and the divine health of the Son of God. The greatest disinfectant in the world is the Blood of Jesus Christ. It carries the eternal life of God in it.
In this connection it is interesting to note that Satan’s nickname Beelzebub means “Lord of the Flies,” or “Prince of the flies.” Dead blood will quickly attract to itself flies, which will breed corruption in the coagulation blood; but the Blood of Jesus has exactly the opposite effect: it repulses Beelzebub and all his demons. When you put the Blood of Jesus on something, or place someone or something under the Blood by faith, Satan will flee because the Blood of Jesus is alive. The life is in the Blood. So, do not underestimate the power of the Blood of Jesus. In Leviticus 17, we read, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the BLOOD THAT MAKETH AN ATONEMENT FOR THE SOUL.” The Apostle, therefore, made no mistake when he wrote, “Without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22).
Some people say that it is enough to have just the name of Jesus. But this is not so. We need the Name and the Blood, for the life is in the Blood. There is power in the name of Jesus only because He shed His own Blood and offered it to His Father, who thereupon gave His power and His authority to His Son (Matthew 28:18). This same power and authority is given to all believers (Luke 10:19), but it only becomes operative as we honor His blood.
When Jesus died upon the cross, His own Blood was shed and sprinkled by Himself as God’s High Priest on behalf of the people. He was crucified at the time of the feast of the Passover, the feast the Jews kept to remember the time when God said, “When I see the blood I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:23). At the very time when the jews were celebrating the first exodus, Jesus was making atonement for the second exodus. To all who will believe in this sacrifice and the efficacy of His precious Blood, there is an exodus from sin and the penalty of sin, which includes sickness. Jesus sprinkled His own Blood and fulfilled the following types: on the altar (the cross) (Exodus 24:6-8); round about the cross (Exodus 29:12-16); on the High Priest’s garments (Exodus 29:20-21). Jesus’ Blood was sprinkled seven times (or the number of perfection) (Leviticus 4:6-7); on the bottom of the cross (Leviticus 4:6-7); on the side of the cross (Leviticus 5:9); round about the cross, i.e. on the earth beneath (Leviticus 7:2); sprinkled before the tabernacle seven times (Numbers 19:4). This last was fulfilled in that the cross and the hill of Calvary were within sight of the temple in Jerusalem, for Calvary was outside the city wall. All these Old testament types were fulfilled in the crucifixion of Jesus, who made Himself our Passover, our vicar, our Savior, and our Blood sacrifice. His Blood alone covers our sins.
If we honor the Blood of Jesus Christ, the Father will smile upon us with forgiveness and cleansing. But this must not be a dull theological honoring, but a continual, active and vital embracing of His Blood. We do not offer our own works; we offer only His Blood. When God sees the Blood of His Son, which we offer as our covering, pardon and plea, God does not see our sin at all; He can only see the covering -the Blood. Therefore we understand that “It is the BLOOD that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:12).
The Life of God is in the Blood of Jesus, thus, we can not be surprised at the strong reactions from demonic spirits. As soon as the Christian takes the precious Blood of Jesus on his tongue and sings it, talks it, or pleads it, the devil gets terribly disturbed. The devil understands the power of the Blood of Jesus, and he has done everything possible to blind Christians to this truth. Many of the people today who are Christians in name only, will have nothing to do with what they call “a slaughterhouse religion.” Theirs is a religion without the life of God in it, and the devil has no objection to our participating in this kind of religion. But as soon as we honor the Blood of Jesus IN AN ACTIVE SENSE, we stir up demons to a fever pitch. It is like fire in a hornet’s nest.
It is surprising that so little has been taught about the Blood and so little is known about the activity of demon spirits, even within the Christian church. No wise Christian would dare try to cast out demons without faith in the Blood of Jesus. As Christians living in today’s exceedingly wicked world our only hope and salvation is by walking continually in the Blood of Jesus. The fact is that Jesus’ Blood says something to God. The Blood cries out to God, “Our sin is covered! The penalty is paid!” We are redeemed.
SALVATION? YES, JESUS CHRIST IS REAL!!
Dear Jesus, I come to you with all the sins I’ve committed and I beg you to forgive me. I confess that I am a sinner and that I cannot save myself. Please cleanse my body, soul and spirit with your precious blood. I need your help and I ask you to come and live in my heart. I want to serve you, obey your commands and do what is right. I want to live for you everyday, please lead and guide me by your Spirit into righteousness. Thank you Jesus for hearing and answering my prayer. Amen! Read the BIBLE!
JOIN US IN THE WAR TO SAVE SOULS!
ARE YOU tired of a dead church existence? Are you sick of the once a week, song and dance routine? Are you being told the TRUTH by those who call themselves “Men of God”? Why not get bold, why not get radical, why not go ALL THE WAY FOR JESUS!! What are you waiting for, the “rapture”? Souls are slipping Christless into Hell all around you, what are you doing about it? We offer a wide range of newspapers, booklets, tracts and tapes to equip the Christian soldier in the war for souls. Write us today for more information about how you can join the SPIRIT REVOLUTION!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
PATENTED to KILL in US PATENT OFFICE!
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Thursday, May 21, 2009
The Greatest Racket in History
newswire article reporting global 25.Jul.2006 04:17
genetic engineering | health
GMO Disease Epidemics: (2) Hepatitis B Vaccine
author: Myron (Mike) Stagman, PhD e-mail:e-mail: artemesium@gmail.com
Genetic Engineering is a nightmare technology that has caused many disease epidemics, documented but unpublicized. This is the 2nd in a series revealing the epidemics. It features the horrors of GE MEDICINE. Read and take heed — it may save your health or life.
Myron (Mike) Stagman, PhD
Concerned Citizens Information Network
www.ccin.info (environmental website)
www.MyronStagman.com
email: artemesium@gmail.com
GMO DISEASE EPIDEMICS:
(2) Hepatitis B Vaccine
I. The Face of Frankenstein’s Monster
Genetic Engineering Biotechnology (GE, GM, GMOs) evades Evolution’s safeguards by injecting genes of one species into a totally unrelated species, something impossible in Nature.
GM evades Evolution’s safeguards, and may therefore give rise to PATHOGENS that can — and HAVE, many times — caused crippling and deadly DISEASE EPIDEMICS — documented but unpublicised.
Genetic Engineering is also ideal for developing horrific biological and other military weapons — sufficient cause to OUTLAW GM.
The Greatest Racket in History (Listen to this !): —
GM contamination is virulent, spread by wind, bird, insect, animals and travelling human beings. Co-Existence with GM is completely impossible, only fools or liars would say differently.
GM has contaminated crops in areas of North America which dwarf the UK and even Western Europe. Planetary contamination is inevitable, if We don’t stop it.
The Biotechnology corporations know oh-so-well how contamination spreads and spreads and spreads.
Now get this: Through their political influence, these Corporations have been able to acquire the obscene, sacrilegious, and indeed revolutionary PATENTS on LIFE-FORMS.
Before these revolutionary Patents on Life, a farmer could have sued — successfully without any doubt — the Biotechnology corporation for having contaminated, poisoned his crops.
However, given these Patents on Life (here, on the seeds), the Corporation can — and DOES, successfully — sue the victimised farmer for (Hold your nose) “infringement of patent”.
[Our tainted, corrupted political systems allow this monstrosity.]
Thus the formula the reader might keep in mind:
GM Contamination + Patents on Life-Forms equals Corporate Ownership Rights in the crops of victimised farmers.
This formula spells the serfdom and ruin of all small family farmers on this planet. (They are the majority of the population in Asia, Africa, and Latin America).
The Chemical-Drug-Biotechnology syndicate and its Enforcers (corrupted governments in the West and Third World, corporation-dominated organisations like the WTO, World Bank, IMF) have started a WORLDWIDE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION.
They want to destroy small family farming, and have only gigantic Corporate GM Plantations with farmers working as serfs.
[This process is underway, especially in South America where the U.S. Military has begun to intervene on behalf of GM Plantations to crush farmer opposition.]
Already, according to the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology (RFSTE) in New Delhi, 40,000 farmers in India have committed suicide primarily as a result of the Corporate Enforcers’ so-called “free trade” policies — dumping heavily-subsidised Western farm produce onto glutted Indian markets, pushing GM crops, insisting that Patents on Life-Forms be accepted so farmers must sign contracts with GM Corporations and can no longer save seeds, etc.
The Greatest Racket in History — GM Contamination + Patents on Life-Forms equals Corporate Proprietary Rights in the crops of victimised farmers, and spells the serdom and ruin of small family farmers everywhere on this planet.
We MUST OUTLAW GM and PATENTS on LIFE-FORMS — or else !!
(e.g. No more organic, healthy food — you and your children will only be able to eat unsafe GM)
See the Action Plan in Part III designed to OUTLAW GM and PATENTS on LIFE-FORMS.
But beforehand, read about the first in our series of “GM Disease Epidemics”.
- – - – - – - – -
II. The Horror of Genetically-Engineered Medicine and the GM Hepatitis B Vaccine Epidemic
(a) Genetically engineered medicine and vaccines are extremely dangerous and should be outlawed. GM medicine/vaccines are entirely unnecessary as well, and insult the Hippocratic Oath.
[Comment: The Drug Corporations would drop genetically-engineered drugs like a hot potato were it not for the abusive Patent laws (awarding monopolies), especially Patents on Life-Forms, and the corruption of Government which insulates the corporations from serious liability.]
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(b) Item: London, March 2006 — Six healthy male volunteers were given an experimental drug manufactured by a German biotechnology company, TeGenero. The drug, supposedly intended as an “immune stimulant”, wasgenetically engineered.
It came as little surprise to this observer when it was announced that all 6 men suffered multiple organ failure and nearly died, and that one of them may remain in a coma for a year or more.
One of the 6 victims said he felt like his brain was “on fire”. “I thought my eyeballs were going to pop out.”
Either this victim or another has been nicknamed “the Elephant Man’, because his head swelled out to three times its normal size !!
It was also unsurprising that the BBC, International Herald Tribune (New York Times), etc.,apparently suppressed the fact that the drug was genetically engineered. (Could they conceivably be accused of ignorance? Surely not possible.)
["Calamitous GM Drug Trial Raises Questions About Modern Science", GM Watch, Weekly Watch 170, 6 April 2006; "A drug trial catastrophe", Prof. Joe Cummins, Ban-GEF online newsletter, 19 March 06; "Victims' agony as 'Elephant Man' drugs firm goes bust", Neil Sears, Daily Mail, 4 July 2006]
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(c) The Hepatitus B vaccine was genetically engineered. On account of this vaccine, during the 1990s there were, in the USA alone, more than 17,000 cases of hospitalisations, injuries and deaths, including the deaths of 72 children, reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) of the U.S. government.
[
[Dr. Philip Incao's testimony to the Health Committee of the Ohio House of Representatives, 1 March 1999]
Note: a former FDA (U.S. government Food and Drug Administration) Commissioner wrote in 1993 in the prestigious medical journal, JAMA, that a study showed “only about 1 percent of serious events attributable to drug reactions are reported to the FDA”.
USA Question: Are serious events attributable to vaccines better reported to VAERS?
UK Question: Is the MMR vaccine genetically engineered? If it is, one can readily understand why AUTISM might conceivably be linked to it.
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(d)Labelling, Identification and GM Causation of Diseases
GM drugs are generally (entirely?)unlabelled. This alone is outrageous.
If you want to have a little fun, ask your doctor if the drug he/she is prescribing happens to be genetically engineered. Doctors do not like being asked important questions for which they have not the foggiest notion of an answer.
In the last two decades, any drug that has been associated with particularly nasty adverse reactions, should have been analysed (and its patent searched) for possible GMO content and GM causation of those adverse reactions.
This of course has not been done. (never? probably Never. Ordinary scientists, who are pretty uniformly on ‘Their side’ — they wouldn’t dare. And ‘Our side’ is not bright enough to have thought of it. )
Recommendation: Start doing it now.
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(e) Extremely Important Fact: “The third largest cause of death and illness in the [western] world is medical intervention [essentially, prescribed drugs].” — Paul Flynn MP, House of Commons Health Select Committee report on “The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry”, April 2005, vol. 2, p. 153
Only cancer and heart disease are bigger killers than prescribed drugs. As for heart disease, mark that the arthritis pain reliever, Vioxx, caused an estimated 140,000 heart attacks and up to 55,000 deaths in the USA alone.
[ Dr. David J. Graham, former associate safety director of the FDA; and see "Intimidation, Politics and Drug Industry Cripple U.S. Medicine", Ritt Goldstein, Inter Press Service, 31 December 2004 ]
Question:Is Vioxx genetically engineered? Will anyone ever do an analysis or search the patent for that information??
Indeed, in the United States (can Europe be any different?)prescribed drugs are surely the leading cause of death and illness, at least equal to cancer and heart disease combined, and quite possibly a multiple of this.
[see "Modern Health Care System is the Leading Cause of Death", Gary Null PhD, Carolyn Dean MD ND, Martin Feldman MD, et al, www.mercola.com]
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(f) How many drugs are now genetically engineered?
8% of total global pharmaceutical market sales are accounted for by genetically engineered drugs.
[Memorandum by the BioIndustry Association (PI 147), "The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry"]
Worse, one-third of all drugs in development are biologics !
[It is unclear whether the Memorandum refers to the UK only, or the Western drug corporations in general. I think the latter.]
This ought to frighten anyone who thinks he or she may ever again see a doctor or hospital.
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III. Conclusion and What To Do
Human beings and Nature, as we have known them, cannot survive in a GMO-Frankenstein world.
The nightmare technology of Genetic Engineering Biotechnology, and its incestuous Patents on Life-Forms, must be OUTLAWED.
How To Do It?
There is only one way to overcome this extremely powerful, ruthless Corporation-Government-corporate Mass Media axis.
It is to conduct grassroots Public Education Campaigns to educate and politically activate the General Public, university / college students in particular.
The General Public !! Stop forever talking to the Converted. To get around the corporate media’s suppression and distortion of truth, one must talk to people and go door-to-door with leaflets and vocal messages.
And major efforts must be made to inform and activate university students.
Important Hints:
(1) Concentrate on university students.
And senior citizens.
I speak to you now, elder citizens like myself. Put moral purpose into your lives and help rescue this planet and your grandchildren.
(2) AVOID NGOs and all established organisations, especially large ones. They are not what they seem.
Their hierarchies and decision-making are corporation-influenced if not outright purchased.
Never ever join them. Never ever give them Money.
[see George Monbiot's very important article in The Guardian, 4 September 2001, "Sleeping with the Enemy: Consumer and Environmental Groups are Getting into Bed with Big Corporations]
[Note: In developing countries there are some exceptions, but very very very few in the West. If by a miracle one of them ever conducts a genuine and sensible public education campaign, then you can help out. But NEVER join or give money to them.]
The environmental field especially is riddled with wealthy, prestigious, deceptive organisations adept at dilutng and derailing environmental causes, GM in particular.
[I am thinking at this moment of one such organisation I have observed over a long period of time, in my view a very slick and dangerous FOE of environmentalism, originally created by polluting Corporations to deal with the growing environmental movement.
Don't go anywhere near this one.]
When they talk about being ‘practical’ and seeking ‘Coexistence’ with GM, let a red flag go up.
Nothing short of OUTLAWING GENETIC ENGINEERING and PATENTS ON LIFE-FORMS will save us and our planet.
Do your educational work as individuals or in small groups of people you know.
In a little of your SPARETIME (perhaps 3 or 4 hours a week, but regularly, as part of an ethical life-style):
Educate and activate the Public by writing and telephoning and just talking to your family members, friends and acquantances;
Write letters and make telephone calls to local, regional and national media;
Write, call and especially visit your legislative representatives and other government personnel, and
Take appropriate Direct Action.
Good Luck to You.
P.S. For a detailed Action Plan on conducting education/activation campaigns (e.g. composing A4 leaflets for distribution, lobbying your legislative representative) see “Creating a Grassroots Democracy While Outlawing Genetic Engineering” on the Indymedia Biotech website. Or email me and request it.
For extensive information on the casualties and unprecedented dangers of Genetic Engineering, see “Genetic Engineering Fact-Sheet” on the website of the Concerned Citizens Information Network, www.ccin.info
homepage: homepage: http://www.ccin.info
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US Patent 5733540 – Protection from viral infection via colonization of mucosal membranes with genetically modified bacteria
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the manipulation of the bacterial flora normally residing harmlessly on mucosal surfaces to interfere with infectious processes. Specifically, this invention provides for modification of non-pathogenic floral bacteria to confer upon them the capacity to bind to (and functionally inactivate) specific viruses. Although this disclosure describes a method of preventing infection by viruses which infect through mucosal surfaces, the skilled practitioner will recognize that the invention may potentially be applied to any pathogen which infects at a mucosal surface, including bacteria, fungi, and parasites.
2. Information Disclosure
Cytoplasmic expression of heterologous proteins by bacteria has been widely practiced for well over two decades. However, expression of heterologous proteins specifically onto the external surfaces of bacteria has been achieved only in the past few years. Surface expression systems for both gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria are known, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,867, and WO 93/18163.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This invention provides for a method of protecting an animal from a viral infection comprising contacting a mucosal surface of the host with an amount of transformed bacteria sufficient to colonize the mucosal surface and to protect the animal from viral infection, said bacteria having been transformed with genetic material so as to confer upon the bacteria the capacity to bind the virus. More specifically, this invention provides for transformed bacteria that bind virus or other pathogens using naturally occurring receptors, domains of receptors or antiviral antibodies that are the products of the genetic material.
Preferred hosts are humans. Where the naturally occurring receptors are known, genes encoding those receptors may be used to transform the bacteria. When the specific viral/host receptors are not known, genes encoding antiviral antibodies or fragments thereof may be used to transform the bacteria. For example, for retroviruses that are covered with human leukocyte antigens �HLA DR!, antibodies against these antigens are useful. Accordingly, this invention can be used against rotavirus, papillomavirus, adenovirus, respiratory syncytia virus, corona virus, cytomegalovirus, coxsackievirus, echovirus, hepatitis A virus, rhinovirus, human immunodeficiency virus, poliovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, parainfluenza virus and herpes simplex virus using bacteria able to bind to conserved determinants on their respective capsids.
The bacteria may also be modified to express a specific carbohydrate moiety which serves as the receptor for the virus onto its normal surface proteins. For example the bacteria may be transformed with genetic material which causes the addition of sialic acid which permits the bacteria to bind to an influenza virus.
The bacteria may also be modified to cause fusion between the bacterial membrane and the viral envelope, if present. An example is the transformation of bacteria so that it can fuse with bound viral particles through a fusogenic domain engineered into the virus-binding polypeptide.
Colonization of mucosal membranes is an essential element of this invention and it is preferred that the transformed bacteria is conferred with sufficient selective advantage to permit it to compete effectively with resident bacteria to allow said transformed bacteria to successfully colonize and survive indefinitely on a selected mucosal surface. One selection advantage is an enhanced ability to adhere to a host mucosal surface through a domain in the heterologous protein which binds to a determinant on a selected mucosal surface. Selective advantage might also be conferred by the use of antibiotic resistant transformed bacteria where antibiotics are co-administered with the transformed bacteria. Other advantages include the use of products that degrade the biofilm of the mucosal membrane. Such products would include DNAses, peptidases, and hyaluronidases.
Preferred mucosal surfaces are in the following organs: nasopharynx, oropharynx, esophagus, small intestines, large intestines, rectum, vagina, and penis.
Transformed bacteria are applied to a mucosal surface through the use of a liquid solution, foam, suppository, sponge, or capsule. Where the target mucosal layer is in the vagina, the bacteria can be transformed to target sexually transmitted pathogens such as but not limited to HIV, HPV, HSV, gonorrhea, syphilis and chlamydia. Nonbacteriocidal spermicides might be co-administered with the bacteria.
The invention also embraces a means to prevent the spread of a viral pathogen from an infected individual to others with transformed bacteria by administering an amount of transformed bacteria sufficient to colonize the mucosal surfaces of the infected individual wherein said bacteria bind and inactivate infectious viral particles exiting the infected host. The modifications and targets being as stated above.
The transformation of the bacteria can be either in vitro or in vivo whereby the resident musocal bacterial flora of a host is transformed with a desired foreign genetic material by directly introducing into resident microfloral bacteria a genetic vector said vector conferring the ability of the bacteria to bind and inactivate viral pathogens of the host and thereby affording protection of the host from infection by the viral pathogen. Examples of vectors include replication defective bacteriophage.
The invention further includes inactivating infectious viral particles in suspect water supplies by the addition of engineered bacteria capable of binding and irreversibly inactivating specific viruses.
In addition to methods, this invention also embraces compositions of matter comprising a bacteria selected for its ability to colonize the mucosal membrane of a host and transformed to express a host receptor or an antibody specific for a target virus on its cell surface in an amount sufficient to bind and inactivate the target virus. The preferred compositions are as described above for the various methods.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 illustrates the ViroShieldâ„¢ concept. Viruses normally gain entry into a host by binding to specific receptors expressed on the host cell surface. Expression of the same receptors on the surface of bacteria on mucosal surfaces will cause the majority of the viruses to bind to the bacteria instead, where they are functionally inactivated, thus preventing infection of the underlying host cells.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
A. Introduction.
Most viruses infect via mucosal surfaces. A review of this process can be found in Murray, P. R., et al., Medical Microbiology, 2nd Edition, (hereinafter Murray, et al., 1994). The creation of a virus blocking bacterial flora in the mucosal surfaces by allowing colonization of bacteria transformed to bind and inactivate virus is particularly advantageous. Colonization of mucosal layers is a routine undertaking. Most mucosal layers are typically teeming with bacteria, and changes in flora attendant to pathogenic bacterial infection and administration of antibiotics is a common event. The routine nature of the floral changes on mucosal surfaces is a key advantage of the invention. The following discussion will also provide means to enhance the ability of transformed bacteria to colonize mucosal layers.
B. General methods
The techniques of amplification of genetic sequences with the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), cutting and splicing DNA into plasmids, transformation of bacteria with plasmids, and assays for antibody binding are all well known biotechnology methods and detailed descriptions of these methods can be found in a number of texts including Protocols in Molecular Biology, Molecular Biology of the Cell, and Sam brook, et al., Molecular Cloning-A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. 1989.
C. Viral targets.
The following is a list of viral targets. They are categorized by their respective organs of entry.
1. Upper respiratory tract (URT).
A large number of viruses infect the naso- and oropharynx, either via air droplets or direct contact. These include human rhinoviruses (HRV), adenovirus, coxsackievirus, influenza, parainfluenza, respiratory syncytia virus (RSV), Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV), and cytomegalovirus (CMV).
2. Gastrointestinal (GI) tract.
These viruses include rotavirus, Norwalk agent, hepatitis A (HAV), poliovirus and other picornaviruses.
3. Vaginal: human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), human papilloma virus (HPV), herpes simplex virus (HSV) 2, CMV, hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV).
D. Viral receptors.
A virus must enter a host cell to replicate. To enter a cell, viruses require surface receptors on the host cell (Murray, et al., 1994). More specifically, the virus must first bind to a molecule on the surface of the target cell. The receptors for a number of viruses have been determined in recent years. The following is a representative list and is not meant to be a limitation of the invention.
1. HRV, major group→ICAM-1, domains 1 and 2 (Lineberger, D. W., et al., Virus Research, 24(2):173-86, 1992.)
2. Influenza virus→sialic acid
3. HIV→CD4, domains 1 and 2
4. Poliovirus→PVR (poliovirus receptor, an immunoglobulin superfamily protein)
5. EBV→CD21 (complement receptor 2, the receptor for C3d)
6. HSV→heparin sulfate
7. HBV→IgA receptor
8. Adenovirus→Vitronectin receptor
E. Mucosal Surfaces are Normally Colonized by Bacterial Flora (Murray, et al., 1994)
The upper respiratory tract (URT) consists of the nasopharynx, oropharynx (oral cavity and larynx), paranasal sinuses, and the middle ear. The paranasal sinuses and the middle ear are normally sterile. However, the stratified squamous epithelium of the naso- and oropharynx are teeming with a varied microbial flora. The microflora of the nose consists mainly of coagulase-negative staphylococci, with some diphtheroids (aerobic and anaerobic), and nonhemolytic streptococci. The most prominent members of the flora of the mouth and pharynx are the alpha streptococci. Some gram-negative anaerobes (esp. Bacteriodes) and other cocci are also found.
The colon contains the largest total population of bacteria of any mucosal surface in the human body. It is estimated that >1011 bacteria/g of colonic content exists in healthy individuals, representing over 400 species. Anerobic bacteria outnumber aerobic ones by a factor of 100-1,000. Bacteroides is the predominant genus. Bifidobacterium, Enterobacteriaceae, Streptococci, and Lactobacilli are also prominent. The small intestine is populated by a similar profile of organisms as the colon, but at much lower numbers. The stomach and proximal small intestine are nearly sterile, while the distal small intestine contains approximately 1/10 of the bacterial content of the colon.
The vaginal mucosa is also colonized by a large number of bacteria. Lactobacilli are the predominant species in the normal menarchal vaginal microflora, being present in nearly 100% of normal women. Lactobacilli are facultative anaerobes, and produce large amounts of lactic acid as the end products of sugar fermentation. This creates an acidic environment which is not suitable for many bacterial strains.
F. ViroShieldâ„¢: Prevention of pathogen binding to host cells will prevent infection
Since viruses require binding to a receptor on the target cell surface for infection, strategies directed at inhibiting the interaction of a virus with its host receptor should be effective at preventing infection. The use of a bacterial shield against viral pathogens on mucosal surfaces is termed a ViroShieldâ„¢.
The concept of the ViroShieldâ„¢ type bacteria can be illustrated by the viral agents causing the common cold. The viral agents for the common cold are mainly consisting of the rhinovirus major group which bind to the ICAM-1 receptor in humans. Soluble ICAM-1 molecules expressed through recombinant DNA technology have been found to be effective in inhibiting HRV binding to susceptible cells and preventing infection (Martin, S., et al., Antimicrob Agents Chemother, 37(6):1278-84, 1993, hereinafter Martin, et al., 1993).
Approximately 60 ICAM-1 molecules can bind to a single HRV virion (Hoover-Litty, H. and Greve, J. M., J Virol, 67(1):390-7, 1993). This correlates with the fact that the HRV capsid is an icosahedral complex composed of 60 copies of each of the viral coat proteins (Smith, T. J., et al., J Virol, 67(3):1148-58, 1993). The actual receptor binding site on the HRV capsid was found to be a surface depression or “canyon” by X-ray crystallography (Oliveira, M. A., et al., Structure, 1 (1):51-68, 1993). This canyon is sufficiently small in size such that antibody molecules cannot fit, and this is one reason why humans are susceptible to repeated infections by HRV since the virus is resistant to antibody binding at this key neutralization site.
After binding to ICAM-1, a conformational change is induced in the capsid which causes the release of the viral RNA into the host cell (Martin, et al., 1993). Soluble ICAM-1 molecules are relatively ineffective at inducing capsid conformational change and thus functional inactivation of virions (Martin, et al., 1993, and Crump, C. E., et al., Antimicrob Agents Chemother, 38(6):1425-7, 1994 hereinafter Crump, et al., 1994); however, chimeric molecules combining the HRV-binding domains (1 and 2) of ICAM-1 and constant regions of immunoglobulin (Ig) molecules (IgA, IgG, or IgM) showed some effect. This effect is thought to be due to the ability of chimeric molecules to dimerize (IgA and IgG) or multimerize (IgM) via the association of the Ig domains. Multimeric receptors more closely resemble the natural state on cell surfaces, where several immobilized receptors binding to a virion may induce conformational distortion to the capsid to cause vital RNA
release.
Expression of ICAM-1 on the external surface of mucosal bacteria is an extension of the multimeric-molecule strategy, with key additional benefits. Since bacteria are considerably larger than viral particles, bound HRV should be readily immobilized onto the bacterial surface. A key advantage of this invention is that only a few ICAM-1 receptors must be bound in order to effectively immobilize and neutralize a virion, whereas strategies involving soluble ICAM-1 molecules potentially must cover all 60 binding sites in order to ensure complete neutralization of a single virion. Furthermore, ICAM-1 molecules on bacterial surface are efficient in inducing capsid conformational change because simultaneous binding of several ICAM-1 molecules immobilized on a bacterial surface to several faces of a vital capsid will distort the geometry of the viral capsid and lead to conformational change and premature viral RNA release.
Viral RNA released into the bacteria are readily degraded by the abundant nucleases within bacterial cytoplasm. This leads to irreversible inactivation of viral particles, which is a key advantage of this invention because binding itself is a reversible process, and binding of soluble ICAM-1 molecules, chimeric molecules, or other drugs to HRV without functional inactivation would still leave a significant fraction of viral particles free to bind host cells at any given time. With ViroShieldâ„¢ type mucosal bacteria, each bacteria is capable of irreversibly inactivating a large number of viral particles, ensuring that the majority of any vital inoculum would be eliminated before they can infect underlying host cells.
Accordingly, soluble CD4 molecules have also been shown to be effective in binding and preventing infection of HIV to target cells in vitro (Orloff, S. L., et al., J Virol, 67(3):1461-71, 1993). However, results of clinical trials with intravenously administered soluble CD4 molecules have been disappointing (Moore, J. P., et al., Aids Res Hum Retroviruses, 9(6):529-39, 1993). The reason is not due to lower binding affinity of primary vs. laboratory isolates of HIV to soluble CD4, but rather that primary isolates are less prone to inactivation after binding to soluble CD4 (Ashkenzai, A., et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci, 88:7056-7060, 1991 and Turner, S., et al., Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 89(4):1335-9, 1992).
The expression of CD4 on bacterial surfaces should facilitate irreversible inactivation of all strains of HIV. In particular, CD4 expression on the surface of Lactobacilli on the vaginal mucosa would be effective at preventing HIV infection through vaginal intercourse. E. coli similarly transformed would be effective against HIV transmission via rectal intercourse.
An important point to keep in mind is the distinction between infection and clinical disease. For any pathogen, there is a minimum inoculating dose necessary to cause clinical symptoms from an infection. Exposure to an inoculum below this dose normally does not lead to clinical disease. Therefore, to successfully prevent disease, a strategy does not necessarily need to inactivate every particle of an inoculating dose of a virus, but rather to reduce the number of viable viral particles below the minimum infectious dose.
Since the ViroShieldâ„¢ approach aims to prevent entry of a viral pathogen into a host, it not only prevents clinical disease, but should prevent infection altogether. Standard vaccines do not prevent entry of viral pathogens into a host. This may be important as certain viruses are known to trigger autoimmune processes in some hosts, regardless of whether they cause clinical infection.
Potential applications:
______________________________________ Virus Receptor Portal of Entry Suitable Bacterial Host ______________________________________ HRV ICAM-1 URT URT flora- Strept gordonii or Influenza sialic acid URT/LRT Staph xylosus Adenovirus Vitronectin URT Strept or Staph HIV CD4 vaginal mucosa Lactobacillus HSV 2 heparin sulfate vaginal Lactobacillus ______________________________________
G. Neutralization of pathogens upstream of their infection site
The only mucosal surfaces in the body relatively free of bacterial colonization are that of the stomach, upper small intestines, and lower respiratory tract. A few important viruses infect at the upper small intestines, the most significant of which are rotavirus and poliovirus (Murray, et al., 1994). Since bacterial counts in this area are low, even if all of these bacteria express receptors for the virus, it may not be possible to completely inactivate an inoculating dose of that virus. However, to reach the small intestines, viral particles must first enter the oral cavity and travel through the esophagus both are heavily colonized by bacteria. Therefore, it may be possible that bacteria on oropharyngeal/esophageal mucosal surfaces expressing viral receptors can absorb/inactivate enough viral particles to significantly decrease the infectious inoculum delivered to the small intestines.
Viruses that infect the lower respiratory tract include influenza, parainfluenza, and RSV (Murray, et al., 1994). Vital particles inhaled into respiratory tract via droplets will settle out along various portions of the respiratory mucosa depending on the physical properties of the virion, droplet, and flow. Engineered bacteria along these viruses’ path through the URT may absorb/inactivate sufficient numbers of vital particles to reduce the inoculating dose reaching the lower respiratory tract below the minimum required for clinical disease.
H. Prevention of exit of pathogens to infect other uninfected hosts.
This invention also provides for a method of preventing the exit of the virus from an infected host. Preventing a pathogen from exiting an infected host would mean preventing spread of the pathogen to a number of uninfected individuals, which would be extremely important from a public health viewpoint. Rapid spread of a pathogen may wipe out entire villages in third world countries. ViroShield# should be useful even in already infected hosts by absorbing/inactivating viral particles as they exit the host. Even if ViroShieldâ„¢ is unable to prevent infection of rotavirus or poliovirus for reasons discussed above (section G), engineered bacteria in the colon may still absorb/inactivate viral particles before they exit the host.
I. Use of engineered bacteria in potentially-contaminated water to inactivated virions
In third-world countries, viruses may be transmitted rapidly through inadequately treated water supplies. Fecal-orally transmitted viruses, such as rotavirus, may exist in low titers in the drinking water of a village after contamination by a single infected individual, and go on to infect a number of uninfected individuals. Non-pathogenic bacteria expressing rotavirus receptors may be added to suspect water supplies to absorb/inactivate viral particles in these settings, as long as the ingestion of the engineered bacteria is not harmful to a host. This approach should be an effective and economical means of quickly controlling orally-transmitted viruses in third-world countries.
J. Sources of genes which confer virus-binding capacity
The capacity to bind a virus may be conferred onto a bacteria in at least three ways. The first is by making the bacteria express on its surface the normal host receptor for the virus, such as ICAM-1 for HRV (major group) and CD4 for HIV. These are normal human proteins and the complete sequences of many of these genes have been determined and are stored in the database GeneBank. An advantage to this approach is that it is not readily avoided by viral mutation. If the virus mutates such that it no longer binds to the receptor expressed on bacteria, it would also lose its ability to bind to its target cell and thus no longer be infectious.
The second method is by expressing an antibody fragment (or any peptide with the capacity to bind a specific target on the surface of the virus) on the bacterial surface against a conserved determinant on the viral surface, such as VP4 on poliovirus, or gp120 on HIV. Antibody fragments (and peptides) against essentially any antigen can now be selected from a phage-display library (Marks, J. D., et al., J Biol Chem, 267(23):16007-10, (1992)).
Once appropriate clones are found, the gene coding for the antibody fragments can then be isolated and used. In addition, it was recently found that enveloped viruses, in the process of budding out of a host cell, carry along on their envelope certain host surface proteins, such as HLA DR on HIV (Arthur, et al, Science, 258(5090):1935-1938, (1992)). Thus, the human HLA DR molecule is a normal constituent of the HIV envelope. Antibody fragments directed against a conserved epitope of the HLA DR molecule may be capable of binding all isolates of HIV, and would be particularly effective in preventing male-to-female HIV spread when expressed on the surface of bacteria on the vaginal mucosa, or HIV transmission via anal intercourse when the engineered bacteria is applied to the rectum.
The third means of binding a virus by a bacteria is through the expression of certain carbohydrate moieties on the bacterial surface. A number of viruses use carbohydrate moieties as the receptor for entry into a host cell. One prominent example is the influenza virus which binds to sialic acid. Bacteria may be made to produce the enzyme sialic acid transferase in its cytoplasm which would lead to addition of sialic acid residues on normal surface proteins, thus causing influenza viruses to bind to said bacteria. The complete gene sequences of many bacterial carbohydrate transferases are known and appear in the literature.
K. Expression Systems for surface expression in bacteria
The expression of heterologous proteins on the surface of bacteria generally takes advantage of the normal surface proteins of the bacteria. It is becoming known that certain sequences within proteins direct them for export out of the bacterial cytoplasm, while others help to anchor a protein to the cell membrane. Hybrid proteins are created in which a heterologous protein sequence replaces the exposed portion of a normal surface protein, leaving the localization signal sequences intact. Several outer membrane proteins have been exploited as targeting vehicles for the localization of heterologous proteins, including the E. coli outer membrane protein maltoporin (LamB), E. coli pilin proteins K88ac and K88ad, E. coli outer membrane porins PhoE, OmpA, and OmpC, and the S. typhimurium Flagellin and TraT lipoprotein (U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,867).
A more detailed discussion of surface expression of proteins on the surface of gram-negative bacteria may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,867, and for gram-positive bacteria in PCT WO 93/18163.
1. Construction of Vectors
Plasmids are circularized DNA molecules commonly found in bacteria. They replicate independently from the bacterial host genome via an origin of replication (ori) site. Genes inserted into a plasmid are readily transcribed if placed downstream of appropriate promoter sequences. Certain promoter sequences exist which are regulated by external factors such as the molecule IPTG. A number of plasmids have been optimized for individual bacterial host strains, most notably E. coli. Plasmids have been constructed for surface expression of heterologous proteins in E. coli (e.g. pTX101 as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,867), Streptococcus gordonii (e.g. pVMB20-GP232 transformation system, as described in PCT/US93/02355), and others. Both systems contain a signal sequence which directs a polypeptide to the cell surface, with an insert site for the desired heterologous gene, and an antibiotic resistance gene to help in selection of transformed bacteria. Other
suitable streptococci include the lactic streptococci which have been widely transformed (De Vos, FEMS Microbiology Reviews, 46:281-295 (1987)).
Starting from the appropriate vector plasmid for each selected bacterial host, the plasmid will be digested with appropriate restriction enzymes to expose the cloning site. Then the desired heterologous gene will be ligated into the plasmid.
2. Transformation of bacterial cells
Appropriate bacterial host strains are selected for individual pathogens, heterologous protein or molecule, mucosal surface, and expression plasmid combination. The bacterial host will be rendered competent for transformation using standard techniques, such as the rubidium chloride method. Once transformed with the recombinant plasmid containing the desired heterologous gene, the bacteria will be grown in the appropriate media (e.g. LB media with 0.2% glucose). Transformed bacteria will be selected by adding the antibiotic to which the plasmid contains a resistance gene such that only transformed bacteria would survive.
3. Demonstration of expression of desired heterologous molecule on bacterial surface
Expression of the heterologous gene can be constitutive or induced by stimulating the promoter to which it is attached, such as with IPTG. Surface expression of the heterologous molecule will be demonstrated by staining the bacteria with fluorescent-labeled antibodies against the desired molecule, looking for a surface fluorescence pattern. Furthermore, binding of the target pathogen by the transformed bacteria can be demonstrated by fixing the transformed bacteria onto a slide, incubating with the target pathogen, then staining with fluorescent antibodies against the target pathogen in one color (e.g. red), and against the transformed bacteria in another color (e.g. green), showing that the target pathogens (red) are closely associated with the transformed bacteria (green).
L. Irreversible inactivation of bound viruses
To ensure inactivation of the virus after binding to the transformed bacteria, the process of binding must trigger concomitant release of viral genetic material. In this way, bacterial nucleases can degrade the viral genetic material, thus irreversibly inactivating the virus. Many viruses, such as HRV, release their genetic material after binding to immobilized receptors on the target cell surface through a conformational shift of the viral capsid (Martin, et al., 1993). This situation should be successfully mimicked by expression of the receptor on the surface of bacteria. Some viruses, such as HIV and influenza, contain fusogenic domains in their coat proteins which facilitate release of genetic material after binding (Murray, et al., 1994). Different mechanisms are engineered into bacteria to ensure release of genetic material and thus irreversible inactivation of specific viruses.
M. Successful Colonization of Engineered Bacteria
Colonization of mucosal membranes with non-recombinant bacteria is well-known. It was optimally achieved by co-administering antibiotics along with bacteria resistant to that antibiotic (Freter, R., et al., Infection and Immunity, 39(2):686-703, 1983). Under normal conditions colonization disappears within 1-2 weeks after antibiotics are discontinued, as the resident microflora recovers and reestablishes itself (Bennet, et al., 1992). To enhance colonization the following three methods are suggested.
The first method is to repetitively select for rapid colonizing bacteria on animal or human mucosal layers. For example, one would apply a wildtype bacterial strain to a mucosal surface and repetitively isolate and in vitro culture bacteria, returning at each step to the mucosal surface. Ultimately, an enhanced colonizing bacterium is obtained.
The second method is to have the recombinant bacteria express fusion proteins on their surface, which consist of a virus-binding domain and a host-binding domain. The host-binding domain will allow the bacteria to bind to certain determinants (protein or carbohydrate) on a selected host mucosal surface with high affinity, thus conferring the bacteria a slight survival advantage over the resident microflora. This has the added advantage of ensuring continued co-expression of the virus-binding domain, which would otherwise serve the bacteria no intrinsic survival benefit and therefore its expression may otherwise dwindle with time.
The third method is to induce the already resident microflora themselves to express the virus-binding protein by introducing the gene via bacteriophage. Bacteriophage has been used successfully to introduce genetic material into bacteria for some time. A number of bacteriophage vectors have been developed for different bacteria. Lactobacillus is likely the most suitable strain for vaginal mucosa and bacteriophage vectors optimized for lactobacillus are available for this invention. A bacteriophage vector has recently been developed for Lactobacillus gasseri based on the temperate bacteriophage φadh (Raya, R. R., et al., J Bacteriology, 174(17):5584-5592, 1992 and Fremaux, C., et al., Gene, 125:61-66, 1993). This vector undergoes site-specific integration into the host chromosome at defined phage (attP) and bacterial (attB) attachment sites. Optionally, the fusion gene may be placed under control of a strong promoter optimized for lactobacillus into the
vector, along with a `suicide` gene under control of an inducible promoter.
Certain agents may also be added to a unit dose of the bacteria to aid in colonization. Many bacteria on mucosal surfaces secrete capsular materials which coalesce to form a biofilm which covers the entire mucosal surface. It may be beneficial to add an enzyme which digests this biofilm material to promote penetration of the engineered bacteria into the biofilm for more successful colonization. The enzymes include DNAses, peptidases, collagenases, hyaluronidases, and other carbohydrate degrading enzymes. Antibiotics (to which the engineered bacteria itself is not susceptible) may also be added to decrease the number of resident bacteria on the mucosal surface in order to make room for the engineered bacteria.
N. Persistent Expression of Heterologous Protein
As mentioned above, theoretically, expression of a foreign gene which serves a bacteria no purpose would likely dwindle over time, and the foreign gene would eventually be lost (Cardenas, L. and Clements, J. D., Vaccine, 11(2):126-135, 1993). To enhance persistent expression of the heterologous protein construct, an incentive may be created for the bacteria to express the gene. One way is the approach outlined above: create a fusion protein with virus-binding and host-binding domains so that the host-binding capability would confer a selective advantage to the bacteria to ensure the fusion proteins persistent expression. Another approach may be to create an internal requirement for the heterologous protein such that transformed bacteria that stop expressing the protein would die.
0. Vehicles for delivery/dosing regimen
Delivery of engineered bacteria to a desired mucosal surface depends on the accessibility of the area and the local conditions. Engineered bacteria may be placed in a saline solution for delivery to the naso- and oropharynx, or in a foam for delivery onto the vaginal or rectal mucosa. Mucosal surfaces less readily exposed–e.g. esophagus and trachea–may require a more viscous vehicle such as glycerin or sugar which facilitates the coating of the lining as it travels down the tract. Access to the small intestines and colon will require survival through the acid conditions of the stomach, hydrolytic enzymes secreted by the pancreas, and the antimicrobial effects of bile. Protective capsules have been suggested for protecting bacteria through the upper GI transit (Henriksson, A., et al., Appl Environ Microbiol, 57(2):499-502, 1991, hereinafter Henriksson, et al., 1991). It has been found that some strains in the colonic flora are inherently capable of
surviving these conditions and therefore would be suitable for use in the GI tract.
Bacteria are self-replicating, so theoretically if an engineered bacteria successfully colonizes a mucosal surface, it should persist indefinitely. However, numerous factors may limit the indefinite survival of an engineered bacterial population on a given mucosal surface, the most significant factor being the fierce competition for space by a number of different bacteria on any mucosal surface. Therefore, it is envisioned that applications of engineered bacteria to a mucosal surface will need to be repeated on a regular basis; optimal dosing intervals are routine to determine, but will vary with different mucosal environments and bacterial strain. The dosing intervals can vary from once daily to once every 2-4 weeks. Oral administration of 108 -1011 viable bacteria has produced transient colonization of colonic mucosa (Henriksson, et al., 1991 ). It is expected that colonization of the URT and vaginal mucosa will require less, as low as 106 viable
bacteria, since these surfaces are more directly accessible and do not pose the acid and other harsh conditions of the upper GI tract.
To deliver genes directly into bacteria already resident on a mucosal surface, bacteriophage which specifically infect a selected bacteria will be used as the vector. Bacteriophage are viruses which infect bacteria. Examples include bacteriophage lambda, M13, and T7 which all infect Escherichia coli, and φadh which infects Lactobacillus gasseri. The nucleic acid of the selected bacteriophage may be manipulated such that the heterologous gene(s) replaces the genes coding for bacteriophage coat proteins, rendering the bacteriophage replication-defective. Adding these recombinant DNA molecules into cell lysates containing functional bacteriophage proteins will lead to assembly of functional bacteriophage particles carrying the heterologous gene(s). These replication-defective bacteriophage particles can then be introduced onto a desired mucosal surface to infect selected floral bacteria. The typical dosage would be 108 to 1012 PFU/ml applied to the mucosal
surface. The proportion of solution to the treated surface should approximate 0. 1 to 1.0 ml per square centimeter of mucosal surface. The vehicle would be similar to the vehicle described above for the bacteria.
P. Situations particularly suited for this invention
1. To prevent infection from viruses for which no effective vaccine is presently available: HIV, HPV, HSV, Hepatitis A Virus, Varicella Zoster Virus (chickenpox), Rotavirus, etc.
2. Any individual who wants to minimize his/her risk of contracting viral URIs/influenza, especially those who travel frequently, work at public places (healthcare providers, school teachers, etc.), have young children, and those with important upcoming events who cannot risk being ill.
3. Immunosuppressed individuals-since ViroShieldâ„¢ represents a completely additional layer of protection on the mucosal surfaces, it does not rely on normal function of the immune system, and in fact should work in conjunction with the immune system.
4. Third world countries where administration of vaccines may be difficult and unreliable; ViroShieldâ„¢ against rotavirus would be particularly useful in these situations.
5. Individuals with allergic reactions to certain components in a vaccine preparation, such as eggwhite proteins in the preparation of the flu vaccine.
6. Individuals traveling to third-world countries where certain viruses are endemic, such as Hepatitis A and Poliovirus.
7. Individuals with significant risk factors for sexually-transmitted diseases.
8. Protection of livestock animals from pathogenic viral infection.
Q. Definitions
Bacteria: Minute, unicellular prokaryotic organisms that are classified as lower protists. They may occur as symbionts, parasites, or pathogens of humans and other animals, plants, and other organisms. Most of the mucosal surfaces of humans and animals are heavily colonized by a wide variety of bacteria, which serve a number of useful functions to the host.
Biofilm: A complex network of different bacteria and extracellular matrix materials secreted by the bacteria which become confluent as a film on many mucosal surfaces.
Colonize: As applied to the bacterial flora, a state in which a bacteria resides harmlessly on a host mucosal surface. The residency time may be from 2 days to permanent, but more typically 1 week to 1 month.
Conserved determinant: The portion of a protein which is common amongst many variants of the protein. This is important in viruses because there are often numerous strains of a single virus, each with slightly different variations in the viral proteins. A conserved determinant on a viral protein refers to an epitope which is common in all strains of the virus.
Disease: As applied to a viral infection, this is a state in which a host suffers harmful effects from a viral infection, either immediate (e.g. fever, chills, bodyaches, etc.) or long-term (e.g., chronic hepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma from chronic hepatitis virus types B and C infections, and cervical cancer from chronic HPV infection).
Fusion: As used in this document, refers to the act of merging of two membranes such that the contents of the two entities combine into a single unit.
Genetic material: Generally DNA which contains at least one gene and the regulatory elements which affect the expression of that gene.
Host receptor: A molecule on the surface of the host (target) cell to which a virus attaches in order to gain entry into the host cell.
Hosts: The hosts include both animals and humans. The invention is useful for protecting livestock animals including mammals and birds.
Inactivation: The process of rendering an infectious agent no longer capable of infecting a host.
Mucosal surface: The epithelial membranes which line the inner interface of the body with the environment, including the respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, and genitourinary tract.
Receptors: As applied to viral receptors include the native protein and the functional domains that provide the specific binding characteristics that define these proteins as receptors of virus binding.
Selected for its ability to colonize the mucosal layer: As applied to bacteria refers to bacteria which have been chosen by either selective pressure or by deliberate genetic transformation to enhance ability to colonize mucosal surfaces. The ability whether in terms of absolute numbers or in residency time is defined as at least double the wildtype’s ability to colonize.
Selective advantage: Certain features which when conferred upon a bacteria cause the bacteria to be better adapted to survive in a specific environment such that it will have a greater chance than other bacteria in the same environment to survive and flourish in that environment.
Transform: As applied to bacteria, the introduction of foreign genetic material into a bacteria for the purpose of causing said bacteria to express the foreign gene(s).
Viral infection: The introduction of a virus into a host or a host cell. This does not necessarily suggest harmful effects suffered by the host and needs to be distinguished from clinical disease. This is an important concept since ViroShieldâ„¢ represents a way to prevent infection altogether, while standard vaccines do not actually prevent infection but may prevent disease.
Virus: An infectious agent that consists of proteins and genetic material, either DNA or RNA, both of which are arranged in an ordered array and are sometimes surrounded by an envelope. A virus is generally smaller than a bacterium and is an obligate intracellular parasite at the genetic level; it uses the cell machinery to produce viral products specified by the viral nucleic acid. They are classified into 5 classes based on the type of nucleic acid (ssDNA, dsDNA, dsRNA, +strand RNA, -strand RNA), and a sixth class which is capable of reverse-transcribing +RNA into DNA (retroviruses, e.g. HIV).
All publications and patent applications cited in this specification are herein incorporated by reference as if each individual publication or patent application were specifically and individually indicated to be incorporated by reference.
EXAMPLES
The following examples are provided by way of illustration only and not by way of limitation. Those of skill will readily recognize a variety of noncritical parameters which could be changed or modified to yield essentially similar results.
A. The following examples teach the expression of the receptor for HRV, major group, ICAM-1, on the surface of Esherichia coli.
1. Expressing ICAM-1 domain on the surface of E. coli using plasmid pTX101
ICAM-1 domains 1 and 2 (the minimal receptor for HRV, major group) are expressed on the surface of E. coli through the creation of a fusion protein with aa 1-9 of normal surface protein Lpp and aa 46-159 of OmpA using a system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,867. The DNA segment coding for domains 1 and 2 of ICAM-1 will be amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with primers designed to introduce in-frame EcoRI restriction sites flanking aa 1-168 of ICAM-1.
Plasmid TX101, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,867, contains the β-lactamase gene spliced into an EcoRI site, which is removed by EcoRI digestion followed by separation of the linearized plasmid and the β-lactamase gene with agarose electrophoresis. The PCR amplified ICAM-1 gene segment is ligated to the purified plasmid. E. coli strain JM109 is rendered competent by the rubidium chloride method and transformed with the pTX101-ICAM construct using electroporation.
The Lpp-OmpA-ICAM construct is under the control of the strong Ipp promoter, which is inducible by IPTG (isopropyl thiogalactoside). Thus, IPTG stimulation will lead to high-level expression of the fusion protein. Transformed bacteria will be grown at 24° C. as this expression system works best (highest surface expression) at that temperature.
2. Ascertaining surface expression of ICAM-1 and demonstrating HRV binding.
Immunofiuorescence is used to confirm proper ICAM-1 expression on the bacterial surface. Transformed bacteria are applied to a glass slide and fixed with methanol. Slides will be treated with murine mAbs against ICAM-1, washed extensively, then reacted with goat-anti-mouse IgG conjugated with rhodamine.
Fluorescence is observed under a Confocal Fluorescence Imaging System MRC-500 Bio-Rad microscope. To demonstrate HRV binding to the transformed bacteria, slides with fixed bacteria are incubated with HRV, washed extensively, then reacted with murine mAbs against HRV coat protein. After washing, the slides will be treated with goat-anti-mouse IgG conjugated with rhodamine and visualized as described above.
3. Neutralization of HRV infection of HeLa cells by transformed bacteria in in vitro assay.
Early infection of HeLa cells in vitro by HRV will be monitored by detecting HRV mRNA inside infected HeLa cells by Northern blot analysis. A semipermeable membrane with pores of sufficient size to allow passage of HRV but not bacteria or HeLa cells is placed on top of a monolayer of HeLa cells in a tissue culture flask. Transformed or unmodified bacteria are layered onto the semipermeable membrane, then HRV is added on top of the bacteria and allowed to infect the underlying HeLa cells.
After an appropriate amount of time for infection, (2-6 hrs), the bacteria and semipermeable membrane are removed, and the HeLa cells washed extensively. The cells are then lysed, and their total RNA isolated for Northern analysis which is a standard method useful for detecting HRV mRNA which is an indication of infection.
4. Methods of formulating transformed bacteria in an appropriate vehicle (foam, DNAse, etc.) for use in animal and human hosts:
Transformed bacteria are formulated in a number of vehicles for animal application, For use in the nasopharynx, transformed bacteria may be mixed in saline and applied as a nasal spray. The bacteria are added to the saline at concentration of 106 to 108 cells/ml and applied twice daily in a directed spray of 0.1 ml solution/cm2 area of nasal mucosa.
B. The expression of a viral receptor on the surface of Streptococcus gordonii.
The following examples teach the expression of ICAM-1 on the surface of a gram-positive bacteria, since gram-positive bacteria are prominent members of the nasopharyngeal flora. The expression system is based on the one described in patent PCT/US93/02355. The examples provided herein use Streptococcus gordonii, but are readily adaptable to other gram-positive bacteria due to a common motif, LPXTGX, which allows the anchoring of proteins on the surface of essentially all gram-positive bacteria.
1. Expression of ICAM-1 on the surface of Streptococcus gordonii.
S. gordonii, strain GP232 described by Fischetti et al. in WO 93/18163 is used. In this strain, the gene which encodes for the M6 surface protein of S. pyogenes (contains the LPXTGX motif), emm-6.1, and an ermC gene (erythromycin resistance) disrupted by a cat (chloramphenicol acetyltransferase) gene have been inserted into the chromosome of GP232 downstream of a strong chromosomal promoter. GP232 expresses M6 on its surface, and is susceptible to erythromycin. Integration vector pVMB20 constructed by Fischetti et al. allows for the insertion of heterologous DNA sequences into emm-6.1. pVMB20 contains a functional (undisrupted) ermC gene, and is a 6.3-kb E. coli plasmid which does not replicate in S. gordonii. pVMB20 is digested with KpnI and HindIII to release a 538-bp KpnI/HindIII segment within emm-6.1, but leaving the LPXTGX motif intact. The ICAM-1 gene is PCR amplified using amplification primers specially designed to obtain an in frame
KpnI/HindIII insert containing domains 1 and 2 of ICAM-1. The insert is then ligated into the digested vector.
Nucleotide sequence analysis of the pVMB20:ICAM-1 construct confirms the proper (in frame) insertion. The plasmid will be linearized and used to transform GP232 by standard methods. Homologous recombination between the 5′ end of the emm-6.1 gene and the 3′ end of the ermC gene, present on both the GP232 chromosome and the plasmid, allows for the integration of the ICAM-1 gene and the functional ermC gene into the GP232 chromosome.
Transformants are selected by screening for erythromycin-resistance, in media containing 5 μg/ml erythromycin.
2. Ascertaining surface expression of ICAM-1 and demonstrating HRV binding.
As in example A2, surface expression of ICAM-1 is verified by immunofluorescence using antibodies specific for ICAM-1. HRV binding will also be demonstrated as in example A2.
3. Neutralization of HRV infection of HeLa cells by transformed bacteria in in vitro assay.
Neutralization of HRV infection of HeLa by transformed GP232 will be demonstrated as in example A3.
C. Antibody expression on a E. coli.
The following examples teach the expression of an antibody fragment against a conserved determinant on the HLA DR molecule on the surface of E. coli. Since the HIV envelope is found to contain approximately 375 copies of the HLA DR molecules from its host (Arthur, L. O., et al., Science, 258(5090):1935-8, 1992.) an antibody fragment against a conserved determinant on HLA DR will bind to all isolates of HIV.
A phage display system exists which allows for the rapid selection of antibody fragments against essentially any target (Marks, J. D., et al., J Biol Chem, 267(23):16007-10, 1992.) is utilized to select for an antibody fragment with high affinity against a conserved determinant on HLA DR.
1. Selection for an antibody fragment with high affinity against a conserved determinant on HLA DR.
A phage library consisting of approximately 1014 bacteriophage each displaying a unique antibody fragment (scFv) on its surface is used (E.g., G. Winters, MRC, Cambridge, UK). Phage binding to HLA DR is selected by taking advantage of the fact that activated T cells express HLA DR, while resting T cells do not. All phage that bind activated T cells will be selected, then of this population, phage that bind resting T cells are removed. This process effectively isolates the subpopulation of phage that bind to HLA DR, and a few T cell activation markers. B cells express HLA DR constitutively. Subjecting this subpopulation of phage to B cells allows for selection of anti-HLA DR phage only, because B cells do not express T cell activation markers.
Of the phage that bind HLA DR, the ones that bind to conserved determinants are selected by screening the subpopulation against B cells of a variety of HLA DR specificities, and selecting only the clones that bind to every B cell specificity. If more than one clone is identified, the one with the highest binding affinity is used. Binding affinities in excess of 10-8 to 10-12 are preferred.
2. Method of expressing an antibody fragment against a conserved determinant on HLA DR on surface of E. coli using plasmid pTX101.
The VH and VL domains of the selected scFv are cloned using suitable primers designed to introduce in-frame EcoRI restriction sites at the N-terminus of the VH and the C-terminus of the VL. The PCR amplified gene segment is ligated into the EcoRI site of pTX101. JM109 bacteria are transformed with the plasmid, and surface expression of the fusion protein will be induced with IPTG at 20° C. as described in example 1.
3. Method of ascertaining surface expression of antibody fragment and demonstrating HIV binding.
Immunofluorescence is performed to confirm proper anti-DR scFv expression on the bacterial surface. Transformed bacteria are applied to a glass slide and fixed with methanol. Slides are treated with soluble human HLA DR molecules, washed, murine mAbs against HLA DR, washed, then reacted with goat-anti-mouse IgG conjugated with rhodamine. Fluorescence will be observed under a Confocal Fluorescence Imaging System MRC-500 Bio-Rad microscope. To demonstrate HIV binding to the transformed bacteria, slides with fixed bacteria are incubated with HIV, washed extensively, then reacted with murine mAbs against the HIV coat protein gp120. After washing, the slides are treated with goat-anti-mouse IgG conjugated with rhodamine and visualized as described above.
4. Neutralization of HIV infection of T cells by transformed bacteria in in vitro assay
Early infection of CEM cells (a laboratory T cell line) in vitro by HIV is monitored by detecting reverse transcriptase activity within infected cells. A semipermeable membrane with pores of sufficient size to allow passage of HIV but not bacteria or CEM cells is placed on top of CEM cells in a tissue culture flask. Transformed or unmodified bacteria are layered onto the semipermeable membrane, then infective HIV is added on top of the bacteria and allowed to infect the underlying CEM cells. After an appropriate of time for infection, (i.e. 2-6 hrs), the bacteria and semipermeable membrane are be removed, and the CEM cells washed extensively. These cells are lysed, and their cytosolic contents assayed for reverse transcriptase activity as an indication of early HIV infection.
5. Methods of formulating transforming bacteria in appropriate vehicle (foam, DNAse, etc.) for use in animal or human hosts.
For the GI tract, transformed E. coli bacteria are cultured and added to a mixture of various fatty acids conventionally used for rectal administrations such as: hydrogenated cocoa nut oil, glycerin, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, or other suitable material for rectal administration. The bacteria is added to the excipients at a concentration of 106 to 108 cells per mg of excipient. Each suppository is between 3-8 grams.
Although the foregoing invention has been described in some detail by way of illustration and example for purposes of clarity of understanding, it will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art in light of the teachings of this invention that certain changes and modifications may be made thereto without departing from the spirit or scope of the appended claims.
* * * * *
Other References
* Marshall, Science, 269: 1050-1055, 1995
* Int.J.Tiss REACXIII(2) 115-122 (1991), “Lactobacilli in Relation to Human Ecology and Antimicrobial Therapy,” 1991 Bioscience Ediprint, Inc
* Gastroenterology 1992;102:875-878, “Fecal Recovery in Humans of Viable Bifidobacterium sp Ingested in Fermented Milk,” 1992 by the American Gastroenterological Association
* Am J Clin Nutr 1992;55:78-80, “Survival bifidobacteria ingested via fermented milk during their passage through the human small intestine: an in vivo study using intestinal perfusion 1-4,” 1992 American Society for Clinical Nutrition
* Human Health: The Contribution of Microorganisms Formulation, Production and Marketing of Probiotic Products, “Commercial Aspects of Formulation, Production and Marketing of Probiotic Products,” Chapter 10, S. Laulan
Inventor
* Lee, Peter Poon-Hang
Application
No. 401070 filed on 03/08/1995
US Classes:
424/93.1, WHOLE LIVE MICRO-ORGANISM, CELL, OR VIRUS CONTAINING424/93.2, Genetically modified micro-organism, cell, or virus (e.g., transformed, fused, hybrid, etc.)424/93.4, Bacteria or actinomycetales424/93.45Lactobacillus or Pediococcus or Leuconostoc
Field of Search
435/173.1, TREATMENT OF MICRO-ORGANISMS OR ENZYMES WITH ELECTRICAL OR WAVE ENERGY (E.G., MAGNETISM, SONIC WAVES, ETC.)435/173.8, Metabolism of micro-organism enhanced (e.g., growth enhancement or increased production of microbial product)435/252.3, Transformants (e.g., recombinant DNA or vector or foreign or exogenous gene containing, fused bacteria, etc.)435/244, Chemical stimulation of growth or activity by addition of chemical compound which is not an essential growth factor; stimulation of growth by removal of a chemical compound435/252.1, Bacteria or actinomycetales; media therefor424/93.1, WHOLE LIVE MICRO-ORGANISM, CELL, OR VIRUS CONTAINING424/93.2, Genetically modified micro-organism, cell, or virus (e.g., transformed, fused, hybrid, etc.)424/93.4, Bacteria or actinomycetales424/93.45Lactobacillus or Pediococcus or Leuconostoc
Examiners
Primary: Ziska, Suzanne E.
Attorney, Agent or Firm
* Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP
US Patent References
5348867, Expression of proteins on bacterial surface
Issued on: 09/20/1994
Inventor: Georgiou, et al.5531988Bacteria and immunoglobulin-containing composition for human gastrointestinal health
Issued on: 07/02/1996
Inventor: Paul
Foreign Patent References
* WO 93/18161 WO. 09/19/1993
International Class
A01N 063/00
US Patent Application 20060283080 – Method of creating and preserving the identity of non-genetically modified seeds and grains
192.168.1.100
http://www.patentstorm.us/applications/20060283080/fulltext.html
1. A method of ensuring the exclusion of genetically modified material from food products comprising: selecting seeds from certified sources that are known to contain only non-genetically modified and non-genetically-engineered varieties (non-GMO); planting the selected seeds to produce a non-GMO crop; inspecting a grower operation and machinery to verify that the operation is free of contaminates and conforms to processing and cleanliness criteria prior to harvest; harvesting the non-GMO crop; inspecting processing facility to verify that the operation is free of contaminants and conforms to processing and cleanliness criteria prior to processing; tracking containers holding the non-GMO crop each time the crop is moved into and out of a storage container, wherein the tracking includes monitoring the field in which the non-GMO crop was grown, monitoring each of the storage containers used to hold the non-GMO crop, and recording the date of all crop
transfers; and processing the non-GMO crops into a food product, wherein said food product is placed in containers for shipment, wherein the containers possess lot-based tracking information which permits the food product to be tracked back to the field and to containers used to produce or ship the food product; and shipping the food product for use by a food processor.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining genetic test results indicative that the crop substantially excludes genetically modified crop material.
3. The method of claim 2, further comprising certifying that the crop excludes genetically modified crop material.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein certifying that the crop excludes genetically modified crop material comprises testing for application susceptibility.
5. The method of claim 3, wherein the certifying is sufficient to indicate that the crop contains 0.01% or less genetically modified material.
6. The method of claim 3, wherein the act of certifying comprises making a non-visual verification that the crop substantially excludes genetically modified crop material.
7. The method of claim 1, further comprising obtaining genetic test results indicative that the food product substantially excludes genetically modified crop material.
8. The method of claim 7, further comprising certifying that the food product substantially excludes genetically modified crop material.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the certifying is sufficient to indicate that the food product contains 0.01% or less genetically modified material.
10. The method of claim 7, wherein the lot-based tracking information comprises a lot identification number established when the crop is harvested.
11. The method of claim 1, wherein the lot-based tracking information comprises a lot identification number established when the crop is harvested.
12. A method of ensuring the exclusion of genetically modified material from food products comprising: planting seeds selected from sources known to contain only non-genetically modified and non-genetically-engineered varieties to produce a non-GMO crop; harvesting the non-GMO crop; and processing the non-GMO crop into shipping containers identified with non-varietal lot-based tracking information.
13. The method of claim 12, further comprising obtaining genetic test results indicative that the crop substantially excludes genetically modified crop material.
14. The method of claim 13, further comprising certifying that the processed crop excludes genetically modified crop material.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the certifying is sufficient to indicate that the processed crop contains 0.01% or less genetically modified material.
16. The method of claim 14, wherein the act of certifying comprises making a non-visual verification that the crop substantially excludes genetically modified crop material.
17. The method of claim 12, further comprising obtaining genetic test results indicative that the unprocessed crop substantially excludes genetically modified crop material.
18. The method of claim 17, further comprising certifying that the food product substantially excludes genetically modified crop material.
19. The method of claim 17, wherein the non-varietal lot-based tracking information comprises a lot identification number established when the crop is harvested.
20. The method of claim 12, wherein the non-varietal lot-based tracking information comprises a lot identification number established when the crop is harvested.
21. A method of ensuring the exclusion of genetically modified material from food products comprising: obtaining crop products grown under controlled conditions to exclude genetically modified material; tracking the crop products using lot-based tracking information; genetically testing the crop products to determine whether genetically modified material is present; and excluding the crop products if the genetic testing indicates that genetically modified material is present at an excess level.
22. The method of claim 21, further comprising associating information obtained at multiple stages of the development of the crop products with the lot-based tracking information in a single document.
23. The method of claim 21, wherein the genetic testing is variety-independent.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
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