Chapter 84

He believed that his reputation as a lothario would make him less appealing, but the contrary was true. Girls wanted to sleep with Bankhead more as he had more relationships with them. Because of this, Mitchell became uncomfortablely aware of how little he actually knew about girls.

Thankfully, the first year came to a close. The next fall, Mitchell returned to a brand-new class of freshmen ladies, one of whom—a redhead from Oklahoma—became his girlfriend during the spring semester. He overlooked Bankhead. He didn't really see him for the rest of college (except from a religious studies course they both took in their sophomore year).

After the Oklahoman broke up with him, Mitchell started dating other women and moved away from the impoverished areas. Then, in his senior year, he learned that Madeleine had a new lover, and that the lucky man was Leonard Bankhead, two months after the heating-gel incident. Mitchell remained numb for two or three days, coping

until he woke up one morning overcome by such raw sentiments of worthlessness and despair that it felt like his entire self-worth (as well as his dick) had shrunk to the size of a pea. The fact about Mitchell was disclosed by Bankhead's success with Madeleine. He lacked the necessary items. The numbers weren't posted up by him. He was located here.

His passing had a profound impact. Mitchell hid himself away to lick his wounds. Nothing prevented him from entirely withdrawing into himself after this last failure because his interest in quietism had always been present.

Mitchell had first intended to major in English, similar to Madeleine. But he changed his viewpoint after reading The Varieties of Religious Experience for a psychology class. The book wasn't as cold and clinical as he had anticipated. William James wrote about a variety of "cases," including those of men and women he had seen in person or with whom he had corresponded, as well as those with melancholia, nerve disorders, digestive problems, suicidal thoughts, and voices that had abruptly changed their life. He quoted their statements without mentioning a single.

The intelligence of those who told these stories was actually what made them noteworthy. These voices seemed sincere as they outlined in great detail how they had lost all hope for survival, how they had fallen ill, become bedridden, and had been abandoned by friends and family before all of their suffering was suddenly relieved by a "New Thought," the realisation of their true position in the cosmos. James examined the religious experiences of well-known people including Walt Whitman, John Bunyan, Leo Tolstoy, Saint Teresa, George Fox, John Wesley, and even Kant in addition to these testimonials.

There was no overt attempt to convert anyone. Mitchell, however, was made aware of the significance of religion in human history as well as, more significantly, the fact that religious feelings did not originate from attending church or reading the Bible but rather from the most intimate interior experiences, such as intense joy or excruciating pain.

Mitchell kept going back to a section about having a neurotic temperament that he had underlined since it seemed to describe him and also helped him feel better about himself. Few of us are not ill or infirm in some form, and our illnesses really work to our unanticipated benefit.

In [this] temperament, we find the emotionality that is a prerequisite for moral perception, the intensity and emphasis-seeking tendencies that are the core of practical moral strength, and the love of mysticism and metaphysics that extends one's interests beyond the realm of the sensible. Then, what could be more natural than that this temperament would lead one to areas of religious truth and reaches of the cosmos that your strong Philistine type of nervous system, constantly thumping its breast, offering its biceps to be felt, and thanking Heaven that it hasn't got a single morbid fibre in its composition, would be sure to hide forever from its self-satisfied possessors?

If inspiration came from a higher world, it's possible that having a neurotic temperament would be the main requirement for the necessary receptivity.

The first religious studies course Bankhead and Mitchell both took was a popular survey of Eastern religion. He then registered for an Islam seminar. After that, Mitchell moved on to more challenging material, taking courses on Thomistic ethics and German Pietism before enrolling in a course on religion and alienation in 20th-century culture during his last semester.

Hermann Richter, the professor, was a stern-looking guy who looked at the about forty pupils that were crammed into the classroom with mistrust. He said sternly, lifting his chin, "This is a rigorous, thorough, analytical course on twentieth-century religious thinking. Any of you who believe alienation may be a factor should reject that notion.

Richter handed out the curriculum while grimacing. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber, Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings, The Courage to Be by Tillich, Being and Time by Heidegger, and The Drama of Atheist Humanism by Henri de Lubac were all featured. The faces of the kids in the room lowered. The Stranger, which they had already read in high school, had been anticipated. Less than fifteen youngsters were still present at the following class meeting.

Richter was a professor Mitchell had never had before. Richter wore a banker's uniform. He sported polished brogues, button-down shirts, grey suits with chalk-stripes, and conservative ties. He possessed the reassuring traits of Mitchell's own father, such as diligence, sobriety, and masculinity, while also possessing the

living an unfatherly life of intellectual development. Richter had the Frankfurter Allgemeine delivered to his office mailbox each morning. He could cite the Vérendrye brothers' response to witnessing the Dakota badlands in French. He gave off a more global and less ideological impression than the majority of academicians. Without an accent, he spoke in a low, Kissingerian tone. He could not possibly have been a boy.

They met with Richter twice a week and examined the causes of the Christian faith's demise, which occurred around the year 1848, without mercy. It was completely disregarded that many others believed it to be still alive and that it had never experienced any illness. Richter didn't want any fudge. If a Schopenhauer's arguments went unanswered, you were forced to share his pessimism.

However, this wasn't the only choice available. Nihilism without question, according to Richter, is no more intellectually sound than Christianity without question. Christianity's corpse might be examined, its chest pounded, and its lips blown into to check if the heart began to beat once again.

I'm still alive. I'm merely dozing off. Richter asked the students questions and listened to their responses as if it might happen right now: in Room 112 of Richardson Hall, Dee Michaels, who played Marilyn Monroe in a campus production of Bus Stop, might throw a rope ladder across the void. Richter was stiff-backed, never sitting, with his grey hair closely cut, but with hopeful signs about his person, such as a thistle in his buttonhole or a gift-wrapped present for his daughter protruding from the pocket of Mitchell noted Richter's thoroughness, his willingness to admit mistakes with compassion, and his unwavering enthusiasm for overseeing the clearing of the roughly twenty minds gathered around the seminar table. Getting these children's brains to function even now, so late in the game.

Richter's beliefs were unknown. He wasn't a supporter of Christianity.

Mitchell kept an eye out for bias in Richter. However, none existed. He treated every thinker's analysis with the same rigour. He gave his approval grudgingly and was thorough in his objections.

A take-home final exam was given at the end of the semester. Ten questions on a single piece of paper were distributed by Richter. You could freely refer to your books.