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The Screwtape Letters
The Screwtape Letters
The Screwtape Letters
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The Screwtape Letters

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A Masterpiece of Satire on Hell’s Latest Novelties and Heaven’s Unanswerable Answer

C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the unique vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.” At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the wordly-wise devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging account of temptation—and triumph over it—ever written. 

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins
Release dateJun 2, 2009
ISBN9780061949043
Author

C.S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954, when he was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and have been transformed into three major motion pictures. Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) fue uno de los intelectuales más importantes del siglo veinte y podría decirse que fue el escritor cristiano más influyente de su tiempo. Fue profesor particular de literatura inglesa y miembro de la junta de gobierno en la Universidad Oxford hasta 1954, cuando fue nombrado profesor de literatura medieval y renacentista en la Universidad Cambridge, cargo que desempeñó hasta que se jubiló. Sus contribuciones a la crítica literaria, literatura infantil, literatura fantástica y teología popular le trajeron fama y aclamación a nivel internacional. C. S. Lewis escribió más de treinta libros, lo cual le permitió alcanzar una enorme audiencia, y sus obras aún atraen a miles de nuevos lectores cada año. Sus más distinguidas y populares obras incluyen Las Crónicas de Narnia, Los Cuatro Amores, Cartas del Diablo a Su Sobrino y Mero Cristianismo.

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Rating: 4.1399138477899635 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent full-cast dramatization of this C. S. Lewis classic."Diabolical" Radio Theater at its best."The story is carried by the senior demon Screwtape played magnificently by award-winning actor Andy Serkis (“Gollum” in Lord of the Rings) as he shares correspondence to his apprentice demon Wormwood." (from audio jacket)4.5 ★
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Incisive, brilliant, and entertaining.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A creative piece of Christian apologetics by one of the 20th century's greatest. This volume also includes the addendum "Screwtape Proposes a Toast," published in 1959. Of out all the Lewis I've read so far, I'm still most partial to The Abolition of Man. His writing in The Screwtape Letters is technically good as ever, but he doesn't here achieve the same excellence of style that he does elsewhere. And since I find all of his apologetical arguments weak, appreciation for good writing is one of the main reasons why I bother to read him at all. The Screwtape Letters is frequently clumsy, mechanical (Lewis admits in the preface that "the device of diabolical letters, once you have thought of it, exploits itself spontaneously"), and even gimmicky. Fortunately, the book is short and can be read in a couple hours so long as you don't feel guilty about skimming a bit.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A very illuminating look at how we are constantly tempted in small ways. I recommend this to book to every Christian. My only complaint is that I wish it was longer!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    READING THIS FOR MY C.S. LEWIS CLASS!!OMG this is my favorite CS Lewis book of all-time!!! *fangirly time*Seriously, this book is incredible, eye-opening, memorable, a little creepy, and very insightful! If you like CS Lewis, or are interested in reading some of his more "grown-up" books, please please give this one a shot! I promise you, you'll never read anything else like it again.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A good book that I would suggest to anyone. The premise of the book is a set of letters that Screwtape (a demon in the administrative department of hell) is writing to his nephew Wormwood (who is a demon new to the tempting job). At first the introduction of it made me wonder exactly how Lewis wrote these letters since it made me think that he did not write them himself at all but instead derived them from some outside source, this was not the case though. The letters were great to read and touched on every small aspect of temptations and the Christian life. There were many times I could see how these things have played themselves out in my life and made me want to re-evaluate many things. Along with the book being an easy read while still personally challenging it had many quotable quotes found within the pages. About every other letter there would be one line that would just jump out at me. Looking back I wish I had of written each of these down since they encapsulated the major points in the book to me at least. For instance, one set of advice Screwtape gave was "do not allow your patient (which was how they talked about the man to whom Wormwood was assigned) to pray in a fashion of not to who I think you are but to who you know you are". That's very fuzzy and I cannot quite get my words down in the way I would want them to be said. Secondly on the second part of the book, Screwtape proposes a toast, this was written several years after the letters and was included in the book I have. It was short, only a few pages long in the edition I have, but if I skipped it I do not feel as though I would have lost any value in reading the book. So if you do read this book and you are tired at that point, I would recommend not reading that part simply because I did not see much value in it and found that Lewis was trying very hard just to get something out on paper. Lastly in the way it was written, you will know that it was written in an old British proper language, but this did not hinder my ability into being able to read and understand the book
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    'The Screwtape Letters' was not an easy read for me. I thought the content and the perspective were interesting, but I don't think I fully understood everything so it was harder to appreciate it. I'll probably come back to this book in a few years.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I often say that almost all of my theology comes from reading "The Narnia Suite," which I read for the first time at the age of eight, and more than a dozen times thereafter. I was particularly taken with The Last Battle, in which some people are very surprised indeed to learn that those they thought wouldn't be admitted into Aslan's Land because they fought on "The Wrong Side" of the aforementioned last battle, were in fact instantly admitted because it was their intention and their heart which was judged.When I was a little older, someone gave me a copy of "The Screwtape Letters," and I have read it probably a dozen or more times over the years as well. Brilliant, allegorical, hilarious in parts, and filled with gentle wisdom, it is a theological masterpiece. I recall the first time I the letter in which one devil brags that he will soon win his first soul for the devil because although the man continues to pray, he doesn't believe what he says any longer. The older, wiser devil releases a stream of invective and explains the younger devil is an idiot, because doesn't the know that "those are the prayers that God loves best!?" How relieved I felt, as a young person, that there was a possibility God might still embrace me, even with all my doubts. Just one of the many gifts Lewis's work offers to those of us searching for a deeper relationship with God.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I don't consider myself a particularly religious person, but I enjoyed The Screwtape Letter immensely. It has a lot of great observations on life and what it means to be a person that can be enjoyed by everyone, not just the Christians or prospective Christians that Lewis was writing towards.

    Favorite quote:

    "All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. This is elementary."
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    An entertaining bit of fiction with a real world insight into the spiritual warfare behind our surface existence. If you choose to listen to a recorded version of this, be sure to get the one recorded by John Cleese: priceless.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I enjoyed reading this book, especially because it took on such a different view of Christianity. CS Lewis does a great job at really contrasting God and the Devil. In church I have come to hear God referenced as 'Our Heavenly Father' and the devil as 'The enemy.'. This book shows it from the point of view where God has now become the enemy. I had never thought about in that way before. Just as God desires for humans to resist the temptations and sins given by demons, the demons desire for humans to cling to this temptation. While God is viewed as one who cares about others, the devil is one that only cares about himself. He feels that God has an alternate plan that he has not disclosed and the devil wants to find out what it is. He doesn't believe in hope or even love, only sin, desire, and selfishness. I felt that this was a really good book to read for someone who feels strong in their beliefs and can really take the time to analyze and think about this book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Or, How To Drive the Living Hell Out of Thoughtful Christians. As a moral theologian, this is Lewis at his absolute best. Unlike his other more theological works, here he gets to mix in fiction and fantasy with his musings, and he does so wonderfully. The "plot," as you probably know, is the temptation of a man by a Junior temptor who is given advice by his uncle and senior, Screwtape. Lewis lays bare many traps of modern thinking as well as the traps of ancient moral spirituality. (The Seven Deadly Sins were once the Eight Deadly Ideas, the point being that it is our thinking that gets in our way.)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A unique approach but the plot is a little thin and the book is short
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I really am having a tough time thinking of what I can say about The Screwtape Letters. A masterpiece, really. It's like nothing I've ever read before. Completely witty and sobering at the same time.I am going to venture to say that it can mean vastly different things to different people. To those without a deep belief in or relationship with God it can mean something like this:A masterpiece of satire, this classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life from the vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to "Our Father Below." At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise old devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is the most engaging and humorous account of temptation -- and triumph over it -- ever written.(Taken from readinggroupguides.com)To someone that sees themselves as a spiritual being and not only has faith in but considers themselves in a personal relationship with God the meaning likely goes much deeper. To a reader such as this - such as myself - it can be an enlightening voyage to 'the other side,' a way to gain advice about Christian living and avoiding falling into temptation, a startling description of oneself, a roundabout way to realize anew the gifts and blessings of God. It was all these things and more to me. I think I need to sit and let this one marinate a bit more. There will be a discussion on it tomorrow night and I'd love to come back after that time and write a bit more about my feelings on it. Sometimes it really helps to gain other's insights.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Insightful and revealing. I learned so much about myself. A most read for all Christians
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Who among us has never wondered if there might not really be a tempter sitting on our shoulders or dogging our steps? C.S. Lewis dispels all doubts. In The Screwtape Letters, one of his bestselling works, we are made privy to the instructional correspondence between a senior demon, Screwtape, and his wannabe diabolical nephew Wormwood. As mentor, Screwtape coaches Wormwood in the finer points, tempting his "patient" away from God.Each letter is a masterpiece of reverse theology, giving the reader an inside look at the thinking and means of temptation. Tempters, according to Lewis, have two motives: the first is fear of punishment, the second a hunger to consume or dominate other beings. On the other hand, the goal of the Creator is to woo us unto himself or to transform us through his love from "tools into servants and servants into sons." It is the dichotomy between being consumed and subsumed completely into another's identity or being liberated to be utterly ourselves that Lewis explores with his razor-sharp insight and wit.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This book is part of my C.S. Lewis collection. I went through a huge phase where I was just obsessed with anything and everything by him. While I don't agree with all of his theology, I do love his writing style and the things he has to say about faith. He was a good one.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    deep, thought-provoking, chilling
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Letters from an experienced devil (Screwtape,a tempter) to a new, young tempter (Wormwood). Screwtape attempts to instruct and correct Wormwood on the art of tempting his "patient" to keep him from the Enemy (God). Takes place during World War II. I found this to be a great read and well worth the wait to finally get my hands on a copy. The language is hard to concentrate on with much background noise. I read at night while my husband watches television and I found the television to be very distracting to me. I had my best reading sessions in complete silence, but that is just how I read. If you are easily distracted, be sure to read in quiet. The story holds some great lessons for Christian living.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    enjoyed it although it was hard for me to get through it
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In Screwtapes' letters and toast, Lewis creates an utterly mundane Hell, filled with bureaucrats and researchers, secret police and cooks. The contrast between this mundanity and the supposed Eternal Torture-Hole of the Damned is an amusing thread throughout the letters, as is the very glee that Screwtape shows while dissecting the finer points of Underwordly strategy.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I came to this work expecting it to be a clever yet annoying apologetic for Mr. Lewis' vision of Christianity. While it is an apologia, it's remarkably fun listening. Mr. Lewis puts into Screwtape's letters some things he probably couldn't have gotten away with in a different format. I'm not sure, but it certainly seems like there were some very direct personal jabs in "Screwtape's" letters. Much to my surprise, there is a whole lot of really juicy insights into human psychology and the human condition here. Even when I disagree with his conclusions (most of the time) I have to admire his insights.

    I also have to admire his rhetorical skills. For all that I disagree with him, I wouldn't want to debate him. The man is damn good at constructing a logical argument.

    If I were a younger person, and had been raised in Mr. Lewis' variety of Christianity, I probably would have loved this work. I imagine a lot of liberal Christians take great comfort in Mr. Lewis's implicit contention that loveing Christianity is objectively true. I can see why this work has stayed so popular for so long.

    Weirdly enough, this felt less directly didactic than his Narnia books. Then again, I read the Narnia series expecting a fantasy adventure story. If I had expected it to be apologetics in fantasy form I might have felt less beaten by the metaphor hammer.

    I am very likely to re-read this one. While "simply" a series of letters, what Screwtapes includes and excludes from his letters shapes a story with a lot of depth and complexity. Aside from that, this is worth examining for the quality and depth of the rhetorical/argumentation skills displayed. I think I can learn alot about constructing persuasive arguments from this work.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Always a good read with insight into temptation and the human condition.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I am not being facetious when I say that The Screwtape Letters is like nothing I have ever read before. Even for Lewis, who, after all, wrote everything from literary criticism to sci-fi, from practical theology to children’s fiction, this is a unique and fascinating achievement. The book exists in the form of a series of letters by a senior demon named Screwtape to his nephew, the novice Wormwood. These letters are filled primarily with advice as to how to tempt Wormwood’s “patient,” how to keep him from eternal salvation and instead seal him unto eternal damnation. For Lewis as well as myself, the spiritual matters dealt with in these letters are very real, but he uses the fictional framework of Screwtape and Wormwood’s correspondence in order to explore them. That’s where the book becomes difficult to classify: Is it fiction or nonfiction? Fantastical or practical? Serious or a farce? At times, it’s hard to tell.Although I would probably identify right living in the light of eternal judgment the major theme, it is really incredible the number of topics Lewis touches on over the course of the Letters. I wrote a heading for each letter as I read, and ended up with such varying titles as “Jargon,” “Church/New Believers,” “Family,” “Prayer,” “War,” “Extremism/Fear of the Future,” “The Demons’ Existence,” “Undulations,” “Exploring Troughs,” “Worldly Friends,” “Laughter,” “Falling Away,” “Real & Redemptive Pleasures,” “Humility,” “Time,” “Church-[S]hopping,” “Gluttony,” “Eros,” “The [Un]reality of Love,” “Desire & Temptation,” “Time & Ownership,” “Love, Noise, & Centipedes,” “Corrupting Christianity,” “Spiritual Pride,” “The Same Old Thing,” “Marital ‘Unselfishness,’” “Piety & Perception,” “Persevering,” “Fear, Hate, & Despair,” “Fatigue & Reality,” and “Final Destinations.” I do not list all of these to show off or to boost the word count of my review (though the latter is, I admit, a strong temptation), but merely to show how much is here. Because of Screwtape’s complexity and diversity, it makes for a very good group read. That was how I read it this summer, and I was continually astonished at how many great insights the varied perspectives brought to the table.These would be impossible, of course, without Lewis’ own insights, which are often mind-boggling and convicting. I found that the chapter on “Prayer” in particular haunted and pursued me, making me think harder about how I pray. For the most part I agree with what he has to say—unfortunately the exception to this is an assumption that underpins a great deal of The Screwtape Lettters: the idea that, once a Christian, you can lose your salvation. This has been an underpinning of the Anglican Church since the get-go, but this concept simply isn’t scriptural (2 Corinthians 1:21, John 10:28, John 6:39, 2 Timothy 2:19) and cheapens the power of God’s saving grace. I do not believe in throwing the baby out with the bathwater, however, and after noting this discrepancy, I calmly proceeded and gleaned all I could from the rest—which was, I repeat, a not inconsiderable amount.Along with the insights, the humor was great throughout. You know a book is going to be good when it begins with a disclaimer like, “I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence which I now offer to the public fell into my hands.” Oh, Jack, you were a funny one, weren’t you?The thing that surprises me most about this book is the fact that a large number of atheists and agnostics seem to have read and enjoyed it, judging from various online reviews. In a way this makes me glad, for it shows Lewis’ relevance and how, to quote The Washington Post, “he seems to speak to people where they are.” Yet, looking over said reviews, I cannot help but wonder if they’re missing the point. Screwtape (and, by extension, Lewis) says multiple times throughout Letters that the issue is not the individual sins, but where we are ultimately going. I am glad if, in reading this, it helps others become “better people,” but in the great scheme of things this is not purpose or message. Take it, leave it, but don’t misrepresent it.In closing, I will mention that certain editions feature an essay following the letters entitled “Screwtape Proposes a Toast.” I had heard other Lewis fans make a great to-do about whether this was included or not, but while it contained some interesting thoughts on education, I didn’t find it to be anything special. Anyway, the Letters have such a great ending already that it seems a shame to add anything to them: they make such a perfect whole as is.Highly recommended to all who are attuned to its message.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Enjoyable read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A unique approach to appologetics!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A unique book. I have read it over and over again for the past 20 years. There is so much truth in it.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Oh the cunning of Satan and his evil minions. Lewis helps us see a large host of ways in which those little buggers can get at us and hopefully helps us be wiser to evil influence!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A thoroughly enjoyable read even for the non-Christian. The Screwtape Letters provide an insightful look at the human tendency to undermine ourselves morally and psychologically. Lewis describes clearly, in plain understandable terms, all the little ways in which we justify and hide our own inadequacies, making ourselves ever more unhappy even in the pursuit of happiness. The book is food for thought even if you don't agree with all the Christian dogma - whether the goal is the salvation of an immortal soul or the attainment of a truly happy and balanced life here on earth, the details are ultimately much the same. What I took away from the book was the idea that no human impulse is inherently good or bad, but each can be shaped by circumstance or will into one or the other. By achieving a clearer awareness of ourselves, and openly acknowledging both our weaknesses and strengths, we are better people for it than if we merely try to smother our weaknesses and pretend to strengths we do not have.I suspect I will return to this book in the future when I need to put life in perspective. Lewis's argument that human beings are ultimately a good bunch and that it is indeed possible to stop screwing yourself over is reassuringly convincing.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Amazing book which tells how the Devil thinks and how he manipulates us in order to try to keep us away from God.

Book preview

The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis

The cover of a book titled, “The Screwtape Letters” authored by C.S. Lewis is shown. The cover is painted into three sections in three colors, yellow, white, and red from top to bottom. The nib of a fountain pen is shown placed atop the letter “w” of the word screwtape, leaving ink spots. Ink spots are also visible at the top-left and bottom-right sections of the cover.

The Screwtape Letters

C. S. Lewis

with

Screwtape Proposes a Toast

The name of the publisher, “HarperCollins e-books” is shown, with its logo as a stylized set of flames atop waves.

Dedication

To J. R. R. Tolkien

Epigraph

The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.

LUTHER

The devil . . . the prowde spirite . . . cannot endure to be mocked.

THOMAS MORE

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Screwtape Proposes a Toast

Preface

Screwtape Proposes a Toast

About the Author

Also by C. S. Lewis

Copyright

About the Publisher

Preface

I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence which I now offer to the public fell into my hands.

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. The sort of script which is used in this book can be very easily obtained by anyone who has once learned the knack; but ill-disposed or excitable people who might make a bad use of it shall not learn it from me.

Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle. I have made no attempt to identify any of the human beings mentioned in the letters; but I think it very unlikely that the portraits, say, of Fr Spike or the patient’s mother, are wholly just. There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.

In conclusion, I ought to add that no effort has been made to clear up the chronology of the letters. Number 17 appears to have been composed before rationing became serious; but in general the diabolical method of dating seems to bear no relation to terrestrial time and I have not attempted to reproduce it. The history of the European War, except in so far as it happens now and then to impinge upon the spiritual condition of one human being, was obviously of no interest to Screwtape.

C. S. LEWIS

MAGDALEN COLLEGE,

5 JULY 1941

1

My dear Wormwood,

I note what you say about guiding your patient’s reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïve? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily ‘true’ or ‘false’, but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical’, ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary’, ‘conventional’ or ‘ruthless. Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future. That’s the sort of thing he cares about.

The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle on to the Enemy’s own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below. By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it ‘real life’ and don’t let him ask what he means by ‘real’.

Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy’s!) you don’t realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years’ work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear what He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said ‘Quite. In fact much too important to tackle at the end of a morning,’ the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added ‘Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind,’ he was already half way to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man’s head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of ‘real life’ (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all ‘that sort of thing’ just couldn’t be true. He knew he’d had a narrow escape and in later years was fond of talking about ‘that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic’. He is now safe in Our Father’s house.

You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can’t touch and see. There have been sad cases among the modern physicists. If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology; don’t let him get away from that invaluable ‘real life’. But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is ‘the results of modern investigation’. Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!

Your affectionate uncle

SCREWTAPE

2

My dear Wormwood,

I note with grave displeasure that your patient has become a Christian. Do not indulge the hope that you will escape the usual penalties; indeed, in your better moments, I trust you would hardly even wish to do so. In the meantime we must make the best of the situation. There is no need to despair; hundreds of these adult converts have been reclaimed after a brief sojourn in the Enemy’s camp and are now with us. All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favour.

One of our great allies at present is the Church itself. Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean the Church as we see her spread out through all time and space and rooted in eternity, terrible as an army with banners. That, I confess, is a spectacle which makes our boldest tempters uneasy. But fortunately it is quite invisible to these humans. All your patient sees is the half-finished, sham Gothic erection on the new building estate. When he goes inside, he sees the local grocer with rather an oily expression on his face bustling up to offer him one shiny little book containing a liturgy which neither of them understands, and one shabby little book containing corrupt texts of a number of religious lyrics, mostly bad, and in very small print. When he gets to his pew and looks round him he sees just that selection of his neighbours whom he has hitherto avoided. You want to lean pretty heavily on those neighbours. Make his mind flit to and fro between an expression like ‘the body of Christ’ and the actual faces in the next pew. It matters very little, of course, what kind of people that next pew really contains. You may know one of them to be a great warrior on the Enemy’s side. No matter. Your patient, thanks to Our Father Below, is a fool. Provided that any of those neighbours sing out of tune, or have boots that squeak, or double chins, or odd clothes, the patient will quite easily believe that their religion must therefore be somehow ridiculous. At his present stage, you see, he has an idea of ‘Christians’ in his mind which he supposes to be spiritual but which, in fact, is largely pictorial. His mind is full of togas and sandals and armour and bare legs and the mere fact that the other people in church wear modern clothes is a real—though of course an unconscious—difficulty to him. Never let it come to the surface; never let him ask what he expected them to look like. Keep everything hazy in his mind now, and you will have all eternity wherein to amuse yourself by producing in him the peculiar kind of clarity which Hell affords.

Work hard, then, on the disappointment or anticlimax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavour. It occurs when

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