These letters are the correspondence between the Master Screwtape and his disciple Scabtree regarding how to deliver humankind to an entity referred to as Our Father Below. Make no mistake, Screwtape is alive and well!
Introduction:
In 1942, C. S. Lewis wrote a series of articles titled The Screwtape Letters for a London newspaper, the Guardian. Europe was deeply entrenched in the second war of the twentieth century and British hearts were in despair as they sent the promise of future generations into a merciless German war machine. Mr. Lewis at the time was a Fellow of the Magdalen College in Oxford, England.
Of unknown origin, The Screwtape Letters were a series of documents that fell into Mr. Lewis’ hands so that he might offer them to the public. Authored by an unknown entity known simply as “Screwtape,” these letters document the spiritual training of his nephew, “Wormwood.” This training, of course, was aimed solely at disrupting the Faith of mortals and causing them to turn their attention away from all that is Holy and towards an entity that Screwtape referred to as “Our Father Below.”
Many trying years have passed since these letters were uncovered and revealed. Be that as it may, as we enter the new millenium, Screwtape is alive and well. He’s no longer Wormwood’s mentor since Wormwood graduated some forty years ago. Today, Screwtape has a new disciple, Scrabtree, and by certain covert means I’ve been able to gather some of the correspondence between this old master and his new disciple.
I have no intention of revealing how this new correspondence fell into my hands since to do so would be an ethical breach of confidence. Suffice it to say that I’ve had them for several years and only now are these safe to publish. When these documents first came into my possession I was the President of a high-tech start-up company and perplexed by issues that seemed totally un-resolvable, or so I thought. One night, prior to our investors meeting, I lay on my hotel room bed reading the forbidden text. I couldn’t help but read all night because it was then that I saw how Screwtape was having his way with me. He was in my face, taunting and laughing at me. That night I saw how he redirected my attention away from those things in life that were worthwhile and soul satisfying. The result was that quality in my life was diminishing and my soul seemed to be slipping further and further from me. It was then that I realized that I shouldn’t play with crazy people, because, I was getting crazy, too…and they liked it. The next day I resigned my presidency and took a year’s sabbatical in the Arizona-Sonoran desert, alone.
Readers are to be reminded that the Devil is a liar. The greatest deception he’s ever enjoyed has been convincing mortals that he doesn’t exist. As spiritual hope rises in the twenty-first century, and carrying the tradition of Mr. Lewis before me, I now offer these underground letters to the public.
Letter 1
My dearest Scrabtree,
Rejoice! No signs from the Enemy have come today!
On this positive note, I want to congratulate you on your success with your ward Samuel. Outstanding! You’ve learned a very powerful lesson regarding human behavior; all any child wants is to be noticed and they’ll do anything toward that end; good behavior, bad behavior, it doesn’t matter, as long as they’re noticed. And, because of naďve parents, it’s often easier for a child to get noticed through inappropriate behavior than it is for acceptable behavior. Thus the child, early on, is conditioned to be his or her own worst Enemy. Thanks to you, Samuel is well on his path toward Our Father’s House Below.
But, please don’t be naďve. Like a thief in the night our Enemy attacks without warning. If you think creating distress in the mind of your ward is your ally, think again. I once made that mistake myself and it cost me years of labor.
Many years ago when I, too, was recruiting souls, I was assigned a college coed named Linda. Like your ward, Samuel, she came out of a dysfunctional family and had serious issues with intimacy. And, while she would fall in love at the drop of a hat she was by nature melancholy and reclusive. Day-to-day I began playing her mind like a fiddle. Those around her thought she was manic-depressive. In reality she was simply confused and had no real focus in her life. I helped keep it that way. Thanks to me and a few failed experiences, her college major in communication was more arbitrary than thought out.
Between her junior and senior year she got married. Delighted, I knew that her life would become so busy with husband, home, and eventually a child, that she would never take the time to ask those tricky questions, those questions that causes one to ponder and self-reflect. You must always remember that self-reflection is one of the greatest weapons used against us by our Enemy.
Linda went into marriage eagerly. Her man, David, was strong, demanding, and immature. He was the competitive type of personality, flashy, always ready to show others how good he was; marriage was only a status symbol and for convenient sex, not a commitment to a loving relationship that involved mutual sharing; the word reciprocity meant nothing to him. Being a natural born competitor, he liked drinking beer and hanging out with his peers, being, quote, “A bad boy.” He even drove a bright red Camaro and kept it spotless, believing it was a sign of his masculinity. After six months of Linda’s depressive behavior, along with finding a monogamous relationship boring, David wanted out. Several months later, when their divorce was final, I gloated in my glory.
But as it turned out, I was the fool. I didn’t see the Enemy simply standing there in silence along the sidelines, and too soon I let down my guard.
One Sunday morning the Enemy attacked. Linda was lying on her bed crying when he came to her; she had been crying for days. She had stopped attending classes and was in danger of failing her spring semester. I knew that she was close to taking her own life and that it wouldn’t be long until I could place her safely in Our Father’s House.
But the Enemy came to her and whispered simple questions in her ear, “Who are you and why are you here?”
There were a few moments of strained silence and gradually her tears stopped flowing. She sat up and looked out the window, out and into a beautiful sunny, cloudless, morning. First there was a smile, then a chuckle. Surprising to me, it wasn’t long until she actually began laughing at herself as if she had been the object of someone’s prank; I knew I had lost the battle.
She looked towards me as if sensing my unseen presence and said in a strong mature voice, “I’m here to go to school and nothing should interfere with that. Cos, school affects my future more than David, more than any man.”
Then Linda took a shower, ate a decent meal and went to the library to study. A few days later my mentor wrote me a letter, a letter very similar to the one I’m now writing you.
When a youth takes their first step into the future, it’s like stepping off a cliff. They are unaware of both the dangers and possibilities of success. Our greatest ally is to keep them immature and naďve. Because as long as they remain so, as they become adults, and then later in their dotage, they will propagate these qualities across the generations. Confusion and self-doubt are two powerful tools for us; the self-doubting gives up before they even start, and if they never start our battle is easily won.
It starts at home with the primary care givers. Little Johnny is excited and wants to explore his new world. But mommy is afraid and sets limits. Often these limits are announced to Johnny in the form of reprimands which makes the child wrong. “Johnny, you’re a very bad little boy for breaking your toy.” Or: “Johnny! That’s nasty! You should feel ashamed.” This is a good one for us because shame is a good way to control people; if they never get past their own shame, they will never grow beyond naiveté and will, thus, be puppets and drones in Our world.
Always remember, the young adult divided against himself or herself is ripe for the picking, as my ward Linda was (until I messed it up because I was unprepared). What people like Linda should never be allowed to know, when they gain their own personal truth, they begin to discover themselves at a core level, perhaps even find their soul. If the Enemy hadn’t struck so hard by asking her such simple questions, I would have easily delivered her to her fate.
The tricks I learned the hard way is to never let a person introspect or think for themselves. Always give people reasons to suffer, that it’s okay to suffer and that they are suffering for a higher purpose. Because as long as people suffer they are easily delivered into our goal; this is simply because they believe suffering is the normal way of being and aspire to nothing greater.
And so, while I failed with Linda, I did get David!
Regardless of all the psychological rhetoric, there are only two basic personality types that we are concerned with: cooperators and competitors. Competitive people are easier to snare than cooperative people. This might seem counter-intuitive. Competitive people are like the proverbial narcissist; they are primarily entranced by their own ego reflection and want to be noticed and approved by others. As a result they are easy to control, even though they truly believe they are the ones in control; in their egoism their delusions run deep.
Cooperative people, however, might appear weak and subtle; many are. But the cooperative personality is more likely to look inward or ask others for help than the competitive personality. This is especially true when life gets difficult; they might ask, “What’s wrong with me and how can I fix it?” The competitive personality will (almost) never ask these types of questions unless their back is to the wall; they prefer to fight than switch!
So, as I speak of these things, I hope you’re getting the message that our job is made easy by the fact that most Westerners are conditioned by a competitive culture. While this is their downfall, it guarantees our success!
I found your story quite interesting but strange. And then, I noticed that you had it under the genre of essays. Normally that would be in the article area. Nonetheless, you did tell a story. And as I read, seem to have discovered the way to get young people who have lost their way to get back on track. I applaud that.
From my own experience, I have found that young people sometimes have to reach the very bottom where everything is totally hopeless, before they can find their way towards a more positive life. I've also said and written that there are two types of people: the builders and the takers. But sometimes the builders build the wrong thing in this competitive world.
I started out life very competitive and still retain a bit of that. But my life-changing paralysis required me to depend upon a lot of people and have found that working with groups gets impossible things done like Martin Luther King did using nonviolence.
Unlike you, I was gradually forced out of the rat race. But I always was attracted to wild places where I would go alone to contemplate how nature manages to make things right.
Democratic Dilemmas and Divine Inspiration examines the significance or relevance of the idea that the U.S. Constitution was, as many believe, divinely inspired. How much did that belief matter to founders of the nation and how much does it matter no
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