Study of the Screwtape Letters
Starting on October 5th, we will begin a two-month study of C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters. It is a fascinating analysis of daily life and "ministry" from the perspective of a demon. The satirical story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, advising him on methods of securing the damnation of an earthly man, known only as "the Patient."
Join us on Sundays at 7pm at the Canterbury House in October and November. Our study will be led by our own Chad Chisholm, a doctoral student at UTA. It should be a great study, and a wonderful thing to bring friends to. Bring your book if you have one. We will have a few extra copies at the Canterbury House as well.
Schedule
Oct 5th--Introduction to letter #4
Oct 12th--Letter #5 to #8
Oct 19th--Letter #9 to #12
Oct 26th--Letter #13 to #16
Nov 2nd--Letter #17 to #20
Nov 9th--Letter #21 to #25
Nov 16th--Letter #26 to #30
Nov 23rd--Letter #31 to "Screwtape Proposes a Toast"
Summary of Letter 1
The novice tempter Wormwood has inquired of his more experienced Uncle about his patient’s current reading material. In his first letter, Screwtape explains that people (or “patients”) should be discouraged from solitary thinking. “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,” he writes. Screwtape then relates a story about one of his own patients, an atheist, who, while reading in the British Museum, began to think about the “Enemy.” Screwtape subverts the man by suggesting that he have lunch first, then dwell on it. After leaving the museum and the seclusion of it he is confronted by “real life,” and instantly loses all interest in his previous thoughts. “He is now safe in Our Father’s House,” says Screwtape.
Summary of Letter 2
The second letter begins with Screwtape discusing how Wormwood’s patient became a Christian. “Do not indulge the hope that you will escape the usual punishments,” Screwtape writes. He goes on to console Wormwood by telling him that hundreds of converts to the Enemy’s camp are subverted back by even brief exposure to sinful activities. Screwtape advises him to keep the patient’s attention on the faults and foibles of his fellow Christians. Screwtape goes so far as to say that the church is their greatest ally on earth. The church experience, he writes, is so disconcerting that new church goers are invariably scornful of these flawed, uppity, arrogant people. The slightest doubt, instilled in the new believer by any operative of the “Father” is enough to turn the man away from the church, forever.
Summary of Letter 3
This third letter is mainly about the relationship Wormwood’s patient has with his mother, with whom he lives. Screwtape advocates alienating the patient from the mother by cooperating with Glubose, the demon who is working on the mother. Screwtape lists 4 points: 1) He tells Wormwood to encourage the patient to consider only his inner thoughts, highly spiritual things, so as to turn the man away from his regular thoughts. 2) Render the man’s prayers for his mother innocuous. He should pray for her soul, rather than her rheumatism. A by-product of this will mean that he concentrates on her sins, which with a little suggestion, can be made to include any action she takes which bother him. 3) Exaggerate the annoyance that the patient receives from the woman’s mannerisms. “When two humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurable irritating to each other,” he writes. 4) Alter the patient’s perception so that normally harmless phrases are rendered insulting or annoying. The patient should have a “double-standard,” judging his own expressions at face value and over-exaggerating his mother’s tone and “suspected intention.” Screwtape also inquires about the woman’s religious standing, how she feels about her son’s conversion. Presumably this information can help further the rift.
Summary of Letter 4
Screwtape was insulted when Wormwood dared to criticize his methods, particularly in regards to prayer. This third letter from Screwtape begins with a criticism of Wormwood as “amatuerish” on prayer, and goes on to inform his nephew on the subject. Screwtape suggests it is best to keep the patient from serious prayer at all. By making the patient remember his “parrot-like” prayers of youth, this will encourage the patient to pray more free form and with little discipline. Further, if the patient also fails to discipline his body by not assuming a prayerful position, the battle is won Also, internalize the patient’s desires and supplications. Speaking of humans, Screwtape observes, “When they meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to feel brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to feel forgiven.” If all else fails, Screwtape says, redirect the patients prayers from God to an object. Any object would do, be it a crucifix hung on the wall, the upper-left hand corner of the ceiling, anything. Screwtape closes the letter by telling Wormwood that his final advantage lies in the fact that the patient does not expect nearly what he can achieve through honest prayer.
Summary of Letter 5
Screwtape begins this fifth letter by admonishing Wormwood for sending him an almost incoherent letter, "delirious with joy." The source of Wormwood's joy, "the anguish and bewilderment of a human soul," referring of course to Wormwood's patient. However, in Wormwood's last letter he mentioned being excited by the "new war" in Europe (World War II). Then Screwtape spends some time explaining that war is entertaining for himself and every other demon, but that war should not be enjoyed so much as used. "If we are not careful," he writes, "we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the enemy." War breeds suffering, which can turn some to their "father," but more often than not the pain, physical and mental, causes the afflicted to turn to a higher power. Also, it would be much better (from their point of view) for the people in the war to die in a nursing home where everyone lies to them: every indulgence is granted because of their illness, rather than them dieing in a bloody conflict, where they can apply for salvation and be granted it. He closes with the suggestion that should the patient become involved, at a point in a conflict his senses will be muddled, and Wormwood can take advantage of his weakness.
Summary of Letter 6
The sixth letter from Screwtape to Wormwood, like the letter before, dwells on the "new war" and how it will influence Wormwood's patient. Screwtape begins by pointing out that Wormwood's patient is of the proper age and profession to be considered for military service. Screwtape tells Wormwood that the patient must be kept confused about the war and it's implications for him. The patient is not sure he will be called to serve, therefore he is uncertain and vulnerable to Wormwood's efforts.
The patient, says Screwtape, must see his tribulations that are coming as the "Enemy's" will, he must even see them as battles, his own private crosses to bear. He must never suspect that they are merely troubles that have been thrust upon him by chance. Screwtape here introduces an important spiritual law: "In all activities of mind which favour our cause, encourage the patient to be un-selfconscious and to concentrate on the object, but in all activities favourable to the Enemy bend his mind back on itself." Screwtape is saying that as long as he is thinking with his baser motives: greed, lust, anger - he should think about the objects and people around him. Whenever he thinks with his higher motives: charity, kindness, humility - he should think only of himself.
Screwtapes final lesson is still a powerful one: he tells Wormwood that there will inevitably be both benevolence and malice in him. Wormwood should direct the benevolence toward distant people, complete strangers or those in need, and to direct the malice toward the Patient's neighbours - those he is around constantly. Thus the malevolence and anger will be all around him, while the benevolence and kindness will exist only far away, and in his imagination. There are three levels to a human being, says Screwtape: the first is the Will, the second is the Intellect, and the third is Fantasy. He should direct everything good in him into Fantasy, and everything bad into Will. Screwtape closes by saying that the grandest good intentions cannot keep a man from Hell, but they may make him more amusing once he gets there.
Summary of Letter 7
In the seventh letter from Screwtape to Wormwood, Screwtape opens by wondering why, in Wormwood's last letter, did he ask whether they should conceal themselves? He responds that the "high authorities," presumably referring to a senior devil or even Satan himself, has decided that for them. When Humans don't believe in them, the devils lose "all the pleasing results of direct terrorism," and they "make no magicians." However, when Humans do believe in devils, humans cannot be made materialists and skeptics. Screwtape names the "Life Force," the worship of sex, and psychoanalysis may prove useful in making their science so mythological that, in effect, Humans will believe in devils.
Screwtape now returns to the topic of the previous letter, whether the Patient should become a pacifist or a patriot. Screwtape tells Wormwood that the Patient should be made a pacifist, a "conscientious objector," which will make him part of a small, vocal, and above all unpopular group of people. Screwtape's only caveat is that should the patient actually feel that a just war is lawful for a Christian like himself, his pacifism will feel wrong. Wormwood should then simply try suddenly to change the patient into a patriot, and the resulting confusion will only help pull the patient away from his religion.
In closing Screwtape makes an excellent point. Whichever way the patient chooses, patriot or pacifist, Wormwood should pursue the same avenue. There are three steps to drawing the man away from his religion:
1. Begin by making the patient feel that his religion requires him to follow his chosen avenue, patriotism or pacifism.
2. Let him fall under the "partisan spirit," the factional and worldly aspect of the conflict.
3. Finally, the patient should see his religion merely a part of the larger cause, something to defend, not partake in.
If the patient is led along these three steps, Screwtape assures Wormwood he is "more securely Ours."
Summary of Letter 8
It is obvious at the beginning of the eighth letter the Screwtape is growing more and more annoyed with Wormwood for being such an amateur. Screwtape makes reference to a remark of Wormwood's, that he has "great hopes that the Patient's religious phase is dying away." Screwtape corrects Wormwood by stating his Law of Undulation. "Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation - the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back." Everything humans do alternates between peaks and troughs: interest in friends, efficiency at work, and, inevitably, religion.
Screwtape states that all human activities follow this rule, the Patient will more than likely return to his previous "high" before hitting another "low." Screwtape then says that the "Enemy" uses these troughs to his advantage. In fact, many of the Enemy's most devout followers had deeper, longer troughs than any other followers. The reason for this lies in the difference between the "Enemy" and the "Father." All of the "propaganda" the Enemy spouts about love is not propaganda at all: God has life to spare - he flows over into the Humans that follow him; Satan has none - he sucks it in from those who fall to him. Thus extended troughs cause humans to really appreciate what He has to offer. According to Screwtape, there are two laws God cannot disobey: the Irresistible and the Indisputable. He cannot override a human's will, which His presence in all but the slightest degree would do: he must woo, not ravish. His desire is millions of sons and daughters who retain their individuality; Satan wants to draw everything into himself - no independent entities. Screwtape tells Wormwood: "Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys." Screwtape closes by telling Wormwood that next week he will explain how the "troughs" can be used to their advantage.
posted by UTA Canterbury at 12:22 PM
4 comments
