The Screwtape Letters

It is a humbling experience to read C.S. Lewis’ book ‘The Screwtape Letters’. For those who are not familiar with this book, I will give a brief overview. The Screwtape Letters is a novel published in 1942. The story takes the form of a series of letters from a senior demon, Screwtape, to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, so as to advise him on methods of securing the damnation of a British man, known only as "the Patient".

Screwtape holds an administrative post in the bureaucracy ("Lowerarchy") of Hell, and acts more as a mentor than a supervisor to Wormwood, the inexperienced tempter; almost every letter ends with the signature, "Your affectionate uncle, Screwtape". In the body of the thirty-one letters which make up the book, Screwtape gives Wormwood detailed advice on various methods of undermining faith and promoting sin in his Patient, interspersed with observations on human nature and Christian doctrine.

The Screwtape Letters was dedicated by C.S. Lewis to his friend J. R. R. Tolkien.

Each one of the letters discusses a topic that I struggle with personally. I am not sure whether it makes me feel better or not that the weaknesses that I struggle with are typical of most of us. (Maybe I just wanted to feel special or unique… a pride thing). I will discuss a couple of them here and perhaps a couple more in a future post.

In one of the letters from Screwtape, Wormwood learns how to distract a “Christian” from an important thought that the “Enemy” (God or the Spirit) put into his head. Screwtape writes “I struck instantly at the part of the man that which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time that he had some lunch. The Enemy made the counter-suggestion that this was more important than lunch. I replied “Quite”. In fact much too important to be tackled at the end of a morning! And I added ‘Much better to 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”.

President Monson touched on this in the Last General Conference when he said “We become so caught up in the busyness of our lives. Were we to step back, however, and take a good look at what we’re doing, we may find that we have immersed ourselves in the “thick of thin things.” In other words, too often we spend most of our time taking care of the things which do not really matter much at all in the grand scheme of things, neglecting those more important causes”.

Screwtape writes several letters that show how to distract someone who is working on his own spirituality, to forget about those he should be serving. He writes “let his reflection be ‘My feelings are now growing more devout, or more charitable’ so fix his attention inward that he no longer looks beyond himself to see our Enemy or his own neighbors.”

Screwtape advises “Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient’s soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbors whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.”

This teaches me that as we strive to be more obedient to the commandments and to grow personally closer to the Savior, that we must do this through service and humility, and not merely by reading, pondering, and praying.