dream how much of his conversation, how many of his opinions, are recognisedby them all as mere echoes of their own. Still less does he suspect how much ofthe delight he takes in these people is due to the erotic enchantment which thegirl, for him, spreads over all her surroundings. He thinks that he likes their talkand way of life because of some congruity between their spiritual state and his,when in fact they are so far beyond him that if he were not in love he would bemerely puzzled and repelled by much which he now accepts. He is like a dogwhich should imagine it understood fire-arms because its hunting instinct andlove for its master enable it to enjoy a day's shooting!Here is your chance. While the Enemy, by means of sexual love and of somevery agreeable people far advanced in His service, is drawing the youngbarbarian up to levels he could never otherwise have reached, you must makehim feel that he is finding his own level—that these people are “his sort” andthat, coming among them, he has come home. When he turns from them to othersociety he will find it dull; partly because almost any society within his reach is,in fact, much less entertaining, but still more because he will miss theenchantment of the young woman. You must teach him to mistake his contrastbetween the circle that delights and the circle that bores him for the contrastbetween Christians and unbelievers. He must be made to feel (he'd better not putit into words) “how different we Christians are”; and by “we Christians” he mustreally, but unknowingly, mean “my set”; and by “my set” he must mean not“The people who, in their charity and humility, have accepted me”, but “Thepeople with whom I associate by right”.Success here depends on confusing him. If you try to make him explicitlyand professedly proud of being a Christian, you will probably fail; the Enemy'swarnings are too well known. If, on the other hand, you let the idea of “weChristians” drop out altogether and merely make him complacent about “hisset”, you will produce not true spiritual pride but mere social vanity which, bycomparison, is a trumpery, puny little sin. What you want is to keep a sly selfcongratulationmixing with all his thoughts and never allow him to raise thequestion “What, precisely, am I congratulating myself about?” The idea ofbelonging to an inner ring, of being in a secret, is very sweet to him. Play on thatnerve. Teach him, using the influence of this girl when she is silliest, to adopt anair of amusement at the things the unbelievers say. Some theories which he maymeet in modern Christian circles may here prove helpful; theories, I mean, thatplace the hope of society in some inner ring of “clerks”, some trained minorityof theocrats. It is no affair of yours whether those theories are true or false; thegreat thing is to make Christianity a mystery religion in which he feels himselfone of the initiates.
Pray do not fill your letters with rubbish about this European War. Its finalissue is, no doubt, important, but that is a matter for the High Command. I amnot in the least interested in knowing how many people in England have beenkilled by bombs. In what state of mind they died, I can learn from the office atthis end. That they were going to die sometime, I knew already. Please keepyour mind on your work,Your affectionate uncleSCREWTAPE
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The Screwtape Letters
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MAGDALEN COLLEGEJuly 5, 1941
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at his elbow in a moment. Before I
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like. Keep everything hazy in his m
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the imagined mother will ever flow
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meant to ask Him for charity, let t
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The Screwtape LettersMY DEAR WORMWO
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- Page 26 and 27: I see much (indeed more than I like
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