Wait a minute here. Wasn’t it just in the last letter that Screwtape wrote – Consider too what undesirable deaths occur in wartime. Men are killed in places where they knew they might be killed and to which they go, if they are at all of the Enemy’s party, prepared. So why is it that now – in the very next letter – Screwtape is delighted to hear that the patient may be called up to war? What’s different now?
Screwtape Letter #6 – Questions More
We may hope for a good deal of cruelty and unchastity. But, if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy, while tens of thousands who do not go so far as that will nevertheless have their attention diverted from themselves to values and causes which they believe to be higher than the self.
Screwtape Letter #5 – Discussion Guide More
We may hope for a good deal of cruelty and unchastity. But, if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy, while tens of thousands who do not go so far as that will nevertheless have their attention diverted from themselves to values and causes which they believe to be higher than the self.
Screwtape Letter #5 – Questions More
Screwtape encourages getting the patient to either react against childhood experiences or to assume a level of prayer far in advance of what he is really prepared for. These both make sense – they will make it harder for the patient to focus on God , instead focusing on the act of trying to pray. But then he says It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. Why would keeping things out of our mind be their goal?
Screwtape Letter #4 – Discussion Guide More
Screwtape encourages getting the patient to either react against childhood experiences or to assume a level of prayer far in advance of what he is really prepared for. These both make sense – they will make it harder for the patient to focus on God , instead focusing on the act of trying to pray. But then he says It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. Why would keeping things out of our mind be their goal?
Screwtape Letter #4 – Questions More
“Keep his mind on the inner life. …You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.”
Screwtape Letter #3 – Discussion Guide More
“Keep his mind on the inner life. …You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself which are perfectly clear to anyone who has ever lived in the same house with him or worked in the same office.”
Screwtape Letter #3 – Questions More
Things sounded rather well for Screwtape and Wormwood at the end of the first letter.
Letter #2 doesn’t start quite so well. Not well at all – from their point of view.
Screwtape Letter #2 – Discussion Guide More
Things sounded rather well for Screwtape and Wormwood at the end of the first letter.
Letter #2 doesn’t start quite so well. Not well at all – from their point of view.
Screwtape Letter #2 – Questions More
And so it begins, but notice that it’s not at the beginning. Screwtape is responding to a letter that Wormwood wrote – but we don’t get to read. In fact – we never get to read what Wormwood writes – much as we never really get to “hear” what Satan “says” to us.
Screwtape Letter #1 – Questions More
