Screwtape Letters - C. S. Lewis [0]
C. S. Lewis
with
Screwtape Proposes a Toast
To J. R. R. Tolkien
The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.
LUTHER
The devil…the prowde spirite…cannot endure to be mocked.
THOMAS MORE
Contents
Epigraph
Preface
I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence which…
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear Wormwood,
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My dear, my very dear, Wormwood, my poppet, my pigsnie,…
Screwtape Proposes a Toast
About the Author
Other Books by C. S. Lewis
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
PREFACE
I have no intention of explaining how the correspondence which I now offer to the public fell into my hands.
There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. The sort of script which is used in this book can be very easily obtained by anyone who has once learned the knack; but ill-disposed or excitable people who might make a bad use of it shall not learn it from me.
Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle. I have made no attempt to identify any of the human beings mentioned in the letters; but I think it very unlikely that the portraits, say, of Fr Spike or the patient’s mother, are wholly just. There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.
In conclusion, I ought to add that no effort has been made to clear up the chronology of the letters. Number 17 appears to have been composed before rationing became serious; but in general the diabolical method of dating seems to bear no relation to terrestrial time and I have not attempted to reproduce it. The history of the European War, except in so far as it happens now and then to impinge upon the spiritual condition of one human being, was obviously of no interest to Screwtape.
C. S. LEWIS
MAGDALEN COLLEGE,
5 JULY 1941
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My dear Wormwood,
I note what you say about guiding your patient’s reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïve? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines as primarily ‘true’ or ‘false’, but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical’, ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary’, ‘conventional’ or ‘ruthless. Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous—that it is the philosophy of the future.