Dearest Uncle Screwtape,
It has been some time since my last report, but developments here in the United States compel me to request additional personnel. I am pleased to inform you that our operations are enjoying a most gratifying revival – an outpouring of division and hate not witnessed since the delightful Civil War. But the Enemy is fighting too, and I fear that the tide could turn if we are not relentless in our war efforts.
In your earlier instructions, you cautioned me not to spend too much time trying to persuade patients of godless philosophy. And yet, to our delight, we have found in America a remarkable appetite for notions that have a hint of cleverness while being thoroughly poisonous. It is astonishing how readily they prefer slogans to those tiresome evidences of the truth. Best of all, we have contrived to affix the labels “Christian” and “patriotic” to ideas that are neither, which has advanced our cause immeasurably.
Our operations are presently divided among four divisions, each attending to a distinct set of patients.
The first concerns those whose appetites already incline them toward the gratification of rage and cruelty. In the past, they were compelled to hide these impulses. But already, we have made considerable progress in persuading the public that their savageries are in fact the sentiments of justice. They can increasingly express their cruelty in the open.
It is a most promising development. Families are broken. People vanish, and no one knows what has happened to them. You will understand the satisfaction our junior tempters take in granting the lawless so generous a license over the helpless – especially with no one there to see what they do.
The division about which I am most gratified is tasked to deceive Christians into working for us while convincing them that they are working for the Enemy. We have kept their gaze fixed on those few passages where judgment blazes – Sodom and Gomorrah, the slaughter at Carmel. Before long they can scarcely recall that any texts on "loving your enemy" exist. Empathy and mercy they now deride as excuses for sin.
What an exquisite perversion! We make them believe they are defending the Enemy while they labor against Him. Their tongues confess Him, but their hearts increasingly beat for us. With each passing day their zeal grows more reliable, and I trust you will find our progress worthy of commendation.
A third division profits handsomely from the errors of the second. Those who once strongly believed see with distressing clarity how large numbers of professing Christians are now laboring against the Enemy. The effect is predictable and useful. They grow skeptical of the faith. In time, if we are fortunate, they may consign the whole affair to the category of charade. What an excellent reverse conversion!
The final division is entrusted with the cultivation of spiritual sleepiness. Our task here is to tranquilize. We fix their attention on pleasant sermons and tuneful worship. Some of us think that, if we are very crafty, we can turn baptisms into an inoculation against any deep engagement. Once they have been suitably “dampened,” as it were, we will get them to focus on themselves and overlook the havoc we are effecting elsewhere. It is a modest operation, but full of potential.
There is ample scope to put ever more souls on a course for our master. What we lack is personnel. The difficulty is the persistent remnant who see and have not forsaken the Enemy. They pray. They fast. Their intercession is not showy, but we feel its pressure. To be frank, we are somewhat rattled. Any additional agents you can spare would be gratefully received. The campaign is only beginning.
Your nephew,
Wormwood
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