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I too have heard the rumors that our master has gone before the Enemy with some request. Such moments always stir a delicious anticipation among the Lowerarchy. These are those rare occasions when He permits us to act openly, as in that long-ago episode with Job.
Unfortunately, the Enemy turned that ordeal to His own nauseating advantage, and the wretched man proved maddeningly resistant to our finest temptations. Still, we must not lose heart. Every new indulgence granted to our master is another chance to corrupt what the Enemy means for good.
You used the word antichrist, my dear Wormwood. What an exquisite word. Your patients in America, I understand, have long cherished a most specific expectation of the Antichrist, though we know there have been many such creatures, as even the Enemy’s own book concedes. Here in Britain, that particular strain of thought never quite took root, but I gather it has flourished splendidly in your colonies these past two centuries.
Our agents have exploited that species of interpretation to admirable effect. For many, it has become a most convenient distraction from the weightier matters of faith. They pore over portents and omens -- signs which, of course, are always found by those determined to see them. Each generation sets its dates and peers behind every bush for the Enemy’s return, never noticing that the last generation died waiting in precisely the same posture.
We ourselves, of course, know nothing of the appointed hour, although the prospect of it is, I assure you, horrifyingly real to us. Yet how splendid a diversion it provides! While they chart the heavens and argue about the timing of their rescue, they neglect every opportunity to do the Enemy’s work on earth. They convince themselves the ship is sinking beyond repair and so settle comfortably into the lifeboat, humming hymns while the Titanic goes down.
What thrills me beyond measure is the success with which you have led so many churchgoers to look for the Antichrist in precisely the wrong direction. How I savor that prophecy in the Enemy’s Book that even the “very elect” might be deceived! All our recent exchanges suggest fertile ground indeed to persuade countless souls within the Church that the Antichrist is the Messiah, and that those who resist him are the true antichrists.
What an exquisite “man of lawlessness” you might cultivate. I could see you doing it not merely under the noses of Christians, but with their enthusiastic blessing! The notion is simply splendid. And, of course, we cannot yet foresee how the Enemy will permit these final scenes to unfold. The fulfillment of His Book has so often confounded our expectations. Who is to say He will not choose to play out the drama according to America’s peculiar imagination of it?
Do keep me apprised of any word you hear concerning the master’s proposal, though I can scarcely imagine that one of your rank would receive such intelligence before myself.
Your doting Uncle,
Screwtape
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Previous chapters
- 1 -- The Operations
- 2 -- The Veil Technique
- 3 -- The Fog
- 4 -- Hard Hearts
- 5 -- Focus on Feelings
- 6 -- Blinding Indignation
- 7 -- Spiritual Inoculation
- 8 -- The Fumes of the Enemy
- 9 -- Moral Inversion
- 10 -- Reliable Race
- 11 -- Misdirection
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