- 1 -- The Operations
- 2 -- The Veil Technique
- 3 -- The Fog
My dear Wormwood,
It is so very like a younger mind to mistake rediscovery for invention. You will learn, in time, that there is no new temptation under the sun. We only dress up old ones in modern attire. Still, I must commend your enthusiasm for what you have styled "the Fog." The Enemy’s resourcefulness demands that we employ every weapon in our arsenal, and that we keep each sharpened for every age.
Your recent missive reminds me how essential it is to work beneath the surface of a patient’s conscious thought. There are countless believers who would never consent to our notions if they saw them clearly. Many wander from the Enemy without ever intending to. Indeed, a single moment of awareness might send them scurrying back to Him. That is why some of our finest work is always done in the shadows of the mind, in the places where the soul drifts unawares.
And here, my dear Wormwood, lies the true genius of what you call "the Fog." You must see to it that the wrong direction is fixed beneath the surface. In its corruption, the human subconscious possesses a stubbornness most useful to us. Once set, it will defend its own errors even against the plainest evidence. Recall the Enemy’s time on earth. How astonishing it was that men could behold His wonders and yet oppose Him still! But that, of course, was our triumph. Their minds were veiled, yes, but more importantly, their hearts had been hardened beneath the surface.
Again, I dare say you have absorbed more of my instruction than you realize. I observe that the American populace -- and, most gratifyingly, vast numbers of churchgoers -- now tolerates offences they would never have stomached a mere decade ago. Indeed, some who raised their eyebrows at far less outrageous acts the first time around now seem enthusiastic. Some who once winced at far lesser outrages now defend them with zeal. You are veiling far more than you are willing to admit.
I see you are managing the escalation of violence with considerable success. Here, however, you must take care to raise the temperature gradually. A sudden blaze might yet alarm the sleepers. Many in your region have grown strangely enamored of the Enemy’s talk of love and compassion, even among the unbelieving. Indeed, some almost serve Him with their hearts, though their minds remain apart from Him at present. It is our triumph to draw those who profess Him with the intellect away from Him in heart.
In these beginning stages, the surest path to the acceptance of violence is to clothe it in the language of law and order. When cruelty runs to excess, we murmur that the lawbreaker had it coming. Think, for example, of the terrible reprisals recently visited on ordinary people and children in Gaza after the outrage we contrived to set ablaze between Israel and its foes. So many of the faithful were readily persuaded it was simply a just retribution for wrongs done. Once cruelty can be spoken of as justice, conscience falls silent.
I am delighted by the speed with which you are marshaling those who delight in cruelty under the banner of justice. Masked men now roam with near-total immunity, free to inflict whatever torments they please upon those conveniently labeled as “lawbreakers.” It recalls other glorious seasons when, for a time, we persuaded the Enemy’s own servants to defend oppression and even violence in the very name of righteousness.
In time, we even won some of them for our master through that same art of hardening. The longer they persisted in defending evils, the more difficult it became to confess they had been wrong. Pride, once wedded to falsehood, forms a shell that light can hardly penetrate.
I confess, I nearly lost my devilish composure in laughter when I learned that you had enlisted a supposed devotion to “free speech” as a means of silencing dissent. You may claim cleverness, my boy, but that stratagem was not of your invention.
Do not neglect the essential work of hardening the heart. Light can, on occasion, pierce even the densest fog. Should that occur, your patients must be so fixed in their blindness that they cannot turn toward the light. Remember, a hardened heart is deaf to the Enemy’s voice.
Your affectionate instructor,
Screwtape
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