Snakelips #6

Dearest Snakelips,
I need not express to you the great disappointment I had on hearing that your happily nominal 'Christian' patient is now evaluating her faith. You know yourself what awaits you if this is allowed to continue.
Now, how to correct this? Your first tactic must be to distract her from the faith and especially from the Thing the faith is in. This can be done in many ways, and their changeable natures almost does our job for us, though the Enemy will often compensate for their short attention spans when they get on this track. When this happens we are in great danger, but we still have our first and last line of defence. Draw their attention inward. Bring up how clever they are for thinking about the supernatural. Have her ask herself if this will make her a "better person", and then get her caught up in what a "better person" does. The Enemy seems to want all their attention on Himself and none on themselves. Trusting Him in everything even when that means distrusting themselves. This is our greatest opportunity for attack because since the Garden Victory we have been training humankind to trust themselves supremely and indiscriminately. In spite of all the evidence of their wills and instincts being wrong, they continue to make this mistake. O the euphoria of it! The continual disappointment, verging on insanity. Ask her things like, what does she want? Will this make her happy? Will it make her more likeable? Will it change her life too much?
Encourage her to try all by herself to be nicer, call it a "trial run". As she fails over and over in this (it's impossible without the Enemy, and indeed, beside the point) offer the experiment as proof of the Enemy's falsity, or double nature, or betrayal. Slander Him as best you can. The Enemy wants to help her every step of the way, wants to make her a new creature who desires others' good above her own, and doesn't resent it. You must make her think she is alone and struggling uphill. As long as she thinks that, she will be. Point out every failure and mock it. In the end she will be happy to go back to the natural life she was living, and you can use her foray into 'Christianity' to needle her whenever she needs reminding.

Screwtape

snakelips #5

Dear Snakelips,
I would like to again draw your attention to some Philological triumphs. Right now that Department is focusing on acronyms. For example: YOLO (You Only Live Once), might seem to mean take caution and care with their frail mortal shells, but what it actually connotes is "Live fast and die young", which was embraced in the last generation. It is always beneficial to put new names to old things, it brings a sense of novelty that humans always stumble into. On the heels of this we've introduced FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) which is treated simultaneously as something to be guilty and proud of. It is wonderful that they are able to see the folly of their behaviour, put a name to it, and then wear it like a badge of honour.
The underlying Goal is that every reckless and dangerous inclination of their silly hearts would be embraced and pursued. We have put a lot of work in the last centuries into condemning repression. That work is now bearing fruit in this generation so that they condemn any sort of restraint at all. Every desire is pursued, every experience tested, and we reap a harvest ripe with bitterness and betrayal and chaos. This is of course a direct attack on the Enemy's Joy of patience. The concept of putting something off until the right time cannot even be raised by his servants without mass rejection based on the "dangers of repression". In a few hundred years we may reverse it and encourage abstention from everything good and bad, but for now this is serving well.
What we want is for them to consume themselves with experiencing everything and then die unexpectedly because of it.
They only die once,
Screwtape