The Screwtape Letters

Each letter is a masterpiece of reverse theology, giving the reader an inside look at the thinking and means of temptation. Tempters, according to Lewis, have two motives: the first is fear of punishment, the second a hunger to consume or dominate other beings. On the other hand, the goal of the Creator is to woo us unto himself or to transform us through his love from "tools into servants and servants into sons." It is the dichotomy between being consumed and subsumed completely into another's identity or being liberated to be utterly ourselves that Lewis explores with his razor-sharp insight and wit.

The most brilliant feature of The Screwtape Letters may be likening hell to a bureaucracy in which "everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment." We all understand bureaucracies, be it the Department of Motor Vehicles, the IRS, or one of our own making. So we each understand the temptations that slowly lure us into hell. If you've never read Lewis, The Screwtape Letters is a great place to start. And if you know Lewis, but haven't read this, you've missed one of his core writings. --Patricia Klein

Product Description

In this humorous and perceptive exchange between two devils, C. S. Lewis delves into moral questions about good vs. evil, temptation, repentance, and grace. Through this wonderful tale, the reader emerges with a better understanding of what it means to live a faithful life.

First published in 1941, The Screwtape Letters, a perennial best seller, has earned a place in the library of classics. The truths contained in C. S. Lewis's treatise on human nature are as old as the world, but his witty observations continue to confront and challenge believers and nonbelievers alike.

The outcome of Screwtape's correspondence is not known. But judging from his final signoff -- "Your increasingly and ravenously affectionate uncle" -- his appetite for evil has not lessened.

I was a Christian for 12+ years before I picked up this little volume and it was of inestimable worth for me, but I regretted not having read it much sooner.

It's one of those books (like E. L. Prentiss's "Stepping Heavenward") that feels like it was written JUST for you. "Screwtape Letters" has that same feel - that C. S. Lewis crawled into your consciousness and described every mental battle you've ever had - and explains that those subtle arguments which steered you away from spiritual growth, were cleverly disguised devilish whispers. As Lewis points out, the path to hell is a gentle slope.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn how to differentiate between God's thoughts and the lies of evil. "Screwtape Letters" pulls back the curtain and reveals evil's best kept secrets and oh-so subtle tricks.


Speak of the Devil   December 28, 2005
Mark Blackburn (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)
109 out of 117 found this review helpful

Today I loaned a copy of "Screwtape" to a young woman - the receptionist where I work -- who just celebrated her 21st birthday. I HOPE she enjoys it, even as I wonder if a fifty year old book could strike a chord with her -- the way it did with me, when I was her age. She seemed eager enough to borrow a copy (I have two) just as soon as I described the book's delightful premise:

"Screwtape" I told her, "is letters from a senior devil to a junior devil - and it's the funniest thing C.S. Lewis ever wrote - Have you heard of C.S. Lewis?" I asked. "No? Well he authored `Narnia.' (Neither of us has seen the movie yet.)

I told her 'Screwtape' is funny because (like all good humor) it seems so TRUE. Or at least you want to BELIEVE it's real, as `Screwtape' the experienced devil coaches his nephew `Wormwood' in his first assigned task: to "secure the damnation" of his 'patient' -- a young man who has just become a Christian.

As with "Narnia," the story unfolds in wartime (WWII) England. That's a long time ago for someone 21 years old and "I'm really interested" I said "to find out if the 'dialogue' of this book still speaks to someone your age."

"Personally, I think it would make good movie" I said. "It has been made into a talking book - read, I think, by John Cleese - the funny guy who starred in the movie `A Fish Called Wanda" - I read somewhere he's recorded a version of `Screwtape.' "

----

So . . after loaning that copy of "Screwtape" today, I opened, at random, my OTHER copy -- it fell open to page 24 -- and I re-discovered why I've loved this book so much for so many years.

It's the sort of book you can open almost anywhere - years after you first read it -- and find yourself laughing out loud - and falling in love once again, with the written magic of C.S. Lewis at his 'finest hour.' Well here, if you can spare two minutes -- get comfortable and see if this random sampling, from page 24, "Chapter IV" -- 'speaks' to YOU:

----

"My dear Wormwood, The amateurish suggestions in your latest letter warn me that it is high time for me to write to you fully on the painful subject of prayer . . .

"The best thing, where possible, is to keep the `patient' (the young man who is spiritually up for grabs) from the serious intention of praying. When (someone like him) is an adult, recently re-converted to the Enemy' (Screwtape's term for Christianity's founder) - such as your man, this is best done by encouraging him to remember - or to THINK he remembers - the parrot-like nature of his prayers in childhood.

"In reaction against that, he may be persuaded to aim at something entirely spontaneous, inward, informal, and `un-regularized' And what this will actually mean to a beginner will be an effort to produce in himself a vaguely devotional MOOD . . . in which real concentration of will and intelligence have no part.

"One of their poets, Coleridge, has recorded that he did not pray `with moving lips and bended knees' but merely `composed his spirit to love' and indulged a `sense of supplication.' That is EXACTLY the sort of prayer we want; and since it bears a superficial resemblance to the prayer of silence, as practiced by those who are far advanced in the Enemy's service, clever and lazy `patients' can be taken in by it for quite a long time.

"At the very LEAST, they can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.

"It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things OUT.

"If this fails, you MUST fall back on a subtler misdirection of his intention. Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards themselves.

"Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce FEELINGS there, by the action of their own wills. (So that) when they meant to ask Him for Charity, let them instead start trying to manufacture charitable feelings for themselves - and not notice that this is what they are doing.

"When they are meant to pray for courage, let them really be trying to FEEL brave. When they say they are praying for forgiveness, let them be trying to FEEL forgiven. Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feelings, and NEVER let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment.

"But of course, the Enemy will not meantime be idle. Whenever there is prayer there is danger of HIS own immediate action. He is cynically indifferent to the dignity of HIS position (and to OURS as pure spirits!) and to human animals on their knees He pours out self-knowledge in quite shameless fashion.

"But even if He defeats your first attempt at misdirection, we have a subtler weapon . . ."

After describing that more subtle `weapon' in detail, -- and it concerns the true nature of God as opposed to the `composite images' that can be "derived from pictures of the Enemy as He appeared during (His) Incarnation" (20 centuries earlier) Screwtape advises his green nephew:

"Whatever the nature of his composite (picture of the `Enemy') you must keep your `patient' praying to IT - to the thing that he has made - be it something in his own head or a crucifix on the wall - and NOT to the Person who has made him.

"You may even encourage him to attach great importance to the correction and improvement of his composite object, and to keep it steadily in his imagination during the whole prayer. For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers `Not to what I think thou art, but to what thou knowest thyself to be,' our situation is, for the moment, desperate."

The good news, says the `senior devil,' is that, "in avoiding this situation - the real nakedness of the human soul in prayer - you will be helped by the fact that the humans themselves do not desire it as much as they suppose. There's such a thing as getting more than they bargained for!"

That "more than they bargained for," Screwtape explains (earlier in this same chapter) is that humans (at least the majority, who are far from saints) - "have never known that ghastly luminosity, that stabbing and searing glare (of true self-knowledge) which makes the background of permanent pain in our own lives (as devils).

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape.

-----

Late in life C.S. Lewis was asked WHY he never wrote a sequel (apart from a few pages entitled, "Screwtape Proposes a Toast"). The greatest of Christian `apologists' replied in effect, that it "hurt" him too much -- to maintain within himself the necessary state-of-mind where he was thinking purely as a devil -- in order that Screwtape's words could pour from his pen onto paper.

Living 'inside' "Screwtape" Lewis experienced an exhausting -- even terrifying -- spiritual/psychological torment that he was NEVER prepared to re-visit. Despite the fact this little book was, until "Narnia," his most enduring source of fame - so much so, it got C.S. Lewis onto the cover of TIME magazine -- fifty years ago -- a red cartoon devil on his shoulder, poised -- it seemed -- to whisper sweet words of prideful praise into Lewis' deaf ear.

Mark Blackburn
Winnipeg Canada



A review of "The Screwtape Letters" By: C.S. Lewis   October 26, 2000
Hilah (USA)
27 out of 28 found this review helpful

"The Screwtape Letters" is the absolute best book I have ever read. It is a very well written book. It really makes you think. C.S. Lewis' style is exquisite. He paints with words as an artist paints with pictures and a musician with notes and rhythms. While still being the best book I have ever read, it is also one of the strangest. Screwtape, an experienced devil, teaches his nephew, Wormwood, how to win a soul over from the so-called "Enemy", who is the Lord Jesus Christ. While he is doing this, he teaches the reader about the techniques that Satan uses to distract Christians away from God. Therefore, he is teaching us how to live better Christian lives and avoid giving in to temptations. He shows us through the example of his nephew, Wormwood, trying to win over a particular Englishmen. He tries to make him think that what he is doing is not sin. Even though, in the end, the man is not won over, we see how so many people go astray without even realizing it. This is an excellent book and I would reccomend it to anyone looking for a challenging book to read.


thought provoking and inspiring long after you've read it   July 17, 2000
Shelley Shay (Denton, TX **(God Bless the USA!!)**)
39 out of 43 found this review helpful

"The Screwtape Letters" is one of those books that teaches you a lesson without you even realizing it... or even if you do, it's in the most non-threatening manner imaginable. It's akin to learning about duty and loyalty from watching "Star Wars." The work takes the concept of "the Devil's advocate" to a whole new level. By a strange set of circumstances (covered in the book's Introduction/Forward), we are privy to private written correspondence from one devil to another devil on the finer points of directing their "patient" to think evil thoughts and to commit evil deeds.

The concept of a little devil sitting on your shoulder is magnified by the dubious fiends whose ultimate goal is consume the souls of those they lead astray as though they were food. Lewis brings forth several ways of re-thinking how we think and addressing the real heart of the matter. The book is an easy read and is entertaining to boot. Lewis intended this work (as his other books such as "The Narnia Chronicles" and "The Great Divorce") to be a fantasy that teaches, not a dramatized version of doctrine. Regardless of your background or your beliefs, the book's underlying themes concern the true nature of good an evil and how we use our will to apply good or evil onto those we care about and onto those we don't.


The Hell's-Eye View   August 14, 2002
Sammy Jo (Midwest)
22 out of 23 found this review helpful

C.S. Lewis has said that he found it painful to write this book since it required him to spend days on end thinking upside-down. But it is lucky for us that he did, since the result is a book that both delights and enlightens.

THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS documents the correspondence between Screwtape, a senior devil, and his nephew Wormwood, a novice tempter. Wormwood's mission is to win a soul for the underworld, and Screwtape offers him the accumulated iwdom of Hell on how to accomplish it. The result is a well-laid out map to the pitfalls to which we humans are all-too prey. Lewis' had great insight into human weakness, especially the uncanny way ou pride pops into almost every thought we might have. He is also alert to the ways our unquestioned assumtions can lead us astray. As Socrates said, the first step towards wisdom is to "know thyself" - and the tempters in this book do all they can to prevent that from happening.

Lewis, of course, is a Christian, but THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS are useful to any person who is seriously engaged on the spiritual quest. I read this book about once a year, and am always chagrined to find that Screwtape is still one step ahead of me! (And he is unfailingly eloquent to boot.)

This volume includes "Screwtape proposes a toast" which employs the same technique to discuss modern education. I find this a weaker part of the volume. It seems Lewis could have done more with the concept, but his arguments about the failings of modern education are much sharper in his book, THE ABOLITION OF MAN.

Still, this is an invaluable volume. It is the book that I most often give away to people - it is laugh-out-loud funny, and sadly all-too true.