Satan's Tactics Analysis

Human Mind vs. Satan’s Tactics

“As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are weakened. The more often he feels without acting, the less he will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less he will be able to feel.” – (Letter 13). Screwtape the superior demon has written to his naïve nephew (Wormwood), thirty-one letters on the ways of corrupting human beings, which to them are their favorite prey to attack and shred. C.S. Lewis opens the book by stating, “Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar.” (Preface) he clearly claims that Satan can easily deceive and manipulate the reader into believing his opinion. Repeatedly, Screwtape hits on the idea of mockery and folly

For sin starts with one simple thought from the mind, which leads to acting irrationally, if not stopped. Full of trickery and manipulation, the mind can form false thoughts and beliefs to be conceived as reality. Unfortunately, the mind is Satan’s best hiding spot, so dark, yet he is overly aware, but the mind of the human is not. Throughout the letters, Screwtape consistently communicates to Wormwood (referring to the prey/human) to “Fix his mind.” The key to true fixation of the mind is to cause the mind to think, then believe it. In this case, Screwtape and Wormwood yearn for humans to be miserable and become narcissistic. “There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human’s mind against the Enemy. He wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.” – Letter five. “You see the idea? Keep his mind off the plain antithesis between True and False.” – Letter nine. A battlefield filled with emotions, self-discernment, and fleshy wishes, the mind will be the human’s downfall unless the prey is aware of its

Seeking to destroy all relationships, Satan feeds off human’s ending misfortunes and sadness. When relationships are the hardest, the human is the most vulnerable because it involves emotions, which the devil has mastered. Relationships provide joy and comfort, and Satan despises it, so he will plant thoughts and it will be the human’s choice to let the seed take root or not. Wormwood had a patient who has a knit-picky mother and Wormwood wanted to slowly crumble apart their relationship. The suggestion of Wormwood affected the patient by producing self-absorption by only picking out the worst in people except himself and becoming irritated easily. “In time, you may get the cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling from his prayers for the imagined mother will ever flow over into his treatment. (Then jumping down a paragraph) “Your patient must demand that all of his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while the same time judging all of his mother’s utterances with the fullest and most oversensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention.” – Letter three. Slyly and easily, Satan instigated the patient’s emotions and pride, then proceeded to act on