The Speech

THE SPEECH

By jak981125

WARNING: CONTAINS MATERIAL UNSUITABLE FOR CHILDREN UNDER 13. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

Introduction: When C.S. Lewis opened the Screwtape letters, he warned that the devils do exist and take equal pleasure in two attitudes. The first is denial of their existence. The second is an unnatural fascination with them. Before reading please keep a few things in mind. First of all God is far more powerful and clever than Satan. Secondly it’s wise to know what deceptions the devils may try but generally it’s not a good idea to dwell on them too much. Third of all this work is being written from a Catholic point of view and is, of course, almost complete fiction and/or speculation. However I am hoping that people of all faiths may take something away from it. The setting is hell. A group of devils in training that have been assigned to tempt to graduating class of Lawndale (2002) is having a graduation of their own. They guest speaker is none other than Lewis’s Screwtape. The next voice you hear will be his.

My fellow colleagues, for that is what we must now call you, the life you are entering is one of the utmost importance. It is the only way of life we practitioners of temptation have. A human soul is worth more than all the riches of the earth. It is all we can do against the Enemy in our banishment. The day will come when life on earth will end and we will be put completely out of mind. The souls here, though roasting alive in the dark flames of our realm, will feel a coldness like they have never felt before when the distance between our realm and His becomes infinitely greater on that day. We must act while we can. You are the future for our brotherhood and as such I wish to give some parting words of wisdom to certain members of the graduating class on how to handle their patients. The rest of you pay heed as the advice I give them may aid you in your practice someday.

Jodie- Now for those of you who are sci-fi fans (I know some of you are out there, don’t deny it, I’m quite certain I heard fluent Klingon being spoken in the dorms) you will remember Yoda’s speech about fear. If I recall correctly fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. What our dear little green friend neglected to mention was these things have a delightful tendency towards damnation. Thus is the case with this patient. Once again two of our favorite tools are at work, fear and the sins of the parent. The patient has grown up in an affluent suburb, which is mostly white. Her mother suffered terrible racism during her younger years and even had one run in with our loyal servants in the Klan. Since then she has been hostile towards white people and treats them with great suspicion. Though she has not exactly convinced her daughter that every white family keeps even whiter sheets in their closets, the seeds are sewn. At school the patient saw a lack of multiculturalism and was horrified. Truth be, told it was mainly coincidence but she became resentful and frightened. Her level of stress around her mostly white classmates skyrocketed as she became increasingly convinced that all eyes were on her, just waiting for her to fail. She was convinced that she had to be… what was it she said… oh yes, queen of the Negroes. Yet it cannot be said truthfully that she faced any real racism. The most delicious irony of all was that she felt stressed at school around people who truly liked her and cared about her regardless but relaxed at home around her parents with a racist mother and a father that pushed her too hard. I daresay her practitioner has done a remarkable job. Now she’s off to an all black school that has it’s advantages and disadvantages. You must make sure she falls in with the wrong crowd. You must make sure she leaves that place hating white people, law enforcement, government, and predominantly white religion more than a trip to the dentist. I am well acquainted with the college she is attending and happily I can report you won’t have trouble exposing her to folks like that. The campus is crawling with them.

Jane- To be perfectly direct, you sir have failed completely. You have allowed your patient two things that will likely lead her to the Enemy. First of all you allowed her too much time with her thoughts, honest thoughts nonetheless. Though she grew up among unbelievers she has now come to the conclusion that there must be a creative intelligence or Supreme Being. You did nothing whatsoever to distract these thoughts. How stupid of you! And worse yet, you allowed her to have a real friend. Not one that would applaud every little piece of sarcastic claptrap that came out of her mouth but one that truly cared for her and would be honest with her. One that could very well help lead her to HIM! At one point you realized your mistake and tried to drive a wedge between her and this friend by using a love triangle. Then you sent her to an art camp that had the exact type of phony acquaintances that we would want her to have. It was, I admit, a clever plan EXCEPT THAT IT COMPLETELY BACKFIRED! If anything she is now far more likely to see through those types of people. One primary mistake you made was hoping to lead the patient to corruption by acquainting her with a patient that my cousin is having great success with. This girl made it all to obvious to your patient where she was headed and made her lonely for her friend. I offer you no advice but to hand this patient over to a more experienced practitioner and spend more time in school. Believe me, you don’t want to lose your patient to the Enemy. My nephew Wormwood made that mistake once and I’m sure he would warn you about it but sadly he is unable to do so. I am digesting him as we speak (and may I say the lad is giving me a rather sour stomach).

Upchuck- The patient has a streak of perversion a mile long that is uplifting. I take further delight once again as to how the sins of his parents as well as other people have given sufficient scandal to lead to grave damage to his soul. Thanks to a neighbor who liked to change with the curtains open he became voyeuristic at a very young age. Then there are the parents. I am much pleased with those two. They did little to stop his perverse attitudes as he was growing up. In fact they encouraged him (his father in particular). His parents made no objection to his use of pornography. In fact they felt was an art form and free speech. Also they taught him that masturbation was not only harmless, but healthy. I foresee his parents living in our father’s house very soon. And now he has committed his first act of fornication. It may well seem this patient is beyond redemption. And yet I wouldn’t be so cocky if I were you. When our brotherhood discovered the temptation of lust in the early days of man it was like the greatest gift in the world had been given to us, a gift that kept on giving. We were deliriously happy. The sixth and ninth commandment seemed to contain a huge amount of grave and addictive sinful actions. I can’t tell you how many souls we’ve taken this way. And yet…and yet something seems to have gone wrong. The perverse among men seem to have shown an alarming rate of repentance. Some can never break away from their behavior but some are so shocked by the harm it has inflicted on them and their loved ones that they have come to seek atonement. Surprisingly large numbers of them have reached the Enemy and more are continuing to do so. You cannot put all your faith in the perversion of your patient. Where then can you turn? Ah, the boy has another weakness. He is a coward. I’m sure you’ve been well educated in the effects of cowardice on the soul. Besides leading to anger it can cripple virtue, making true reconciliation a practical impossibility.

Andrea- I shall address the condition of this patient briefly but first I feel obligated to share a warning with you and your classmates about your attitude towards her. I know well that you lust for her. Silly stupid fool, do you not see what you are doing? Were you not clearly taught that the doctor-patient relationship must be kept strictly professional in particular when you feel attraction to the patient? You did read Scupoli, did you not? I once had a dear friend name Asmodeus. He was a master of our profession and I thought he always would be. Sadly he has been forced into early retirement. You see, before the days of the Enemy’s presence on earth he was assigned to a Jewish patient name Sarah. He got it into his head that she could be driven to suicide. He tried to study her carefully to see how to accomplish this when he made his fatal mistake: he fell deeply in lust with her and longed for her affections. He became obsessed with her to the point where he actually believed he loved her. When she married, his jealousy knew no bounds. He devised his suicide scheme unwisely. He killed her husband before there was an opportunity to consummate the marriage. He did so to the next six men she married. Seven souls potentially lost to us because of his lust for one. This Enemy was moved to action. Now to be fair Sarah was strongly tempted towards suicide but resisted because of the love she had for her family and her strong conscience, which Asmodeus could not fracture. She still prayed for death but was unwilling to bring it about herself. The Enemy sent out one of his three most trusted agents, a fiend named Raphael, to remedy the situation, and that he did. He delivered Sarah a husband who he had trained to expel demons. Once Asmodeus was exorcised from her he was alone and vulnerable. Raphael bound him and left him in the desert where he remains to this day. Let that be a lesson to you. As far as your patient is concerned I was pleased to see her recent act of fornication. I suspect she did it more for the sexual attention paid to her than for lust itself. She also drinks heavily. By all means use that. You see she is also proud and if she becomes an alcoholic she will not want to turn to any group that would have her rely on a higher power. You are also to continue to present to her a bad image of Christians. Her own parents claim to be Christians but act hypocritically. I say to you all once again that the sins of the parents are a beautiful thing. Make sure that she comes across no positive images of Christianity. Keep in mind your patient believes in and fears hell (ironically enough her classmates often mistake her for a worshiper of our father). Should this become a problem there is a common yet simple solution. Emphasize spirituality but not religion. Make sure she lives not by the rules of any legitimate religion but by her own (or more to the point, ours).

Mack- The patient is supposedly a Baptist. In his mind he believes no confessor is needed for the forgiveness of sin. He does believe one must truly repent to be forgiven. This is where you strike. Do this sound familiar: “If Loving You Is Wrong I Don’t Want To Be Right”? You’d be amazed how many people who consider themselves religious will try to either make up their own rules about right and wrong in defiance of their faith or take a proud stubborn attitude about particular sins they’ve committed and refuse to repent. On three occasions he fornicated with his girlfriend. He lost his virginity to her. He knows these acts to be sinful but regards them as precious memories and important milestones in his life. By no means is this his only offense but it gives you a general idea of how you can get to him. He is more selfish than anyone who knows him might suspect and considers his own wants often above the Ten Commandments. Sometimes he doesn’t even try to justify himself. I’ve actually heard him thinking, “Well then I’ll just go to hell” Deep down I don’t think he really believes it. And his image of our kind and our domain is hardly accurate. He, like so many Americans, sees us as cartoonish figures with red pajamas and pitchforks. This deception is very helpful for us. He must not be allowed to contemplate on what hell really is like. ALSO ABOVE ALL ELSE NEVER LET HIM CONTEMPLATE THE CONCEPT OF ETERNITY. We are often laughed off because humans think they can handle discomfort. They handle it only because any suffering they go through is temporary. If one of them stopped to think for just one minute what is would be like to suffer eternally, even if they underestimate the agony here, it would be disastrous.

Kevin- With this patient you have made a couple serious mistakes. You see he is not only very selfish but he is stupid. He lives with his own pleasure in mind and seems to get just what he wants. He must continue to do so. He must prosper all his life and sit in the lap of luxury. Your mistakes were to allow him to injure his knee and flunk high school. IT MADE HIM THINK! Patients like him are best left to seek their own pleasure and to succeed immensely in life while often bringing misery to others. Think about it. He has been rich, athletic, popular, good-looking, and spoiled. He’s committed plenty of sins but everything desirable that could happen to him has, so why should he bother giving even a moment’s thought to his life? If you cause him suffering HE JUST MIGHT! Let’s try to put him back on top of the world as soon as we can, ok? And as for Brittany, well she might not be the best influence for him. She’s gotten a little smarter and developed self-respect. He wants a girlfriend for two reasons and two reasons only: status and sex. She is beginning to want more out of life and he would be happier if she was mute and a tad bit more loose. It won’t happen, so you need to find him the kind of woman that is twice as attractive as Brittany and three times as dumb. He doesn’t want a real woman, he wants a Barbie doll. He must be made to enjoy life. Inevitably, he will eventually face misery for the way he lives. Let’s hope he is either dead by then or too corrupted to change. If not, try anything you can to prevent him from reaching any proper conclusions.

Brittany- This girl is beginning to find self-worth. She thought of herself as a mere sex object before. Why did you allow her attitude to change? She would have sinned continually and at the first signs of old age gone into despair. She might have even killed herself. She is starting to discover true pleasures and that is something that absolutely must not happen. Try afflicting her with guilt and self-hatred. We’ll see what that does to her attitude.

Daria: In your letters you have expressed concern over her attitude, which seems to be improving somewhat. I wouldn’t worry too much. She still is quite flippant, cynical, and still holds humans in general in low esteem. It was quite lucky for us she wound up going to college in Boston. Few states have as many liberals as Massachusetts. Why liberals, you may ask? Won’t she suffer more around conservative classmates? Why, liberals seem so well intentioned; they seem to want to help people. True, but it was wisely said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Liberals have a few major flaws we’ve managed to exploit. One is that they tend to believe the end justifies the means. Another is that they work so hard to save some people from other people that they seem to hold human nature itself in low regard. Thus kind-hearted people can become nasty, suspicious, and unethical. Oh the things we can do to people. And even better, think about what people like that will do to you patient’s view of life. I would caution you to make sure she spends as little time as possible with her friend for both their sakes. She needs to be with people who will show her that life is one big joke and that people in general are stupid jerks. What do you think her chances of reaching the Enemy are with that sort of mindset?

In conclusion let me give you a few crucially important reminders. First and foremost, we WILL lose the war with heaven. You didn’t think they enemy had any intention of setting himself up to lose, did you? This is a forgone conclusion. Thus it becomes extremely important that we win every battle we can. The only harm we can inflict on the Enemy is to rob him of his favorite possessions (a place of honor we once held, I remind you). Secondly, the truth is our enemy. Never ever let your patient see the truth unless you intend to mix portions of it with deception. Third of all, try to make your patients as introverted as possible at all times. And fourth and most important of all DO NOT LOSE YOUR PATIENT TO THE ENEMY! Anyone who makes that blunder will be sent to the career counselor, that gentleman over there with the guillotine. Good luck to all of you. You’ll need it.

Disclaimer: What credit can I take? None of the characters here are of my creation.