The Screwtape Letters | C.S. Lewis

I can safely say that I've never read a book where I consistently felt called out each time I picked it up to read... in a good way.

I think that's partially why it took me over a year to finish it.

Lewis is unbelievably well-written. Although intricately laid out, his thoughts come across very intentionally. It also helps that each chapter, or letter, is only a few pages long. This provides the reader with perfect intervals to digest what they've just read.

The book is written from the perspective of a demon writing to his nephew and giving him guidance on how to claim the soul of his human patient. It's really fascinating to read from the opposite perspective of the Christian worldview and contemplate the ways in which the devil works in our lives. - especially on such a subconscious level.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

• “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.”

• “Gratitude looks to the Past and love to the Present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead.”

• “For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”

• “Suspicion often creates what it suspects.”

• “When He [God] talks of their losing their selves, He means only abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boasts (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever.”

• “Prosperity knits a man to the world. He feels that he is finding his place in it, while really it is finding its place in him.”

• “The Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most temporal part of time--for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.”

• “Whatever their bodies do affects their souls."

• “Humans are amphibians...half spirit and half animal...as spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time, means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation--the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks.”

• “Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defence against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can’t touch and see. ”

• “A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all—and more amusing.”

• “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.”

• “Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that "suits" him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.”

• “He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand.”

• “It is always the novice who exaggerates.”

“Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's) you don't realize how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary.” - Screwtape

I thoroughly enjoyed this read - even though it took me so long to get through. I really wanted to take in and understand what I was reading from all angles.

I hope you enjoy it too! Let me know your thoughts.

Affectionately,

Julianna