Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Hard and Soft (04/23/09)
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TITLE: Old Tricks Are The Best Tricks | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
04/27/09 -
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I thoroughly enjoyed receiving your letter a couple of weeks ago. Your tale of how your human spent Easter trying to feel the pain of the dreaded cross caused us much merriment. Twisting the words, “Take up your cross and follow me,” has given us endless pleasure. Bravo to you for ensuring your charge felt guilty every time she succumbed to a pleasurable feeling during that time. It keeps the vermin off kilter and their minds constantly on them and not the Enemy.
Using the Enemy’s words against your charge is another ingenious way to keep her second-guessing herself. It is best when you can get her to focus on a specific part of that dratted book and ignore the rest of it. You can temper her thoughts and steer them in specific paths. I would suggest you work on ‘signs from God’. The head honchos over at Hollywood (oooh how I hate them and revere them at the same time) have helped us tremendously with warping our charge’s minds with movies that are filled with ‘signs’ and feelings. I am never more gratified then when I hear one of my charges say, “I feel led…”
Take the hated handbook that the Enemy insists the parasites read, and put it in her mind that the Enemy will speak to her when she sits and lets it fall open on her lap. Now, here is where you have to be crafty. Make sure it falls open on words like, “Why do you harden your hearts as the Egyptians and Pharaoh did?” And seeing she thinks the Enemy leads by this method, she will panic, wondering whether the Enemy is telling her that her heart is hard. Then work on the technique I explained before. Keep her in a constant state of condemnation and guilt because the two feed off each other.
That is first half. If you are smart, get her into a blazing row with her husband; a real screaming match. Later, in an unguarded moment when she is alone and feeling appallingly guilty, direct her attention to that book. Take her to something like, “A soft answer turns away wrath: but harsh words stir up anger.” Now she is doubly condemned because in her mind she links the hardened heart verse with a screaming row, so of course her row was as a result of her hardened heart. See what a catch-22 situation you have her in? It’s perfect!
Do this a few more times. You can even take her back to those same phrases, because you will instill in her mind that it must be the Enemy telling her that her heart is hard. Be careful to keep the balance though. If you are too heavy-handed, she may realize it and call herself a silly goose and get on with her life the way the Enemy intended.
I look forward to hearing how this old trick works. I think it’s great that each new generation is caught in this trap. Sometimes the old tricks are the best tricks, eh?
Your loving Auntie
Diabolica
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In tribute to C. S Lewis and “The Screwtape Letters”
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Just one quibble: I wasn't sure that the expression 'silly goose' quite fitted in with the tone of the letter.
By the way, well done for remembering the acknowledgement to Lewis.