Lesson 1 (ch 1-11) The Screwtape Letters Mrs. Stephanie Loomis Through the Lens with C.S. Lewis 2012-2013

1. 3 October 2012
“You never know how much you
really believe anything until its truth
or falsehood becomes a matter of
life and death to you.”
C. S. Lewis
A Grief Observed

3. July 20, 1940 letter to his brother
Warren:
Humphrey came up to see me last
night… and we listened to Hitler’s
speech together. I don’t know if I’m
weaker than other people: but it is
a positive revelation to me
how while the speech lasts it is
impossible not to waver just a little.
I should be useless as a
schoolmaster or a policeman.
Statements which I know to be
untrue all but convince me, at any
rate for the moment, if only the
man says them unflinchingly. The
same weakness is why I am a
slow examiner: if a candidate with
a bold, mature handwriting
attributed Paradise Lost to
Wordsworth, I shd. feel a tendency
to go and look it up for fear he
might be right after all.

4.  The idea for a book  The book may be
called As One Devil to reasonably easy to
Another came to Lewis read, but it was
at church, telling his unpleasant to write:
brother, “The idea would
be to give all the Though I had never
psychology of written anything
temptation from the more easily, I never
other point of view.” wrote with less
 He wanted to strike a enjoyment…
balance between the Though it was easy
ideas that demons don‟t to twist one’s mind
exist or they hold
supernatural power over into the diabolical
humans. attitude, it was not
fun, or not for long.

5.  October 25–November 1, 1936
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy sign a treaty of cooperation on October
25; on November 1, the Rome-Berlin Axis is announced.
 November 25, 1936
Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sign the Anti-Comintern
Pact, directed against the Soviet Union and the international Communist
movement.
 July 7, 1937
Japan invades China, initiating World War II in the Pacific.
 March 11–13, 1938
Germany incorporates Austria in the Anschluss.
 September 29, 1938
Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France sign the Munich agreement
which forces the Czechoslovak Republic to cede the
Sudetenland, including the key Czechoslovak military defense
positions, to Nazi Germany.
 March 14–15, 1939
Under German pressure, the Slovaks declare their independence and
form a Slovak Republic. The Germans occupy the rump Czech lands in
violation of the Munich agreement, forming a Protectorate of Bohemia
and Moravia.
 March 31, 1939
France and Great Britain guarantee the integrity of the borders of the
Polish state.

6.  April 7–15, 1939
Fascist Italy invades and annexes Albania.
 August 23, 1939
Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union sign a nonaggression
agreement and a secret codicil dividing eastern Europe into
spheres of influence.
 September 1, 1939
Germany invades Poland, initiating World War II in Europe.
 September 3, 1939
Honoring their guarantee of Poland‟s borders, Great Britain and
France declare war on Germany.
 September 17, 1939
The Soviet Union invades Poland from the east.
 September 27–29, 1939
Warsaw surrenders on September 27. The Polish government
flees into exile via Romania. Germany and the Soviet Union
divide Poland between them.
 November 30, 1939–March 12, 1940
The Soviet Union invades Finland, initiating the so-called Winter
War. The Finns sue for an armistice and have to cede the
northern shores of Lake Lagoda and the small Finnish coastline
on the Arctic Sea to the Soviet Union.

8. What is the
effect of the
He doesn’t think of internet on
doctrines as primarily ‘true’
or ‘false’, but as ‘academic’ action and
or ‘practical’, ‘outworn’ or
‘contemporary’, reason?
‘conventional or ruthless’.
Jargon, not argument, is On logic?
your best ally is keeping
him from the Church. (127)
On belief?

9.  How has Satan
used the “stream
of immediate
sense
experiences” to
influence the
Church? (127)
 Sight
 Sound
 Smell
 Taste
 Touch

10.  How has Satan
used the “stream
 Music
of immediate
sense
experiences” to
influence the
Church? (127)
 Sight
 Sound
 Smell
 Taste
 Touch

11.  How has Satan
used the “stream
 Music
of immediate
 Lights
sense
experiences” to
influence the
Church? (127)
 Sight
 Sound
 Smell
 Taste
 Touch

12.  How has Satan
used the “stream
 Music
of immediate
 Lights
sense
experiences” to  Spectacle
influence the
Church? (127)
 Sight
 Sound
 Smell
 Taste
 Touch

13.  How has Satan
used the “stream
 Music
of immediate
 Lights
sense
experiences” to  Spectacle
influence the  Activities
Church? (127)
 Sight
 Sound
 Smell
 Taste
 Touch

14.  How has Satan
used the “stream
 Music
of immediate
 Lights
sense
experiences” to  Spectacle
influence the  Activities
Church? (127)  Personality
 Sight
 Sound
 Smell
 Taste
 Touch

15.  How has Satan  Music
used the “stream
 Lights
of immediate
sense  Spectacle
experiences” to  Activities
influence the  Personality
Church? (127)  People
 Sight
 Sound
 Smell
 Taste
 Touch

16. How do the
distractions
of daily life
interfere with
your ability
and/or
willingness
to hear God
speak?

17. The people we know…

18. Make his mind flit to Work hard, then on
and fro between an the disappointment or
expression like ‘the anticlimax which is
mind of Christ’ and the certainly coming to
actual faces in the the patient during his
next pew. (129) first few weeks as a
churchman. The
Enemy allows this
disappointment to
occur on the threshold
of every human
endeavor. (129)

19. Desiring their freedom, He
therefore refuses to carry
them, by their mere
affections and habits, to any
of the goals which He sets
before them: He leaves
them to ‘do it on their own’.
And there lies our
opportunity. But also,
remember, there lies our
danger. If ones they get
through this initial dryness
successfully, they become
much less dependent on
emotion and therefore much
harder to tempt. (130)

20. How does Satan use
family to trip us up in our
walk of faith? (131)

21. What is false prayer? (133-134)

22. Consider too what undesirable
deaths occur at wartime. Men
are killed in places where they
knew they might be killed and
to which they go, if they are at
Letter Five
all of the Enemy’s
party, prepared. How much
better for us if all humans died
in costly nursing homes amid
doctors who lie, nurses who
lie, friends who lie, as we have
trained them, promising life to
the dying, encouraging the
belief that sickness excuses
every indulgence, and even, if
our workers know their
job, withholding all suggestion
of a priest lest it should betray
to the sick man his true
condition! (136)

23. “We want him to be in the maximum
uncertainty, so that his mind will be filled
with contradictory pictures of the future,
every one of which arouses hope or
fear. There‟s nothing like suspense and
anxiety for barricading a human‟s mind
against the Enemy.” (137)
How has this worked in your life?

24. “I have great hopes that we shall
learn in due time how to
emotionalise and mythologise their
science to such an extent that what
is, in effect, a belief in us (though
not under that name) will creep in
while the human mind remains
closed to belief in the Enemy. The
„Life Force‟, the worship of sex, and
some aspects of
psychoanalysis, may here prove
useful. If once again we can
produce our perfect work—the
Materialist Magician, the man, not
using, but veritably
worshipping, what he vaguely calls
How much „Forces‟ while denying the existence
closer are we of „spirits‟—then the end of the war
will be in sight.” (139)
today?

25. What are the four biggest fears of Screwtape
regarding his role in keeping humans safely
on the path to his Father‟s house?
The first three are on page 141; the last is on
page 142.
Why are these things important for US to
know in our society?

26. What is the “law of
undulation” and how
does it affect believers?
What kind of religion
does Screwtape find
amusing? Why?

27. Chapter Ten

28. Joy and Fun Joke Proper and Flippancy

29. Read The Screwtape Letters
chapters 12-21 (149-168)
Write a short essay exploring
how one of the tactics described
in these letters has been
attempted on you.
Create an image of how one of
these tactics might look in the
modern era.
Prepare a 3 slide show
presentation that includes your
artwork and how you did it.