A LETTER FROM HELL

C. S. Lewis

My Dear Wormwood,
     I note what you say about guiding your patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle na?f? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy's clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily “true” or “false”, but as “academic” or “practical”, “outworn” or “contemporary”, “conventional”' or “ruthless”. Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous--that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.
     The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy's own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below. By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it "real life" and don't let him ask what he means by "real".
     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. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear what He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said “Quite. In fact much too important to tackle at the end of a morning,” the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added “Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind,” he was already half way to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of "real life" (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all "that sort of thing" just couldn't be true. He knew he'd had a narrow escape and in later years was fond of talking about "that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic". He is now safe in Our Father's house. 
     You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. 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. There have been sad cases among the modern physicists. If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology; don' t let him get away from that invaluable "real life". But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is “the results of modern investigation”. Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!
 
Your affectionate uncle
 Screwtape
 

地狱来鸿之第一封信

亲爱的蠹木：

 你的馊主意我领教够了，说什么要好好管束阿蛮的阅读范围，并且刻意让他多多亲炙那位崇奉唯物主义的仁兄，你未免太天真了吧！听来好像你认为透过“理性的争辩”可以叫那小子免于落入老贼头的掌握。算了吧！如果他活在几世纪前，这招数或许管用。那时，什么说法可以成立，什么论点无法证实，大家一清二楚；一种理念一旦被证实，人人奉守不渝。那时的人仍把思想和行为视为一体，可以随着一连串理性认知的变革，更动自己的生活方式。如今呢？得力于报刊杂志及相关宣传利器的推波助澜，我方已经把这局面给彻底改观了。你那痞子从小就习惯满脑子里有成堆互不搭调的哲学在那里各吹各的号，他并非以“真”或“伪”来区别各样学说，对他而言，只有“学院的”、“实用的”、“落伍的”、“当代的”、“传统的”或“惊世骇俗的”之分。要让他对教会裹足不前，你的最佳搭档是大家一知半解的流行术语，而不是“理性的争辩”。别浪费时间说服他相信唯物论是“真理”！倒要让他认为这种时新的理念沛然莫之能御，够酷够炫，是未来的哲学，他信的是这一套。

理性的争辩会惹来麻烦，形同班门弄斧自讨没趣，须知那老贼头是此中高手。至于我刚才提到的那种顺应时潮、哗众取宠的宣传花招，有事实可资证明，我们在地下的父操弄的技法，比起老贼头来，可是精湛许多。讲什么道理？一讲起道理，你就把那痞子的理性给唤醒了，一旦他理性给挑起来结果如何谁能知道，纵使可以把他某一特定的思路给扭转过来，合乎我们的胃口，你会发现，理性的活动使他建立起足以置我们于死地的思维习惯，从此，他将把注意力从眼前感官经验所触发的意识流撤离，转而关切普遍性的论题。而你的任务却是促使他把注意力集中在意识流里，教导他美其名为“真实的人生”，不过，可千万别让他穷究所谓的“真实”意何所指。

记住，他可不像你是纯粹的灵体，从未有过生而为人的经验，你无法想象人是如何被习常的事物所拘囿。（说到作人的经验，那曾经道成肉身的XX真是得天独厚，想到就令我抓狂！）我曾经调教过一个痞子，他是道地的无神论者，平常喜欢到大英博物馆看看书。有天，正当他坐着阅读时，我察觉他的某道思绪开始出岔，不用说，那一刻间，老贼头正倚在他的手肘旁说教。眼看自己20年来的辛苦耕耘就要付诸流水，那当儿，我若一时急昏了头，拼命用理性争辩的方式反制对手，大概也就没戏唱了。总算我聪明绝顶，灵机一动，就从这人最容易受我掌控的部位下手，我提醒他该吃午餐了。老贼头当然不甘示弱，随即跟我唱反调，提醒他这事可比吃午餐重要，（大意如此，谁又能准确地听出他对人说的话？）至少我想他是这么说的，因为当我回应：“是啊！正因太重要了，不适合在累了一整个上午之后费心斟酌。”那小子立刻茅塞顿开。接着我又说：“最好等吃过中饭，头脑清醒了，再彻底考虑一番。”一溜眼，这家伙早已起身往门口走去。只要他踏入街心，我就可以大奏凯歌了。我让他注意到一位报童正在叫卖晚报，一辆73路公车正行驶而过。还没等他下完台阶，我已让他彻底相信，当一个人独自坐拥书城，任何可以窜进他脑海的奇思异想，只消一剂“真实的人生”（指的是公车和报童）就足够让他明白“凡此玄想”全是虚妄。他深知自己刚才逃过一劫。几年之后还津津乐道：“对那真实界不可言宣的感知是人最终极的护卫，使我们不致误入纯逻辑的死胡同。”这位仁兄目前老神在在与我们地下的父同住在一个屋檐下。

这下你可懂了？归功于几世纪以前我辈就已启动在人心智里的认知方式，人们发现置身在日常耳熟能详的事物中，已经很难去相信另有一种超乎自然的存在。继续努力吧！让他的认知局限在日常的事物里。尤其重要的，避免使用科学（我指的是真正的科学）来敌挡基督教，因为科学可能会促使人去思考那些无法触摸以及肉眼看不见的真实。有几个现代的物理学家不就是这样堕落了吗？如果你的痞子非要涉猎科学，就只让他接触经济学和社会学，千万别让他与那我辈所珍视的所谓“真实的人生”隔绝了。其实，上上之策是不要让他们读科学，但却给他一个笼统的观念，以为自己什么都懂，以为那些偶尔在闲谈中和阅读时随意捡拾的是堂而皇之的“当代研究成果”——尖端知识！千万记住你的目的是让他思想混淆。听听那些年轻的痞子高谈阔论的调调，若不把他们好好调教调教，真是有亏职守，知否？知否？