Letter 15 Summary

Eternity and the present are what God wants people to concentrate on, so it would be good if Wormwood could bind the patient's mind up with thoughts of the future, especially in regard to the war. Some people can be preoccupied with the past. That is all right too, but living in the future, which they cannot know, is best. It removes them nicely from reality and from doing anything useful or charitable in the present. Screwtape wants people obsessed with the future, constantly pursuing the elusive end of the rainbow, unhappy and dissatisfied in the here and now.

Not thinking about the future can be good, too, if it is done because the patient thinks, mistakenly, the future will assuredly be good for him. If in thinking about the future the patient concludes bad things may come to him and he needs...