Letter 27 Summary

Wormwood is failing, Screwtape feels, because even though the young man's love is distracting him from God, the young man knows it and is beseeching God in prayer to help him deal with the distraction. This is not good. Screwtape suggests Wormwood try to lure the man away from simple, God-directed prayers by making the man doubt whether asking God for things is appropriate at all. Perhaps he can be made to stop praying.

However, the man is now obedient, so he will probably continue to pray, but Wormwood can make him feel it is really rather useless. If his prayers are answered, he can rationalize what happened away. If they are not answered right away, then he will be confirmed in his suspicion that asking God for things is absurd, and prayer has no impact upon the universe whatsoever.

Fortunately, the devils...