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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the intellectual hinge of the letter: Screwtape distils a single 'spiritual law' and from it claims to 'formulate the general rule.' The paragraph's symmetry — fix the mind outward on the object during vice, but 'bend his mind back on itself' during virtue — models how a thinker compresses a whole psychology of attention into one balanced argument, and how the very same act of introspection can either starve a fear or strangle a prayer.
An important spiritual law is here involved. I have explained that you can weaken his prayers by diverting his attention from the Enemy Himself to his own states of mind about the Enemy. On the other ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In your own words, reconstruct the argument of Screwtape's sixth letter in sequence. Which moves does he treat as the deepest, and how can you tell he ranks the inward bend of attention above the louder tricks of hatred and fear?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape derives a 'general rule' from a single 'spiritual law': in everything that serves the devils keep the man 'unself-conscious' and fixed on the object, but in everything that serves the Enemy 'bend his mind back on itself.' Why does Lewis present this as one law with two opposite applications rather than as two separate tricks, and what does that unity reveal about how attention shapes the soul? Use Screwtape's words to Wormwood to defend your reading.
- Screwtape says the Enemy 'wants men to be concerned with what they do,' while the devils' business 'is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them.' Why does Lewis locate real moral life in action rather than in anticipation, and how does 'suspense and anxiety' barricade the mind precisely by fixing it on the future? Point to the words Screwtape uses to describe that barricade.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Blocking or shutting something off with a barrier.
Item 2
A disposition to do good; active goodwill toward others.
Item 3
The outer boundary or edge of a circle or region.
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Critical Thinking
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