The Screwtape Letters Session Notes Preface & #1 | Real, Mundane, Ordinary Life
Preface and Letter #1
That Hideous C.S. Lewis Reading Group from Keller, Texas began reading and discussing The Screwtape Letters last week. So far this year we have worked through Book 3 of Mere Christianity and have discussed many essays & sermons including The Inner Ring, The Weight of Glory, and On Forgiveness. Our reading group is now 2.5 years old; coming up on 3 years in March 2026! So it’s probably about time we tackled Screwtape!
Most if not all of the men in the group have read The Screwtape Letters at some point but this is our first time discussing as a group. Coming off of Perelandra late last year, Screwtape is a great follow up.
Session Notes Intent and Caveats
In posting these session notes, my intent is to capture key themes that appear is this epistolary narrative, highlight points that we explored in our discussions, and otherwise document key parts of our discussion. Please feel free to use and reference for your own discussions of this amazing book.
These notes are not meant to be academic or contain earth-shattering revelations that no one else has thought of. My goal is to capture what was important to us. I intend to share our notes in a somewhat raw form with only slight organization. I pray the reader will excuse any perception of brevity or accidental omissions. More to the point, I pray the reader will engage in further discussion in the comments below or send me a DM in the substack app.
Preface
We focused on Lewis’ main points about the materialist (one who would not believe in the existence of devils) and the magician (one who would be overly-interested in devils). We briefly explored how Professor Weston, Uncle Andrew, and Frost and Wither from That Hideous Strength fit into those categories. On materialism, Lewis wrote in That Hideous Strength, while Frost and Wither of the N.I.C.E are strict materialists committed to subjectivism, they give themselves up to the macrobes (demons) so in a way contradict their own materialism by acknowledging the existence of the immaterial demons.
“Materialism is in fact no protection. Those who seek it in that hope will be disappointed. The thing you fear is impossible. Well and good. Can you therefore cease to fear it? Not here and now. What then? If you must see ghosts, it is better not to disbelieve in them.”
Additionally, we had some fun looking at The Screwtape Letters as part of The Ransom Trilogy based on the handwritten preface in which Lewis tells us the discoverer of the demonic correspondence was none other than Dr. Ransom. This possibility casts The Screwtape Letters in a completely different light! Great work, Dr. Brenton Dickieson for this discovery!
https://apilgriminnarnia.com/2015/10/28/a-cosmic-find/
Letter #1 Themes & Advice from Screwtape
Uncle Screwtape gives us a lot to work with in this first letter. The tone he takes with Wormwood is immediately condescending as he admonishes Wormwood’s naïveté. The letter ends in the same tone as Screwtape wags his gnarled hooked finger at Wormwood remonstrating him that his job is to fuddle The Patient; not teach. Here are the key themes that Screwtape gives us; in no particular order.
Focus on the ordinary and the mundane; the familiarity of real life; seeing only what is immediately in front of you
Seeing and touching reality; materialism and philosophy of the future
Avoid argument as that may awaken the patient’s reason
The desires of the flesh, even if one is not a slave to them, are at least a very clever distraction
Focus on the subjective vs objective and use lots of jargon (a philosophy should be described as anything except true or false)
Flesh vs spirit
Do not encourage use of science to argue against Christianity (will encourage him to think about realities he cannot see)
Reading (connected to Surprised by Joy where Lewis says a sound atheist cannot be too careful about his reading)
False sense of expertise by studying a topic only superficially
Fuddling vs teaching (reference to The Rolling Stones’ song Sympathy for the Devil; though I like the Guns N’ Roses version better)
“Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name. But what’s puzzling you is the nature of my game.”
Key Topics We Explored
The stream - constant presentation of things quickly flowing past us and appealing to the flesh; rapidly changing and limited ability to focus; fear of missing out; staying focused on what is in front of us
From Chesterton’s Everlasting Man
“A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.”
Media as purveyor of distraction and “real life” that’s keeps us focused on the here and now but not on eternal realities
Demons not able to hear what The Enemy says; discussed famous quote from The Magician’s Nephew,
“For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.”
Also discussed Christ’s use of parables in the Gospels so followers could better see and hear His teachings
Slavery to the mundane; easy to get caught up in the rat race where the here and now is of paramount importance; easy to tell ourselves we will focus on eternal realities when we get our day to day stuff sorted our; also it is a temptation to despair - if the here and now is all there is then our purpose is meaningless; materialism is a despairing philosophy but many materialists may not even full comprehend their beliefs / disbeliefs nor understand that what they ascribe to is materialism