Preface

I HAVE no intention of explaining how these letters which I now offer to the public fell into my hands.

There are two equal and opposite falsehoods into which our race can fall about demons. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and welcome a skeptical or a mystical person with the same delight. The method of writing which is used in this book can be very easily obtained by anyone who has once learned the knack; but those excitable people of you who might make a bad use of it shall not learn it from me.

Readers are advised to remember that the devil is a liar. Not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own perspective. I have made no attempt to identify any of the human beings mentioned in the letters; but I think it very unlikely that the portraits, say, of Pastor Spike or the patient's mother, are wholly just. There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth.

In conclusion, I ought to add that no effort has been made to clear up the chronology of the letters. Letter number 17 appears to have been composed before rationing became serious; but in general the demonic method of dating seems to bear no relation to earthly time and I have not attempted to reproduce it. The history of the War on Terror, except in so far as it happens now and then to impact the spiritual condition of one human being, was obviously of no interest to Screwtape.