Written by Michael Claxton

With Apologies to C. S. Lewis

My Dear Wormwood,

You will be surprised to hear from me after all these years. I confess that your failure during the war was so abysmal that I still cannot stand the smell of you. I trust your past eight decades in the House of Correction for Incompetent Tempters have been most instructive.

However, your eternal sentence has been commuted — against my vigorous objections — because we need every available hand at present, and someone down in the Lowerarchy seems to like you. Our campaign is going very well. Since your active days, church attendance in England has dipped below 10 percent, though of course that’s far too high for my comfort. Even better, America is fast following suit.

Earth is literally on fire, hatred and division are worse than ever, people are sinking in debt and technology provides even more numbing distractions than the Enemy’s prophet Huxley predicted. Much of the world seems well in hand.

Despite our progress, though, I’ve been at this business long enough not to become complacent about our success. The Enemy has an insufferable way of snatching victory from us. Hardly a sporting chap. And that, my dear Wormwood, is why you must be on your guard. We are sending you into the belly of the beast.

You’ve been assigned a new patient. He’s a freshman at a Christian University. Most American colleges used to be faith-based, but we’ve whittled the number down. And we’ve managed such an assault on these places from the outside that they are easily caricatured in a way that sometimes seduces even those who believe in their mission. Hotbeds of hypocrisy and oppression! Bastions of superstition! Citadels of brainwashing and backward ideas!

Yet I know better than to believe our own propaganda. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. There is much to distrust in a Christian school from our point of view — the earnestness, the positivity, the constant devotional atmosphere, the unifying message woven through every class, stinking through every dorm, and fouling every miserable activity.

I especially dislike all the undesirable marriages that happen there each spring. While we have trained 20 twenty-year-olds to mock these so-called wedding factories, the kids are disappointingly inconsistent. What they parody one moment, they embrace the next.

There is much work to do. Your patient reeks of indoctrination, though he would never call it that because we have successfully tainted the word in their minds. He reads the Bible far too often, has roommates who — perish the thought — pray for him, and worst of all, he’s in a musical. I have read a dossier on this “Spring Sing” and shudder at what I find.

Over a thousand young people willingly give up hours of their free time to rehearse songs and dances, all the while deepening their friendships and laughing together. You will recall my previous thoughts about the dangers of “joy” and “fun” — if not, please review letter 11.

Yes, this “Spring Sing” produces exhaustion, which leads to ill tempers and can put him behind in classwork. But these are short-term gains for us only. The long-term results are disastrous. Camaraderie — despite our best efforts to squash it, that word persists, and its spread is fatal to our Father’s cause. The fact such wholesome, entertaining, earnest and positive fun has been permitted to carry on for 50 years exposes an unforgivable failing on our part.

This show makes people happy! Viewers come to cheer on their friends. You get all the razzmatazz of a Las Vegas show without the gambling and the decadence that would make it tolerable to us. And even worse, it’s all in the name of raising money for charity! Blech! Plus, this year, I’m told they are bringing back past singers so that the awful spectacle will be intergenerational! The whole thing makes me ill.

It was not my idea to send you. You are far too inept to do much good, but we are short-staffed. So, you must tempt your patient. Keep him distracted during rehearsals. We both know his singing and dancing are not so bad, but don’t let him realize this.

Let him despair of ever learning the steps or being worthy of the girl in the front row he has a crush on. Above all, aggravate his pride at the sacrifices he is making. Make him aware of how tired he is, but don’t ever let him slip into that giddy state of exhaustion where he is punch drunk with fun. Unfortunate levels of happiness are bound to result. And finally, see if you can’t arrange a little power outage during the “United We Stand” number. That’s a message we hardly want to encourage. It could catch on.

Your affectionate Uncle,

Screwtape