Some Screwtape Letter Snippets

Written by C. S. Lewis as treatises on the science of Tempting from a senior demon to a junior, I'm finding these so interesting, I can't disengage myself. The main quotes that are haunting me are,

"Ideally, Screwtape's advice to Wormwood should have been balanced by arch-angelical advice to the patient's guardian angel. Without this the picture of human life is lopsided. But who could supply the deficiency? Even if a man - and he would have to be a far better man than I - could scale the spiritual heights required, what "answerable style" could he use? For the style would really be part of the content. Mere advice would be no good; every sentence would have to smell of Heaven....(At bottom, every ideal of style dictates not only how we should say things but what sort of things we may say.)"
~Preface

If such, then, is true of heavenly writing, couldn't the same be said of Satanic writing? How close can a human come to the state of mind of a devil? Logically, it is simpler to fall than to rise, but isn't there a line that can't be safely crossed? I think C. S. Lewis had something of the sort in mind when he wrote,

"Though it was easy to twist one's mind into the diabolical attitude, it was not fun, or not for long. The strain produced a sort of spiritual cramp. The work into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst, and itch. Every trace of Beauty, freshness, and geniality had to be excluded. It almost smothered me before Iwas done. It would have smothered my readers if I had prolonged it. "
~Preface

I didn't read this till I had read the first chapter, and was astonished by the first point made by Uncle Screwtape to Nephew Wormwood, namely that if his (Wormwood's) patient was to be safely brainwashed into materialism, it was not to be because he understood it, and discussed it openly. Reasoning was to be avoided, and vagaries about materialism's "strength, starkness or courageousness," used instead.

"The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle onto the Enemy's own ground. He can argue too; whereas in really practical propaganda of the kind I am suggesting He has been shown for centuries to be greatly the inferior of Our Father Below. By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient's reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result? Even if a peculiar train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favor, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences....Teach him to call it'real life', and don't let him ask what he means by 'real.'"

I need to stop now, but (hint,hint) Love2learn Mom, I think this would be a succulent discussion book, even though I'm not half done.