Wormwood’s Campaign

This flow follows Wormwood’s successive attempts to divert the patient and the repeated failures that culminate in his loss.

increasingBearing stren­gth in each eventdecreasing

A Materialist Strategy

Keeping Faith Away Distraction Wormwood is instructed to use fashionable language and routine experience rather than direct argument. The aim is to keep the patient from attending seriously to universal questions. Method Screwtape’s counsel frames temptation as the management of attention. A bus, a newspaper, or a convenient lunch can interrupt a thought before it changes a life.

Church Disappointment

Exploiting the Threshold Friction Wormwood is urged to make the patient fix on awkward neighbors, uninspiring surroundings, and the gap between expectation and practice. Small imperfections can make a new community seem absurd. Test The danger for the tempter is that perseverance through disappointment makes faith less dependent on feeling. The first anticlimax may either weaken commitment or deepen it.

Social Seduction

A Divided Life Performance Wormwood encourages the patient to imitate the skeptical attitudes of fashionable companions. At first, social manners conceal the conflict between these performances and Christian conviction. Entrenchment The patient’s evasions risk becoming genuine habits. Screwtape values the gradual conversion of pretense into character more than any isolated act of disobedience.

A Lost Advantage

The Campaign Reverses Exposure The patient encounters real pleasure in reading and walking, rather than the hollow stimulation Wormwood has encouraged. The contrast exposes the thinness of fashionable distractions. Failure The renewed repentance turns attention into action and defeats the strategy of passive regret. Wormwood’s campaign loses its momentum just as the patient becomes more firmly grounded.

The Failed Claim

Wormwood Loses the Soul Defeat During the first air raid, the patient performs his duty despite fear. His conduct leaves Wormwood with only minor grievances to report. Consequence At death, the patient is taken into Heaven. Screwtape turns from mentorship to threatened consumption, revealing the brutal competition beneath infernal affection.

Before the patient’s conversion

The patient’s first weeks as a churchgoer

After the patient meets worldly acquaintances

After the patient’s walk to the old mill

At the patient’s death