The Patient’s Relationship with the Invisible

The Screwtape Letters

This flow follows the patient’s movement from suspicion of unseen realities toward direct recognition at the end.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

A Mind Bound to the Familiar A Mind Bound to the Familiar from "The Screwtape Letters". The Invisible Dismissed Habit The patient is accustomed to treating ordinary sensory impressions as more convincing than unfamiliar realities.

A Mind Bound to the Familiar from "The Screwtape Letters". The Invisible Dismissed Habit The patient is accustomed to treating ordinary sensory impressions as more convincing than unfamiliar realities.

The Invisible Dismissed Habit The patient is accustomed to treating ordinary sensory impressions as more convincing than unfamiliar realities. Familiar street life can divert him from thoughts that might challenge materialism. Distance The unseen remains an idea rather than a presence he recognizes. This distance gives Wormwood room to redirect his attention before belief can take hold.

Prayer Toward an Image Prayer Toward an Image from "The Screwtape Letters". Representation and Presence Human Picture The patient’s idea of God may be shaped by pictures, memories, bodily sensations, or a location in his room.

Prayer Toward an Image from "The Screwtape Letters". Representation and Presence Human Picture The patient’s idea of God may be shaped by pictures, memories, bodily sensations, or a location in his room.

Representation and Presence Human Picture The patient’s idea of God may be shaped by pictures, memories, bodily sensations, or a location in his room. These images can help or distract, but they are not God. Risk Screwtape wants the patient to address the image as if it were the real presence. Prayer becomes a relationship with a construction rather than with the one who made him.

Faint Signs in Life Faint Signs in Life from "The Screwtape Letters". Unrecognized Presence Intimations The patient experiences moments of joy and solitude that seem to contain something beyond what he can name.

Faint Signs in Life from "The Screwtape Letters". Unrecognized Presence Intimations The patient experiences moments of joy and solitude that seem to contain something beyond what he can name.

Unrecognized Presence Intimations The patient experiences moments of joy and solitude that seem to contain something beyond what he can name. He does not yet understand the spiritual companions who surround his life. Memory These impressions remain incomplete, but they prepare the final recognition. The invisible is not absent merely because the patient cannot clearly perceive it.

The Spiritual World Appears The Spiritual World Appears from "The Screwtape Letters". The Unseen Becomes Visible Recognition The patient encounters the spiritual beings whose influence had been hidden during earthly life.

The Spiritual World Appears from "The Screwtape Letters". The Unseen Becomes Visible Recognition The patient encounters the spiritual beings whose influence had been hidden during earthly life.

The Unseen Becomes Visible Recognition The patient encounters the spiritual beings whose influence had been hidden during earthly life. Familiarity arrives through recognition rather than prior visual knowledge. Freedom The patient enters their company almost at once. What had been only a faint sense of companionship becomes an intelligible relationship.

The Presence of God The Presence of God from "The Screwtape Letters". Known and Knowing Encounter The patient stands before God and gains a clearer knowledge of his own sins.

The Presence of God from "The Screwtape Letters". Known and Knowing Encounter The patient stands before God and gains a clearer knowledge of his own sins.

Known and Knowing Encounter The patient stands before God and gains a clearer knowledge of his own sins. The encounter does not produce the terror that divine presence brings to Screwtape. Fulfillment The patient’s earthly distance from the invisible ends in direct recognition. The relationship he could only approach through prayer becomes the reality that receives him.

Before the patient’s conversion

During the patient’s early prayers

During the patient’s years before the raid

Immediately after the patient dies

At the final moment of the book