C.S. Lewis
Bill Lin 譯
【前言】
老鬼使苦路達普SCREWTAPE寫了好幾封信給小鬼歐姆伍德WORMWOOD，教導小鬼如何治療他們的患者(人類)，如何和他們的敵人The
Enemy(上帝， He)爭奪患者，最終目的就是要使他們的患者安全的住在他們在地下的父的房子裡。
【3】
我很高興，因為你告訴我有關這個人和他的母親的關係。但是你必須施展你的優勢。那敵人將會由內而外的做工，逐漸的把這患者的行為納入新的標準，任何時候都可能會把他的舉止影響到這位老太太。你要提前進去。跟我們的同事古魯伯斯保持緊密的聯繫，他是負責這位母親的，你要在那屋子裡建立起一個根深蒂固的相互看不順眼的習慣；每天用針刺來刺去的。下列是幾個有用的方法。
1.讓他專注於內在的生命。他想他的改信是內在的，所以現在他的注意力主要擺在他的心靈狀態上——或者寧願是那所有你准許他去看的，極端刪改過的版本。這是要鼓勵的。藉著導引他的心念到最高深和屬靈的議題，使他不去觸碰最基本的責任。加強那最有用的人類的恐懼和忽略顯而易見的特性。你必須把他弄到在一種情況底下，使他能夠操練自我省察一個小時，卻無法找出任何有關他自己的事實，而那些事實，對任一個跟他住在同一間屋子裡，或同一辦公室的人都非常清楚的。
2.毫無疑問的，不可能防止他，為他的母親禱告，但是我們有辦法使這禱告成為無害的。要確信它們經常是很“屬靈的”，他是經常掛念到她的靈魂的狀況，而不是她的風濕症。接下去有兩個好處。第一，他的注意力會繼續擺在他認為是她的罪性的地方，藉著這個，你只要稍稍指點一下，他就可以被誘導，使得她的任一個動作都會被他認為是對他自己的不便或挑釁。所以你只要繼續揉當天的傷口，使它更酸痛，不管他是否在跪著禱告中；這些動作都不難，而且你會發現它很有娛樂性。第二，因為他對於她的靈魂的想法將會是很粗糙而且錯誤百出，到了某個程度，他將會是在替一個虛擬的人禱告，你的任務就是要使得這虛擬的人每天越來越不像真正的母親——在早餐桌前口舌犀利的老太太。很快的，你會看到那麼寬的裂縫，從他的為虛擬的母親的禱告裡，沒有一絲的念頭和感情會流露到他的對待真正的母親身上。我有過幾個我的很好掌控的病患們，他們可以被調控到，一瞬間從專注在很感性的對妻子或兒子的“靈”的禱告裡到打罵真正的妻子或兒子，而沒有一點懷疑。
3.當兩個人住在一起已經好多年了，通常每個人都有特別的聲調和臉色，幾乎會無法忍受的激怒到對方。在那裡下工夫。特別是你的患者的母親的吊高眉頭，當年在育幼院裡他就不喜歡了，把它整個搬到他的意識裡，讓他想他是多麼痛恨它。讓他設定，她知道這有多討厭，而且故意這樣惹人煩——假如你知道你在做什麼，他就不會注意到這個設定是有超低的或然率的(幾乎是不可能的)。同時，當然不要讓他懷疑，他也有聲調和臉色同樣的會刺激她。因為他不能看到或聽到他自己，這比較容易辦。
4.在文明社會裡，家庭的憎恨通常包裝自己，藉著說一些紙上看來很無傷(沒有攻擊性的字眼)，但是在這樣的聲調，或這樣的時刻，它們跟在臉上揍一拳沒差多少。要讓這個遊戲繼續玩下去，你和古魯伯斯必須親臨其境，要這兩個傻蛋有那種雙重標準。你的患者必須要求他的所有言語只能照字面解釋，照實際字眼做簡單的判斷，同時對他的母親的所有話語的判斷，在語調、內容、和可疑的用意，做最滿溢最敏感的解讀。也必須鼓勵她對他做同等的對待。於是，對每一個爭吵，雙方都能得到，或幾乎得到這樣的信念，他們都十分的無辜。你知道這類的事情：「我只不過問她什麼時候可以吃晚飯，她馬上就暴跳如雷。」這種習慣一旦充分養成，你會有一個愉快的情景，就是一個人說了某些存心要攻擊別人的話，但是當正在冒犯時卻像帶著一些感傷。
最後，告訴我這老太太的宗教的立場。她究竟是否嫉妒她的兒子生命裡的新影響？——在所有被挑起的，他早就應該從別人那學來，而且這麼遲了，她是否以為她給他在童年時如此好的學習機會？她是不是感覺到他正在小題大作——或是他正在佔了便宜還賣乖？記得在那敵人的故事裡的那位哥哥，深愛你的伯父
使苦路達普SCREWTAPE
**********************************
MY DEAR
WORMWOOD,
I am very
pleased by what you tell me about this man's relations with his mother. But you
must press your advantage. The Enemy will be working from the centre outwards,
gradually bringing more and more of the patient's conduct under the new
standard, and may reach his behavior to the old lady at any moment. You want to
get in first. Keep in close touch with our colleague Glubose who is in charge
of the mother, and build up between you in that house a good settled habit of
mutual annoyance; daily pinpricks. The following methods are useful.
1. Keep his
mind on the inner life. He thinks his conversion is something inside him and
his attention is therefore chiefly turned at present to the states of his own
mind - or rather to that very expurgated version of them which is all you
should allow him to see. Encourage this. Keep his mind off the most elementary
duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones. Aggravate that
most useful human characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You
must bring him to a condition in which he can practice self-examination for an
hour without discovering any of those facts about himself, which are perfectly clear to anyone
who has over lived in the same house with him or worked the same office.
2. It is,
no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means
of rendering the prayers innocuous. Make sure that they are always very
"spiritual", that he is always concerned with the state of her soul
and never with her rheumatism. Two advantages follow. In the first place, his
attention will be kept on what he regards as her sins, by which, with a little
guidance from you, he can be induced to mean any of her actions which are
inconvenient or irritating to himself. Thus you can keep rubbing the wounds of
the day a little sorer even while he is on his knees; the operation is not at
all difficult and you will find it very entertaining. In the second place,
since his ideas about her soul will be very crude and often erroneous, he will,
in some degree, be praying for an imaginary person, and it will be your task to
make that imaginary person daily less and less like the real mother - the
sharp-tongued old lady at the breakfast table. In time, you may get the
cleavage so wide that no thought or feeling from his prayers for the imagined
mother will ever flow over into his treatment of the real one. I have had
patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment's
notice from impassioned prayer for a wife's or son's "soul" to
beating or insulting the real wife or son without a qualm.
3. When two
humans have lived together for many years it usually happens that each has
tones of voice and expressions of face which are almost unendurably irritating
to the other. Work on that. Bring fully into the consciousness of your patient
that particular lift of his mother's eyebrows which he learned to dislike in
the nursery, and let him think how much he dislikes it. Let him assume that she
knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy - if you know your job he will
not notice the immense improbability of the assumption. And, of course, never
let him suspect that he has tones and looks which similarly annoy her. As he
cannot see or hear himself, this is easily managed.
4. In
civilized life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which
would appear quite harmless on paper (the words are not offensive) but in such
a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the
face. To keep this game up you and Glubose must see to it that each of these
two fools has a sort of double standard. Your patient must demand that all his
own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the
actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother's utterances with
the fullest and most oversensitive interpretation of the tone and the context
and the suspected intention. She must be encouraged to do the same to him.
Hence from every quarrel they can both go away convinced, or very nearly
convinced, that they are quite innocent. You know the kind of thing: "I
simply ask her what time dinner will be and she flies into a temper." Once
this habit is well established you have the delightful situation of a human
saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance
when offence is taken.
Finally,
tell me something about the old lady's religious position. Is she at all
jealous of the new factor in her son's life? - at all piqued that he should
have learned from others, and so late, what she considers she gave him such
good opportunity of learning in childhood? Does she feel he is making a great
deal of "fuss" about it - or that he's getting in on very easy terms?
Remember the elder brother in the Enemy's story, Your affectionate uncle
SCREWTAPE
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