鬼話連篇The Screwtape Letters【1】

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。

【1】

我的親愛的歐姆伍德WORMWOOD，

我注意到你所說的，有關要導引我們的患者的讀書習慣，和照顧他很看重的那個唯物論的朋友。但是，你是否有點天真？聽起來，好像你認為辯論是使他脫離敵人的掌控的唯一方法。假如你早活了幾個世紀，那或許是如此。在那時，人們還蠻知道，一樣東西是否已經被驗證過了沒有；假如被驗證了，他們真的就相信了。他們還知行合一，準備隨著一連串論證的結果，改變他們的生活方式。但是藉著壹週刊和其他類似的武器(譯者: 網路傳媒)我們已經大大的將它轉變了。你的人，當他還是一個男孩子的時候，已經習慣於有上打的互不相容的人生哲學，活躍在他的腦海裡。他不用去思考這些道理基本上是“真”或是“假”，卻是“學術性的”或“實用的”，“老舊的”或是“現代的”，“常規的”或是“不照牌理出牌的”。行話術語，而不是論點，是你的使他不去教會的最好的盟友。不要浪費時間使他認為唯物主義是真的！讓他認為那是強壯，或牢靠，或勇敢的——那是未來的人生哲學。那種事才是他所關心的。

有關論點的麻煩是它將整個爭戰搬到了敵人的領域上了。祂也可以爭論；在真正的我正建議的那種實際的宣傳裡，幾個世紀以來，祂已經顯現出比我們在下面的父是大大的不如。藉著爭議的動作，你喚醒了患者的理性；理性一旦覺醒，誰能預知那結果呢？甚至，假如一個特別的連串的念頭都可以扭曲成對我們有利的結局，你將發現你已經加強了你的患者，那追求普遍問題的致命的習慣，而不再注意及時感官經驗的潮流。你的工作就是把它的注意力，固定在潮流上。教導他，稱它為“真實生活”，但是不要讓他問，對他來講什麼叫做“真實”。

記得，他不像你那樣只是個靈。從來未曾是個人(啊，那可惡的敵人的優勢！)，你不會意識到他們是如何的受到了普通事務的壓力的束縛。我曾經有個病患，一個優秀的無神論者，他過去經常在大英博物館裡看書。有一天，當他正坐在那裡看書，我看到在他的心裡一串的念頭，開始走錯路了。當然，那敵人在他的一臂之隔有一陣子了。在我鎮靜下來時，我看到我的20年的工作成果開始動搖。假如我失掉了理智，開始試著爭辯防衛，我應該就完了蛋。但我不是這樣的呆瓜。我馬上攻擊這個人在我的最有把握的控制下的一個部位，建議他，該吃中飯的時間到了。那敵人想必做了反建議(你知道，一個鬼怎麼可能偷聽到祂跟他們說些什麼？)，這是比吃中飯更重要的。我想，至少祂應該是這麼說的，因為當我說：「沒錯！實際上，是太重要了，以致於不能在早上結束以前解決它，」這患者腦子開通了不少；所以當我再加上一句：「最好是吃過中飯以後回來，有個新鮮的心境來思考它，」他已經走了一半路就要出大門了。當他一走到街上，我已經贏了這一仗。我指給他看，一個正在叫賣日報的報童，一輛正駛過的73號公車，在他走到最下面的台階以前，我已經塞給他一個無法改變的信念，當一個人獨自埋在他的書裡的時候，不管任何奇特的念頭會進入他的腦子裡，一個適當劑量的“真實生活”(對他來講，就是那公車和報童)就足夠讓他看到，所有的“那種東西”不可能是真的。他知道他曾經有個死裡逃生的經驗，在往後的幾年當中，他津津樂道那個“對於現實難以言喩的感覺，是我們對付過份的只重視邏輯的終極的保護”。現在，他安全的在我們的父的房子裡。

你開始看到傒竅沒有？感謝幾個世紀以前，我們在人群中所下的功夫的進展，使得他們在習以為常和眼見為真的情況下，無法去相信不熟悉的事物。繼續堅持給他灌輸事物的平凡性；最重要的一點: 不要嘗試拿科學(我是說，真正的科學)去對抗基督教的信仰。科學會正面的鼓勵他去思考他不能觸摸或看見的事實。在現代物理學家中，已經發生了幾個可悲的案例。假如他必須搞科學，讓他搞經濟學或社會學；不要讓他脫離這可貴的“現實生活”。最好就是不要讓他讀科學書刊，但給他一個大的總體思維─他無所不知，而且每一個道聽途說所得來的，都是“最新研究的成果”。千萬要記住：你的任務是把他搞糊塗。從你們年輕無知的鬼話中，誰都會認為我們應該給你們好好的教導。

深愛你的伯父

使苦路達普SCREWTAPE

**********************************

MY DEAR WORMWOOD,

I note what you say about guiding our patient's reading and taking care that he sees a good deal of his materialist friend. But are you not being a trifle naïf? It sounds as if you supposed that argument was the way to keep him out of the Enemy's clutches. That might have been so if he had lived a few centuries earlier. At that time the humans still knew pretty well when a thing was proved and when it was not; and if it was proved they really believed it. They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning. But what with the weekly press and other such weapons we have largely altered that. Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn't think of doctrines as primarily "true" or "false", but as "academic" or "practical", "outworn" or "contemporary", "conventional" or "ruthless". Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church. Don't waste time trying to make him think that materialism is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous - that it is the philosophy of the future. That's the sort of thing he cares about.

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 particular 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. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it "real life" and don't let him ask what he means by "real".

Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's!) you don't realize how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defense by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear What He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said "Quite. In fact much too important to tackle it the end of a morning", the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added "Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind", he was already half way to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of "real life" (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all "that sort of thing" just couldn't be true. He knew he'd had a narrow escape and in later years was fond of talking about "that inarticulate sense for actuality which is our ultimate safeguard against the aberrations of mere logic". He is now safe in Our Father's house.

You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things. Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean, the real sciences) as a defense against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about realities he can't touch and see. There have been sad cases among the modern physicists. If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology; don't let him get away from that invaluable "real life". But the best of all is to let him read no science but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is "the results of modem investigation". Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!

Your affectionate uncle

SCREWTAPE