Posted 1/7/22
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. 2 Tim. 1:7
My Dearest Wormwood,
I find myself compelled to set aside my normal instruction to you today to discuss something of which I take great pride: dementia. First, some background as you are not surely aware of the magnitude of my accomplishment in this project:
While not a Creator in the Enemy’s context, I do fashion myself as a creative sort. Perhaps more of an anti-creative, creative type, if you will. I create things that deviously break what the Enemy created. With this talent in mind, I offer you a view of a prized trophy on my mantle, this deconstruction of the mind through dementia. First, isn’t it just grand that I break the very thing, the brain, that Patients need to use extremely efficiently to defeat me? I find this poetic, plump with glee, and quite serendipitous.
So this prized, demented jewel of mine performs, with great utility, the following 10 events on the unsuspecting Patient as a warning sign of what’s to come:
- A favorite of mine is that it causes memory loss. Contrary to the fashion of memory loss common to all the human creatures from time to time, this kind disrupts their daily life.
- My little device also causes challenges in planning and solving problems. This one brings me the greatest of joy when I see, for instance, a person who was formerly the head of a company and is unable to so much as add two numbers together. It, indeed, makes me chortle.
- In a similar vein, my demented device causes difficulty completing the most familiar tasks. Can you imagine a blacksmith not remembering how to fashion an axehead, or even how to light a fire? Strike away the familiar and you have whittled away the person to bone and soul, dear Wormwood.
- I slipped this one in because it causes those who must care for the inflicted all sorts of marvelous peril. My Device causes confusion with time and place. I strike the Patient with an inability to tell day from the night so that she wanders around all night some nights, tangling with mischief all the while. Meanwhile, the Caregiving Creature must sleep with one eye open, thereby increasing tension on their own health. Henceforth, my apt pupil, we can strike the Caregiving Creature with illness as well…all over a simple time/space confusion. Marvelous!
- I couldn’t stop there, though. I crafted for it to cause tremendous trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships. Our Patient can see items, but not in a way that lets them adjust to their proximity. Confusion, falls, and harm ensues. Rich!
- Oh, my poppet, another favorite is that my anti-creation causes new problems with words in speaking or writing. Even the most eloquent humans struggle for a word now and then, but my device tosses words like a fine egg salad. It makes the gifted intellect sound like a buffoon.
- Here is an entertaining one, Wormwood. My device causes the Patient to misplace things early and often. They are so frustrated, the pathetic creatures begin hoarding and packing as a way of life since they want to be sure they know where they left…EVERYTHING! Oh how the angst that flows from this builds like the Thames in spring rains! Oh, and to further confuse, my demented Patient loses the ability to retrace steps to find their way!
- Due to the shortage of servants of the Lowerarchy, we need to use our minions in a prudent and efficient way. One way we use my device to facilitate this efficiency is to gather our human peons and prompt them to take advantage of our demented lot. Dementia gives the Patient decreased and poor judgment, so a few of our team can easily take from them all they have worked for quite quickly if given a suitable chance. Then we can use this windfall on all sorts of salacious living instead of the Patient passing on their so-called precious gifts to their family and friends as they always wished. Homes can be destroyed, legacies ended, and the safe put in peril, over and over and over again!
- Another result of my device is the utter withdrawal from work or social activities. Being alone and isolated hurts the Patient physically, mentally, spiritually, and the rest of their family as well! This is an underrated splendor of my device. Is there anything more beautiful than a Patient, once the life of the family party, becoming a stranger to everyone and dying alone? It is a poetic injustice that rivals the masters….
- My invention, partially because of the list previous, also results in changes in mood or personality. This is an understatement not unlike the “little white lie” I told Eve in the garden. We can use the demented device to transform a church mouse into a swearing sailor, the timid wall flower into a brawling street fighter, and the quiet creature whom hides in the shadows into a screeching tantrummer! And this will drive away Caregiving Creatures and make for even more joy in the process!
Please note, my beloved pigsnie, that the Father Below liked my device so much that He requested I name the device DEM-entia, borrowing the first three letters from demonkind. This noted gift is surely a sign that His intent for me is a demotion into deeper reaches of Home in the not-so-distant future! The name and the history of this device’s name have been fun to watch, translated from the Latin of the word meaning “Out of one’s mind”–as in sheer lunacy! The creature-doctors chase answers day-in and day-out, formerly confused and calling it “hardening of the arteries” or “just part of aging!”. I have also sat on my stool with glee watching minions share “cures” for my device that either make it worse, steal the Patient’s money or both!
One last sobering statement, beloved Wormwood, is a nefarious warning of unintended consequence:
There are people everywhere helping these Patients at their own peril. Day and night, mind you. Some raise money seeking to stop my device’s progress. Others gather and share ideas and even dare to pray to the Enemy for these patients. We know the headache this can cause us. We need to stop these activities wherever we see them. Remind them, my student, that there are no cures or treatments that do much. Be sure that treatments that are created are far too expensive for the typical patient to afford by stoking up the fire of greed in the learned. Discourage them. Break up families as you go. Turn brother against brother and sister against sister. Fan malice, pride, despair, gloom, and every other wicked spark you can before these cure movements get out of hand and cause my device to be moot. I thought the COVID trick might help, but, in some ways, the trials have made some of the persistent ones even stronger. We must redouble our efforts even as they do too. They seem to be getting closer every day. We must prevail here.
One last thing as you consider my letter. When you next come, please bring more of that porridge from our Home, but don’t bother with the cornbread. I am not a fan…
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
(If this piece made no sense, you haven’t read The Screwtape Letters, by CS Lewis. Here is a PDF of it: LINK. It is essentially the story of a demon leader–Screwtape– teaching his pupil –Wormwood– how to defeat humans. It is an amazing book. Buy it after you skim the PDF. It is worth the read…)