The Slubgob Correspondences: A Sequel to C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters By J.H. Bernard

Prologue

     This is not my idea. Much like my predecessor, I happened upon the following letters by chance and was quickly sworn never to disclose their origin. Suffice it to say I was shocked by some of what I read and the antidote to such shock was remembering the disclaimer cautioned by Mr. Lewis: “That the devil is a liar and nothing he says should be considered true even from his own angle.” The reader would be wise to remember these words.

Yet regardless of such ambiguity, I still feel it is in our interest to study how the forces of darkness conspire against us.  My views on theology, the soul, demons, and angels differ – often substantially – with my predecessor. He believed in angels. I do not. He believed in demons. I do not. He believed in an eternal soul while I believe that a soul is something one earns over time. What we do agree on is that there is this thing called God and that one’s happiness is dependent upon one’s closeness to this God. We also agree that there are certain tendencies within us which may ultimately result in our alienation from God. This tendency may be called concupiscence and the act whereby we indulge it may be called sin.

     When I say I do not believe in angels or demons, what I mean is I’ve never encountered such beings and see no need to think of them as real in the sense that you and I are real. I haven’t encountered God either, but I believe God is real because I view God as a necessity. If existence is real, God must be. I do not intend to defend this position here, merely to note my inclination toward it. Angels and demons are real only in that they serve to personify certain aspects of human nature to help us delineate right from wrong.

     I’m reluctant, however, to classify them as “myth”; partly because the term has been so distorted by modern culture and has instead become synonymous with “false”. I don’t think the creators of our myths ever intended them to be taken literally. When some well-meaning Hellene first uttered the tale of Dedalus and Icarus, I don’t accept that he or she believed – or intended others to believe - that two men made wings from wax and feathers to fly out of prison. But just because that event never occurred doesn’t mean the tale is devoid of truth. Its truth is about the damage caused by pride; just as the tale of Lucifer’s rebellion, the literal occurrence of which is of equal insignificance.

     With modernity we’ve fled from mythic truth to embrace science. In postmodernity we have come to regard science as suspect and have created myths in the form of new age mystical nonsense. When referring to “myth” in any non-pejorative sense, one risks becoming either a charlatan in the eyes of science or a guru in the eyes of mystics. Neither of which is desirable for someone who simply wishes to examine truth through story-telling.

     I make no claims as to the authenticity of what follows. Readers are invited to draw their own conclusions as I have.