Context: Inspired by C.S. Lewis’s classic – The Screwtape Letters, this fictional series features letters from a senior demon to his young protégé, exposing hell’s subtle strategies against believers. These are not meant to amuse, but to awaken.

This isn’t just satire – it’s a mirror. A sharp one. Because sometimes the enemy’s strategies sound uncomfortably familiar.

My dear Wormwood,

I must commend you, your last report nearly singed the parchment with its raw potential. Your Patient, while still alarmingly consistent in morning prayers, has already begun to feel the weight of their own words. They’re starting to wonder: Am I just talking to myself? Is God even listening?

Delightful.

Prayer, you see, is both our greatest threat and our greatest opportunity. When it is genuine, it terrifies our entire Department. But when it becomes repetitive, hollow, or self-centered – we can twist it into a form of spiritual sleepwalking. Your job is to make sure it leans into the latter.

Here are a few pointers.

1. Encourage performance over presence.
   Let them focus on the sound of their prayer more than the substance. A few impressive phrases, perhaps even quoting Scripture out of context will do nicely. Make them worry about how they feel while praying. This is essential. If they feel dry or distracted, convince them it didn’t “work.”
   
2. Shift their prayers toward themselves.
   If you can get them to pray more about their platform, their pain, their plans rather than God’s will, you’ve already succeeded. Make them say “use me” but mean “promote me.” Make them cry “Your will be done,” but secretly plot their own.
   
3. Distract, distract, distract.
   A phone buzz. A mental grocery list. A random memory. Doesn’t matter. Anything to interrupt the sacred. Over time, they’ll start avoiding prayer because it “never stays focused.” If they ever learn that even distracted prayers still echo in Heaven, we’re doomed.
   
4. Normalize silence as absence.
   Convince them that if God doesn’t speak in thunder or visions, He isn’t speaking at all. Blur their memory of Scripture. Make them forget that His Word is already alive and active, even when Heaven seems silent.

And above all, never let them remember that the Enemy once said “When you pray…”, not “If you pray…” (Matthew 6:5). The assumption of prayer was already divine expectation. Prayer is not extra credit. It’s a requirement for their very survival.

Finally, do keep them from realizing that prayer is less about results and more about relationship. If they ever suspect that the goal is not to get answers, but to stay connected to Him – well, then we’ll have a real problem.

Yours in unholy sabotage,
Screwtape