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My dear Wormwood -
I know that in the past I have on occasion spoken of your general education with some degree of disdain. It has seemed to me that the lessons imbued into you at Tempters' Training College have failed to take hold in your flesh (despite the generous application of the whip which the College is so esteemed for) or that you, my dear nephew, are simply not able to absorb them to their full benefit.
However, on my receipt of your latest letter, I find that I am of two minds: either the College has turned out a lunatic entire, or you are on the brink of a work of temptation that will send screams of joy down into the coldest bowels of Hell.
If I may summarize - you were given the task of corrupting a young modern woman, Molly Jensen, who was no better than she should be and was in fact living in sin with a man, Sam Wheat. Certainly by all correct standards this would be more than enough to send her straight to the Pit, but in these troubled times we have sometimes seen the purity of mortal "love" redeem even the most carnal creature from their destiny.
Fortunately, Sam was murdered in an appropriately ghastly manner in front of Molly, which was quite enough to plunge her into despair. How delicious her misery was to you, I am certain! How you savored it! And surely many a tempter would have been content to take that sharp strand of her grief and use it to flay their patient to ribbons - drive her to self-hatred and, if you were skillful enough, even torment her into doing away with herself. But instead, you have chosen a path both ambitious and perilous.
You formed an alliance (hopefully temporary) with one Snopgabble, who is in the business of tempting a self-styled 'psychic,' Oda Mae Brown. Using information about Sam that you lifted from your patient's mind, you and Snopgabble convinced Oda that she was receiving messages from the spirits - specifically, the spirit of Sam Wheat. Snopgabble even managed to convince Oda to steal a large sum of money, on the premise that it was what "Sam" wanted to do. And the pair of you managed to arrange a meeting between your two humans, with the aim of convincing Molly that Sam was 'watching over her' from the Beyond.
How my guts twist at even writing such poisonous piffle! The spirits of the departed have two destinations: slinking behind the veil of light that the Adversary uses to cloud His actions, or falling into the waiting arms and hungry mouths of ourselves. Someday soon we shall prevent that upward flight; someday soon, very soon, all will fall to feed our Father.
Now you have planned another meeting between Oda and Molly, where Snopgabble proposes to possess Oda outright and convince Molly that it is "Sam" who is there, speaking to her, touching her. Although the corrupting possibilities in this scenario are delightful - you may draw your patient down to her destiny within an hour instead of a lifetime - I hope you realize that you have, inadvertently or not, come out the lesser in this transaction.
Yes, this Sapphic ghost-canoodling may be enough to damn your patient. Yes, her soul will be hot and tasty between your teeth when she finally dies. And for the rest of her life she will believe in 'spirits' and will spread her belief like a thick smear of grease over the vision of all she meets. That grease may be enough to block the Enemy's light from some eyes. But as fine and fair as that is to you, do you not realize that Snopgabble will prosper many, many times over from it?
Oda Mae Brown will leave this meeting convinced entirely that the "spirit realm" is real. With only a little help from Snopgabble, she will be able to hoodwink hundreds or even thousands of people into believing the same. And as those people die and are damned, the credit for their corruption will accrue to Snopgabble's ledgers, not yours.
I trust that as you enjoy the soul of little Molly Jensen, every tiny tasty bite of it, you will look upon the Snopgabble's feastings, and realize that all of that could have been yours, if only you had been more keen.
(I have checked with the Records department and see with no little disdain that the money that Oda stole, which could have been used to set her up in a "psychic business" that would have led thousands into damnation, was instead dumped into the hands of the local Christian nuns. Fortunately the money has had quite the corrupting effect on them; unfortunately the credit for this will also go to Snopgabble, not you.)
Please be more careful when making alliances in the future, and always leave a space to slip your own knife in and take the prize for yourself, if at all possible.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape