Real

In letter 30, Screwtape reminds Wormwood that they have worked for years to successfully confuse humans about the meaning of the word ‘real’. He talks about how Christians think they have a real spiritual experience when really it is the lighting and music in a room, playing on their emotions. He describes how a person says you can ‘really’ only experience a high dive by going off it, not by simply seeing the realness of its physical height. He goes on to talk about how it is beneficial if only negative emotions feel real and positive things become simply subjective points of view. It is the above part, about lights and music playing on one’s emotions that I related with. I can remember many youth conferences and camp experiences that were a spiritual high for me. Worship services where when the noise got louder people seemed to cry harder or sing louder; and it always seems that all the hands go up when the chorus of a song is played (not that I’m judging). I also remember older people who said that the reason that hymns were proper was because they did not play with your emotions and trick you into a false spiritual experience. Now as I read this book I wonder if these feelings are used by the devil to trick you into a false feeling of spirituality. I know of people who feel such emotion when they first accept Christ and then doubt everything because they never feel that way again. Biblically, Psalms often tells us to praise God with music and with dancing. Earlier in the book Screwtape talks about how they can create nothing; they simply twist what God created for good. My still in the process conclusion is that God created emotions and good feelings and I do not think it is wrong to have an emotional worship time. I think however that the devil probably does try to use this as something that makes people doubt when it does not happen constantly; a twisting of good for evil. Everything needs to be balanced, like Screwtape said, extremes of anything are good for tempters.