# The tricks demons use

The initial extraction is from C.S. Lewis' *The Screwtape Letters*.

## Background

Before [he shows his hand](spiritual-warfare.md), the devil uses *many* techniques to redirect and distract our focus.

If it weren't so [evil](morality-evil.md) and destroyed [souls](humanity.md), it'd be truly [fascinating](values-quality.md) how [creative](mind-creativity.md) he gets!

You can expand this concept even further by internalizing and applying everything *humanity* normally does to [distort image](people-image-distortion.md).

## The Devil's Purpose

Generally, spiritual things travel at the speed of thought. While the Satan works constantly to prevent us from sharing our ideas with others, this has come to a fever pitch with how much our [technology](technology.md) magnifies information.

Since the battle is over the mind, and information is the vehicle for how we [understand](understanding.md), the devil and demons work tirelessly to warp it.

The devil's entire [purpose](purpose.md) is to create a constantly [fearful](mind-feelings-fear.md), anxious, bewildered, unsettled person who [reacts](habits.md) before thinking.

- Ideally, he'd like people to worship *him*, but he'll settle for people worshiping absolutely anything except God.
- [Political events](groups-large.md) like [war](people-conflicts-war-why.md) can turn attention away from [spiritual things](theology-godandman.md) or [God's Kingdom](https://theologos.site/millennium/) to [nationalism](https://theologos.site/the-west/), patriotism, rebellion, or pacifism.
- In peacetime, we can turn to materialism and worldliness, since it distracts from the [inevitability of death](hardship-death.md).
- However, incessant war is bad for the devil because it brings out [good things](morality.md) in people, even non-believers.
- If we internalize it correctly, [hardship](hardship.md) can be very valuable for our spiritual development. Otherwise, the devil can make us live with perpetual [PTSD](hardship-ptsd.md).

[New Christians](christian-new.md) are the easiest targets for the devil because they still hold on to many world-focused [habits and routines](habits.md).

- New believers are more easily deterred by distractions from other believers, mostly from how their [expectations](mind-imagination.md) won't meet [reality](reality.md).
- Thus, demons work very hard to keep our expectations unreasonably high about the Church. This gives room for feelings to overtake convictions.
- Also, new believers often have plenty of [conceit](theology-sins.md) to prevent them genuinely asking if they're morally justified in condemning other believers.

Demonic distortion comes through a few simple approaches:

1. Focus on adverse states of mind, such as [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) or lust, while ignoring the good states of mind, such as [joy](mind-feelings-happiness.md) or [love](people-love.md).
2. Redirect believers' attention to things they *think* matters, but doesn't.
3. Disconnect ideas from one another and distract people as long as possible to become [unaware](mind-awareness.md) of their thoughts and need for God's healing.

His approach does, however, vary heavily by [what specific thing he's trying to deceive](spiritual-warfare-tricks-specific.md)

## It Doesn't Matter

The Satan's entire [belief system](understanding-certainty.md) and strategy considers absolutely nothing but raw [power](power.md).

- Even the people who have pledged allegiance to Lucifer himself are clueless about how much he's exploiting them, at least until they're no longer useful.

Whenever God wants, He can stop *everything* the Satan can try to do:

- He can speak directly to believers' hearts to inspire or encourage.
- A simple walk outside or genuine [intellectual discovery](understanding.md) can undo *decades* of the devil's work, merely through our [soul's connections with ourselves and each other](theology-godandman-humanity.md). It's why he so desperately wants us to do things we hate and avoid things we [like](purpose.md).
- Very often, he'll try to push us against what we really [want to do](theology-godandman.md) (e.g., stamp collecting, playing basketball) out of a [fear](mind-feelings-fear.md) that it's not the "[right](people-image-why.md)" or "best" or "[important](purpose.md)" thing to do.
- Self-discovery can be *very* profound, so anytime we run across a genuine thought, he'll try to scramble it before we can [write it down](language-writing.md) or [say it](language-speaking.md) (especially to [those close to us](people-friends.md) or on [social media](technology.md)).
- Of course, if we avoid publishing it, he can foster a sense of self-righteous superiority that we're "above all that". Taken far enough, it can become the cause of tremendous intellectual [pride](theology-sins.md).

One of the Satan's biggest lies is that he won't let up on tempting us until we relent:

- In reality, he only persists as long as God has a use for him.
- Once we've learned what we need to, God quickly removes him from our lives.

[God's loving nature](theology-god.md) is absolutely foreign to all the demons.

- They *suspect* it's all a ploy for some secret agenda or meta-game of control.
- Believers [know better](people-identity.md), and [time will show it](https://theologos.site/millennium/) after the [final cleanup Jesus needs to do](theology-end.md).
- Believers, therefore, [understand](understanding.md) reality more than the most powerful force of [evil](morality-evil.md) does.

In fact, the demons go absolutely *crazy* [when believers trust God](https://theologos.site/devotion-chaos/).

- They lose their ability to make calculated strategic decisions at that point, and that's most of the cause of [spiritual warfare](spiritual-warfare.md).
- Thus, if there's spiritual warfare or perceptible demonic activity, and it's not being promoted as a good thing, there's a *very* real possibility something spiritually good could be happening.