My dear Wormwood,

Your last letter pleased me greatly.

I am glad to hear that your patient has continued pursuing his reading with great zealous and has already started to become bored with some of his duties. However, I was concerned about the prayers he has been sending to the Enemy of late about his brother, Jehan.

That will not do for our cause at all. He can not pray for his brother to become a Christian.

I have taken the liberty of speaking to Corruption about his patient and have found that he is a man who likes living in the moment and has a deliciously wicked habit of hanging around the brothels and gambling away his ill gained money.

Use that against your patient.

While in prayer, bring up the memories of Jehan stumbling into the cathedral, drunk, to demand money for his sins. That will make your patient too angry and embarrassed to continue praying for him. Instead he will think of all the grievances brought on by his brother.

It would also serve in our best interest if you brought up those memories several times throughout the day. Keep Jehan always in the back of his mind and you will see that your patient will come to hate his brother.

He will never show it of course, except maybe every now and then, when his brother is especially tiresome. Or he has had a trying day.

He must be so caught up in the embarrassment and resentment of having such a wayward brother that the thought to pray for him will never cross his mind, or if it does it will be more of a complaint than a prayer.

If you can accomplish that he will already have committed a great sin.

The Cursed Book tells us that any man who hates his brother or neighbor has murdered him in his heart. We want your patient to murder Jehan a dozen time over in his mind and heart.

Have him plead with the Enemy to know why he would inflict such a brother on him and beg to know what he did to deserve such punishment. Do not; however, let him think for a moment he should pray for any sins he may have committed.

I must admit that I am surprised, Wormwood. I did not think you would do so well on your assignment, but you have proven otherwise. Everything is going wonderfully to plan. Do not celebrate just yet though. Your patient is young and the young often times prove to be equally easy to manipulate, but just as hard to keep.

Your affectionate uncle,

Screwtape