Subject: Faustian bargains
My dear Scumbucket,
In your last letter to me, you expressed some surprise at the ease with which we can enlist humans to our cause -- even when they are perfectly aware (at some level, at least) of the dangers involved. You are faced with a situation where one of your cases is desperate for success, and is willing to bargain for it with you (even though she's not really convinced that you even exist -- what a delightful setup!) -- and you wish to know how to proceed.
Allow me to review some elementary concepts for you. For a spirit, physical existence is immensely restrictive. While humans are alive on Earth (and of course, I mean in the physical plane -- merely leaving the surface of the planet doesn't change anything), their souls are, in a very real sense, in prison. Their movements are severely curtailed, their range of interaction limited, the monotony of their environment carefully managed. We are in charge of this prison, and have very broad latitude in controlling how the prisoners spend their time, what punishments they endure, and so on.
Now, some humans wake up to this fact, to a greater or lesser degree. If they wake up completely, of course, they appeal to the Enemy for release and are usually granted, shall we say, executive clemency -- and so we strive to keep the little darlings as somnambulent as possible. But some of those who awake only slightly (enough to comprehend both our reality and the reality of their situation, but not enough to take positive action) can be encouraged to work with us -- to become "trusties," as it were. Recognizing us as the stronger force, they naturally wish to align themselves with us. They know that we have almost total power over their lives, and that we can bring them either sufferings or pleasures -- and quite logically, they wish to minimize the former and maximize the latter, at least within their painfully shortsighted frame of reference. They therefore throw in their lot with us, usually demonstrating their sincerity by bringing us nourishment of one form or another -- spreading mayhem, fear, and distrust, and undermining the spiritual foundations of their fellows with cynicism and callow materialism. And indeed, we reward handsomely those who aid us in our efforts. (You may see some of the results on the best-seller lists and award shows -- but more on that another time.) Some may even move downward in the Lowerarchy, becoming "guards" or even "wardens." But the trick of it all, of course, is that no matter how much power they gain over others, however many pleasures they accumulate for themselves, how much suffering or grief they can inflict on their fellows, *they are still in the prison* -- until that final glorious moment when they move out of that temporal prison into the eternal one which we have prepared for them.
We no longer go through the troublesome rigamarole of negotiating agreements, obtaining signatures in blood, and all the rest of that legalistic mumbo-jumbo -- we have gotten burned (so to speak) more than once by such arrangements. (I am allowed to tell you only this much, that the "Devil and Daniel Webster"-type legends have some factual basis.) No, it is better to have the relationship grow subtly. Give your subject a minor idea -- say, a song about the "ironic" hopelessness of things ever turning out right -- and if she goes with it, we'll make sure it sells. Encourage her bit by bit in this vein, and eventually, she'll have her arena-size audiences tapping their toes and cheerfully singing mindless little ditties about blasphemy and infanticide without a second thought. She will wallow in all the vainglorious trappings of stardom, and be feeding us a steady stream of fresh young souls all the while...
And of course, there are any number of other lines of human endeavor where similar paths can be laid out. All that is required is that the subject be shortsighted, self-centered, and avaricious -- and thanks to our ongoing efforts of the past twenty years or so, there's hardly a human left on the continent that doesn't fit that description.
As ever,
Screwdisk