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Subject: cable
Before addressing the specifics of your last inquiry, let me put your mind at rest concerning some rumors you may have heard. Yes, it is true--your client caseload is about to be quadrupled, and more. As you may know, we have recently been going through some downsizing of our own here--although "consolidation" may be a better word, as Lower Management has taken to devouring some of our (ahem) less efficient staff. I myself barely escaped being served as lunch to my own lower-downs--I was in fact spared only because some of those same lower-downs had already become appetizers for the Board of Infernal Directors itself. Many of your peers have now been incorporated into senior demons, and although we are always looking for new hires, we find it expedient that we force our existing staff to work even more assidously. This is in keeping with the policies of Our Infernal Father, who longs to bring the sufferings of all beings into His own insatiable Appetite--and the fewer the intermediaries between Himself and His Nourishment, the better.
Therefore, you will find yourself working with a much broader spectrum of humanity in the future--young mothers, old men, the intelligent, the stupid. I would look at the bright side if I were you--you will be able to develop your tempting abilities to their utmost, finely honing your skills of deception, deceit, and distraction. (You will find these most useful, by the way, if you should survive long enough to make it into Lower Management.) I will be here to give you advice and counsel--but of course, if you should fail in meeting your quotas, the fault will be yours and yours alone.
And I assure you, the consequences will be exquisite--for all except yourself.
Now then--you wonder why I admonished you to make sure that one particular client of yours gets connected to cable at the earliest opportunity. You are still thinking in terms of urging your client to sins of commission--to performing acts that will lead to his ultimate damnation. Remember the rules of the game--if he asks for forgiveness for *any* acts that he commits, he will in all likelihood receive it. Our job, then, is to make sure that *he never asks.* There are several ways of acheiving ths goal. Shame was the first used by Our Infernal Father--after Adam and Eve had broken the original injunctions in the Garden, their real fault was *hiding* afterwards, rather than admitting their mistake--but I digress. (It's just so delicious to contemplate, I can't resist.) The method that is connected to things like cable is this: to make the subject doubt that forgiveness is available. One way to do this is to constantly remind the subject of his suffering, and of that of his fellow beings. But, this must be done not in a way as to provoke such repulsive impluses as sympathy, empathy, or charity--but rather to instill feelings more to our liking, of powerlessness and resentment. The subject must see suffering and be unable to alleviate it, and be left with no other option but to contemplate just what sort of vengeful--hence merciless--God would allow such things to continue. Indeed, such witnessings can be used to convince the subject that there is no God at all, with obvious benefits to us.
Consider further: in the past, the knowledge of this atrocity or that, and the suffering connected with such knowledge, was limited to those who experienced it directly, or who heard about such happenings through word of mouth. With the spread of literacy, this suffering could be multiplied by thousands, perhaps millions. Now, with these modern "communications technologies," billions upon billions of people can simultaneously and vicariously experience the grief of one mother whose child has been blown apart by a land mine, or a family that has fallen victim to a house fire. And of course, it is we who feed on that grief.
So make sure that your subject is up-to-date on all the latest serial murders, war crimes, and petty tragedies of life. Keep him in front of his TV as much as possible, and fill his head with the images of man's cruelty and nature's indifference. Everything else will follow.
Affectionately,
Screwdisk