Screwtape’s Guide to Investing

In 1941, Oxford professor C.S. Lewis revealed that he had, through some mysterious chain of events, come into the possession of a collection of letters from Screwtape (one of the devil’s senior agents) to his young apprentice nephew Wormwood. The letters offered Screwtape’s crafty expertise in the art of temptation, which Wormwood then employed on his “patient.” Recently, through equally unlikely circumstances, another installment of Screwtape’s diabolical correspondence landed in our office. In keeping with Lewis’ original wisdom, we think it best to refrain from delving into any details regarding our procurement of this letter, or its provenance. As with the first letters, the dating is difficult to ascertain.

My Dear Wormwood,

I’m immensely pleased to hear how you have recently turned your ever improving cunning toward a new Patient. I’m also ravenously delighted in how this shift has led you to a fresh—and rather intriguing—arena of inquiry. You say this new fellow has a keen interest in investing and studiously pours great energy into being (as they say in their vernacular) “responsible about the future.” What wonderful fun this new assignment will prove to be.

You’ve surely heard our Enemy or his followers say that the love of money is the root of all evil, and on this singular point, I must begrudgingly agree. You have so much to work with here, so many possibilities, so many ways to weave your sticky web. I’m licking my chops at the prospects, as I’m sure you are too.

Right from the start, it will be essential to prod the Patient to lean even more heavily into his innate pull to be responsible and to adequately prepare for the future. A potent advantage to this track will be the air of morality interwoven into the appeal. Being responsible includes being wise, disciplined, and diligent—and these pursuits are all, of course, proximate to those blasted virtues that we work so hard to discredit and undermine. Tempting a human to do our bidding is always far easier if there’s enough goodness attached to make them dismiss all the bad. If you mix arsenic with a little bit of honey, the death always goes down much better.

However, the trick here will be to entice your Patient to draw that circle of responsibility as tightly as possible. Help him to think only of his own future, his own blissful retirement where (should he manage his portfolio with discipline and skill) he might own a second mountain home or spend his days in Tuscany or Florida’s white sands without any worry or care. Beyond that narrow vantage, help him to think of only a few others, his children and spouse perhaps. Help him to only consider his responsibility to them but never contemplate his responsibility to those that are affected by his investments. Allow him to feel satisfied in his supposed morality in saving, as much as his heart desires, so long as his vision is small and insular. Then he will be of no danger to us, and probably even something of an asset.

Here’s what will help you in this conspiracy: persistently muddy the waters of this whole enterprise. Cast shades of grey wherever you can so that he will throw up his hands in exasperation and conclude that the entire investing world is too opaque for any one person to have any meaningful clarity. Throw a barrage of terms at him (Alpha, Beta, R2, Sharpe Ratio, Standard Deviation, etc.). Then mix in the disarray of a global economy, political machinations, and perplexing (often contradictory) economic theories touted by geniuses with PhD’s who don’t even agree among themselves. Just make the whole jangled mess so vexing and confusing that he easily forgets how investing is a clear, decisive way that mortals use their money to pursue their Creator’s (our great Enemy’s) purposes.

At all costs, keep the Patient from any clear-eyed memory about how his money is one of the primary ways that he participates in the Enemy’s intentions to bring joy and healing to the world. Confound that simplicity and conviction at every turn. If in his mind, investing remains only about him and his small-minded desires, then pop the bubbly—you’ve won. If, however, the fog ever lifts and his heart ever swells with the magnitude of what the Enemy has in fact invited him to be part of—if he ever catches wind of investing’s expansive capacity for good—well, raise the white flag because the game’s over.

And this is where I suspect you’ll need the most help keeping these waters muddy for the Patient: you must steer him clear of any careful attention to how investing actually works. Make the whole idea hazy. Don’t let him understand that when he invests in a company, he’s buying a small part of that company and is lending his support to the product or service that company produces. Never allow him to ponder the employees or the customers of the company he owns. Don’t allow him the space to give a second thought to the community or environment affected by his company. Certainly don’t allow him to consider whether or not his company offers anything of value, anything that is generative or helpful, to the world.

Simply continue to remind the Patient of that future retirement with his 7-iron on the links, maybe the prospect of passing on a hefty inheritance to his children. Do whatever is necessary to encourage him to think of investing as this incomprehensive and massive magic machine where money goes in the front and then (voila!) even larger piles of money come out the back. Help him to think of investing as wizardry, something utterly incomprehensible. Then he won’t ask many questions, and he’ll mindlessly play along with all our schemes.

Finally, when the Patient is tired or anxious or in any other way especially vulnerable, you can tactfully employ our most delightfully devious attack. Sooth him with the steady refrain of how hard he’s worked, how much effort and sweat he’s put into acquiring all this money that he intends to invest. Whisper to him how it’s his money after all—his to do with as he pleases. Whisper how he deserves to have his money multiplied, how he deserves all the delicious things that these hefty investment returns will provide. And here’s another delectable trick: do remind him of how the Enemy wants him to enjoy this life and find pleasure in his days (a fact which, in my many years, I’ve found egregiously difficult to combat)—but let that fact be (again) restricted to a small and myopic circumference. Seduce the Patient with an anemic understanding of the truly good life, and keep his vision fixed only on himself. Coax him into a stupor, content with his tiny tastes of pleasure. Allow him to surrender his ultimate hopes and his active will so that he will never awaken to the powerful joys the Enemy truly has in mind (I shudder at just the thought). But if you allure the Patient with a small counterfeit, he will never, ever, enjoy the real thing.

I’m excited for what you’ve got working with this one. He could do real damage to our cause, if he caught a whiff of what is possible. But with this plan we’ve concocted, we’re sure to ruin all that. He’s a big catch, but I think you’ll soon have him hooked tight on the line.

Your newly energized uncle,

Screwtape