The Mary Letters. Part 1

It’s strange, having converted from a feminist/pagan worldview, one would think I would have no problem with Mary.  In fact it was the Catholic reverence for Mary that made me realize that the Church’s supposed “sexism” wasn’t as clear cut as people on the left made it out to be.  Yet, for some reason, following my conversion Mary troubled me.   Maybe it was because I couldn’t understand what being “sinless” actually meant, and who could understand “sinlessness” anyway?  The whole “Immaculate” idea still seemed like a stick to beat women into submission, to neuter them emotionally and sexually.  This started to change after I read Simcha Fisher’s excellent article on the subject.    which really put Mary into perspective for me.   During one of my sleepless pregnancy nights, I started to reflect on what Mary’s sinlessness really looked like and how much power it had, in particular, how the powers of hell are terrified of her.  I started to imagine a “Screwtape” scenario in which, prior to the Annunciation, the demons would be utterly bewildered by this mysterious girl, a nobody from some jerkwater town in the Middle East, who would be so impervious to their influences.    I hope to keep working on this in whatever snippets of free time are available, but here is what I’ve written so far.  Just a note, since time flows differently in heaven and hell, and because I’m too busy and lazy and pregnant to research contemporary first century insults for a sense of realism, the demons in question make a lot of anachronistic references (“toilet brush” etc.)  I’m calling it a “Time warp” defense…so sue me.

Dear Foulbreath

Your letter came across my desk this morning and your infantile writing skills have left me with the worst case of indigestion since the last time that clown you call a supervisor Snagglewraith thought to ingratiate himself to me by throwing a spaghetti and Carthaginian supper.   Frankly, I´m disappointed that that toilet brush has fallen so far behind in his duties that he hasn´t even bothered to bring you up to speed on the work I´ve been doing in the Women´s Department before encouraging you to commit your pusillanimous whining to me on paper and ruin a perfectly good morning.

Are you not aware that the very reason I was made the head of the Women´s Department was because of the definitive work I wrote on the subject of female temptation?  The sheer, unalloyed genius of my book led Our Father Below to declare me the leading expert in the subject.  I have been feted by the curdled cream of the crop of the underrealms, those who accompanied our father on that Great Rebellion against The Enemy.  Belial, Mammon, Moloch, all the top demons have had me over for the sole purpose of hanging on my every word over glasses of dine cordial distilled from the finest Roman Tax Collectors humanity could produce.

Let me tell you something, in confidence, about all of those demons.  They are idiots, every single last one of them, utter morons.  They are idiots of the worst kind, possessing enough firepower to blow half the universe to croutons and yet lacking a neuron´s worth of intelligence between them.  Even after personally having witnessed the fabulous coup pulled off by Our Father against the Enemy in which he used a woman to corrupt the entire race of humans and dash to pieces The Enemy´s hopes for a relationship with those simian half-breeds He created, (a nauseating proposition in itself) these idiot demons still cling to the idea that our best hopes to harvest the entire crop of souls is by tempting and corrupting the men!  By creating ruthless War Generals, Imperators and Slave-Lords, philanderers and murderers.  Even Asmodeus, who always seemed like the classy one, who actually lived in a woman and wreaked glorious havock, slaughtering dozens of bridegrooms as they came to the nuptial chamber all awkward and wistful, until that gelded fool Raphael spoiled his fun,  Even he looked at me like I had six eyes instead of three when I suggested that corrupting the females of the species could lead to even more widespread chaos and more bounty for our cupboards.

The thing is, some of my novices will tell you it´s because women are more gullible or sensual, or stupid and temptable than men, but that´s not true.  That, rather is a convenient tale we like to tell human beings in order to serve for our purposes.  After all, as tempters our philosophy has always been two-fold…keep the focus of the patients off of themselves and onto the other, and keep them enslaved to their feelings.  If the patients ever come to recognize themselves as the loci of their appetites, their desires and their corrupt feelings, if they learn they can attain dominion over such things they´re one step closer to The Enemy and much harder to control.  No, my halitosic friend.   Women and men are both vulnerable to temptation in equal measure.  What makes a woman such a juicy target for corruption is that women are social. They bind societies together.  The Enemy designed the female of the species to communicate and to create communities.  She is the one who commits a significant amount of her adult life to the care and rearing of those mewling offspring of her womb.  She is the one who maintains family and kinship bonds.  She remembers birthdays, anniversaries and details of other people´s lives.  She designs rituals under whose framework the diverse members of family and community come together.  She imparts to her children rules of conduct and behavior, and to the men she imparts the ability to communicate across a wider spectrum of people.  She is the force that civilizes human beings, allowing them to live in groups and thus to thrive.  She is also the pole that orients male behavior towards ends that serve The Enemy or us.  A society of virtuous women orients men towards heroism.  A society of domineering women creates a society of flaccid and infantile men-children while a society of artificially weak women creates a society of brutes and fanatics.

Thus women are the best means to corrupt a large group of people at once, saving time, energy and manpower.  Those idiots in the inner-circle would prefer to focus on individual men, going at one at a time, eventually procuring a fulsome harvest, but not before we´ve starved ourselves into wraiths.  My theory is that by corrupting female souls first, male souls will corrupt themselves.  It´s far more efficient to destroy a building by dissolving the mortar than by pulling out bricks.  One prostitute can spread a venereal disease to a thousand men before the first even gets itchy.  The great thing about women is not that their sins are large or small, but that they are bacterial, communicable.

Now, you and that steaming bucket of feces Snagglewraith write me because you appear to have found a woman immune to temptation, some thirteen year old chit from the Naza-wherever whom you can´t even get to pinch a sweet or lie to her parents.  I find that hard to believe.  What is more likely, my smelly friend, is that you are merely an idiot, an amateur who doesn´t understand the nuance involved in tempting women, the finesse it takes to play upon her sensibilities until she produces the glorious bitter notes which make your innards sing with anticipatory hunger for the moment when you will consume her spirit in its entirety.  Therefore because I am generous and because your utter mental incapacity fills me with the sort of pity a human feels for a toddler who pees himself in a sandbox. I am sending you a copy of my book.  Study it.  It will help you.  And don´t bother me again.

Yours

Fatpants