My Dear Mogslopper,

Ah, my dear nephew. I have been away conducting the 2356th Annual Conference on Devilry. I thought you'd be overjoyed to know I was the M.C. for much of the event, and was also adequately rewarded for my efficiency in the last several centuries. Any thought you had of finding a replacement mentor has been delayed for a time; you will need to learn to work under my yolk, if you know what is good for you. I might add that Slemminus has forwarded me the e-mails you have been sending his way. All of your requests for review and promotion on account of infernal conduct have hereby been denied. Please do not feel that you can worm your way out of any punishment you will receive for trying to circumvent the Belowcracy. But on to less demanding topics: I trust you have kept busy with your patient over these last few days. Getting on splendidly are you? An absolute cesspool of unrighteous by now? Rotten to the core, I hope? I fear from your reports that not much has changed for the worse. Firstly, though this is indeed an election year, and though we do have a vast interest and influence over the political system in America and other world governments, your primary concern with your patient has little to do with his political affiliation, with one important exception. While the swine lives in a democracy, we know, and the majority of them suspect, that their measly vote for a federal election means precisely beans in comparison to the overwhelming responsibility that the humans have for their neighbors. It is partly because we have tuned their media in to the importance of the national-level debates and candidates--and your patient is stuffed full of immense quantities of hyperbole and misinformation via these media--that your patient believes these things not only matter but are of far more import to his life than simple acts of charity displayed toward his neighbor. So, please, focus his attention on the national reports, work up his attention surrounding these seemingly pressing issues, do not allow him to place the proper amount of attention on the individuals he crosses every day or every week on the sidewalk, in church, at their homes. But please spare me, Mogslopper. I am not so naive as to believe these elections have any bearing on your patient's responsibility or behavior toward his fellowman. And this brings me to my second point. Secondly, the issue of conspicuousness is important to our Cause. Anonymity is a tool of the Enemy. We want our patients as conspicuous as possible. We want them in the limelight. We want them to be up front, pedantic, larger than life, unteachable. We want others to be in awe of their stage presence. But there is a subtle hair to split over the issue of being noticed or popular amongst others. Please pay attention to these important facts. Fact #1: Humans love to be noticed. They believe from youth that recognition is more important than authenticity, fame more rewarding than anonymous servanthood. Fact #2: notoriety usually makes a young human self-reliant. This self-reliance can, with proper tempting, lead to a lack of sacrificial relationships. Fact #3: The Enemy knows that sacrificial relationships are the life-blood of His Plan. At least, that's what He states. We suspect there must be something else behind this Plan. Fact #4: The Enemy warns His followers that notoriety and self-determination are usually to be avoided. "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, " and "I do not permit you to call each other 'leader' for you have but one Leader..." come to mind as only two among the many proscriptions the Enemy uses to admonish His followers to this effect. But you should know by now, Mogslopper, that humans are weak. They have forgotten their Creator and they, like us, long for fulfillment and mastery. To them, despite obvious evidence to the contrary, popularity and notoriety are indicative of potential peace and fulfillment and self-reliance--they have been accepted by someone they approve of, as if the approval of men foretold anything reciprocal regarding the approval of the Enemy. We understand that men approve each other often simply to assuage guilt, to aggrandize their own mastery of themselves and others, and to build a large and impressive house of popular opinion upon the shifting sands of subjectivity and mutual back-scratching. When their will to rely upon the Enemy dims, they shove forward a human leader to be their mediator; both because they understand the talents placed upon the chosen individual and because they find the Enemy to be too demanding a Master. They wish to hand over the difficult, unruly parts of their lives so He can approve of them. Yet He cruelly demands all. Not so that He can approve them as they stand, blemished, but because He sees the vermin as He would remake them and is satisfied in His handiwork. He asks for surrender and sacrifice of their will and their desire to see themselves high and lifted up (even if that state of being lifted up is tenuously suspended only by another man who is higher and more exalted than they). He desires humility because He knows only when they stop attempting to scramble up the man-fashioned heap of rubbish acknowledgments will they allow Him to lift them to a plateau of unwavering firmness and others-centeredness unlike anything this world of sham affirmation can offer. Mogslopper, you must prod your patient into these sorts of relationships if we are to save him from the Church. When situations of difficulty arise within his body of Enemy-followers, as they always will, you must whisper that somewhere else there is a place of ease and rest where people will feed and care for him tenderly--as they ought, for he deserves it!--where all his needs and desires will be met with popular affirmation and approval. Give him a vision of this group, this clique, this cabal, wherein he is accorded a place of high esteem amongst his fellow humans. You see, do you not, how easily this will transition into feelings of entitlement? Soon, he will believe that it is his right to be well-liked, unchallenged, affirmed, lifted to places of acclaim, even fame. Of course, if he has been a follower of the Enemy for too long, you must not mention "fame" right away--he will surely remember the words of the Enemy: "He who would be first must be last; your leader must be the servant of all." Servanthood of course means anonymity and sacrifice. Servants do not receive acclaim. At least, not from non-Masters. Help him to believe that he can handle the pressures of popularity and leadership--by which he probably means the increased weight and number of administrative or institutional duties. He will completely disregard his humbling service to his neighbors--to those Enemy followers and non- that surround him. He will see the place of ill-ease with one group of people as a sign that he needs to "move on" rather than as a cross for him to bear in order to follow the Enemy more closely. And he will gladly take on the mantle of leadership as, in regards to his relationships with his neighbors, it affords him less taxing, not more taxing, work. He will find it easy to hold reciprocal relationships at arm's length; all of his time will be spent instructing those who cannot hurt or instruct back, cannot offer him anything lasting other than their approval, acclaim, admiration, perhaps a hand-shake. In this area of popularity and notoriety, our major point of contention with the Enemy is not that He thwarts pain but that He allows it. We so love the shrieks and moans of human suffering. But so often this thing that is most enjoyable for us also jars the humans from their spiritual stupor, wherein they are content to tell pleasant lies to one another if it avoids any relational pain. When the pain arrives, we are forced to suggest to our patients that somewhere pleasure exists (a despicable resort, I know) and that if only they distanced themselves from these other pain-inducing humans, they would be happy. It is all indefensible fabrication, obviously. But we must construct such houses of cards to draw the humans away from the other Churchmen--even if it means making some patients into reverends and pastors. In many cases, we must first work on isolation from sacrificial relationships with one's neighbors before we can truly begin to plumb the depths of human sin--an important matter that, I'm afraid, will have to wait for another entry. Keep yourself in line, Your Uncle