By Charlie Clauss
From time to time the strangest things happen. This letter falling into my hands is not the strangest to have happened in my life, but it’s certainly up there.
Dear Slimeside,
Thank for your recent request for insight into the humans’ recent observance of what they call Easter (and in the future, please do not use that horrible “R” word — it is sickening). We here below have made great strides in weakening the humans’ benefit from that observance. Take for example the wedge we have driven between the East and the West, having them often split the observance between two Sundays. It is a very nice victory for our secret police.
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Of course, we have had a hand in keeping many humans in the dark about what Easter is even about. Their media plasters the airwaves with pictures of bunny rabbits. Chocolate eggs serve the useful purpose of distracting them. It is loathsome that they get pleasure from eating the chocolate, but it is a price well worth paying.
As for the humans familiar with the meaning of Easter, we have used a multipronged approach. First, our office of propaganda has made good use of their philosophers who have created what the humans call Materialism. It provides the argument that such a thing as what Easter claims happened could not have happened. Never mind that the use their science is put in this endeavor is a misuse of science. It makes for a veneer of respectability when someone says, “Science proves … never happened.”
Second, you would think that once the humans go to church that certainly they would be too exposed to the truth to be deceived. But once again we have been able to blunt the impact using an oh-so-useful word: spiritual. So they claim that what happened was only spiritual, meaning that nothing really happened beyond some vague quickening of emotions. One of their teachers has almost ruined this approach by pointing out it is unlikely that the many early Christians who we managed to kill would have died for something “spiritual.” Luckily, many humans don’t read much.
Third, we have kept many busy arguing over the mechanics. They spend endless hours talking about this theory or that. If it happened, they say, we must explain it. Hell forbid they should ever actually ask what it means for them and their lives! No, they are so caught up in their brains that the actions that would follow from belief are never considered. All the better if they can be made to disagree so strongly that they end up in fights and hard feelings.
Finally, one of our most subtle efforts revolves another marvelous phrase, “The only hands Gxx has on Earth are your hands.” And yet, our Enemy has shown by the very event of Easter that he is not limited by the humans’ efforts. What he did at Easter (oh, what misery, what pain, what bright and blinding light!) was something the humans could never do. We must, at all costs, never allow them to find out that the power shown at Easter is available to them. We must keep them thinking that they must “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” It is so delicious to watch them strive so hard, finally giving up in their efforts to live by the Enemy’s standards, when the answer lay right at their side! They often then easily fall into our hands.
Slimeside, your work in this area is critical to the overall success of the plan. Be diligent in placing before your charges the ideas I have presented here. Keep then focused on their own stuff, never turning their attention to the Enemy, and we will continue to reap a great harvest.
Your colleague,
Redclaw
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