IN social networks and on forums An excerpt allegedly from a story by Clive Staples Lewis entitled “Advice from an Old Devil” is being circulated. It tells in the form of a parable that the devil was able to easily take possession of the souls of people who, due to fear of getting sick, had lost all social connections. We decided to check whether the author of The Chronicles of Narnia wrote such a text.

The passage was said to have been written in the 1940s and published in the book Advice from a Screwtape.
"Young man to the devil:
- How did you manage to send so many souls to hell?
Devil:
- Through fear!
Young man:
- And what were they afraid of? Wars? Hunger?
Devil:
- No... Disease!
Young man:
— Aren't they sick? Didn't they die? Wasn't there a cure?
Devil:
- They got sick. They died. There was a cure...
Young man:
- I don't understand…
Devil:
— They accidentally decided that the only thing that needs to be preserved at any cost is life!!! They stopped hugging... They stopped greeting each other!!! They left all human contacts... They left everything that was human! They were left without money. They lost their jobs. But they chose to fear for their lives, even if they had no bread to eat. They believed what they heard, read the newspapers and blindly believed what they read. They gave up freedom. They never left the house again, they didn't go anywhere. We never visited friends and family again. The whole world has turned into a huge prison with volunteer convicts. They accepted everything!!! All this to get through another miserable day... They didn't live, they died every day! It was too easy to take their pathetic soul...»

Clive Staples Lewis is a British writer and poet, teacher, scientist and theologian, who gained worldwide fame thanks to the fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. His books have been translated into more than 30 languages and published in millions of copies.

Lewis has two works about conversations between an old devil and his nephew: “The Screwtape Letters” and “The Screwtape Proposes a Toast.” However, as you can easily see by looking at the texts of both books, the above quote in them not found.

It also does not appear in any of Lewis's other books published during this period, nor in "Simply Christianity", neither in "Divorce", neither in "Preface to Paradise Lost". It also couldn't be found in the book. "Quoted Lewis", including 1,500 quotes from the British writer. William O'Flaherty, Lewis biographer and author of Misquoted Lewis: What He Never Said, What He Really Said, and Why It Matters also confirms, that the quote is attributed to him erroneously and is not in the original works of Clive Lewis.

The real author of the quote is Brazilian writer Camila Abadi, author books "Catholic Homeschooling." She posted her on April 19, 2020 on her Facebook page. According to the post's edit history, the quote went viral and was immediately attributed to Lewis. Two hours after publication, the author added a note that this was her text, not Lewis's, and that it was an unpublished excerpt from her book Maps of Hell.

Thus, the post being circulated is a modern text by a Brazilian writer, mistakenly presented as a quote from a British classic.