Damnation 101

thumb|right|335 pxthumb|right|335 pxOnce the audience had assembled, I brought up PowerPoint on the big screen and started my presentation. "Hello, my name is Piorah. Welcome to Damnation 101. No doubt many of you are wondering why you are in a lecture hall instead of enjoying clouds of sulfur while you have your eyes and genitals poked out with red-hot pitchforks. Every one of you has committed grievous mortal sins. None of you has to suffer if you make your quota of souls. If you don't, they will kick you out of this comfy oasis. Would you like to be roasted in lava and tortured by the horrible monsters that live in it for eternity? No? Good. Pay close attention, and your afterlife can be full of devil's food cake, deviled eggs, and demon rum." That joke always makes me smile.
 
"You have the opportunity to destroy your worst enemies. Did you ever tell someone to go to Hell? Well, now you can really do it!" I grinned. "Isn't that wonderful?
 
"But your purpose here isn't fun and games. You are here because our work is absolutely critical. We are in a cold war with Heaven. Soon it will heat up again. Our side needs all the soldiers we can get. Either we destroy God and his angels, or every one of us will suffer eternal damnation.
"Now that you understand why you are here let me tell you my story. I was a member of the original 84 legions of Lucifer, but I was a foot soldier, the lowest of the low. I worked hard and earned my promotions up the ranks. My last assignment was First Assistant to the Director in the Moscow district. Our wins included a revolution, two world wars and decades of fear and misery. This allowed our team to recruit over 300,000,000 human souls. I take pride in my work. Most of the time, I succeed. I love it, just as I know you will too. There is nothing more fun than achieving complete destruction.
 
"Twenty years ago, our Lord and Master Lucifer promoted me to be the Director of Recruit Training. That's you."
 
The next slide was of a question mark. The seven deadly sins were written over it. "Many of you learned in your pre-infernal existence of 'The seven deadly sins.' Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. You may be afraid that you must master each of the seven tools to make big recruitment bonuses. That is false. Everything follows if you exploit pride. Pride causes more misery and destruction than the rest put together."
A student raised his hand. I answered their question. "No. These techniques work anywhere on the planet. People are the same everywhere."
 
I changed the slide to a picture of a man. "This is Matthew Schoenberger. We ejected his last controller. Does anyone want to watch what happens after an ejection? It would spoil your lunch." I cherished the memories of his screams and pleas. "My predecessor said that it was impossible to recruit Matt. He had money, prestige, power, knowledge, and access to sex. Let me show you how I proved him wrong. Lights, please."
 
I played video of a departmental meeting. "This happened a week after I took the case. Matt was absolutely livid. He kept the plastic smile but inside he wanted to kill the chief of staff. A patient had complained to the hospital about the number of tests Matt ran when they were screaming in pain. It turned out they had the flu, but Matt thought it was a gallbladder attack. Instead of Matt taking it a lesson, I whispered to him justifications for his action. He had to be careful and that he couldn't risk a malpractice suit. I told him what an utterly incompetent manager she was. How dare she deride him in front of everyone? She couldn't understand his feelings.
 
"Matt had seven months dry. My job was to chip away at the team effort that kept him clean and sober. That morning, I made sure Matt remembered that warm glow and the promise that the solution to his problems was in a Wild Turkey 101 bottle.
 
"I am the one who pushed Matt to anger. At first, I barely changed the chief of staff's remarks. As he justified himself, I twisted them more. I turned an illustration directed to the entire team into a deliberate insult. Then as he worked the rest of the day, I carefully gave Matt thoughts. 'She is a lesbian. She hates men.' 'It's not your fault.' 'She wants to get rid of you because you are a man.' 'She is jealous of how good you are.' 'You will show them.' But the point I drove the hardest was 'You're tired. You want to watch TV and go to bed.'
 
"Construction slowed the freeway on Matt's commute home. I whispered in his ear to make them move by honking. You can see him tailgating the semi, pounding the horn and cursing. Did he change the behavior of the truck ahead of him? Of course not! The driver was a psychedelic relic with 500 watts of audio rocking the cab. He didn't know Matt was there and wouldn't have cared.
"Matt's anger achieved nothing, except bringing him closer to me. When he did get in, I kept him miserable by telling him that everyone should have seen who he was and let him in sooner. This is a key point. Never allow a human to be grateful. Always maintain the illusion that their actions cause everything.
I went to a new slide.
"Let me show you two views of that highway. The first is a lie. It's how our prospects perceive it. Watch as we go from car to car. They think other people and the traffic are the only reasons they turn from calm to aggravated to irate.
 
"This is the truth. Every human on Earth always has at least one demon with them. Many have several demons. How would they act if they knew their impulse for road rage might just be whisperings from us?
 
"We can only achieve victory as a team, helping each other in our common struggle. If you support each other in your efforts, we will win. We have spent years making you believe you were special, the baddest or the saddest, the bravest or the lamest. We call this 'Terminal Uniqueness.' Remember, that was our way of destroying you.
 
"I will advance the video until Matt made it home.
 
Matt slumped in the dining room chair. "Lousy day," he told Ashley, his wife.
 
His son Ian stood behind his mother, holding onto her leg. "Is Daddy sick again?"
 
"No," Matt said. "I'm just tired."
 
Ashley glowered at him.
 
"Honest. Completely clean." He smiled at little Ian. "I am fine."
 
After dinner, he grabbed Cheetos and parked himself in front of the TV.
 
I paused the video for a moment. "Class, you need to understand what I did next. I had 47 resentment tapes. They are memories of his past that make him angry or sad or ashamed. When I played them, his brain made him experience that pain again. Once he was in his chair and watching Dexter, I worked him hard. I began with mild ones and increased this discomfort until he pigged out on Flamin' Hot Cheetos. He wasn't hungry. He had just eaten dinner. But I trained him the same way humans train a dog. Every time I gave him anxiety or stress, he ate to stop it. This reinforced 'The answer to problems in your head is consumption.' He thought he was using his own actions to control himself."
Soon after the video started again, Matt's cell phone vibrated. It was his AA sponsor. "Matt, I missed you at the meeting tonight. How are you? Dwight." 
 
Matt typed "Horrible day at the hospital. Exhausted. Going to go to sleep."
 
I pointed to the screen. "See how Matt's pride works against him? He is exploding, but he is too proud to admit it to anyone, even himself. Instead, he clung to the idea he can handle everything by his own actions and willpower. I was getting stronger, and he didn't know it. He thought he was in control when he added two more addictions, food and TV."
 
"You may be wondering what I did to get Matt to drink. Actually, I was giving a lecture when he started. A student only three weeks out of this class scored." The screen showed a pool party. "Here we see a tiny but critical example of teamwork. Watch Matt's controller ask the controller of that voluptuous young woman to give Matt a bottle of beer. A simple act. It only took a moment. Yet its significance in Matt's destruction was pivotal. Matt's controller then told him that his months of not drinking proved he could drink safely and that he deserved a drink to celebrate his self-control. Then his controller played the same escalation of resentment tapes I mentioned earlier. Matt consumed that Coors Light to drown the problems in his head as if it were Cheetos. Remember, all addictions are only a symptom of the problem, misery and pride. Our job is to convince him he can keep his ego and stop being miserable."
 
The big screen showed Matt at home popping pills. "Since alcohol didn't get him to Hell soon enough, I had to up my game. Humans say our Lord and Master, Lucifer, is the father of lies. It's a lie. I'm not saying I won't tell the prospect whoppers to reach them, but the truth is often far more damaging. I fed Matt diagnostic information about his patients. A few facts and a lot of flattery made him believe he was Dr. Gregory House. Once he thought he was a miracle worker, I whispered a few falsehoods, so he diagnosed his hangover aches and pains as serious illness. As bizarre as it may seem, his ego will do anything to defend his using. Before long, Matt and another doctor were swapping prescriptions for Ritalin, Oxycodone, Xanax, Benzos and a host of other destructive medications. He became even more anxious and depressed. He also began suffering from nightmares. Naturally, he took more drugs to treat the symptoms of his drugs."
I put up a slide that read Self Delusion. "Matt's over-inflated ego told him he is in control. We helped him to keep that illusion. We sold him something to cure the problems in his head and the ones created by his pride. Humans do more than just pills to support their delusions. They lie, threaten, beg, kill, make deals and butter up with kindness so they can get other people to do what they want. Eventually, their power over others and themselves will fail. With Matt, it took a year. By then, Ashley had found his drugs hidden in the garage, got a restraining order against him and filed for divorce."
 
I stood, smiling. "Four months later, we achieved total victory. After a three day methamphetamine and PCP fueled binge with a ten dollar beauty queen he met at Walmart, I convinced Matt that he needed to spend quality time with his son. So, he picked Ian up and drove off with him. Since the court had given his wife sole custody and there was a restraining order against him, according to the law Matt kidnapped him. But the story only gets better." I grinned. "I never had so much fun!"
 
"Here Matt is driving Ian and me away. I told Matt that he needed to go faster, go faster, go faster, and he did. Watch that family walking in the crosswalk as Matt ran the red light doing 73 in a 40 zone. I have to give a shout out to thank the great teamwork by the former controllers of mother and father. They delayed everyone long enough for Matt to score a perfect hit. Wee, baby grease spots as Matt ran over the kids. The Suburban's impact crushed Dad's chest in and smashed his skull against the road. But the best part was Mama. The accident rammed her head through the windshield of Matt's Suburban.
 
"It kept getting better from there. Matt fled the scene with Mom on the hood. A TV station helicopter broadcast this view live. That's her flapping away in the breeze as we flew at over 110 miles an hour. Observe how her neck snapped and her decapitated body crumpled onto the freeway. What they didn't show the home audience was the fun we had with her head bouncing around inside the vehicle.
 
The screen shows the police roadblocks. "The local flatfoots tried to spoil the entertainment with spike strips across the highway. But I wasn't going to let them stop the party so quickly. There, Matt punched one officer and bit a second. They hammered on him with their nightsticks but was so high he didn't even notice. They had to taser him three times.
 
"At that point, Matt was facing everything from five counts of vehicular manslaughter to extreme aggravated DUI with a minor in the vehicle.
"Here we see Matt waking up in jail, bruised, battered and with no idea how he got there. He knew it wasn't good.
 
"This is Matt handcuffed to the table in an interrogation room. They're showing him the photoradar pictures of his Suburban hitting that family. Look at the expression on his face. Shock, disbelief and self-loathing. It only gets better when he watches the TV footage and video of the arrest.
 
 "We have yet one act in Matt's drama." I beamed with pride as I advanced the scene five days. It showed Matt hanging himself using a rope made from his sheets. "Before we break out into individual training modules, I had to show you how we achieved total victory last night. Not only that, but we have wonderful prospects with Ian and Ashley. Ian now has major PTSD while Ashley is depressed, resentful and bitter. We should be seeing both of them here soon. I love making recruits. This is my work and my glory, to bring about the destruction and eternal damnation of man."
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