Topic: 1938

Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich, wrote a controversial manuscript titled Outwitting the Devil in 1938 that remained unpublished for 73 years. His wife suppressed the work until her death, fearing its contents were too dangerous for the public. The book, eventually released in 2011, features a fictionalized interview with the devil regarding mind control and the architecture of human capture.

The final segment of the Napoleon Hill interview outlines ten methods for self-defense against "drifting," including doing one's own thinking and budgeting time. The devil's advice emphasizes that fear is a filler for the unused portion of the mind and that one must master life or be mastered by it. These 1938 concepts are compared to C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, written during the same era of global propaganda.