In Perelandra, the sudden arrival of Weston's spaceship on Venus is a great surprise to the self-doubting Ransom, who himself has been sent by an oyarsa to counter a mysterious threat. Weston has undergone a philosophical conversion since his near-death in returning from Mars: he considers his former devotion to the human race as "a mere prejudice", and now wishes to spread "Spirit... the blind, inarticulate purposiveness" which drives emergent evolution. In his personal theology, Weston has come to the fatal misunderstanding that God and the Devil are one, and that his great work is guided by this syncretic Spirit. Indeed, Weston calls Ransom to join him, since "nothing now divides you and me except a few outworn theological technicalities with which organised religion has unhappily allowed itself to get incrusted. But I have penetrated that crust."