Can the Devil read minds?

A parishioner asked me yesterday whether the Devil could read minds. I answered that as a finite being, he could not possibly read the minds and pay special and particular attention to each individual mind constantly. I suppose only God can do that, since He exists eternally in a constant ''moment'' being fully aware of everything in Time and Space outside the periphery of temporal and contingent things. And I don't suppose that the Devil is really interested in things not related to sin and the corruption of Men's thoughts, and so small things like the mind's perception of beauty (well perhaps this is small to him) only anger him when thrust upon his attention. The Devil is a terrifying entity all the same, and I don't suppose that there is any power conceivable greater than he, save God alone (to quote the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth).

However, if we turn to Volume X of The History of Middle-earth, Tolkien writes very eloquently on the subject of ''mind-reading'' among the Valar. He says:

''No one, not even one of the Valar, can read the mind of other 'equal beings':* that is one cannot 'see' them or comprehend them fully and directly by simple inspection. One can deduce much of their thought, from general comparisons leading to conclusions concerning the nature and tendencies of minds and thought, and from particular knowledge of individuals, and special circumstances. But this is no more reading or inspection of another mind than is deduction concerning the contents of a closed room, or events taken place out of sight. Neither is so-called 'thought-transference' a process of mind-reading: this is but the reception, and interpretation by the receiving mind, of the impact of thought, or thought-pattern, emanating from another mind, which is no more the mind in full or in itself than is the distant sight of a man running the man himself. Minds can exhibit or reveal themselves to other minds by the action of their own wills (though it is doubtful if, even when willing or desiring this, a mind can actually reveal itself wholly to any other mind). It is thus a temptation of minds of greater power to govern or constrain the will of other, and weaker, minds, so as to induce or force them to reveal themselves. But to force such a revelation, or to induce it by any lying or deception, even for supposedly 'good' purposes (including the 'good' of the person so persuaded or dominated), is absolutely forbidden. To do so is a crime, and the 'good' in the purposes of those who commit this crime swiftly becomes corrupted.

''Much could thus 'go on behind Manwë's back': indeed the innermost being of all other minds, great and small, was hidden from him. And with regard to the Enemy, Melkor, in particular, he could not penetrate by distant mind-sight his thought and purposes, since Melkor remained in a fixed and powerful will to withhold his mind: which physically expressed took shape in the darkness and shadows that surrounded him. But Manwë could of course use, and did use, his own great knowledge, his vast experience of things and of persons, his memory of the 'Music', and his own far sight, and the tidings of his messengers.

*[marginal note] All rational minds/spirits deriving direct from Eru are 'equal' - in order and status - though not necessarily 'coëval' or of like original power.'' (The History of Middle-earth, Volume X, Morgoth's Ring, Part Five, Myths Transformed, Text VII (ii)).