Charles Williams and Paracelsus
May. 11th, 2025 09:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nancylebovhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNOu6tfmOOA&ab_channel=ESOTERICA
In Charles Williams' _Descent into Hell_ (1937), a professor creates a succubus. No overt magical methods, just obsession about a young woman who isn't interested in him. He doesn't like that she's not interested. As I recall, once this is clear to him, he avoids her, and invents a false version with her distaste for him edited out.
He spends more and more time with the false Amelia until she can even be seen by someone else. His lack of interest in truth leads to his mind disintegrating.
I was surprised to find in this discussion of Paracelsus, a major Renaissance writer about magic who put much emphasis on the power of imagination (at about 25:00), a description of making a succubus by imagination, and I'm willing to bet that Williams, who had a considerable interest in magic, had picked the idea up from there.
I thought I had just found a really cool reference, but this does rather look like concerns about AI companions.
In Charles Williams' _Descent into Hell_ (1937), a professor creates a succubus. No overt magical methods, just obsession about a young woman who isn't interested in him. He doesn't like that she's not interested. As I recall, once this is clear to him, he avoids her, and invents a false version with her distaste for him edited out.
He spends more and more time with the false Amelia until she can even be seen by someone else. His lack of interest in truth leads to his mind disintegrating.
I was surprised to find in this discussion of Paracelsus, a major Renaissance writer about magic who put much emphasis on the power of imagination (at about 25:00), a description of making a succubus by imagination, and I'm willing to bet that Williams, who had a considerable interest in magic, had picked the idea up from there.
I thought I had just found a really cool reference, but this does rather look like concerns about AI companions.
