There is an interesting delusion known as Capgras Syndrome, in which people have the irrational belief that a familiar person or place is replaced with an exact duplicate or imposter.
There’s been a lot of talk regarding real vs shadow, the tinkerbell effect, and other worlds. The idea of people being replaced by an imposter has been popularized in movies such as The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, video games, such as Fallout 4, and numerous novels. While I’m not proposing that this is exactly what’s going on, I wanted to bring attention to this syndrome and its effects. If they did find a way to create a mass delusion in those involved in Lust, it would be another data point to see how we respond to our friends no longer being our friends (which seems to be a theme here). And we were just invited back to the compound to drink wine and eat cheese with them; what a convenient way to affect us.
Are our shadows real, or just a figment of our imagination?