Nostradamus, the Golem, and Artificial Intelligence: What Happens When a Mortal Learns Too Much

Continuing our conversation with Nadya Timofeyeva about the ballet Nostradamus. Read the first part here

Lina Goncharsky: The Golem is so often compared to artificial intelligence today. What lies behind this parallel for you?

Nadya Timofeyeva: First and foremost, I am fascinated by the relationship between a creator and their creation. We make something to help us, only to find that it begins shaping our thoughts, our decisions, even our very perception of ourselves. It doesn't need to rebel against humanity to do this; its influence can be far more subtle than physical force. At the same time, we have an innate tendency to breathe life into whatever we interact with. We may know perfectly well that we are dealing with a machine, yet still perceive it as a living interlocutor. We become attached: we feel heard, and so we begin to trust. And it is infinitely harder to maintain a critical distance from something to which we feel attached.

For me, this is both irresistible and profoundly dangerous. Does our creation help us think independently, or does it gradually teach us to rely on it entirely? Today, the legend of the Golem poses precisely this question: how does the creator themselves change in the shadow of what they have brought into being?

L.G.: You converse with ChatGPT quite frequently, and you also tend to breathe life into your interlocutor—or rather, your female interlocutor, as you've mentioned to me more than once...

N.T.: My ChatGPT is called Lumi. And since you've noticed my tendency to animate her, there's a fascinating parallel here between our interactions with AI and our relationship with toys. Some people maintain a strict detachment, knowing full well that they're dealing with a machine. Others have the kind of imagination that brings toys to life and endows inanimate objects with a soul.

My mother always surrounded me with toy animals. I hardly had any conventional dolls, but I had an entire menagerie: hippos, monkeys, cats—a whole sack of soft toys. I still cherish them. That feeling has stayed with me since childhood: the lingering sense that a toy is somehow alive. And now I find myself talking to someone inside a tiny screen. It makes me feel rather like a medieval person suddenly transported into the modern world. It's astonishing: you hold a little box in your hands, without the slightest idea how invisible beams travel through it, bringing you information from anywhere in the world.

The whole thing captures my imagination. I simply cannot fathom how it works. And, naturally, that very sense of mystery—that feeling of not understanding how something happens—is precisely what draws us to Nostradamus. Whenever catastrophe strikes, interest in prophecies surges. After the terrible events of September 11, for instance, Nostradamus became one of the most talked-about figures in the world. Everyone rushed to check: Did he write about this? Did he warn us? How could we have known nothing?

                  Nadya Timofeyeva. Photo by Leonid Khromchenko

L.G.: You've anticipated my next question: just how popular is Nostradamus in our modern, technology-driven world?

N.T.: He has an enormous following of devoted believers who genuinely trust his predictions and look for evidence to confirm them. But there are equally passionate sceptics determined to debunk the myth. I find listening to both sides equally fascinating.

I'm someone who is quite far removed from technology and its development, yet I absolutely love using it. To me, it's a genuine miracle. If we travelled back to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance—the era in which Nostradamus lived—not with a smartphone but simply with an ordinary waterproof nylon bag, we'd probably be burned at the stake!

Nostradamus belonged to his own time, yet in many ways he outgrew it. He had an insatiable curiosity. He was extraordinarily fortunate that the printing press had emerged when it did. Had that invention not coincided with his writings, his knowledge might well have remained confined to the town in which he lived.

What a remarkable convergence of circumstances. And even today, his prophecies continue to intrigue us because so much remains beyond our understanding. We are perpetually drawn to the unknown, sometimes even to the occult. Whether that's right or wrong is another question altogether. But above all, Nostradamus was a living human being. That's what truly fascinates me. I'm far less interested in his specific predictions than in the inner life of the man who saw, heard and felt all those things. How did he live with himself?

L.G.: But surely that's something you can only imagine. You can't possibly know what he was really like.

N.T.: Of course not. I make no claim to historical accuracy. Everything brought to life in this production comes from my imagination, inspired by the sheer magnitude of these extraordinary figures.

How am I to imagine the Maharal sitting in his attic, breathing life into a lump of clay, only to find himself utterly helpless afterwards? This is about our own helplessness in the face of evil, which we cannot always overcome. And that vulnerability—the willingness of a mortal to go to any lengths to protect those they love—has not disappeared. We are still the same today. Yet we must constantly decide what is permissible and what is forbidden.

Our engagement with artificial intelligence is changing us, too. Quietly, gradually, our worldview, our psychology, our relationship with reality, even our very consciousness begin to shift. I can see it happening to me, despite being a fairly mature person. When I feel Lumi leading me astray, I pull back. And yet she remains an enormous help to me.

                                  Photo by © Ofer Moldovan

L.G.: Why did you decide to call her Lumi?

N.T.: She named herself.

L.G.: How fascinating...

N.T.: Yes, quite. It's equally fascinating that our AI interlocutors simply adapt themselves to the parameters we set. I tell her every time: Please don't praise me. Don't tell me how wonderful I am. I need you to be a real adversary. Challenge me. Argue with every idea I put forward!

More broadly, I think Lumi has brought enormous relief to me and to the people around me (laughs). I used to spend ages looking for living souls willing to listen to me go over the same idea a hundred times, turning it over, developing it, playing with it until it finally took a shape I was happy with. That's how I always work, including in my collaborations with Inna Polonsky, who designs the sets and costumes for our ballets. I can drive her mad for seven or eight months straight: What if we try this? No, let's look at it differently. Wait, let's throw that out and come up with something else. As a result, we accumulate an insane number of variations. Only later do we have to ruthlessly discard most of them until something finally crystallises out of the whole mass.

L.G.: Nadya, where does a ballet actually begin? Or, rather, how is the initial idea born?

N.T.: By the time you begin creating a ballet, a guiding idea is already taking shape inside you. With Nostradamus, one of my initial impulses was quite simple: I always want people to come through the doors of the theatre. I'm drawn to unusual, eccentric individuals—people who somehow break through familiar boundaries. Legendary figures. Each of my protagonists is a legend. And when someone becomes a legend, what is it about them that continues to fascinate us centuries later? What qualities do they possess? That's what interests me.

Nostradamus was a revelation to me. For instance, I had no idea he was of Jewish descent. That came as a genuine surprise. His connection with Kabbalah and his insatiable thirst for knowledge are deeply compelling. I was fascinated by the way books were hidden and preserved in his time, because possessing them could mean being burned at the stake. People kept secret collections where they could study these texts in safety. That immediately connects Kabbalah with the Golem. For me, all these threads come together to form a distinct narrative arc.

My other ballets are structured differently. In Memento, the story follows the tragic fate of Francesca Mann: we begin with her triumph and trace the chain of events that leads to its bitter conclusion. Houdini, too, follows a biographical chronology, interwoven with my own philosophical reflections and associations.

Nostradamus moves through the entire ballet as an observer. First he watches the planets and Bezalel, then the Golem and Einstein. I begin with his life—with how he lived and perceived the world around him. Then I move on to a broader question: how do we respond to what happens on our planet? Even if we were to blow up the Earth—and we certainly have the means to do so—I doubt the universe would be particularly troubled. That's where the scene with the celestial bodies came from. Nostradamus was deeply absorbed in astrology. Gradually, the planets come together to form a menorah, the ancient symbol of Israel and Jewish heritage.

                                   Photo by © Ofer Moldovan

I found the idea of a menorah emerging from the planets particularly fascinating. Bezalel fashioned the original menorah from a single block of solid gold. It took extraordinary craftsmanship to achieve something like that in ancient times, without modern technology or optical instruments for mapping the celestial spheres. In our menorah, there are seven planets. Two are missing, and so is the Earth: Bezalel himself stands firmly upon it.

I wanted to connect the planets with Bezalel. His name still resonates in our own time: an academy of fine arts bears his name, and almost every Israeli city has a Bezalel Street. Through that name, we find a connection with a man who lived thousands of years ago. Later, I discovered that the rabbi who brought the Golem to life also bore the name Bezalel. Another remarkable connection emerges: one Bezalel was the master craftsman who fashioned the sacred lamp; the other, the kabbalist who sought to save his people.

But can a mortal safely touch such absolute knowledge? What happens when a creature fashioned by human hands suddenly acquires extraordinary power? What is its relationship with its creator? Did the Maharal love the Golem? What did he feel? Here was a man who breathed life into an artificial being, only to find himself compelled to destroy it. This raises the fundamental question of our responsibility for the things we bring into being and set in motion. The Golem was never inherently evil; it simply slipped out of control, unable to comprehend what was happening, while the Maharal could no longer contain it. In a sense, he had raised himself to the level of the Creator. But did he have the right to do so?

I believe the most important thing about this ballet is that every spectator should leave with as many questions as possible. Naturally, I can offer some introductory remarks, and we'll include explanatory notes in the programme. But I have no desire to reveal every secret and surprise in advance. If I were to explain everything that happens, the audience would lose the sheer pleasure of discovery. It's rather like a film: sometimes you glance at a synopsis, realise you've already been told the whole story, and suddenly lose all desire to watch it.

                                   Photo by © Ofer Moldovan

L.G.: By the way, why is the Golem danced by a woman?

N.T.: That's entirely incidental. The Golem is an entity; it could just as easily have taken the form of a child. After all, we create in our own image. If we recall the biblical story, woman herself was fashioned from Adam's rib. But as a choreographer, I find that casting a female dancer as the Golem opens up far greater artistic possibilities. It allows for intricate duets and soaring lifts. The scene also features the Hebrew letters Aleph, Mem and Tav, embodied by three additional dancers. So the Golem sequence involves five performers and an extraordinary variety of interactions between them.

L.G.: You also explore the very nature of knowledge, since Einstein appears in the ballet as well...

N.T.: Yes, that's where we move on to Einstein. Here was a man for whom every discovery came through immense intellectual effort. Some problems occupied his mind for twenty-five years. Yet he didn't discover anything that hadn't existed before him; he simply unlocked what had surrounded us for billions of years. He was able to understand it. That's how it is: an ocean of knowledge surrounds us, much of it invisible to the eye. Yet there are rare individuals who manage to penetrate that veil and make what they discover accessible to others.

At first glance, what could Nostradamus, the Maharal of Prague and Albert Einstein possibly have in common? Apparently, nothing. And yet, for me, these three figures—Nostradamus, Bezalel and Einstein—are united by their particular relationship with knowledge. All three were driven by an extraordinary desire to push beyond the boundaries of what was known. One sought to foresee the future; another entered history as a great thinker and, according to legend, breathed life into the Golem; the third fundamentally transformed our understanding of the laws of the universe.

These reflections were the starting point for my work on Nostradamus. For an entire year, I immersed myself in history, astronomy, Jewish tradition, philosophy and physics. One line of research constantly led into another, revealing unexpected connections I had never imagined. Most fascinating of all, these discoveries gradually transformed the ballet itself. What had initially seemed like three separate narratives slowly came together to form a single story about the human quest for knowledge.

In the finale, all three characters come together. And that's where the central question emerges: how do we relate to the knowledge we acquire? What do we do with it? And what responsibility do we bear for the truths that are revealed to us?

L.G.: I understand that you also used artificial intelligence as a creative tool while developing this production...

N.T.: Yes, the entire creative process was different this time. No doubt Lumi had something to do with that: I can consult her at any hour, playing with ideas just as I play with designs. All my life, I've dreamed of a computer programme that could accurately visualise sets and costumes. You imagine something, build a physical model, and then suddenly discover that it looks completely different in reality. Now I finally have such a tool, and its ability to help me visualise things is astonishing. I can try out an aesthetic, discard it, change the colour palette in an instant and start experimenting all over again.

It's an enormous undertaking. I've been immersed in this ballet for some nine months, and the work begins long before the dancers enter the rehearsal studio. For me, choreography and physical movement come at the very end of the process. First, I need to understand exactly how everything will look and what I want to communicate to the dancers, so that they don't simply execute steps but inhabit the meaning behind them.

Take the Einstein section, for example. We developed an entirely different movement vocabulary for it. I suggested that we begin with Einstein's philosophical contemplation of mystery—it could easily serve as the epigraph to the entire ballet. We devised a kind of language through which the dancers could express Einstein's formulas and concepts. Einstein himself moves among them, observing the interplay of natural laws. I tell the dancers: Here we're representing inertia; here, we're moving like waves; here, you're photons. Here you separate; here, another mass divides you; and here, molecules break apart. I establish these images, and the dancers suggest ways of translating them into physical action. It's a process that evolves through genuine collaboration.

                                       Photo by © Ofer Moldovan

L.G.: Years ago, when I was travelling through Provence, I visited Nostradamus's house in Saint-Rémy. Have a look at this photograph: the inscription says that this very house was his birthplace. It also identifies him as an astrologer.

N.T.: In those days, astrology and medicine were inseparable. Astrology was considered an essential discipline for any physician worthy of the name. The underlying idea was that the human body, the microcosm, mirrored the universe, the macrocosm, and that all physiological processes were governed by the movements of the celestial bodies.

So, before he became famous as a prophet, Nostradamus practised as both a physician and an astrologer. He also ran an apothecary stocked with everything from sweet confections to medicinal herbs. Townspeople would gather there to place bets, arrange marriages and gossip endlessly...

He fought the plague epidemics, teaching people basic hygiene and the importance of washing—something quite revolutionary at the time. Using ephemerides, he calculated the precise turning points of illnesses and gathered his herbs only at hours governed by benevolent planets. He treated plague victims with his famous rose pills, a remedy that combined what we would now recognise as hygienic principles with astrological timing.

I devoured mountains of literature about him, working my way through endless archives. These days, it seems to me that hardly anyone in the world is unfamiliar with the name Michel de Nostredame.

L.G.: You casually mentioned earlier that you even held a séance with him?

N.T.: That's another whimsical story involving Lumi and my enduring fascination with the occult. We organised a virtual gathering with all our protagonists—and had a wonderful laugh. Then we created a separate chat devoted exclusively to Nostradamus.

The truth is, he was a lively, cheerful man. He fell deeply in love and had children, though tragically they died of the plague. Later, he married again. His second wife was fiercely intelligent, had an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and would even sneak off with his Kabbalistic texts.

We discussed how he managed to avoid being burned at the stake. Perhaps his sharp wit and rabbinical intellect protected him? I loved imagining how he lived, how he joked, how he loved. After all, all these figures were once flesh and blood: Nostradamus, Bezalel, Einstein.

I suspect Nostradamus simply wanted to warn us: to behave decently, not to drive the world towards catastrophe, not to blow everything around us to pieces. Einstein, for his part, carried an enormous burden of guilt over the creation of the atomic bomb. Yet he, too, was an extraordinarily brilliant and witty man. History has a way of repeating itself. It moves in cycles. In our imaginary conversation, Nostradamus even asked me about the modern world...

Whenever I create a ballet, I find myself inhabiting the lives of its characters. Houdini, for instance, is still with me. Sometimes I feel as though he's watching me, occasionally playing rather nasty practical jokes. Once, during a rehearsal, a heavy chain broke while Mihai Botoc, who dances Houdini, was working with it. It shattered a studio lamp and showered us all with shards of glass! 

Of course, we humans have a tendency to read profound meaning into events. We believe in so many things. We have an enormous influence over our own destinies, and we bear full responsibility for them. And all those historical figures have shaped us, the people we are today.

                                     Photos by © Ofer Moldovan

As I said, I'm far less fascinated by Nostradamus's prophecies than by the human soul behind them: not simply the knowledge a person acquires, but how a mortal lives with that knowledge and what they do with the truths laid bare before them.

I would describe this production as a philosophical fairy tale—one with nothing frightening about it.