The key to William's mystically oriented theological thought, Descent into Hell (arguably William's greatest novel) is a multidimensional story about human beings who shut themselves up in their own narcissicstic projections, so that they are no longer able to love, to "co-inhere". The result is a veritable hell.

The action takes place in Battle Hill, outside London,with the staging of a new play by Peter Stanhope. Characters from the past appear, and perhaps the hill itself is a doorway to the beyond as characters are alternately summoned heavenwards or descend into hell.

Stanhope, in an action central to the author's own theology, takes the burden of her fears upon himself in what Williams called 'The Doctrine of Substituted Love' drawn from the biblical verse, "Ye shall bear one another's burdens :"