To sin, is not to do bad things, per se. It is to be looking at the world in the wrong way. To be looking at everything in the wrong direction. To be acting incoherently toward the world. And to fail to confess to this incoherence.
Penitence, is not to be sorry about your sins, per se. It is to recognise that your incoherence, is, sin. And instead of being sorry about it all, penitence is a more positive act of 'turning around' and looking at the world in the right direction. To stop sinning by becoming coherent in the world. And confessing to it.
When this activity occurs in any collective way, such as by a king, or democratic leadership, the people can do their penitence collectively and become whole once again through renewed coherence. History shows it happening repeatedly.
Now this is a rare thing. An election or succession does not automatically redeem the people with coherence. It's a bottom up activity - the people have to demand it as a principle policy in some way. And really mean it.
The common approach by people make - when acting in a hierarchical society, when managing sin with incoherence is to render the sin into the unconscious. This task is often taken up by the collective action of a king, democratic leadership or even authoritarian tyranny, the source or Power within a hierarchy is fundamentally the same:
- The first step is to conceal the sin is happening of course
- The big trick though is the next step - to conceal the concealment
This activity can be made to work equally by the individual or a collective of individuals working obediently together, known as a tribe. I have developed a hypothesis showing how this works in more detail I call Obedience Theory. Which is the idea that human behaviours—such as social compliance, political alignment, and even the jealousy of wealth—are driven by an unconscious, ingrained urge for tribal obedience and survival rather than true free will.
A persons autonomy or obedience can be tested using a depth psychology tool called the Orwell Test. I designed this conceptual framework as a self-reflection tool to help individuals evaluate whether they prioritise autonomous critical thinking or unconscious tribal compliance.
The concealment dissonance described above renders ones obedience to the tribe deep down into the collective unconscious, where it remains buried in concrete. And is now very hard to bring back into the light.
It can be rediscovered though. It does happen. It feels like it's about to happen again.
Core message: Society's root sin is hierarchical obedience (the "agentic state"), which creates incoherence and conceals truth. True penitence is a collective "turning around" toward coherence and absolute, unconditional freedom—rejecting all authority except for basic administration, including state and even religious obedience—for choiceless awareness.