7
SIN AND SOCIETY
Reviewing the shift from formal rite to positive approval of trance, I have referred here and there to co-varying ideas about sin. These should now be made more explicit. Along the series from maximum formality and control in symbolic behaviour to maximum informality and uncontrol there is a corresponding series in attitudes to wrong-doing. At the pole of maximum formality, the idea of wrong-doing takes no account of internal motive, or of the state of mind of the actor, Wrong-doing is bad in itself, its dangers are automatically unleashed, blame falls automatically, and the wrong is known ex opere operato. It exactly parallels the attitude to ritual in the case of extreme magicality. At the pole of maximum informality the ...
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