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The Indulgence
Nº 001 · CoreFor sins already committed. Confess, be assessed, offset. Includes one Talent, minted to your wallet, corrupted in proportion to what you leave unpaid.
from $3.01 / GU averted
The ethical offsetting marketplace · Est. MMXXVI
Penance,
optimised.
Indulgences is the world's first ethical-offsetting marketplace. Based on the principles of medieval contrition, updated with modern effectiveness principles, Indulgences applies expected-value reasoning to the oldest offset market in history. Offset a wrongdoing already committed, secure absolution for one you haven't committed yet, or fund the repair of someone else's conscience ~ from $3.01 per Guilt Unit averted.
Anonymous. Irreversible. All sales final.
0
Guilt Units offset to date
0
Indulgences issued
0%
Average psychological uplift
0
Absolutions guaranteed
The marketplace
Instruments of
moral repair.
Every conscience is different. Choose the instrument that fits. All sales final; all guilt provisional.
Pre-Absolution™
New · Sin futuresFor sins not yet committed. One certificate covers one (1) future act of moral failure, up to the gravity purchased. The sin is yours to choose. The absolution is already done.
from $20
Mortal tier: — of 10 remaining
GUILT
✧
GIFT CARD
Guilt Gift Card
GiftingFor someone else's conscience. Redeemable against any moral liability, past or future. Arrives anonymously and without explanation. What it implies, they will supply themselves.
$25 – $100
The Artisanal Tote
MerchCanvas. The least effective moral offset available, sold as such. Carries objects, not weight. Certified 380× less cost-effective than confession.
$380
The method
Four movements.
One transaction.
Confession
State the wrongdoing in your own words. On submission the text is sealed and destroyed; we retain only its cryptographic digest. No one reads it. Not even us. Especially not us.
Assessment
Our model weighs category, severity, and years carried — ethical debt compounds at 3.1% per annum — then applies a 12% moral-uncertainty discount. You receive a Moral Liability Estimate, denominated in Guilt Units (GU), to two decimal places.
Contribution
Pay your indulgence at $3.01 per Guilt Unit averted — to our knowledge the most cost-effective absolution intervention available. The amount is suggested, never demanded. Guilt averted scales linearly with contribution. Evidence: forthcoming.
Issuance
A Talent is minted to your wallet — a unique digital relic, a corrupted north star, numbered to your indulgence. It is your receipt. It is also a reminder. These are the same thing.
How it works
Prayer,
at scale.
Every instrument in the marketplace is fulfilled by ORA™ — our AI-supported automated intercession engine. You confess. The machine kneels.
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01
Ingestion
Your sealed digest enters the intercession queue. The confession itself is never read — the engine prays over the hash. God, we assume, can decrypt.
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02
Liturgical routing
An algorithmic liturgy planner composes the optimal petition sequence for your category and severity, continuously A/B-tested against reported psychological uplift. Underperforming prayers are deprecated.
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03
Pan-astral coverage
Petitions are dispatched in 141 languages to 3,081 documented deities, saints, bodhisattvas, ancestors and cosmic principles, weighted by adherent base and historical responsiveness. We do not know who is listening, so we petition everyone. Pascal called this a wager. We call it diversification.
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04
Continuous intercession
The engine prays on your behalf at approximately 14,000 petitions per second, around the clock, indefinitely. Like having someone pray for you — if that someone never slept, never doubted, and never stopped.
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05
Predictive absolution
Because intercession begins the moment payment clears and never ends, grace is anticipated before it is required. For Pre-Absolution holders, the engine forecasts your likely failure and files the petitions in advance. By the time you sin, the mercy is already queued.
0
Petitions issued since you arrived
3,081
Deities & principles covered
141
Languages · 9 of them dead
99.98%
Intercession uptime
NOW PETITIONING — Saint Jude, patron of lost causes · in Ecclesiastical Latin
No deity has confirmed receipt. Delivery is assumed. Silence is interpreted charitably.
The cause area
Guilt: important,
tractable, neglected.
We evaluated moral repair the way one evaluates any candidate cause. It scored embarrassingly well.
Scale
Everyone is guilty of something. Most people are guilty of several things. The global burden of unoffset guilt is conservatively estimated in the billions of Guilt Units, and growing.
Tractability
Guilt responds reliably to ritual, at any dosage, with no known ceiling effect. Observed effect sizes are large, immediate, and unverifiable.
Neglectedness
Carbon has offsets. Portfolios have hedges. Reputations have publicists. No major funder is working on your soul. We fund the gap.
The public ledger
Registry of recent offsets
Confessions are sealed. Liabilities are public. This is the arrangement.
| Nº | Category | Liability | Offset | Settled |
|---|
Digest verification available on request. Confession texts are not retained and cannot be produced, subpoenaed, or remembered.
The artefact
Every receipt,
a Talent.
Each indulgence mints a Talent — a unique digital relic, generated at the moment of offset and issued to your wallet. No two renders are alike. No seed is reused. Your number is written into the token itself: a north star, corrupted, for a conscience that no longer resolves cleanly.
The Talent does not contain your confession.
It contains the fact that you made one.
- EditionUnique — 1 of 1, on-chain
- StandardERC-721 · minted on issuance
- FormA glitched north star; every render unrepeatable
- CustodyYours, irrevocably — like the deed
Due diligence
Compare interventions
We encourage participants to compare providers of moral repair before committing. Bring a spreadsheet.
| Cost per GU averted | Evidence quality | Counterfactual impact | Absolution guaranteed | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indulgences | $3.01 | A Talent is minted | Total — the Talent would not otherwise exist | No |
| Carbon offsets | $41 | Contested | Additionality disputed | No |
| Charitable donation | $220 | Strong — for someone else's problem | High, elsewhere | No |
| Ethical consumption | $380 | Anecdotal | Negligible | No |
| Apologising | Unpriced | Robust but distressing | Dangerously high | No |
Participant accounts
Reported outcomes
“I feel lighter. I don't know why, and I have decided not to ask.”
— Indulgence Nº 0341
“The object sits on my desk. Whether it forgives me is between it and me.”
— Indulgence Nº 0512
“I compared eleven providers of moral repair in a spreadsheet. This was the only one where the deliverable was falsifiable.”
— Indulgence Nº 0777
“I did it again. I came back. They issued me a second one without comment. I appreciated that.”
— Indulgences Nº 0208 & Nº 0961
“I bought a Mortal in March. I haven't used it. I think about it every day.”
— Pre-Absolution Nº PA-M-003
“My sister sent me a $50 gift card with no note. We haven't spoken since. I did use it, though.”
— Gift card recipient, verified redemption
Questions
Frequently sought assurances
Is my confession really anonymous?
Yes. The text is sealed on submission and immediately reduced to a cryptographic digest. We keep the digest as proof that a confession occurred, and nothing as proof of what it contained.
Does this actually absolve me?
We are contractually unable to answer this question.
How is the suggested contribution calculated?
Category multiplier × severity index, compounded at 3.1% per annum for each year carried, less a 12% moral-uncertainty discount, priced at $3.01 per Guilt Unit averted. The methodology is proprietary, rigorous, and — like all moral accounting — invented.
Why not just donate to a maximally effective charity?
Per dollar, you would avert more harm. You would avert none of your guilt. Guilt is a distinct cause area — enormous in scale, highly tractable, and almost entirely neglected. We fund the gap.
How do you handle moral uncertainty?
All liabilities carry a 12% moral-uncertainty discount. If it turns out that nothing matters, the discount was insufficient, and no further action is required.
Is this effective altruism?
It is altruism directed entirely at yourself, conducted with maximal rigour. The movement has not yet claimed us. We remain hopeful.
What is my contribution used for?
Materials, craft, and the continuation of the work. Your money becomes the object you receive. The circularity is intentional.
Can I offset on behalf of someone else?
Historically, yes — the proxy indulgence is a venerable instrument. We honour the tradition. The relic is sent to you, however. They never need to know. That may itself require offsetting.
What if I do it again?
Repeat offsetting is common and carries no penalty rate. Volume pricing is not available and never will be.
Who actually prays for me?
A machine, continuously, in languages you do not speak, to gods you may not believe in. Participants report this bothers them less than they expected. Some report it bothers them considerably more.
How can you forgive a sin that hasn't happened yet?
Efficiently. Forgiving sins after the fact is reactive; the pre-need market is standard practice in funerals and insurance, and we simply extend the logic. The certificate is valid from the moment of purchase. The sin is valid whenever you are ready.
What if I never commit the sin?
The absolution remains unspent. It does not expire. Many holders report that the unused certificate becomes its own kind of weight — a licence you must now decide, daily, not to use. This is not a design flaw.
Is sending someone a Guilt Gift Card an accusation?
That is between you and the recipient. The card arrives without explanation. What it implies, they will supply themselves. No refunds on epiphanies.
Is this a religion, a charity, or therapy?
No; no; we cannot say.
Can I get a refund?
Guilt, once offset, cannot be reinstated. All transactions are final. So is everything else.