therapy. You could talk to them and nothing that you said, supposedly, could be passed on to others. So you could unburden your soul. Then, under the laws of their religion, they could tell you to do some prayers and chores, maybe pay money, and their God would forgive you."
"Sounds like a racket," Herzer said, interested in spite of himself.
"So was psychotherapy and just like priests they would tell you to come back weekly. But in the case of psychologists, until they started to understand the chemical basis of depression and other psychological problems, they couldn't make people feel as good as priests could. Which was, generally, worth the money. Let me ask you this, if, right now, you could tell someone all sorts of things that are bothering you and then they would tell you that you were forgiven if you did some task and you believed you were forgiven, absolutely, would you do that task?"
Herzer thought about it for a moment and then nodded his head. "Oh, yes. If it would . . . well, yes. But it couldn't undo what was done."
"No, but it could make you feel better about it. That was what the quests were often about to begin with. The concept of 'geas' was a binding requirement to attempt a task and