This article uses psychological, symbolic, and energetic language metaphorically to describe collective human behavior, not to deny material causes or individual agency.
Throughout history this disturbing pattern repeats itself, a figure rises to embody the hopes, fears, and the contradictions of their group, only to be destroyed by the same group that elevated them. This is not a simple political assassination. It's deep psychological and spiritual mechanism by which human groups discharge unbearable tension through the sacrifice of the symbolic vessel that carries their collective energy.
When a person becomes the face of a movement, an era, group, they become a vessel for their collective energy. This include the light energy like hope and ideal, and the dark energy like the fears and the shadows. In additional, the historical debts, tension of the group, unresolved karma, and negative and positive projections becomes part of the collective energy. This creates an energetic charge around this person.
When this energy is accumulated and becomes too heavy on one side, for instance too karmically dense, too unrealeased, the system seeks release. With that imbalance, the vessel cannot contain it indefinitely. The "sacrifice", be it through a downfall, exile or assassination, is not random, it is an act of discharging the accumulated energy.
Following the sacrifice, the collective tension dissipates, the group reconfigures around the event and finds new narratives like justice and tragedy. This allows the movement forward. The death of the vessel becomes a turning point between eras.
Tension release is often not for just the supporters, it is a catharsis for all sides. For the supporters, it creates a martyr that purifies the cause. The complex struggle is simplified into a narrative of good vs. evil. For the opponents, the immediate threatening symbol is removed allowing a sense of relief or a guilty pause in hostilities. And for the general public, it offers a clear dramatic event to focus on.
Nefertiti
The Amarna society of the 14th century BCE was understanding religious and cultural revolution under pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti, the great royal wife,i was a living symbol of Atenist revolution. She represented the break with traditional polytheism, gender roles transformation, and artist revolution
She accumulated the hopes of the religious reformers and the resentment of the Amun priesthood being displaced. She held the tension between traditional Egyptian stability and the innovation. As Akhenaten's reforms began to falter socially and economically, the collective anxiety polarized around the most visible symbol, his Queen.
Nefertiti disappeared. She vanished from records around the 12th year of the Akhenaten's reign. Theories range from death, exile, to even transformation into a co-pharaoh named Smenkhkare. The effect was that the most potent symbol of Amarna was removed.
With Nefertiti gone, the counter revolution could proceed. The removal allowed Egypt to discharge tension of the radical change and return to the previous familiar patterns. They chose tradition over revolution, and the symbolic vessel of the revolution had to be removed for the choice to feel complete.
Julius Caesar
The late Roman Republic was sinking in wealth inequality and imperial expansion. The senatorial class were stuck with tradition while the masses demanded change.
Gaius Julius Caesar embodied the republic's contradictions, where the system needed a strong hand to solve the crisis, but its identity was built on rejecting kingship. Caesar became a vessel for both hope for order and fear of tyranny.
He accumulated the gratitude of the soldiers, urban poor, and forward looking elites, on the other hand, the hatred of traditionalists, constitutional purists, abd people whose powers were being threatened.
Sixty senators participated in the assassination representing the institutional self defense of the republic itself. The Ides of March, 44 BCE. Brutus's famous "Sic semper tyrannis" framed the murder as a sacred ritual to preserve the state.
The immediate effect became the opposite if what the assassins intended. Chaos and civil wars reigned, and the republic collapsed. From deeper lens, the sacrifice served its purpose. Rome transitioned from republic to empire through the myth of republic restoration. The subsequent wars could be framed as avenging Caesar. And Octavian could establish the Principate while claiming to restore the republic.
Jesus of Nazareth
The first century Judea was under Roman occupation. Jesus preached "heavenly" Kingdom, and he became a vessel for projections. To the followers he was a messiah, to the pharisees he was a blasphemer, to the Sadducees he was a destabilizer, and to the Romans he was a trouble making prophet.
Jesus accumulated the hopes of the oppressed, anxiety of the religious authorities, and the paranoia of the Roman administration. His entry into Jerusalem during Passover made him the focal point for the collective tension.
He was eventually crucified. The gospel presents ut as the working out if devine plan but historically, the Jewish and Roman authorities identified a figure who could bare the blame for rising tensions and eliminated him during the volatile festival period.
For authorities, it was an immediate relief since a potent threat was removed. For the disciples, it was despair. The deep catharsis was theological. Jesus' death became the sacrifice that replaced temple sacrificial system. His blood, in christian theology, purified all humanity. The collective guilt of humanity was discharged into Jesus.
Charlie Kirk
In the early 2020s, Charlie Kirk became one of the most recognizable faces of a polarizing political movement in the United States. He concentrated ideological purity, grievance, and cultural anxiety into a single public figure that was beloved by supporters and despised by opponents.
As tensions intensified, criticism, internal fractures, and external hostility increasingly focused on him as a symbol rather than merely an individual. In September 2025, Kirk was assassinated during a public event. His death functioned as a catalytic rupture.
The immediate effects followed a familiar pattern: martyrdom unified supporters, internal dissent was suspended, and criticism was morally silenced in the aftermath of violence. The narrative shifted from policy debate to existential grievance. The sacrifice provided an emotional reset that discourse alone could not achieve.
From the enduring pattern collective reconfigures in the following ways:
- Hardening: The movement losses it's potent voice for complex unity. Softer elements are marginalized and hard ones gain energy. Examples are MLK and Tupac.
- Softening: After a violent rejection a reassessment occurs. The very qualities that made the establishment uncomfortable are now sanctified. The figure is transformed from a living challenge into a harmless icon of peace and love. Example is Jesus of Nazareth .
- Renewal and weaponization: The movement uses the Martyr's blood as it's most powerful fuel.
Why the pattern persists
•The need for singularity: Complex social tensions are difficult for groups to process. Identifying a single person who "contains" the problem makes it manageable.
•The ritual of purification: The sacrifice follows the logic of ancient scapegoating rituals. By destroying the vessel, the group symbolically destroys the unwanted elements within itself.
•Avoidance of collective responsibility: When the vessel is destroyed, the group can avoid examining its own complicity in creating the conditions that required a vessel. The Romans could blame Caesar's ambition rather than examine their failing republic.
Can the pattern be broken?
Recognizing the archetype is the first step towards breaking it. Then the question that follows: Can we develop collective consciousness that processes its lights and shadows without requiring needing vessels?
Some movements have attempted this, an example is the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa, which sought a national catharsis through testimony rather than violence.
The pattern persists because it works on an emotional level. It provides the catharsis we crave, the simplicity we understand, the drama that captures our attention. Perhaps the true wisdom lies in recognizing when we are making someone into a vessel instead of bearing our collective energies together.