Last week, Sotunus shared a brief look at his evolving views on “the Force”. I figured this week would be a good opportunity for me to do the same.
Like Sotunus, I entered the Jedi Community when I was 16 close to turning 17 (April 2002). It came almost a full year after a rather traumatic spiritual event which had me questioning my pagan practice. But making a break and diving into Christianity felt off too.
The churches I had been exposed to had this weird understanding of witchcraft- where they both acknowledged it’s reality but denied that witchcraft could do anything. They denied that demons could do anything to a person, but cautioned the dangers of demonic forces coming into one’s life.
When I looked at the teachings of the church, I couldn’t reconcile my experience (what was real vs. what wasn’t not real) with their teachings. In fact, my transition from Pagan to Christian may have been a great deal easier if only the church said “Yes, witchcraft is real. It cannot hurt you because you are Christian.” and “Yes, demons are real. They do what they want."
When I started at Force Academy, an idea of a girlfriend-as I am not a fan of Star Wars, I walked in with the initial view of “the Force” being this supernatural force that had all sorts of different features. You could find it in stones, which could be used for healing, protection, and even charms to bring certain things into your life (love, money, confidence, etc). You could use it to communicate across a room just by thinking, either exact words or feelings to help someone feel at ease. It could be used to walk through worlds that harbored the divine and dead, or even in this current realm. Fire was a way the Force could be used as a means of communicating with divine beings. It could be used to see things across the planet in the form of Remote Viewing. To heal. To harm. Many of these things, not all mind you, I witnessed during my own 3 year practice.
Intriguingly, it’s not “what ‘the Force’ can do” that has changed in my understanding of it. Maybe some words have changed, such as the fact that I no longer regard beings who communicate with legitimate mediums as being divine or even the dead. Instead, those spirits have been regulated to “Familiar Spirits”. Or perhaps how I believe the feat is accomplished. The real change is in how I view my interaction with “the Force”.
Once I made the decision to go back to Christianity, with the help of Force Academy, I had to decide whether or not the Jedi Path was compatible with my walk back to Christianity. I needed to answer the question that so many people have “What is the Force?”, but more to the point “What is it to a Christian?”. There was this idea that you couldn’t serve two masters, but from my experience, the Jedi I knew (whether they were Pagan, Christian or otherwise) did not “serve” the Force. It was “used”.
Turning to the Bible, I began with the fact that miracles were performed in the Bible. Not only was Christ known for miracle working, but so were prophets of the Old Testament and the Apostles in the New. In particular, however, was the story of Moses and Aaron facing off with the Pharaoh. The series of events that shaped the Exodus’ beginning, journey and end were probably the most influential in my study. In the beginning you see that the Moses and Aaron are not the only people with the ability to create plagues, so can the magicians employed by the Pharaoh. Throughout the Bible, there are accounts of people not of God which can also perform feats that Christians believe are only in the realm of Holy men, but are in fact performed by those against God. Even in the New Testament, Christ mentions that there will be people who perform miracles in God’s name, but are in fact not men of God (Matthew 7:21-23). And again, we are told that false prophets and christs will have the ability to perform miracles convincing the world (and if it were possible even the elect) that they are who they say they are (Matthew 24:24).
This all seemed to line up more with my experience than anything taught in church. I watched magick work, and I’ve seen examples in the Bible of Godly men performing similar feats. The major difference between a Godly man and a non-Godly man seemed to be God’s sanctioning. These stories and prophecies given to Christians led me to a conclusion vastly different than any Christian Jedi I’ve encountered: The Force is neither God, Holy Spirit or Satan/Demonic. It is a gift to all sentient creation. It is neither bad, nor good. It simply is. We are the ones that decide how to use or not use it.
My relationship with this “Force” that is given to all to use, is not a relationship at all. Instead, I reached a conclusion a long time ago that the ultimate surrender of the ego is to recognize that man is not intelligent enough to know when or how to use “the Force” in its metaphysical properties for the common good of man. That requires a being which can see the whole picture- past, present, future, lives surrounding a particular individual or event.
In Christianity, you hear the word “surrender” quite a bit. Finding an understanding of “the Force” caused me to re-evaluate the faith and trust this view was calling me to put into God. Suddenly you have to recognize that you do not know enough to recognize when what you are doing is going to cause more harm, or help. Energy healing can have negative impacts when applied inappropriately. Astral travel may cause you to loose focus on what matters in the Physical realm. Battling unseen forces with your own will can attract more into your life. “Can” is the keyword here, it does not always happen this way. The consequences can be both good and bad. The choice lies on the practitioner. So it is in “surrender” to a divine being to make those judgments on our behalf that we truly demonstrate trust in the being we serve. For me, that entity became the God of Abraham- of whom I believe to be the creator of the universe.
Trust, however, is a two way street. When I came to this revelation, I also saw the immense amount of trust that God had put in His creation. God gave us many gifts, but the chief among them is “Free Will”. We can choose to do what we will with what we have- “the Force” our hands and feet, our words, etc. All present to help us find our way in the world as He intended: To build a world-wide family that seeks to better one another rather than tear each other down.
This newfound information- in conjunction with what I learned the night of my spiritual nightmare- also gave me new perspective on just how invaluable skills that had no reliance on “the Force” were in our world. Today, as a Christian, I have learned to turn over control of these supernatural forces to God, and instead make requests unto my Father. As a Jedi, I pursue the Path because it makes me a more useful tool for God to call upon when another human being is hurting and need my specific skillset.
In closing, no- I do not serve “the Force”. To me, it has no will, so how could I serve it? I serve the will of God, the creator of “the Force”.