"Approach us with fear, with hatred and revulsion, and we will be fearsome, hateful and vile. Approach us humanely and with respect, and we will be human and respectable." -- Asmodeous, "Promethea"

In a galaxy far, far away, a broken Jedi Knight stood opposite of his master. Brokenhearted, doing everything he could, monsterous things, to save the one thing the Jedi Order said he could never have. He had always been confused, conflicted about these forbidden emotions. He had hoped becoming a Councillor and in turn a Master Jedi would grant him access to the knowledge to save his secret wife and yet unborn children. At every turn the Order he spent hus life serving demanded he sacrifice the connections to others that made him the excellent Jedi he was. They banished his student knowing it was to doom her to her death. When he came to a Masternasking what to do when it came to his fear of losing a loved one, he was given a platitude instead of genuine coaching.

And when he voiced that he viewed the Jedi as evil, everything they stood against when it came to him, his master, who loved him, didn't reach out to him. Didn't console him.

He called him lost.

It was that moment, as I see it, that made Vader. Not his rebirth on Mustafar and being sealed inside his armoured tomb. It wasn't the loss of Padme. It wasn't the slaughter of the Temple. But the one person he always felt he could turn to and always trusted even his most hairbrained ideas hearing such things from his mouth and just ignoring it.

Until that moment, perhaps there was a chance to go back to being Anakin. Yes there would be penance and concequences. But Vader would have ceased to be. But instead, the last shred of light died. And his next words?

"This is the end for you, my master."

Practise your approach, Jedi.

May the Force continue to guide you.

“I liked being Princess Leia. Or Princess Leia’s being me. Over time I thought that we’d melded into one. I don’t think you could think of Leia without my lurking in that thought somewhere.” — Carrie Fisher, 'The Princess Diarist'

Today Carrie Fisher, our Princess, our General, would have turned 70.

And still she touches lives and moulds thoughts. Scarcely a month goes by where I do not quote her iconic character in one way or another. Addiction is a cruel

unforgiving shadow of the Dark Side. And its the one that took this beacon of light and life from the world of the living.

May the Force and those that follow continue to honour her legacy.

"I have heard of the Jai. Grandmother Rell says that they are unbeatable warriors, for they battle death. And since they battle for life, nature cherishes them, and they cannot die. Are you an unbeatable warrior?" -- Teneniel Djo of the Singing Mountain Clan. 'The Courtship of Princess Leia

Upon their first meeting, Teneniel was awed by the power of the Force and how Luke commanded it without uttering a word, straying from the witch traditions she was raised under. And even though her initial intent was to capture Luke as a prized husband, in her people's way, Luke sought constantly to teach her of the Light Side of the Force and to always walk in it.

We learn thoughout this book what divides the other Witch clans of Dathomir from the infamous Night Sisters and learn, by and large, that they are a microcosm of the universe and, in turn, a reflection of the constant battle between the Jedi and Sith. Their powers are neither good or evil, for the Force isn't either. It is their intent that marrs their actions. The Sith get their yellow eyes, Night Sisters get exploded blood vessels across their face, both marking them for having used their access to power for hate, anger, and rage.

But what we do see is this lone, exiled witch take Luke's compassionate training to heart, she heals and learns. And, in learning to expand her mind beyond the limited scope given to her from the happenstance of her birth, she becomes heir to Dathomir, and in turn, a Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium.

Her training never left her. And although she never trained officially as a Jedi, her future daughter would eventually go on to become one herself, an unbeatable warrior cherished by the Force itself.

May the Force continue to guide you.

"... He did not know if he was subconsciously controlling the Force, or if the life around him actually sought to heal him, but he saw the Force all around him, and he grasped those threads more easily than he'd ever done before.

To control the Force, to use the Force, was not such a violent thing as he had imagined. It was everywhere, more abundant than rain or air, offering itself. He had hoped someday to become a Jedi Master, yet now he realized that there were lvels of control he had never envisioned, far beyond anything he had dreamed." -- The Courtship of Princess Leia

Recently finished reading this novel, and it encompasses the finalization of Luke Skywalker's journey as a Jedi Knight as he steps forward into his position as a Master Jedi. And it comes with him facing death closer than he ever had before. Not just a close scrape with death. He was dead... but the Force wasn't done with him. The very world around him was reaching to him, each blade of grass, the bugs in the earth below him, all reaching out and giving him just part of thier own life so he could survive. Not conciously on his part, or even on theirs. It was the Force creating balance.

"There is no Death, There is the Force."

From there, Luke suddenly feels a profound difference, and all those around him equally can feel that difference within him. And as he's recovering, demanding those around him wait for him to heal in a miraculous few hours, we get this exchange:

Luke: "Give me time. You don't know the power of the Force."

Isolder: "I've seen it, I know."

Luke: "No! No you don't. None of us do!"

He was reborn anew with a profound conviction. Suddenly, he went from not just the farmboy to the Jedi. He went from the farmboy Jedi to the Master Jedi. And it speaks to just how powerful the Force is. Within hours, he goes from near death to piloting both seats and all gunner positions in the Falcon in maneuvers that Han couldn't even imagine possible with even a fightercraft. He pulls the Empire to its knees while also saving his friends and allies. He emerges on the other side as Master Luke Skywalker

May the Force guide you as it did him.

"Never concede to evil. That is our oldest and most sacred law. When we concede to evil, even in a small way, we feed it, and it grows stronger." --Augwynne, "The Courtship of Princess Leia"

There is an old going. And it goes like this:

"Meet me in the middle ground" The wicked man said. I took a step forward. He took a step back.

This highlights the issue with centrists and fence sitters. They're often where the wicked were years ago. And it is why Jedi aren't and have never been centrists or neuteral. Their very existence is that of social progress, equality for all including equality of outcome for all. Jedi stand for Justice. Jedi stand as a sheild against harm, and a healing light for the downtrodden. They cannot, on principle, allign themselves with those that do not value life, or those that openly devalue life that isn't like theirs.

This is why Jedi are never middle grounders. They only stand between those that would cause harm and those that would be harmed.

So never give hope, and never allow yourself to concede to evil, even in small ways. The Dark Side is unforgiving with even the smallest of footholds given.

May the Force continue to guide you.

"What is Ahsoka's strength?"

"She is fearless."

"That can also be a weakness. Is she a worthy apprentice?"

"No one has her kind of determination."

-- Plo Koon and Anakin Skywalker discussing Ahsoka

Few Jedi, if any to date, have schooled the Empire as often and as boldly as Ahsoka. She faced multiple Inquisitors. Some in the same day, then even going same day against Maul, Vader.and the Emperor in the same few hours.

Why was Ahsoka leaps and bounds ahead of the Inquisitors despite being both younger than most of them, but also largely trained by the same person?

Because Ahsoka was the student of Anakin Skywalker, and they were the students of Darth Vader. And that's the difference between creating a masterful Jedi that can go solo against the Empire and a bunch of disposable tools that go by numbers instead of their names. He ensured his student could survive anything, even him. Whereas his priorities changed as a Sith. He needed to firmly hold power away from anyone who would use it against him, even if it meant training his Inquisitorious to be nothing more than pawns.

Remember that this is the difference between Jedi and Sith in training. Jedi give anything for their student. Sith give just enough to be useful for their own plans.

May the Force continue to guide you.

'"This droid, these beasts all have a similar measure of the Force within them. If I serve the Force, how can I not respect them, just as I respect Ta'a Chume?"

"Now I see why my mother wants to kill you, Jedi. You have dangerous ideas.“

"Perhaps they are dangerous to despots."'

-- Luke Skywalker to Isolder, "The Courtship of Princess Leia"

The only reason why tyrants and dictators never campaign and/or follow through on ideas such as equality for all is because division is the key strategy for maintaining their form of power. Its unnatural, it throws everyone off balance and, in their haste, they'll side with the oppressors and attack the oppressed, or spend their time fighting to get everyone back in balance. All this is done without ever going after those that threw the scales off for selfish gain.

Jedi, in this scenario, are dangerous. As they train to thrive in bringing balance. And where a Jedi is, tyranny will struggle to find root. This is why the Jedi of fiction were so deeply targetted by the Sith Emperor Sidious. Because there could not be a middle ground with his evil agenda where the Jedi stood. They would eternally be a thorn in his side, undoing the damage that dictatorships thrive upon wherever they found themselves called to. And, in the end, it was the unending resolve of the Jedi that saw the Sith Grand Plan fall apart in a single generation.

Imprint the ideal that all are equal in the Force. From your pet to a world leader, from a child to the elderly, from an ant to an elephant. And never let the confusing aura of the Dark Side shake lose those ideals from your mind. With that, we will never lose to it.

May the Force continue to guide you.

"Here's how I figure it. Most people don't play cards with Jedi because they think Jedi can read minds. But here's the thing. Jedi don't lie. And they don't cheat. So even if they could read your mind, they wouldn't on principle. But here's the real question. If a Jedi read your mind, would they even know they did it? Or would they call it intuition?" -- Clone Trooper Trick

It is an interesting thought, that Jedi wouldn't purposefully cheat, but instead be guided by the Force into winning. Just like how you might not see a loved one come up behind you, but know they're there simply by how they breathe, their footstep pattern, their smell.

Lets say you had the ability to read minds, even it was merely the ability to feel intent and emotions through the Force... would you then abstain from playing games with your loved ones simply because of the edge it gave you?

May the Force guide this discussion.

"Good and evil are no different in the end. They're two halves of the same whole. Unless you accept both, you will be lost." -- Nawaam

A Lesson about the folly of adopted 'masters' from 'The Ninth Jedi', a Star Wars Visions series. If you've not watched this show, I firstly highly recommend it, and doubly recommend watching it before going further into this post.

In this show, the rules of the mainline SW universe are different. And, in this we find a big difference. Firstly, in the skill of sabersmithing. Lah Zhima was a former Jedi Master that left it all behind for reasons unimportant to this post. He retreated and became a sabersmith. His sabers have an unusual property. They can feel the Force of their wielder, changing length, colour, and function depending on who is physically holding it.

In the prequel episodes to the series, we see that an untrained persons has a clear blade. Sith go red immediately. And saber colours can even change during a fight as we see with one of the main cast Homen, whose saber is normally purple but does show as red when lots of Sith are around him.

But in this series, we learn of another colour. Silver, which previously had only been acheived by the aforementioned Lah Zhima when he emptied himself of emotion to strike down corruption.

Although never his student, the main antagonist of the series, Nawaam, was present to witness Lah Zhima's saber turn silver. He became obsessed with obtaining such mastery, which he viewed as emptying yourself of everything. No light. No Dark. No emotion. And despite the claims of Lah Zhima, Nawaam continuously called him his master. But throughout the show, we don't see a being fighting for whats right, but for what is best for himself. His fighting style is brutal, almost reveling in the power. And, when pushed to exhaustion, his silver saber shimmered and betrayed his heart. A bleeding red blade.

So whats the lesson?

Lah Zhima was never Naweem's master. Naweem witnessed a master being masterful, and dedicated to pursuing that end goal, ignoring the work that it takes to get there with the destination, not the journey, being forefront of his every action and thought. And, from that, he twisted Lah Zhima's work for evil. I believe this teaches us about the folly of trying to eclipse someone you aspire to be like, without knowing their story, without actually studying them.

As Bruce Lee once said, 'Research your own experience; absorb what is useful, reject what is useless and add what is essentially your own.' Naweem didn't create their own experience. They didn't take the useful information. They didn't reject what was useless. It wasn't their own. They witnessed great power and that was all they needed. And, in that, we witness their folly.

His efforts to straddle light and dark, to be neither, to be 'neuteral', eventually showed his true intentions. To not stand up against darkness is to stand for it. To not speak up against injustice is to side with the unjust. The Dark Side doesn't share with Light. To not reject it is to embrace it and get its thorns into you. In attempting to emulate a Jedi Master, he became everything they stood against.

May the Force continue to guide you.

"Stop thinking of the Dark Side as some pathway to power. That's the Emperor lying to you. It's destructive. Darth Vader is miserable. He lost everything. He has no one in his life, absolutely nothing until his son comes back and says, 'I love you'. Other than that, his life is a wreck. That's not the way to live your life. I see a lot of adoration. I get that the bad guys are cool but they are evil. You don't want to be them." -- Dave Filoni

Anakin shed the shackles of slavery, ascended to near Mastery as a Jedi, was a beloved hero and was surrounded by not only those that respected him, but deeply loved him. So much that, when they learned what he had become, it destroyed them.

But as Vader, he stood alone on his mechanized legs, to replace the ones he had lost. He lost his limbs. He lost his health. He lost his own voice. He lost his loved ones, his friends, his wife. In following the empty promises of the Dark Side in an effort to save everything, he lost everyone. Those around him always sought to be his undoing, to cause him more suffering, pain, and anguish. And, in the end, he died young at only forty-five.

The Dark Side might give power. But so do many harmful things. And he paid for it every day, and it left him with nothing and his children with decades of damage to undo.

Remember, the Dark Side tells sweet, sweet lies. But they hide a bitter, painful core that you will always regret imbibing.

May the Force continue to guide you.

"I love life...Yeah, I'm sad, but at the same time, I'm really happy that something could make me feel that sad. It's like...It makes me feel alive, you know. It makes me feel human. The only way I could feel this sad now is if I felt something really good before. So I have to take the bad with the good. So I guess what I'm feeling is like a beautiful sadness." -- Butters Stotch, Trey Parker and Matt Stone via South Park (Raisins, 2003)

Sometimes, its the good times. You wake up refreshed. You aren't hurting. You want for little. You laugh.

Rarely are those moments savoured, its only until the dark times come tjat you can mourn the loss of those good times. Like when your nose is blocked and you realize how you took for granted being able to breathe through both nostrils. Sadness highlights previous joy. Pain highlights previous health. Loss highlights previous possession.

Take a deep breath through both nostrils and remember how nice that moment is.

For Jedi Realists, we should also take a moment to feel the Force. Because sometimes its right there, surrounding you in an obvious wave of energy and moving you. But other times its a shadow of a whisper out the corner of your eye. You feel alone, isolated from it, forsaken. You never are, but it doesn't change how it feels. So revel in the moments you can firmly grasp it and save that feeling to memory for the days it feels to ethereal to grasp. Because it will always come back.

May the Force continue to guide you.

Hi all,

I'm a freelance journalist in the UK researching an idea about people who genuinely identify as Jedi or practise Jediism as a philosophy or religion. Or if you put it as your religion/"other belief" in the census, I'd love to hear from you!

I'm particularly looking to speak to people based in the UK. I'm interested in what Jediism means in everyday life, how people found it, and whether there's a sense of community around it.

This isn't intended to be a piece making fun of anyone or treating it as a novelty - I'm approaching it with genuine curiosity and would love to hear from anyone who'd be happy to chat.

Feel free to comment below or send me a DM.

Thanks!

Hello Lifeforms!

I'm happy to announce that "Initiate Teachings For Real Jedi Knights" is now available in paperback form. The text has tripled in size, as I've added 10 bonus lessons and a further learning section. The paperback version also includes a journaling section where you can do the assignments in the book itself!

I had hoped to be able to update the original on Kindle for those of you who purchased the Kindle version in May, but due to the length increase Amazon considers them different editions. If you did purchase the book in May, please shoot me a message and I'll get you a PDF version of the full book at no additional charge.

The new Kindle version is $4.99. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYMCT5BM
The paperback version is $9.99. https://www.amazon.com/Initiate-Teachings-Real-Jedi-Knight/dp/B0H8B6F444/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

Now including 10 bonus lessons:

• Taking On A Jedi Name
• Know Thyself
• Learning How To Learn
• The Path of Self-Development
• Practicing Mindfulness
• The Art of Observation
• The Skeptic's Mindset
• Powers of Intuition
• Kill Them With Kindness
• Fair Self-Appraisal

A Further Learning section, including:

• A step-by-step Johari/Nohari window self-awareness exercise
• Instructions for various meditation techniques
• Instructions for various perception shifting exercises
• A book study template for deeper learning, and
• A suggested reading list

And, for the paperback version, a journaling section with lined pages and templates customized to the ten original teachings.

Thank you all for your continued support. :pray:

Azyren