Occult Philosophy in Star Wars: The Force, the “Two Paths,” and Defense of Republican Order

The often-overlooked internal discipline at the heart of the classical republican tradition finds a clear modern illustration in the Star Wars contrast between the Jedi’s mastery of the Force and the Sith’s surrender to passion. While contemporary political debate tends to focus almost exclusively on external institutions, elections, and structural checks against tyranny, the older republican emphasis on civic virtue insisted that free government ultimately depends on the citizen’s capacity for self-mastery — the subordination of private will and appetite to reason and the common good. Without that inner discipline, even well-designed constitutions remain vulnerable to the capricious exercise of power, whether by a despot or by a faction driven by unrestrained desire.

This is a revised edition of the 2016 article ‘Theosophy in Star Wars: The Force, Its Sides and the “Two Paths’, originally published October 2016.

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1. TWO CENTRAL CONCEPTS IN STAR WARS AND THEOSOPHY
2. THE TWO PATHS
3. THE TWO TYPES OF ADEPTS
4. GEORGE LUCAS SPEAKS ABOUT THE ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN MESSAGE OF STAR WARS
5. THE KNIGHT AGAINST DESPOTIC CAPRICE AND ERRANT SPIRITS

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TWO CENTRAL CONCEPTS IN STAR WARS AND THEOSOPHY

PHILOSOPHY OF THE FORCE AND THE TWO PATHS 

There is no coincidence to the fact, there are similarities between Star Wars and Theosophy. The former is a fictional universe, but the latter is an actual high philosophical collection of teachings and ethical codes. In no other school of thought is the semblance in ideas as exact as it is in language, than between the force philosophy in Star Wars and theories that arose in the Occult Philosophy revival during the nineteenth-century but with older roots, specifically as advanced by Theosophy and theologies of Electricity preceding it, as analyzed by Nicholas Goodrich-Clarke. Theosophy features a thorough philosophical position about the nature of Electricity and Matter that have a long ancient history and takes us beyond the critiques and polemics Christians have employed against it. Its philosophy runs through Star Wars even more than one would find in a current book on either Buddhism, or Daoism. There are two central concepts shared between Theosophy and Star Wars. These are (1) the FORCE, and (2) the TWO PATHS. Then, there is the concept of good and evil MASTERS, light and black MAGIC, a subject too muddied in contemporary esoteric discourse. This is a reaction to stronger lines drawn between light magic and dark magic in the nineteenth-century spiritual milieu.

Here, we will delve deeply into the specifics of the Theosophical positions, that demonstrate and prove that Star Wars teaches through its fictional mythos.