Long before Disney took ownership, Star Wars enjoyed a long-established and dedicated fanbase following. In the 2011 UK Census, the Jedi movement nearly gained religious status after a few sarcastic atheists started off in the 2001 Census. So it’s no surprise that May the 4th has grown as the official, unofficial day for Star Wars worship. Personally, my social media feed has been littered with growingly festive May 4th greetings. (I recall the first time I heard the notion as the punchline of a joke.)
Not to say that Star Wars is completely devoid of spiritual essence. Creator George Lucas was quoted as saying some 15 years ago that The Force embodies “a concept of religion based on the premise that there is a God and there is good and evil.” ( Jill Serjeant [2015] Reuters ). Many academic authors have made more than passing references to the spiritualistic themes in everyone’s favourite Sci-Fi saga.
Markus Altena Davidsen [2016] wrote an entire chapter: From Star Wars to Jediism; The emergence of Fiction based religion
In his chapter above, Davidsen highlights the growing movement of ‘Jediism’, a separation from the prevalent materialistic Star Wars universe and franchises. The suggestion is that this movement acknowledges a real-world acceptance of the Force in a real, empirical world.
The idea isn’t as original as you might think and what some might call the delusion of the Force has been circulating in pop culture for quite some time.
In fact, the basic idea behind the Force is easily compatible with the ancient Chinese belief of a “concept of an energy that is undercurrent of all living things and the cosmos, originates from the ancient Chinese philosophy of Taoism ” ( Pizzaro, Uni of Sydney). Not to mention numerous other civilisations throughout the years under a similar premise
For those that (rather accurately say) Star Wars is too materialistic or too consumer-driven to be anywhere near as sacred as a religion. My advice is, look around . . . cast a glance anywhere between American Televangelical Christian preachers asking followers to send in money with a promise of spiritual reward. This is hardly an evolution from the well known medieval trade that grew around holy christian relics and their power as objects to connect humans with spiritual ‘transempirical realities’ ( as Davidsen [2016] describes above). Consider the practice of Catholic ‘indulgences‘ in western Christendom and how the abuse of such, incurred the famous Ninety-five thesis Martin Luther wrote in protest, leading to his ex-communication from the catholic church. Then onto the concluding sequences of events that contributed to the Reformation in general? I am more than sure other such examples exist in other religions unbeknownst to me.
This blind adulation of objects is not dissimilar to how the concept of commodity fetishism is viewed. “Slavoj *Žižek …combined the psychoanalytic definition of fetish with Marx’s own to create a theory of the commodity that uses the notion of fantasy to explain its peculiar power to deceive. (Oxford Ref)“. When associated with the visual hierarchy of the Star Wars saga, such inanimate objects are similar in nature to the medieval holy relics that were heavily imbued by loyal believers with a religious Phantasmagoria. These sacred relics were able to generate what Walter Benjamin called an ‘aura‘ that is heavily in sync with its own time and a space i.e. a lightsaber; which is fairly unique to the Star Wars universe and has no realistic bearing in any other form of reality. The sheer symbolic imagery of such an object becomes its own, unique symbol beyond the reality of the literal object. Much of the aesthetic designs in the Star War universe were made from scratch with parts from craft model kits to be unique and bespoke, to avoid any possible connection with other competing Sci-Fi films/franchises. (Sansweet, [1992]’From Concept, to screen, to collectible‘, p.20.)
A lightsaber becomes an exclusively cultural signifier for the Star Wars universe that cannot be represented in the same context anywhere else because it has no other possible place to belong in any other time and space. Thus, make-believe or otherwise, the Star Wars fan is involved in a process called reification with the object, as it becomes symbolic and loses all other meaning elsewhere. Regardless of the initial purpose of the parts used to create the product.
How is the phantasmagoria that Star Wars generates any different from other forms of ‘transempirical realities’ or even straight out idolatry that has continued in mainstream religion despite the initial condemnation from their own revered respective gospel scriptures?
Jeidiism.
As Davidsen reminds us in his article above, ‘Jediism’ accepts the materialism of Star Wars fan culture and attempts to distance itself from this, as a movements with primary teachings that “assume the transempirical realities” like any other religion or spiritual belief structure.
Yet there is a contradiction here because the very path to ‘Jediism’ as defined by Davidsen, means accepting the materialistic origins of the nature of Star Wars fan culture. A Sci-Fi franchise so deeply routed in consumerism and merchandising that it can be considered the primary agenda behind the entire creation and surviving ethos of the Star Wars franchise and now universe. For George Lucas, retaining control over creative design and merchandising was more important than any immediate revenue (Sansweet, [1992]’From Concept, to screen, to collectible‘, Chapter 5). This includes escapism ( theological or otherwise) that has driven and evolved in the fan culture. Even the cosplay could be considered a physical manifestation of this reification with a Galaxy far, far away, only visualised with signposting of unique aesthetic and materialist symbolism.
In short, for a real time Jediism movement to survive, they would have to accept the practical impossibility of a working lightsaber actually existing.
We don’t even need to pause to reflect on any particular form of organisation with a particular belief system operating for profit ( allegedly) underpinned by (allegedly) a quasi spiritual agenda with a theological premise created by (allegedly) a Science-Fiction writer under ( allegedly) nefarious circumstances.
MTFBWY . . ( and watch the Hubris, eh folks?)
Rant &Rave 