jedis and midichlorians

The Jedi Path
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THE 2001 JEDI CENSUS
• 20,000 CANADA
• 390,000 UK
• 53, 715 NEW ZEALAND
• 70,509 AUSTRALIA
_______________________________
• TOTAL: 534,224 (EXCLUDING USA)
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HOW MANY WERE NOT JOKING? BEST GUESSES…
– AUSTRALIAN STAR WARS APPRECIATION SOCIETY ESTIMATES 5000 OUT OF
70,000 - 7.5%
– MY RESEARCH RESULTS - 7.9% OF IN- PERSON RESPONSES; 11.4% OF ONLINE
RESPONSES
Impact of Star Wars on Spiritual
Lives of Fans
• Categories of
Responses:
– No Response/nonspiritual response
(33.5%)
– Spiritual Influence, but
primary religious
affiliation to other
spiritual path (46.5%
– Jedi Path (20%)
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Jedis as role models
– service to others
– advocates of peace
– Tolerance for diversity
•
The Force as model of
Godhood
– Holy Spirit within everyone
– Ultimate Reality (Brahman)
– Goddess/God energy
The Jedi Path
• Jedi Realism
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Jedi path as way of life
Not a religion - a spiritual path
The Force as impersonal energy, not personal deity
Rejection of midichlorians
The Jedi Path
• Jediism as a religion
• “The golden thread of universal truth that runs through
every major religion…”
• Emphasis on inner and world peace
• The Force as personal deity - prayer, etc.
• Midichlorians = mitochondria? Chloroplasts?
• Midichlorians as introduced in
The Phantom Menace
QUI-GON : Make an analysis of this blood
sample I'm sending you… I need a midichlorian count.
OBI-WAN : All right. I've got it.
QUI-GON : What are your readings?
OBI-WAN : Something must be wrong
with the transmission… the reading's off
the chart...over twenty thousand.
QUI-GON : (almost to himself) That's it
then.
OBI-WAN : Even Master Yoda doesn't
have a midi-chlorian count that high!
QUI-GON : No Jedi has.
Midichlorians and the Force
ANAKIN : Master, sir...I've been wondering...what are
midichlorians?
QUI-GON : Midichlorians are microcopic lifeforms that
reside within all living cells and communicate with
the Force… Without the midichlorians, life could not
exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force.
They continually speak to you, telling you the will of
the Force.
ANAKIN : They do??
QUI-GON : When you learn to quiet your mind, you will
hear them speaking to you.
ANAKIN : I don't understand.
QUI-GON : With time and training, Annie...you will.
Fan Responses to midichlorians
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The Fan betrayed
22.8% of fans identify midichlorians as George
Lucas’s biggest mistake.
Second only to the 29.8% of fans who identify
everything after 1980 (ie, entire prequel trilogy)
as his biggest mistake.
68% of respondents to my online questionnaire
responded negatively to midichlorians
“Oh my God, he destroyed it. The Force we
knew is dead.”
“Midichlorians are BULLSHIT! They
completely undermine the spiritual nature of the
Force.”
“Midichlorians raped the youth of most fans.”
Midichlorians - materialism?
– “‘For my ally is the Force. And a
powerful ally it is. Life creates it,
makes it grow. Its energy
surrounds us and binds us.
Luminous beings are we, not this
crude matter…’. Those are
beautiful words describing a
powerful idea. This midichlorian
claptrap undermines the entire
concept and reduces it to the
spiritual equivalent of catching the
flu.”
Midichlorians - racism?
• “Midichlorians are a racist notion… Jedi are
Jedi because of something in their blood that
enables them to tap into this great power.
They’re the god-damned master race.
Ouch!”
Beyond Lucas and “Canon”
• Many practicing Jedi believe that Star Wars tapped into
something authentic and timeless, and packaged it in a story
that works for the modern era.
• That Lucas may or may not have “had his brain eaten by
aliens” is a point of debate - but his work is considered to
stand on its own - he doesn’t get to undermine what Jedi’s
take to be real spiritual insights, even if he does own the
franchise.