The Force, the Philosopher’s Stone, and the Mythology of Star Wars

I received an interesting comment recently that raised some thoughtful points. In essence, the commenter expressed a strong desire not to abandon this world or escape into some higher reality, but rather to remain within it and guide humanity toward a brighter world. They spoke of wanting transformation, but not for themselves alone; rather, they wished to see that transformation realized in the collective. The underlying question they posed was whether the pursuit of something like the Philosopher’s Stone, as an inner reality and a form of escape from this cubed dimension, would compel one to separate permanently from this world, or whether it could remain a path that serves others as well.

In other words: Can one achieve profound transformation (Through the techniques of inner alchemy) without abandoning the desire to help humanity? The journey toward becoming a multidimensional oneness, bursting beyond our limited world, seems at odds with a deep-seated wish to… *fix* it. Is creating that transformative stone at odds with helping humanity?

What stood out to me was not only the content of the comment but the name of the commenter, which sparked in me an entirely different line of thought. It brought to mind Star Wars, and how that saga functions as a kind of modern mythology, delivering to contemporary audiences a vivid framework for grappling with timeless questions, just like the old Greek Myths did. Star Wars may look like science fiction, but beneath the surface it serves as a codex (a system of symbols and narratives) that offers a lens for understanding existence itself… And I must admit, I am a Star Wars fan myself!

A Vitality Beyond Good and Evil

We must first understand that mythology, at its core, is the representation of archetypes, which are timeless patterns of thought, behavior, and energy that shape human experience. According to Jungian psychology, archetypes are not invented by culture but rather emerge universally from the collective unconscious, appearing in myths, dreams, and symbols across civilizations. They exist as primordial templates: the hero, the shadow, the wise old figure, the trickster, the great mother, and countless others. What mythologies like Star Wars accomplish is giving these eternal archetypes a recognizable form, rendering them accessible to modern audiences wrapped in a language of spaceships, lightsabers, and galactic struggles.

Yet to see archetypes fully, we must realize they are not static characters or mere psychological tools. Archetypes are a kind of multidimensional structure; energetic realities that go beyond the three-dimensional world we perceive. In their essence they are more like fields than forms, emanating a pattern of energy that shapes, attracts, and interacts with consciousness. When they infuse themselves into human life or culture, they create recurring motifs, beliefs, and narratives, which then crystallize into specific cultural expressions. In this way, archetypes not only reflect human consciousness but also help generate it, influencing belief systems and shaping the very structures through which civilizations understand existence.

Because of their scope, archetypes transcend the limited moralities of good and evil. They embody vitality itself, flowing before and beyond any cultural attempt to classify them. Within specific civilizations, however, the encounter with archetypes often ends up confined to moral categories; what is acceptable, what is forbidden, what is good, what is evil. This is where mythology becomes dogma. When a culture interprets an archetype from within its particular point in history, it casts the archetype into rigid dualities, freezing its multidimensional power into narrow binaries.

Take the Star Wars mythos as an example. Within its familiar framework, the Jedi are positioned as the agents of good, and the Sith as the forces of evil. On the surface, this is clear: the Jedi guard peace, while the Sith seek domination. Yet when we look deeper into the archetypal pattern, we see both are driven by similar dynamics.

The Jedi, despite their sagely demeanor, are in essence attempting to control the galaxy by enforcing peace as they define it. Their moral code, their rigid doctrines of detachment and restraint, create a binding framework that ultimately funnels life into their perception of order.

The Sith, by contrast, do not disguise their will to power. Their quest for strength and self-expression is honest (perhaps brutally so) but it is transparent, revealing their aims without cloaking them in the language of morality.

In this inversion, one realizes that the Jedi, in their pursuit of peace, still enforce domination just as much as the Sith do, though they do so under the banner of righteousness. The Sith, in their raw embrace of desire and ambition, sometimes appear more authentic, though they too fall prey to excess and destruction.

Seen archetypally, this duality is not about heroes and villains at all, but about how civilizations shape and limit archetypal truths through morality. The Force (as an archetype) transcends these divisions entirely. It is not good or evil; it simply is. But once refracted through cultural dogma within the galaxy, it fractures into Jedi versus Sith, good versus evil, order versus chaos.

Jedi and Sith: Two Currents of the Same Force

If we were to examine the techniques of the Jedi and the Sith not through the veil of cultural dogma but at their core, we would discover something striking. Beyond the moralistic layer that paints the Jedi as good and the Sith as evil, their methods of working with the Force are essentially the same. Both traditions depend on the same fundamental principle: communion with a deeper current of existence that flows through and around all things. From this perspective, the great divide between Jedi and Sith is not a question of opposing forces of nature, but of belief systems about how this force can or should be sought and expressed.

In fact, one could go so far as to say that the Jedi and the Sith are the same thing; that their divergence exists only as an expression of how they interpret and overlay their personal and cultural beliefs upon the ineffable energy they touch. The crucial realization is that neither is truly in control of the Force. Rather, the Force expresses itself through them, and it does so in ways shaped by the unique disposition of the individual as well as the circumstances of time and place.

This is a vital point because it reverses the common assumption that mastery of the Force is about domination or ownership. True technique begins with surrender: becoming one with the Force, aligning so completely that one’s personal will and the Force itself become indistinguishable. What emerges from that point is not a straightforward act of self-creation, but a synthesis between the individual and the greater energy flowing through them. It is a co-creative process. The person becomes a vessel in which their unique traits combine with the cosmic current, and the result of that alchemy produces either the ways of the Jedi or the ways of the Sith.

From this perspective, the Jedi and Sith rise to a status of beings who have transcended the ordinary cages that bind most of humanity. They possess greater power not because they have bent the Force to their desires (as the Sith would say), but because they have allowed the Force to operate through them with intensity and focus. Their outcomes differ only because the Force manifests differently through each: some beings find themselves drawn to the path of restraint and guidance, others to passion and assertion. But in either case, what emerges is not merely what they want to become, but what the Force itself decrees in that particular alignment of personality, moment, and cosmic necessity.

The Lens of the Force

While it is true that the Force itself is the source of all power, it is equally true that the practitioner acts as the focusing instrument of that power. The individual becomes like a lens, bending and projecting the Force outward into the world in a particular shape. Whether that projection is labeled Sith or Jedi has less to do with the essence of the Force itself and more to do with how the surrounding culture interprets it through its prevailing dogmas. A Force-wielder is seen as one or the other depending on the beliefs of the time, but at the deepest level, both are simply expressions of the same current flowing through different vessels.

And yet, whether Jedi or Sith, there is a commonality: both impose their will. The Jedi may cloak their imposition beneath ideals of peace, harmony, and collective balance, yet what they truly enforce is their own vision of peace; an order shaped by their narrow definition of what is right. Such control is not the natural way of the Force, which flows beyond constriction. The Sith, meanwhile, may appear corrupt, self-serving, and entirely destructive, but they possess a clarity that the Jedi often lack. They embrace the individual over the collective, affirm the raw power of desire, and by doing so achieve a certain purity. To one who is not blinded by cultural dogma, even the Sith can be viewed as “good” in their own way, for they are honest about who they are and unafraid of their own will to power.

Somewhere between these extremes lie figures like Qui-Gon Jinn and the idea of the Grey Jedi. These are the ones who most closely represent the true flow of the Force, because they recognize that both Jedi and Sith are, in their own ways, corrupted by their extremes. The grey Jedi see constriction for what it is: chains, no matter how noble or ambitious. Instead of binding themselves to rigid codes of peace or domination, they allow the Force to move freely, becoming no one, nothing, in much the same way a Taoist seeks to transcend the very idea of being. This path demands ruthlessness, a ruthless commitment to follow the dictates of the Force, however it chooses to move through them. And so, in their ruthless adherence to the way of the force, to the dictates of the force, they are sometimes good and others bad… depending on the cultural norms of the times. You must remember that the force is, like archetypes themselves, a multidimensional vitality beyond good and evil.

The Rooms of the Projectionist

There is no greater clarity to the evolution of being than what is found in the understanding of the Rooms of the Projectionist, outlined in The Way of the Projectionist and later expanded in The Way of the Death Defier. These frameworks show us the stages of transcendence, not as moral ladders from good to evil, but as expansions of vibrational capacity. What is meant by “going up” here is not an ascension into moral superiority, it is the shifting of one’s awareness into subtler and more encompassing dimensions of existence.

We begin where we find ourselves now, in this dense three-dimensional state. In the first three rooms of the Projectionist, the fundamental challenge is desire.

Here we are entangled in wanting, endlessly reaching toward fulfillment. At this stage, the way forward bears a resemblance to what might be called Sith-like inner action: rather than rejecting desire, one learns to embrace it fully. But not in the outward, surface-bound manner of the material rat race. Instead, one turns inward, exploring inner space as the true arena of creation. Once you master the third room, this process culminates in the complete fulfillment of every possible desire, not symbolically but vividly and wholly in inner dimensions, until no hunger or unfulfilled yearning is left unresolved.

Once this threshold is crossed and all desires start to become fulfilled, a new transformation takes place. The practitioner shifts beyond desire and enters realms of breathtaking scale and strangeness. Freed from the compulsions that tether selfhood, one becomes like a “desireless ghost,” wandering dimensions so vast, so alien, that they unravel the very boundaries of one’s limited identity. In these higher rooms, questions of fixing the world or saving humanity begin to dissolve, replaced by perspectives of increasing expansiveness. What once felt like a noble compulsion becomes just one small field within a much greater web of existence… and yet, the choice always remains. One may Fix oneself to one ring of existence that binds dimensional exploration to a certain degree, or continue expanding, exploring selfhoods and realities that transcend human concern altogether.

And this is the heart of it: you can go as far as you want, you can remain where you like for as long as you choose, and you can step further when you are ready. Nothing is demanded of you beyond the first and most important act: overcoming the cage of three-dimensional limitation. Whether you approach this task through the discipline of a Jedi or the ferocity of a Sith makes no difference in the end; both paths, stripped of their dogma, demand the same procedure.

Yes, in pursuing the Philosopher’s Stone and in giving reality to that inner alchemy, you may remain in this world and still strive to create the changes you long to see. As you move through the rooms of the projectionist, you will discover a power that in some respects equals the power attributed to mythic figures such as the Sith and the Jedi. With that power, you can shape the world in ways that lie beyond the reach of others.

But know this too: once you have broken through the initial cage, power and awareness will shift your view. The passions that once defined you may dissolve, the ideals that once drove you may no longer bind you, and new horizons may call. Beyond desire and beyond self, you may find your path bends in directions you cannot yet imagine.