Beyond Jedi and Sith: Archetypes, Alchemy, and the Way of the Projectionist
Star Wars is often seen as a beloved space saga full of iconic battles between heroes and villains. Yet beneath its thrilling surface lies a profound modern mythology that mirrors our own reality; a world divided into opposing camps, each representing extreme dogmatic ideals, each trying to shape and “fix” the world in their own way. This article explores how the timeless conflict between Jedi and Sith echoes the struggles of our age, where rigid belief systems vie for dominance. But perhaps there is more to the story than this duality suggests. Drawing on inner alchemy and the pursuit of the Philosopher’s Stone, the path of the Grey Jedi offers a deeper, subtler way; a way that transcends extremes, embraces complexity, and points toward a more expansive understanding of power, transformation, and the forces shaping our collective destiny.
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.
It is crucial to understand this, because anything accomplished in the third room, being as vivid as the most vivid dream you have ever experienced, becomes an actual event in your life. It establishes a pattern of who you are, embedding itself as something you truly did and as a path you genuinely took. This means there is no difference between what occurs there and what people call three dimensional reality. The only distinction lies in the fact that one unfolds in inner space, which appears separate only from the limited perspective of ordinary human experience.
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.
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one becomes like a “desireless ghost wont it affect us negatively if we want to further evolve
you did mention desire is outward polarity if no desire no outward polarity
i am just using logic obviously i understand that certain things have to be experienced in alchemy but it doesnt hurt to ask
i read the way of the projectionists now and got the answer to my question sorry for botheing you
Creative design!
A bit off topic if you don’t mind:
What is meant with (developing) complete causal understanding in Inner Alchemy? Is it purely the awareness of how the rooms of the projectionist, including the first world, come to be? How energy transmutes?
Could intellectual text book knowledge be disregarded, or at least be used as inspiration to grow awareness without clinging? Will this causal awareness and understanding grow naturally by just engaging with projections?
At the end of the day, the intellectual memorization doesn’t really help with sensual perception or awareness, right?
I need to learn how to use technology to build technology, so intellectual memorization has its merits.
But I could study a lot about auras for example, but not really perceive them. I could memorize the content of the books intellectually, but it would not be the complete motion required to cross the rooms of the projectionist.
I don’t remember how my physical senses developed. They just came to be. Similar to how portals just open, daydreams appear, intrusive impulses draw attention, or I lose track in projections and forget myself. Is the development of the inner feeling sense, that in my understanding is a key to developing causal understanding and awareness, also a spontaneous process, caused by the secret king and other influences?
All I can do right now is direct and let go to see what happens. But the ability to direct and letting things happen is restricted, especially so in the first world.
This leads me to another thread of questions I’ve contemplated: aside emotions, is the pure perception of the first world itself already a personal energy expenditure? I mean obviously, in some ways, since we usually have to sleep, get tired. Although I’m not sure if it really IS a biological thing, or more like a biological shroud/illusion above fundamental energetic motions.
Intuitively I would say yes as well. To me right now, it is an energy expenditure because somehow I maintain a focus on the first world, perceiving it as real and alive. It actually feels more like a forced focus. If I were to engage in a projection, I would shift my focus accordingly and channel energy away from, or forget, the first world, to power the projection. But the first world oftentimes remains as an anchoring dimensional screen, or disrupting static.
It’s just difficult to order and understand how energy moves and actually causes reality to be, in a lived Inner Alchemy way, where a conflict arises between intellectual memorization (dogma I guess) and lived experience or awareness, that is lacking.
In inner alchemy, what is meant by developing complete causal understanding, is basically understanding the laws of whatever realities you have access to. For example, there is the ongoing need to understand what is referred to as collective and objective reality, this would mean understanding how the physical world works, the cause and effects of things, and then developing logical structures and algorithms to be able to not only survive but thrive within that reality.
Then that causal understanding is implemented in other worlds, for example the many worlds that are available to a projectionist.
Intellectual textbook knowledge can help, but as you say it is just memorization. In the end everything must be understood directly, and that information must be available instantly so that perfect action is possible. This requires an enhanced form of knowing.
All things are in essence a spontaneous process. We can never know truth, only experience. This seems like a contradiction to causal understanding. But it is only a contradiction when you believe causal understanding to be how things are accomplished. Causal understanding is part of the Logos, and as such it is as I have said in my books, like a kind of refuge from the storm of reality. Causal understanding can inspire though, it can trigger feelings, and ultimately it is those feelings that are responsible for true creation. Magic is in essence the manipulation of feelings.
Yes, the perception of any world expends energy. And yet, it is our way, our lot, to perceive. The thing is though, that while you are sleeping, while you may not be perceiving the physical world with the same intensity that you did while awake, you are nevertheless perceiving other worlds, so in a sense you never turn off.
I think you have found something there, contemplate that: an anchoring dimensional screen. And then relate that to the Logos and what I mentioned earlier. There’s a connection there. Feelings- belief frameworks.
In order to understand how what we might all call the physical world, I recommend going back to my books on servitor creation. They are the key to understanding how the focus of attention creates outer reality. They are all good on this subject, and sorry I can’t recommend one in particular from the trilogy, but the second book in the series “how to create a servitor companion” at the beginning of that I go into Yggdrasil, the world tree, and the line of the manifest. If you have access to these books, they may be helpful to you. If you don’t, read the website articles and comments on this site on creating a servitor; first creating a thought form and then giving that thought forms so much weight that it starts to become real in the world that we share. I think you may find many answers by reading some of those website articles.
For the question at the beginning of the post, I think the basic answer is that it depends on the source of the desire. If it is the result of social programming or other similar influence, than it will naturally be shed as the individual progresses. The best way, to me, to think of it is not so much giving up a desire as that the person will naturally come to realize that they never really wanted it in the first place. On the other hand, if the desire is authentic to their individual personality, than making the organic-inorganic transition will greatly increase their ability to pursue the goal. And there of course some individuals who do make the transition who maintain contact with the 3D world as many tales from around the world attest.
When it comes to the Jedi vs Sith, I certainly agree that it is valid to look at them beyond a narrow good vs bad binary, and of course that the Sith originally were a part of the Jedi indicates a commonality in addition to the Grey Jedi. But at the same time, it seems to me that there is a qualitative difference in that the Sith are almost completely trapped in petty egotism and consequent lethal intrigue in a way the Jedi aren’t. This doesn’t just make the Sith order vastly more toxic and lethal to be a member of, in their conflicts with the Jedi it causes them to turn victory into catastrophic defeat on multiple occasions.
Lastly, a while ago there was a Farsight project that found that the Star Wars universe was to a large extent inspired by real events. Do you have any thoughts on this as it relates to the Jedi vs Sith comparison being potentially simply a reflection of actual history? My guess for what it is worth is that it probably does reflect real tendencies but in a simplified way and that the real-life actors and agendas that inspired the Jedi and Sith were more complex than their fictional counterparts.
That is really interesting about the Farsight Project. I say that because my understanding of the truth behind the Sith and Jedi is why I’ve written about them and even considered exploring this genre further. It offers a unique way to discuss topics related to the unrecorded history of inner alchemy, using relatable and easily understood character arcs as reference points. Unfortunately, copyright issues make it challenging, so I chose not to pursue it. However, there’s a profound truth within that narrative, one that transcends Star Wars itself and is connected to ancient archetypes, as mentioned in the article.
In the movies, the Jedi typically emerge victorious over the Sith, presenting a simplified view of good versus evil. Yet, reality is more complex, as you point out yourself. From the perspective of inner alchemy, the Jedi are built upon Sith knowledge; the Sith came first, rediscovering something long lost. Their power, focus, and unrelenting and ruthless commitment revealed the Force and showed how to wield it. They ventured into extreme realms, unimaginable to most. The Jedi, founded on this knowledge, also became corrupted over time, spreading a doctrine of peace but still pushing their narrative. This is no less a crime than the Sith’s actions, as it interferes with the natural fate of beings. The interesting thing here is that the Jedi, believing they followed their True Self, had indeed fallen into a kind of corruption that was as deep as anything by the Sith; the only difference being that the Sith were far more honest about their intentions. Those who push narratives eventually counteract the Force, leading to their own undoing in a sense. But that is not quite accurate either because this undoing is not so much destruction per se, at least not if true self is behind the actions, but instead it is a forking of roads, it is a moving into a different way of being (sort of like becoming a different being). It was more along the lines of something akin to, “those that live by the sword…” shall go to a place where they may revel in that existence. And let’s just say that for some, that forking is a bliss not a nightmare. I hope you can understand what I mean.
Within Star Wars fiction, and weaving its canon with insights from inner alchemy, there are suggestions that a Grey Jedi (let us call this individual Qui-Gon Jinn) rediscovered an ancient path to immortality. Thus, it is the Grey Jedi who endure, holding no narrative and aligned solely with their true path, which is neither good or bad.
In the end, both the Jedi and the Sith failed; what remains is the way of the Grey Jedi, and this is of course my addition to the canon (so I hope I don’t get in trouble from the sci fi purists 🙂 ) but hopefully it gives you and others a general idea of what once was and of course what is.
Thanks, much interesting to ponder. To be clear, I was referring to the old expanded universe as well when mentioning the Sith splitting from the Jedi and the Sith’s defects leading to unnecessary defeat. And of course on that grand timescale, it isn’t so much that the Sith always lose, they both sometimes win, and neither ever permanently defeats the other. Rather, what I find remarkable given how inherently powerful the Sith are is that they ever lose. Regarding your last paragraph, I’ve always assumed that becoming one with the force is the Star Wars equivalent of alchemical immortality. Are you saying that isn’t how you see it?
Thank you for clarifying Joseph. I am not an expert on Star Wars so I don’t know. Honestly, I was just riffing back and forth between what some would consider Star Wars science fiction in the official canon sense, and alchemical truth. And I suggested that perhaps Star Wars canon is even more similar to inner alchemy than some might imagine, stating that Qui Gon-Jinn may have rediscovered immortality in the same way that inner alchemists did, furthermore that this immortality is not about becoming one with the force, because ultimately as I point out in the magnum opus trilogy; this is just a different form of dying. Qui Gon interestingly enough, creates a ghost (funny how archetypes interweave themselves everywhere) and that ghost in accordance with inner alchemy, is not created just through VOID (akin to becoming one with the force), but also through the manipulation of the IN and OUT polarities, again as described in that trilogy.
Do you think perhaps becoming one with the force and other similar concepts might be interpreted less literally? As in, interweaving oneself with the foundational layer of reality and thus no longer being subject to decay or entropy instead of literally dissolving into the universe. Perhaps this is why it’s called one with the force and not one with the universe. That those who become one with the force do appear to the physical world from time to time would indicate that they haven’t lost lucidity.
As an addition to the question of the reality behind pop culture, do you have any thoughts on Star Trek and Dune? I remember you mention the latter once in one if your books.
Interesting thoughts Joseph, I like your interpretations.
As I have said on multiple occasions, myth and story are real, so these stories, which are really in many ways different interpretations of inner archetypes, ring as true today as they did thousands of years ago. The only thing I would say is that the story, when it is mythic and significant, will always ring within the bell of society, but there is a difference between the story and the franchise.
With that said, I like both the Star Trek and the Dune story, and I particularly like Dune, as you know from my writing. Of these I would say that I would much rather be a free soul in Mos Eisley than being part of Starfleet. And as far as it goes, if you’re curious, I far prefer Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune, now that’s a guy that understands myth and archetypes!