Jedi-ism Becomes a Serious Religion

An anonymous reader writes: 390,127 Brits declared their religion as Jediism in their last census — many as a joke, but some are quite serious, the BBC reports. Cambridge University Divinity Faculty researcher Beth Singler estimates at least 2,000 of them are "genuine," around the same number as the Church of Scientology. The U.K. Church of Jediism has 200,000 members worldwide. Their belief system has expanded well beyond the Star Wars universe to include tenets from Taoism, Buddhism, Catholicism and Samurai. Former priest, psychotherapist and writer Mark Vernon finds real power in the Jedi story: "The reason it's so powerful and universal is that we have to find ourselves. It's by losing ourselves and identifying with something greater like the Jedi myth that we find a fuller life."

Comments

Spiritual Needs

[JonnyCalcutta]

"For Mark Vernon, a former priest, psychotherapist and writer, says the Jedi story has real power. "The reason it's so powerful and universal is that we have to find ourselves. It's by losing ourselves and identifying with something greater like the Jedi myth that we find a fuller life."

Speak for yourself

Worked for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see how that would work. Without going into a whole recovery-story, I went through decades of depression, anxiety, agoraphobia - all the stereotypical symptoms picked up commonly by the nerd/social isolate crowd.

And I read a little of buddhism, read a little more, explored more out of interest and before I knew it I identified with more than a few parts. I don't go for any of the mythical/spiritual/woo parts, but I'm happy to call myself a buddhist.

And more importantly now, I'm happy. I left the shackles of the mental illnesses behind and a big part was identifying with parts of a myth. It's nice. I might have picked up Jedism if I didn't feel the movies were pretty mediocre, but different tastes etc.

Re:Worked for me.

[oobayly]

Most Buddhists would strongly disagree with you.

But they won't kill you over it.

Or more accurately, like most other religious followers, the majority of Buddhists won't kill you for it. Like every religion, it has followers who are willing to kill for their beliefs - Special Report: Buddhist monks incite Muslim killings in Myanmar

Re:at least 2,000 of them are "genuine,"

[damn_registrars]

Have they demonstrated the power of the force at all? or are they just genuine nutters?

Couldn't you ask the same question of all other religions since the dawn of time, and reach the same conclusion?

From who's perspective?

[s.petry]

The Mormons and COS were both intended as money making operations to gain power. Hubbard wrote several papers before Dianetics stating that the easiest way to get rich was to start a religion, so he did. To them it was not a joke or satire, it was about money and domination. The story of Mormon religion is similar, but harder to track and requires reading lots of anecdotal evidence.

The masses looking at the founders of these religions for the most part laughed and snickered, but as PT Barnum is attributed with saying "a sucker is born every minute" (re-read that statement before trying to correct the quote)