Jediism: beliefs, history and sources

History & overview

A prank on four censuses that some of the respondents meant.

Jediism takes the Force from the Star Wars films as a real description of an energy field binding living things, and the Jedi discipline — calm, self-mastery, service, refusal of anger — as a way of living by it. It entered public life as a hoax: a chain email before the 2001 censuses in England and Wales, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada claimed that a religion with enough write-ins would be officially recognised, and hundreds of thousands wrote Jedi. Congregations formed afterwards among people who were not joking, and the two things have been tangled ever since. The United States has granted one of them tax-exempt religious status; England and Wales has refused another charitable registration on the ground that Jediism is not a religion in charity law.

Why it is filed this way

Filed as parody because that is what put it on the record — the 2001 census campaign was a prank and everyone involved knew it. The congregations that formed afterwards are a different matter and say so plainly, and the regulators disagree about them. The Temple of the Jedi Order holds United States 501(c)(3) status as a church, granted in 2015. On 16 December 2016 the Charity Commission for England and Wales refused to register the same body, finding that Jediism lacks the necessary spiritual or non-secular element and could be advanced and followed as a secular belief system. Both rulings are about the same organisation and the same doctrine.

Living, but far smaller than the census numbers ever suggested. The write-in was a one-off protest; the congregations that formed afterwards are small, and no reliable count of them exists.

DeitiesNo god. The Force is not addressed in prayer and is not a person; it is described as a field and approached through meditation and conduct.

Founded2001 CE

FounderNone — no founding moment

AfterlifeMost Jedi take the individual to return to the Force at death rather than to persist as a self. The point is not developed doctrinally.

TextsThe Doctrine of the Temple of the Jedi Order · The 21 Maxims · The Jedi Code

The map

Jediism’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →

Core Tenets

2 — a sample of the center, never the sum Enter →

The Force is real and it is not a person. An energy generated by living things and binding them, attended to rather than prayed to. Jedi doctrine is careful on this point: the Force does not intend, answer or judge, and treating it as a god is a category error the Temple corrects in new members. Go deeper — context →

Whether this is a religion at all is answered differently in two countries. The Temple of the Jedi Order holds United States tax-exempt status as a church. On 16 December 2016 the Charity Commission for England and Wales refused the same body charitable registration, finding that Jediism lacks the necessary spiritual or non-secular element and could be followed as a secular belief system. Jedi themselves split the same way. ⚖ contested within Go deeper — context & 1 source →

Figures

who it looks to — gods, spirits, ancestors; some rooms are empty on principle Enter →

T The Force. Taken from a film and then taken seriously. Jedi do not claim the films are scripture; they claim the films described something the tradition had already noticed, in the same way a novel can describe grief accurately without inventing it. Domain All living things, and what passes between themStanding Taken by most Jedi as a real field rather than a metaphor, and by a minority as the second Meet them — context →

Rites & Ritual

what its people do — and when Enter →

Sitting with the Force. The daily discipline, and the one thing every Jedi organisation agrees on. It is meditation with a specific target: noticing anger early enough that it does not become the reason for the next thing you do. When dailyWho all Jedi Go deeper — context →

Where next

the museum exit — every door leads deeper in

Buddhism — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Sikhism — 10 shared ideas, a different faith Hinduism — 9 shared ideas, a different faith Jainism — 9 shared ideas, a different faith Branch Jediism — inherit everything, change what you must The library of ideas — what Jediism shares with every other faith A faith at random — somewhere you have never been

Sources

1 cited texts

Charity Commission for England and Wales, decision on the Temple of the Jedi Order, 16 December 2016 (rendered)
Whether this is a religion at all is answered differently in two countries. →

These citations identify texts used in the linked passages. Follow each passage to read its quotation and context. A tradition’s own texts explain its teachings; historical claims may also require independent scholarship. Translations marked (rendered) are our own plain-English wording, not a standard edition; where a passage matters, read it in a full translation.