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.
Meet them — context →
The shared center — held across the tradition
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 →
Contested within — affirmed by some schools, refused by others
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.
Go deeper — context & 1 source →
Cosmos & Afterlife
how reality is built, and what follows deathThe nature of reality
A single field of energy generated by living things, which binds the galaxy together and can be attended to, aligned with and drawn on — held by most Jedi as a real force rather than a metaphor.
After death
Most Jedi take the individual to return to the Force at death rather than to persist as a self. The point is not developed doctrinally.