The Forest Dark

One of the prominent and the most remembered elements of George Lucas’s Star Wars saga is the use of “The Force”

“The Force” is described as “a binding, metaphysical, and ubiquitous power”.

According to an article in Wired, Issue 13.05, May 2005, “Life After Darth”, Lucas has attributed the origins of “The Force” to a 1963 abstract film by Arthur Lipsett, which sampled from many sources.
One of the audio sources Lipsett sampled for 21-87 was a conversation between artificial intelligence pioneer Warren S. McCulloch and Roman Kroitor, a cinematographer who went on to develop Imax. In the face of McCulloch’s arguments that living beings are nothing but highly complex machines, Kroitor insists that there is something more: “Many people feel that in the contemplation of nature and in communication with other living things, they become aware of some kind of force, or something, behind this apparent mask which we see in front of us, and they call it God”.

Other sources claim that Lucas took inspiration from Carlos Castañeda’s books, which followed Mexican Native American teachings.

The similarities with ideas in both Western and Eastern spiritual thinking and religions are obvious, and Lucas himself stated that “I wanted a concept of religion based on the premise that there is a God and there is good and evil. I began to distill the essence of all religions into what I thought was a basic idea common to all religions and common to primitive thinking. I wanted to develop something that was nondenominational but still had a kind of religious reality” (Star Wars Scrapbook).

Books have been written about how much Lucas has borrowed from religions and myth. However the interesting aspect of “The Force” is how strongly it resonates with the viewers and why. Obviously the viewers of Star Wars feel some truth here not some invention as part of a story. “The Force” is something very real, like a medium, like water surrounding everything but also part of the substance of every living organism.

Indeed it is an idea expressed in many ways, in esotericism often simply called “energy”, in Rupert Sheldrake’s theories the “morphogenetic fields” bear some resemblance with “The Force” and the more medieval ideas of the “pneuma” or “aether” have also a lot in common with the mystical and magic “Force”. In modern days also the “collective unconsciousness” seems to be a similar concept or sometimes the “psyche” if used in a metaphysical sense.

There is no scientific proof for the existence of  “The Force” however some theories in Quantum mechanics are interesting leads – for example the non-location of particles.

“The Force” is something known to man still man exists on Earth. It is interpreted in many different ways but it’s always the same phenomenon.

The most interesting question is not if the “Force” exists but about its structure, and is this a living being itself or primarily something which could be understood as an energy field.

In George Lucas’s Star Wars “The Force” is divided in the “Light Side” and “The Dark Side”. This is the most significant characteristic of “The “Force”.

The duality of “The Force” is again a strong similarity with many philosophical and religious belief systems. Particularly ancient religions or Gnosticism developed elaborated ideas about the eternal war between light and darkness. Indeed most of the old legends and the myths could be seen in the light of the fight between the light and the dark side of “The Force”.

“The Force” itself can’t be identified as the Otherworld itself but it seems a binding element between the metaphysical and the material world, and therefore “The “Force” could make us feel the coming of darkness or conflicts which happen in the first place in another realm. “The Force” has a lot in common with the idea of the Anima Mundi, as kind of an ocean of consciousness. It’s not the same but it connects us with the “Soul Of The World”:

Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi says: “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together”.

There is another strong aspect of “The Force” which is less ethereal. It’s something more like electricity or gravity. The Yedi learn to use “The Force” as a power. “The Force” can be used in many ways, often in very bad ways. It’s exactly what magic tried to do for thousands of years. Following the schools of Eastern monks and their many disciplines in material arts this is a very real existing aspect of “The Force”. Like the daimons or demons the force has trickster qualities. If we see “proof” for the so-called superhuman capabilities of material art fighters its always hard to really get a grip on it. Very little really convincing video- or photo material exists which is odd in a way. Its like “The Force” doesn’t want to be revealed. Like the “Otherworld” it loves to hide.  Furthermore any misunderstood use of the force is leading the unprepared into wrong directions, even more its a very dangerous thing to play around with as some reports by Dion Fortune suggest.

Her book “Psychic Self-Defense” doesn’t use the term ” The Force” but there are striking parallels between the use of “The Force” in Star Wars, her descriptions of abuse of magical powers or the events described in connection with mediums and her definition of  driving forces of the Universe, „the framework upon which it is built up in all its parts, belong to another phase of manifestation than our physical plane, having other dimensions than the three to whom we are habituated, and perceived by other modes of consciousness than those of which we are accustomed“.

Even more “The Force” seems to have a role in very normal everyday life if we ask about why some people possess a strange power over others (forcing them into kind of a rapport as Fortune says), or if we think about the many ways of manipulations we have to fight everyday. “The Force” is strong in some people at the moment but I am afraid its not the light side of “The Force” if we think of the centres of power and money in the world. In a less dramatic way “The Force” could be felt when subtle effects take place which are often attributed to the “Sixth Sense”, for example sensing that somebody is watching you even you can’t see him or grasping a mood or tension in a group of people before anybody says something.

Furthermore there are not only people in which the force is strong but also places where the force is strong. The idea of a Forest Dark as a magic or haunted forest could mean a forest where “The Force” is very strong. People looking often for places of power where they could feel “The Force” like ancient cult sites. Some strange events like UFO-encounters or sudden visionary experiences could be results of an unprepared contact with “The Force”. I haven’t found a convincing answer yet if “The Force” itself has specific intentions and to what extend it is an intelligent design. Maybe in itself its nature is basically more like a raw image, but it can take certain forms and work like a strong current – or better – my idea is that there are sometimes strong currents inside “The Force”, which have a specific quality. Getting into one of these currents is like being in the middle of a wild river with limited chances to reach the shore.

Deep in the forest people should remember Vader’s warning. “The Force” needs a lifetime to understand and to deal with – “May The Force Be With You!”

A new game. Every year. As long as you continue your quest you have that desperate moments where you feel you ended up in some poisoned hinterland ruled by twisted gods. Our best intentions turned upside down and when we accomplish what we hoped for an unexpected twist turns our fate. It’s a very old idea that some wicked forces are behind the ups and downs, if it’s only our own inner demons or some supernatural entities we don’t know. And even if we play this game or if we are played by some puppet master we can’t say. Our making and doing might be under some spell like Thorin Eichenschild’s fateful quest.

H.P. Lovecraft describes in his anthology “Supernatural horror” that Nathaniel Hawthorne created in his stories a universe driven hy hidden forces: “Evil, a very real force to Hawthorne, appears on every hand as a lurking and conquering adversary; and the visible world becomes in his fancy a theatre of infinite tragedy and woe, with unseen half-existent influences hovering over it and through it, battling for supremacy and moulding the destinies of the hapless mortals who form its vain and self-deluded population. The heritage of American weirdness was his to a most intense degree, and he saw a dismal throng of vague spectres behind the common phenomena of life; but he was not interested enough to value impressions, sensations, and beauties of narration for their own sake”.

This is primarily the analysis of a fictional world, but we know H.P.Lovecraft’s cosmic fear was a very real one. In some moment we might also think we live in a world where unseen forces have an influence we feel somehow, particularly at special places or times. We may ask how to deal with these demons.

When we reflect upon our relationship with the Otherworld it comes soon to exchange or communication between humans and demons or other otherworldly beings.  As in the ordinary world it’s very often about getting something in exchange for something else.

 

In the classic psycho thriller “Silence Of The Lambs” FBI agent Clarice Starling wants information from serial-killer Hannibal Lecter. To get that information she has to offer something in return – “Quid Pro Quo”. Lecter demands to know about Starlings most innermost fears. “Silence Of The Lambs” is not a supernatural thriller but in some sense Hannibal Lecter is a very demonic figure. By forcing Starling to reveal herself he becomes kind of a vampire. It seems like he wants her psychic energy.

Patrick Harpur says in his excellent book “Daimonic Reality” that “there is a touch of vampire about the Otherworld”.  Harpur examines the deeper meaning of many folklore stories as modern alien abduction cases; Harpur writes that “it should be mentioned also, in passing, that otherworldly beings feed directly off on occasions, such as when fairies kidnap men to assist in their games or wars. The mere presence of humans seems to be a source of strength, as if daimons draw on our psychic energy to give themselves substance. In return, we receive the gifts of clairvoyance, healing and occult knowledge – the skills, in other words, of mediums and shamans, cunning men and wise woman… The daimons need to take  – or exchange – our food, blood, power of procreation and our offspring. In other words, they need what is most substantial and vital to us. They need our life. And this is why the Otherworld is also, implicitly or explicitly, the Underworld or afterlife”.

 

Can we ever win this game? Can it ever be “quid pro quo?”

 
From the very beginning of mankind humans tried to redeem or use the demons through magic rituals. The manuals are sheer numberless. A lot of hermetic knowledge exists, and traditions were developed over hundred of years. However success is often short-lived. In our days most magic is seen as superstition, even magic belief is much more alive as we think. Nearly everybody performs his little rituals to keep the demons away. But often we fight a battle on lost ground. The tricksters will not be tricked. As long as we hope or we fear for something we could become an easy prey since we put ourselves in a more vulnerable position. Time is important for us. What if you have an opponent to whom time doesn’t play a role because he is eternal? And the most simple question remains still to be solved: do we know what these phenomena really are; something external like Hawthorne’s “vague spectres” or something more internal, more psychological? Maybe it’s both.

Your only chance is get an idea what they want from us. If we could understand them, see the world from they perspective we might be in a better position to deal with them.
 

Following Mr Harpur’s insights its much more complex to really understand what the Otherworld wants from us.

The first question is, is there necessarily always a relationship between humans and the Otherworld? When I wrote about the wild hunt, which roams the forests in the rough nights, we could also think about raw unmediated energies, which are more like some force of nature (like a tornado for example); some records or folklore stories sound more like the story of a person at the wrong place at the wrong time. H.P. Lovecraft imagined monstrous or giant supernatural beings, which doesn’t seem to have any interest in the human race; they could simply destroy us without any purpose by blowing their nose.

On the other hand there seems to be a very deep and close relationship between humans and the demons of the Otherworld (or daimons as Harpur prefers to describe them). The daimons seem to interact with us on a very intimate level – in our dreams. Harpur writes “What the daimons in dreams seek is our ability, through reflection and pondering, through all our making and doing, to give shape to their dynamic shape-shifting; to order and discriminate their chaos; to body forth their ethereal volatility; to express their, not the ego’s perspectives. This is the ‘strength’, the substance they seek. It presupposes that we recognize, accommodate, and even revere them, for, if they can only know themselves through us, it is only through them that we can know our own deepest selves”.

 
The last words are very interesting: “know our own deepest selves”. Does that mean that there is already some hidden (demonic) potential in the human soul? Usually we think that demons are some kind of evil spirits, which can take possession of a human being. Maybe there are other possibilities, not necessarily the “inner demons” but different ways of thinking, capabilities and a second identity we are not aware of in the daylight; a potential which is activated under special circumstances. It’s through dreams and otherworldly encounters we understand our own nature.

We can gain lost knowledge. This is also what initiation is about. Today a lot of people seek “shamanic initiation”, but our traditions are lost. We don’t know any longer how to deal with the daimons. Stories of missing people who went into the woods and people simply going crazy after some drug abuse or people who are suddenly confronted with series of uncanny and unexplained events might be cases of initiation gone wrong; Psychologist C.G. Jung speculated about a phenomena he called “synchronicity”, when the psychic live is mirrored in the material world and weird coincidences happen. We need to be careful when dealing with demons: as we know from the case of “Dr. Faustus” we might not only lose our lives but our soul or we might get changed forever like Agent Starling after her encounter with Hannibal Lecter.

So, why would you want to “deal with demons”? Why not avoid the Otherworld in general?

On one side otherworldly encounters seem to be an appropriate preparation when entering new stages in life and – as many tribal cultures believe – a preparation for the journey into the underworld (afterlife).

On the other side there is another group of people who at least need to “consult” the daimons from time to time. It’s the artists, the writers, the musicians, the filmmakers or the painters who hope to gain inspiration from the Otherworld. It’s not necessary to decide if we talk of inner demons, the unconscious or some real paranormal influence at work,  creative people need this exchange as a source of strength.

The interesting question is how much is their work influenced or even invested by the works of the Otherworld.  It’s always an individual journey and terribly hard, if not impossible to differentiate between personal projections and material which stem from some other source. Furthermore, there are temptations along the way, and there is deception.

Demons appear sometimes to be like a computer-virus, which is lurking somewhere in the web watching out for a weak spot; tiredness, emotional stress, fear and anger, ambitions and negative excitements like alcohol can help them to open the door. Similarly like malware infecting software they work like a thought, a living agency on its own. A simple but very strong thought, which spreads everywhere. Paranoia might be a good example. It can be a little moment triggering a certain thought and then it becomes hell, it can begin with a misunderstanding in a conversation, a little disappointment, a reaction misunderstood. But remember – like David Lynch’s “Mystery Man” the demons never come uninvited.

Hopefully the artist doesn’t fell victim to the tricksters from the other side (or from deep inside) and becomes possessed (even some form of possession seems necessary). It’s the complete loss of control, the human made a puppet by otherworldly forces when the game is lost. Having some confidence in the power of imagination might be helpful to avoid possession. A person rich with imagination might be able to better deal with (his own) and other demons. Sometimes a movie or a book shows how the artist dealt with the demons, and we can learn something about the great cosmic drama in which we play our little parts.

Writing or being creative indeed is a good way to deal with the demons. Like Clarice Starling the writer or film-maker has to offer something and it’s no wonder that they greedily taking his energy and the writer is tired and exhausted in the end, but in the best of all cases it can be “quid pro quo” and the artist received some deeper understanding of all things, something which he can communicate.

Sleepless Nights. Nightmare after nightmare. And is it still the nightmare, or is it real? Was that noise still part of the dream or not?  They’re here. These unholy spirits which whisper into our thoughts. We can really feel them. They’re already in the bedroom.  They want us to see the world from their perspective.  Some memories suddenly appear in a different light. Paranoia sets in, bad feelings, fear, which wasn’t there before. Is somebody creating this? Or is it only me? Perhaps it’s all in the imagination.

In some winter nights chaos seem closer to us. That’s why we have so many stories and old traditions about the rough nights. The rough nights are special winter nights, and the wild hunt is roaming through the woods. Usually the wild hunt is envisioned as a bunch of demons and lost souls. Some people believe Nordic God Wotan is their leader.

Only a few of us would believe that the wild hunt really exists. And regarding anxieties and weird feelings in certain winter nights we’re quick to blame the usual suspect – the weather.

However there is some truth here. If the Otherworld comes close to us, we can feel its different energies and entities. And in certain times it means entering a chaos zone, which is like being exposed to a very strong radiation.

The wild hunt might be related to the agents of chaos. This is what these dark energies which could be felt in the rough nights are about. The Otherworld is a storehouse of images – the demons of the wild hunt are symbolic expressions of this archetypical imaginary, which doesn’t mean they don’t exist. There is also an element of the archetype of apocalypse here, which could be felt in the rough nights. There are the most elementals forces at work here, and have a stronger influence on us as on other days. Like Sauron from Lord Of The Rings, which is lurking in darkness, the powerful energies of the wild hunt doesn’t like to reveal themselves but create something like a poisoning air; in which more crimes and other painful things do happen. It’s a dangerous time, that’s what the legends of the wild hunt and the rough nights want to tell us.

As always darkness and light are close together, and the light will come back. But before that happens we have to walk through the darkest corners of the forest dark once every year.