This, Seeker, is my religious view. I would define Sithism as both my philosophy and religion. I do believe in the Force as real.
This is not to say that I believe the story of Star Wars, no matter how influential, is a true story. If I did, I most definitely would not consider myself a Sith. I am not a fascist, I’m an anarcho-syndicalist. I do not condone murder. Nazis should fuck off. Queer people are here to stay and deserve rights. Racial minorities are going nowhere and deserve rights.
If I had never heard of Sithism, I would likely be labeled a dark pantheist. I borrow many aspects of Celtic Druidry, other than the views of deity, in my practice and belief.
To unfortunately quote a Jedi, “it surrounds us and penetrates us, it binds the galaxy together.” I believe in a God, but it is not personal. It does not hear prayers, it does not judge the dead, it does not hold a golden palace in the sky or otherwise. The God I believe in is one of the forces of nature – the Spirit in the circle, accompanied by Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. Philosophically speaking, I am in good company:
-Laozi, the author of the Tao Te Ching and philosophical founder of Taoism
-Spinoza, often hailed as the “prince of pantheism”
-Beethoven, the composer
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, founder of transcendentalism
-Henry David Thoreau, author and transcendentalist
-Nietzsche, philosopher – really, look it up!
-Tesla, genius inventor
-Carl Jung, psychologist/psychiatrist
-Einstein, physicist
-Audrey Hepburn, actress
-Carl Sagan, astronomer
I’m also in pretty terrible company:
-That Vegan Teacher, TikTok idiot (nothing against vegans, she’s a bigot)
-Someone I can’t name because I might get disappeared, but he’s a prominent businessman
This God I believe in is what I call the Force. And I believe it can be harnessed and manipulated, much like what a modern occultist would call magick. No, you can’t shoot lightning from your fingers, choke someone with your mind, or make someone believe something with a wave of your hand. But you can draw energy and inspiration from it, you can use it as the extra “oomf” to achieve your goals, you can call upon it to divine the future, you can channel the energies to assist others. I believe that your emotions are powerful, and can be used to empower your magick.
With my definition and practice of Sithism, you would not be wrong to call me a chaos magician. I believe you should use anything and everything that works for you. If you find a meditation, practice, ritual, symbol, whatever that works for you, you should use it. Such is the nature of the Sith – Sith is the symbol, the name, the belief, the practice that works for me, so it’s the one I use.
I would find a lot of common ground with left hand path occultists (specifically Satanists and Thelemites), Druids, chaos magicians, pantheists, modern pagans, wiccans, Taoists, Buddhists, and yes, even Jedi. Despite all of our differences, we have more in common than not. And the enlightened will see that this is true in all cases.
Except Nazis. Fuck Nazis. Never associate with them, Seeker. Real Sith are not far-right extremists, those are pretenders and cosplayers. They are frauds and should be dismissed without thought.