“Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.” Yoda, from The Empire Strikes Back

There are people in this world who have elevated their understanding of the philosophies of Star Wars’ Jedi Knights to a religion that they themselves practice. A real-world religion born of a practice from a space opera.

The Church of All Worlds – a real church active here in the United States – owes its beginnings to the church of the same name from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.

(I don’t think I need to name the real-world religion founded by science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. I have to mention it because it’s out there. Let’s keep it out of this conversation though.)

These are religious practices followed by real people (and I don’t mean the lunatic fringe). You could take one up yourself, were you so inclined. Yet they owe their existence to science fiction.

Personally I like the idea that people can be so inspired by their fiction that they extrapolate practices from it and find deep meaning and religious fulfillment. It does raise a question for me though:

Where the heck are the fantasy writers in all this?

Is it just that religions in fantasy stories are too similar to established practices (such as Paganism and Catholicism) to change anyone’s life? Or is it that fantasy stories don’t place religion in a role that could inspire someone to change his views of life?

Consider the Jedi as portrayed in the original trilogy. The movies provided a taste of the Jedi’s quasi-Taoist philosophy with a few well-spoken platitudes, and a simple but appealing view of the universe. I’m not trying to demean it, just point out that the Jedi philosophy isn’t exactly explored in great depth. Viewers get enough to fire their interest, along with room enough to develop it further themselves (not that I think Lucas intended for them to do so).

Now consider the Seven, the Old Gods, and the Red God from A Song of Ice and Fire. Not one of those religions provides a philosophy with a hook readers will latch onto. Their rituals and worship are distinctive only in the characters that follow them, and in what the rituals and worship demonstrate about those characters.

But even when religion is central to the viewpoint character, such as Katherine Kurtz’s Camber of Culdi, the religion does not inspire readers to follow suit (although to be fair, Kurtz’s Holy Church of Gwynedd is basically the Catholic Church). The religion is important in the story, but it does not leap off the page and make readers say, “That’s true! Is this what I’ve been searching for?”

I wonder: will a fantasy novel/series ever inspire a real world religion? If so, what will it be like?

What do you think?

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