ATTN: COUNCIL; Updated Doctrine Proposal

Anyone had a chance to pull out the proposed document and look more closely at it? ^^

Alethea Thompson wrote: Anyone had a chance to pull out the proposed document and look more closely at it? ^^

You've got my thumbs up

What is the proposed/ potential fruit of changing the doctrine?

I dont know if this is answering your question in the way that you meant it when you asked but my understanding from what ive seen so far is that 1) this isnt an effort to change the doctrine, only to streamline it. And 2) the benefits are an increase in clarity and a reduction of redundancy.

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If im wrong, could someone please explain how/why i’m wrong and If im correct, could someone please explain how/why im correct?

What will the streamlining/reduction of redundancy do?

To be clear, I have read the document. I'm glad there is more than one voice in the process. I think there has been a good crack at it. It does read a bit simple and so in some ways loses a bit of the "mystery" and a bit of the uncovering that needs to happen with successive reading/studying. But it is possible to recover that as long as we treat it with a bit of reverance

Im aware of the "organizational" reasoning for streamling IE building an IP that helps focus members on the central tenants of Jediism.

What will be the fruit of the focus then for the student

I’m curious about the statement “It does read a bit simple and so in some ways loses a bit of the ‘mystery’ and a bit of the uncovering that needs to happen with successive reading/studying”

I’ve never felt that either of the 2 documents added a “mystery” factor to the Jedi Path. The practically non-definition of the Force did, but the documents were more about how to move within the Force. As a 2 document -system- I think it speaks less to mystery. More, it seems to speak towards insistence with redundancy, and in seemingly (keyword) minor contradictions indecisiveness.

By streamlining, I think it actually opens more doors to explore the mystery unencumbered. Two of the most important mysteries of Jediism, in my opinion, is:

1) The Force
2) Our individual role within the Force

In the doctrine the Force is made it’s own mystery that we are meant to explore. But we explore that with our very lives. The rest of the doctrine explains how we should explore it- but the mystery of how each principle/tenet/pillar fits into ourselves or how we can learn to manifest it is the greatest mystery of all. Having direction on what we should be looking for would be fulfilled by the doctrine, and introduction on how to begin looking covered by the IP.

I dont think it reads a bit simple..
I happen to think it is clearer in the new proposed form.
But then I have always liked things more straightforward in its wording.
The mystery and wonder comes in applying what we take from and use in life.

It's difficult to explain. It seems to lose some of the essence.

I'd like to draw your attention to the second part of my statement. The mystery can be rediscovered with reverance

OB1Shinobi wrote: I dont know if this is answering your question in the way that you meant it when you asked but my understanding from what ive seen so far is that 1) this isnt an effort to change the doctrine, only to streamline it. And 2) the benefits are an increase in clarity and a reduction of redundancy.

——- —-

If im wrong, could someone please explain how/why i’m wrong and If im correct, could someone please explain how/why im correct?

It appears to me that based on the first paragraph this is neither an effort to merely streamline nor to reduce redudancy. It starts off by redefining jediism (which members have long maintained is a religion) as a school of thought (bit of a mouthful when compared to 'religion'), presumably with the end goal of reclassifying it as a subset of jedi realism. It also adds a divine attribute to the Force which is not the totjo way and a major shift in policy.

Changing the definition back to the original "Jediism is a religion based on the observance of the Force" from "religious school of thought" would definitely make it less of a mouthful. I don't see a problem with changing that, or even just keeping the original write up. As you'll recall, I was not the one to propose an edit on that, I only proposed a renaming of the Creed to "Jedi Affirmations", an introduction to the Jedi Code, and streamlining the two documents into one so we could compare the three and choose one.

As for the edit suggested by Zealot to axe metaphysical and replace it with "Divine". I actually think that pulls it more outside the realm of Jedi Realism and across the line into Jediism. It also goes to the heart of the discussion that was had in the "Is Reiki a Force Power?" thread a couple of weeks ago.

When that discussion occurred, we saw a lot of people get upset that anyone would equate alternative healing methods like that to using the Force (I also note that some in the "against" camp noted they could see it being used for calming someone down, but not for legit healing). It would seem that the ToTJO environment is more against Metaphysical studies (of which Reiki, Telepathy, and the like fall into) than they would the idea that something is divine.

Divine also has a lot more connotations than simply a "deity". In many new-age cultures, Humans have their own internal divinity.