To Be a Jedi - a podcast by BBC World Service

At the last UK Census in 2011 some 170,000 people registered their faith as Jedi. Easily outstripping any other kind of fictional religious faith. It’s a similar situation in many other countries. But what does this all mean? Clearly many are not serious but for thousands the light and the dark and the all powerful Force have real meaning. The Star Wars universe has been around so long it almost feels like an old religion, like The Force, everywhere and nowhere. For some it can be a path towards a better way of thinking or living.In this world there are Jediists and Jedi Realists and members of the Church of the Jedi. Many online and sharing ideas and beliefs which owe their origins to the world of Star Wars. George Lucas’s original stories where themselves a wholesale borrowing of Eastern and Western philosophies and beliefs made magical by the whirring, shining light sabres wielded by the ancient order of the Jedi Knights.Will Bond, a young musician and podcaster, himself in possession of Jedi Robes and a light sabre, goes in search of those who have taken the philosophy and spirituality of the Star Wars universe to heart and asks what it means to be a Jedi?

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