Modern
Allegories Link
Inner Space With Outer Space:
The Esoteric Aspects Of Star Wars
By Donnette Reynolds
6/24/99
Down through the ages, allegorical tales, stories with hidden meanings, have been given to the world. Some of them have become beloved fairy tales handed down for generations. Today only a handful of people involved in esoteric studies consciously recognize the hidden meaning and significance of such stories as Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and many others.
Such allegorical tales are still being given to us, and their themes indicate a link between inner and outer space. Let us take the first Star Wars movie for example. This is a simple story reminiscent of the old time cowboy movies where the good guys wear white, the bad guys wear black, and the good guys always win in the end while the bad guys lose. End of story.
So why all the excitement? Granted the special effects were outstanding, but could they alone have been enough to turn Star Wars into the most beloved fairy tale of the 20th century?
It is only when you view it from an esoteric point of view that you will find an explanation for its enormous popularity. The explanation may lie in the possibility that subconsciously we are aware of what this story is really all about. The following is a spiritual evolutionary interpretation of the hidden meaning behind the movie.
In the beginning Luke Skywalker is living with his aunt and uncle who want him to continue living on the farm the same as always, not to change things, and not to explore or look for new knowledge. The aunt and uncle represent the last vestiges of the dying age of Pisces in which people are living in the conscious mind and fear the unknown realms of the subconscious and superconsciousness of their souls. Luke lives with his aunt and uncle because the Piscean Age has alienated him from his true parents. The prevailing emotion of this Age is fear, especially fear of the unknown. The aunt and uncle represent the fallacy of trying to maintain the status quo. Their deaths set Luke free to explore the new frontiers of the mind. An immutable law of the Universe is grow or die. There is no such thing as "maintenance."
Luke represents the conscious mind (masculine/positive) which has developed an awareness of the subconscious/superconscious (feminine negative) mind. Having caught a glimpse of it through his twin sister Leia, Luke wants to have more contact with it through the universal power known as ‘the Force." Aquarius, the new Age, is an air sign, and in symbolic and esoteric language represents the mind or intellect. Pisces is a water sign representing the emotions, and there has been during this age a prevalence of the emotion of fear of the unknown dimensions of the mind and of death (the unconscious state simulates death).
Princess Leia, Luke’s twin sister, represents the need of the subconscious (feminine/negative) to unite with the conscious Luke Skywalker (masculine/positive) for recognition and aid in conquering the fear of death a.k.a. Darth Vader (the Dark Invader).
Obie Wan Kenobi (Oh, be one with the Universe! Ken [meaning know]! Be!) me) is an illumined being, a Master who has gained access to all knowledge by having had a true realization that he, and indeed all of us, are spiritually one with the Universal Force. He knows that the physical world is an illusion and that through attaining other states of consciousness we can all be self-realized master as he is. He allows Darth Vader to destroy his mortal body to prove that there is a spiritual life after physical death and that it is possible to communicate with and to receive communion from the dead as he speaks to Luke through his subconscious mind in the final moments of the battle with the Death Star.
Han Solo (Hand Single – Single Handed) represents mankind using only the left, logical, side of the brain. He is also chained to his lower animal nature (Chewbacca, the Wookie). Notice that when Han comes to Luke’s aid, the Wookie is not with him. Han has risen above his animal nature. Chewbacca (Chewing Tobacco) is an apt name for the Wookie, a slave to his physical passions and prone to addictions. Indeed man without spirituality is nothing but a bundle of addictions. Remember how Han warned Threepio not to beat the Wookie at checkers, lest he become violent? The Wookie cannot control his passions.
Darth Vader (the Dark Invader) and his henchmen wear masks to represent the unknown. We fear what we do not know. His henchmen also dress in black and white like ghosts to generate more fear.
At the end, the Death Star (which represents man’s collective concepts about death gathered together into a false power created by the fear of death) is destroyed. Darth Vader himself is not destroyed because physical death cannot be destroyed. This is due to the Law of Balance which says there can be no positive without a negative, no light without darkness, no life without death. And yet Darth Vader’s power to create fear was taken away by the love emotion which created him in the beginning.
In the Age of Aquarius mankind will develop the courage to not only explore the death state, but the relatively unknown right side of the brain, which is literally a whole universe in itself. As mankind begins to explore these new areas, he will fully experience space travel in his physical body as well as his spiritual body, thus expressing a basic universal truth, "As above, so below," or "As within, so without." However, mankind may find that traveling in outer space is more a matter of changing dimensions rather than moving from one location in space to another.
In the original Star Trek series Captain James T. Kirk, the intrepid and powerful explorer, was a man who had begun to use both sides of his brain. Like Luke Skywalker he wanted to know more. The bold new explorations of the unknown realms of outer space by Kirk and his crew of the Enterprise were symbolic of mankind’s exploration of the universe located within the inner space of man’s right side of the brain. In it they found beings, places, and things beyond anything they had ever imagined. By refusing to be conquered by fear Kirk released his natural resourcefulness and was able to avoid or avert many dangers. Spock, despite his superior intelligence based on logic alone, was not in command of the ship because he clung to the left brain way of thinking, thus cutting himself off from the vast resources of the right side of the brain.
The last words Captain Kirk uttered in the last of the Star Trek movie series with the original cast were, "Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning," which is a direct quote from "Peter Pan," a story about a boy who refused to grow up because most people’s idea of growing up involves closing yourself off to the possibility that there is something more to life than just what you can see, hear, taste, touch and smell. Kirk, having learned so much during his long career, knew that there was more to come, and he didn’t want to stop learning about it. Look closely, and you will discover that that "much more" is positioned in the right side of the brain.
We are coming to the end of a very long period of male (left brain) domination of the world, which was preceded, by a period of female (right brain) domination. By now the human race should have realized that a dangerously lopsided world can result from allowing either side of the brain to dominate. The brain, and the Universe, works best with male and female energies united as equal partners. The male energy must stop fearing being swallowed up or lost in the vast reaches of the female energy and "boldly go where no man has gone before."
In order for perfect balance to exist, man must embrace his female nature and learn to understand it, for although it appears to be separate from him, in truth it is not. Woman must also learn to understand and respect her own masculine nature so that she ceases to ask the male’s permission to be equal and simply assumes her rightful place as his true partner. Then Sleeping Beauty will awake from the magic kiss of the Prince.
(Donnette Reynolds has been a student of metaphysics and the occult for the past 27 years and a member of and studied with organizations such as Astara, Church of Light, B.O.T.A., Colegio Aero de Astrologica.)