Slightly grubby with coke and pizza stains???

Sounds like your typical Star Wars-obsessed geek working at your local helldesk to me.

Now that should be an interesting fight on a friday night if they have a shared "local" ,

the Hordes of Xenu vs. the Knights of the Republic!

pseudo-religious, science fiction based mumbo-jumbo will people fall for next. (It was just a MOVIE! GET OVER IT!) Before you know it it'll be attracting all sorts of celebrities, swearing by it's precepts.

What?

That's happened already?

Surely not?

Well I never.

"I'm guessing the Jedi folk won't be trying to subjugate and control the masses in order to fuel their own personal megalomaniac tenancies."

Or we won't notice it if they are. Because these are not the megalomaniacs we're looking for.

How does Darth Vader know what Luke got for Christmas?

Answer; he felt his presents.

Brown cloak already on...

"Well, I can't see the difference between basing a religion on some fictitious, fanciful notion portrayed in a work of fiction, and any other religion"

Obviously neither do the scientologists *sigh*

Then theres the bible... We all remember what happened when they found the first page...

"Good evening. Here is the news on Friday, the 27th of Geldof. Archeologists near Mount Sinai have discovered what is believed to be a missing page from the Bible. The page is currently being carbon-dated in Bonne. If genuine, it belongs at the beginning of the Bible and is believed to read, "To my darling Candy. All characters portrayed within this book are fictitous and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental." The page has been universally condemned by church leaders."

George Lucas on the other hand... Now just because the stories were delivered to him in the company of Ewoks by a gold plated android does not mean they are any less real!

"lovely there is, boyo"

To be honest, I can find nothing wrong with this. Good luck to them.

@Fraser : "BTW it IS only a film..." : yes, but the Bible and Koran are just books. Both written when they still believed the world was flat.

Where's the money at?

fleecing wannabees ain't a crime and it's catering to the 'needs' of a potentially affuent client-base... and i bet they get business grants too..

there's money in them there geeks!

Paris, cos we need a Paris Academy.. no wait, that's over in Essex

Given when I see multi-faith charts I dont see Jedi upon them.

When somebody goes to do jury service, no copy of Star Wars can be found to allow a Jedi to swear in so they a forced to afirm.

Well, given those two facts alone, how long until they sue for descrimination, as for me it will put the whole relegion thing into perspective.

He is mighty and will deliver us from this land in his ship of plenty that sometimes doesn't work unless you wallop it.

Walloping things makes them work.

IIRC it was in Romania.

So how's that been getting on with these days??

: Any suggestions as to how we can register a protest at the next census?

Put "Sith"

...Afterall the dark lord of the sith is here in the white house, Bush and his apprentice Blair. (Now spreading the word...)

I think it's just a cheap trick to get high ranking jobs in the police...

Because that's the only way these guys will ever get to "use the force".

BTW: "Paris, cos we need a Paris Academy.. no wait, that's over in Essex" -- NO, that /is/ Essex.

Mine is the brown robe hanging next to that purple light-sabre.

are they teaching lightsabre techniques?? I mean, really, HOW??

"OK, imagine this stick is actually a lightsabre. Now I'm going to teach you certain techniques that would only work if it WAS a lightsabre, and you also have telekinetic Force powers. Which of course you do."

As a martial artist, I want to sit in on one of these just for the grins.

"On the next census, we could all put Neo/The One"

Shouldn't that be 'the path of Neo'?

How about 'the way of Gordon'? - just in case the Combine *do* turn up...

Or (my personal favourite) 'Kama Sutra; make love not war' - bringing about global peace through spreading the love in a variety of interesting ways...

Mine's the one with the jumbo pack of Durex in the pocket...

@ P Saunders

This element should help to enrich the gene pool. Expect to see one of these 'Jedi' in the "Darwins" in the not too distant future (about 2 years, after they complete their 'training'!)

Is a girlfriend.

Paris, of course.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

You could try "Bright" (http://www.the-brights.net/)

Anyhoo. Sounds like an excuse for a bit of a laugh. Can't honestly see them trying to use their "powers" for real, and it's a reasonable way to find a bunch of like-minded people to have a giggle with down the pub. In my younger days I'd probably have been up for it myself...

Praise Bob indeed.

I think it's not a bad idea- if they are truly promoting peace and order - hopefully not with a blend of Lucas-style capitalism. I say go for it, but I think the usage of the word 'church' is probably a bad idea. Not only does it suggest some hidden Christian undertone, it may turn people away by association of the word. Jedi Temple, being the description used within the star wars universe, would seem to me to have been a better choice.

From my understanding, neuro-linguistic programming isn't so much "these are not the droids you're looking for; move along" as choosing words, tones, etc to diffuse a situation.

It works, but then from experience so does pointing over their shoulder, shouting "UNEXPECTED SHEEP!" and legging it to a taxi rank.

And Lightsaber technique would be, I'd assume, similar to the swordsmanship techniques of old. Except with a pretty powerful gyroscope in the handle to make it a little more "realistic".

As someone further up said, imagine the LOTR equivalent... "right, wear these furry slippers and carry this nice heavy osmium ring round your neck, then lets walk for a week or two.", or nights out where 20 furry-slippered nerds shuffle up to the bar, order a few lagers and declare loudly "IT COMES IN PINTS?!"

. . . then you need to be reminded of David Ike.

As Yoda might say (if he wasn't CGI and latex) "Life you need to get a".

"Life you need to get a".

Shouldn't that be

"A life you need to get, umm".

no.we cant give them real lightsabers.. but i do believe they need to spar with live steel, sharpened to as fine an edge as possible. real lightsabres are deadly. we owe it to their training to make it as realistic as possible. not only will the steel inflict injury, but as they are being used for lightsabre simulation, any limb suffering a wound will be amputated and the stump cauterized. in case of a torso or head injurty, the wounded trainee will be killed in an object lesson designed to teach the students how deadly serious the use of a lightsabre is, encouraging them to focus on peaceful resolutions to problems

Tsk tsk keep that comment to the Wiccan's. Don't include the Pagans and Witches in there. (Big difference between us and Wiccans.) And yes some do believe in some weird rubbish, but some of us (Traditional Witches for example) believe in more sensible things.

Fair point about the political parties though. lol

So - you're a witch then?

At this point I am very eager to hear in great detail all about the "sensible things" you believe in. Not because I'm interested, but more for the inevitable onslaught of derision that only Reg readers can unleash.

Game on.

PS - please don't put a spell on me via the magic of TCP/IP

UNEXPECTED SHEEP is brilliant!

A friend of my father used to get into cricket matches through the members' entrance by saying "PRENATAL BIRTH" quickly. Simply befuddle people and their linguistic centres crash and need to reboot. I hear unexpected quotes of Shakespeare help in this respect.

My judo teacher allways said doing the 100 m (714.28571 lg) dash in 12 seconds or less was the best self-defense, but first resetting your opponents brain helps a treat.

@ Adrien

that would be "Murphyite" (anything that can go wrong, will), and for the devout practitioner, "High-Church Murphyite" (most things go wrong, given time - consider a government, any government...).

technologists have a special affinity for the way of Murphy, because we study and maintain arcane, complex systems for a living. engineers used to be the only known practicing Murphyites, but progress and entropy have made the faith much more pervasive.

...bestowed upon them the title of Jedi Master exactly, did Lucas pop over and give them his blessing!?

Anybody have a midichlorian counter gadget I could borrow?

They may not currently be as insidious as the Scientologist nuts, but they sound like a bunch of chancers out to extort cash from certain fat people, you know, ones who feature in internet video virals poncing around with plastic light sabers. This IS how scientology started out.

...But I suppose its no different to handing your cash over to Linden Labs or Blizzard entertainment.

Anyone planning to build a "death star" anytime soon?

Oh come on, surely you know the way to find out rather than just *asking* if he's a witch!

Will there be classes in Sith studies?

I'd imagine you would need to be an advanced Jedi Master then specialize in Sith.

"Or we won't notice it if they are. Because these are not the megalomaniacs we're looking for."

Or because they will have mind-tricked us into believing that they aren't.

The helmet and astmathic vocal chords please.