Let Go Your Conscious Self, And Act On Instinct

As noted above, the Dark Portal as First Order Logo is the Skeleton Key to unlocking Star Wars.

This is because while Snoke is the obvious choice for “Designer” of the First Order Logo, Luke is obviously the only one who knew the location and significance of Ahch-To.

The Luke that Rey finds on Ahch-To however, is not the one she’s heard about in legends.

Rey says, “But I didn’t see you. Nothing from you. You’ve closed yourself off from the Force. Of course you have.”

We take this as fact because we trust her character, but Rey was mistaken.

The “Prime Jedi“ mosaic is in the shot when Luke avoids Rey’s accusation that he’s “closed off from the Force.” As if to say, “well, its complicated.”

We know that Senator Palpatine (when he was also Darth Sidious amongst many Jedi), and Yoda and Obi-Wan (when hiding in exile) used what is called in Star Wars canon, “Force Stealth” to conceal and shield their Force powers from enemy detection.

Luke admits that Rey has a fear-invoking “raw strength” to match Ben Solo.

But we must remember that Rey is a total Force-novice who received her first lesson in the Force just a moment ago. It is not her fault, she just doesn’t know better.

Instead, when we read between the lines of Luke’s “first lesson” we realize:

We have no reason to believe Luke isn’t using the Force — at a much higher level throughout the film — than is overtly stated.

Johnson is having Rey run interference on the audience, almost as a form of film-making Force Stealth, to conceal the true story of Luke on Ahch-To.

We must remember, there is only one Jedi Master in this film — and he is using The Force the whole time.

Luke’s understanding of the Force has had 35 years to deepen and mature. He’s spent the last 6 years alone on Ahch-To thinking about the complexities inherent in the mosaic of the Prime Jedi.

The Prime Jedi is depicted as equal parts light and dark. Like a yin and yang symbol.

This surprised some Star Wars fans, myself included, considering that we’ve been told all along it’s a battle of Light VS. Dark — not an integrated Light AND Dark.

But the Star Wars Canon has a precedent for this non-binary situation called the Gray Jedi, which was a term “used by Jedi and Sith to describe Force-users who walked the line between the light and dark sides of the Force without surrendering to the dark side, and who operated outside the strictures of the Jedi Code.”

Luke is operating so far outside the strictures of Jedi Code he wishes to burn it all down.

Jungian Pyschology has a precedent for this too.

Jungian ideas about the archetypes, the persona, complexes, enantiodromia, the anima — all serve important roles in the personal quest for wholeness, and serve the story of Star Wars. These themes are there from the beginning.

For example, in A New Hope, during Luke’s lightsaber training scene aboard the Millennium Falcon, Obi Wan tells him, “I suggest you try again Luke. This time, let go your conscious Self, and act on instinct.”

But the most obvious Jungian idea in Star Wars is “The Shadow”. It is the dark side of the psyche, consisting of the same things that Yoda warned Luke were the path to the Darkside.

“Yes, a Jedi’s strength flows from the Force. But beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression; the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.” -Yoda

There is a canonical precedent for this as well: Yoda battled his shadow-persona in The Clone Wars.

Yoda literally faced his Darkside

Master Yoda engaged in physical battle with his Darkside, personified and manifested as his shadow. This sets the precedent for Luke’s shadow-persona taking on a bigger role in The Last Jedi.

In contrast to the battle of Light VS. Dark, the war which Jung believed all must wage involves the “integration of the Shadow” into a “unified and actualized Self.”

In fact, Jung believed that avoidance of one’s Shadow leads to it growing stronger.