The Dathomiri witch clans originally received their training in the Force from a renegade Jedi named Allya, and the various witch clans do not all subscribe to the same tradition of magick/Force use. Originally, Allya taught them to use the force in a way that was the reason the Jedi removed her from their order, but late in her life she set down a second code called the Book of the Law. The other code was called the Book of Shadows.

Allyas purpose for training the native Dathomiri in the Force was to give them a chance of survival on Dathomir because the native life forms were intensely dangerous and strong. If you are familiar with Star Wars trivia at all, rankor beasts are native to Dathomir where they swing through the tree branches like monkeys on earth. Imagine a thriving population of carnivorous King Kong style apes which the Nightsisters tame as a right of passage.

So the difference between the Book of Shadows held as spiritual cannon by the Nightsisters, and the Book of the Law held by a fringe sect, is whether or not they listen to prompts from the spirits to kill.

Cool. It was kind of a right of passage for Luke as well. Yes, in facing the starved rankor in Jabbas palace. It actually was weaker than they normally are, slower.

Do they keep the animal they tamed as a pet? In a sense as a pet, yes, though they don’t view them as pets but more as living avatars or spiritual totems. So should one tame a rankor, they view that rankor as their personal embodiment of the rankor spirit. A spirit ally more than what we typically think of as a pet. It lives by itself, and fends for itself mostly, until called upon by it’s bonded Nightsister.

They see the force as shared strength, but that sharing of strength doesn’t come for free. It has to be earned. You have to prove yourself to the spirits, again, not unlike real world shamanism. The Nightsisters have some talent unique to their own culture. Perhaps not unlike how some of our scientists in real life are coming to view consciousness as possibly an observable state of matter, the Nightsisters are able to draw a matter like substance from the force that they call spirit ichor. This smokey luminous energy/matter can then be shaped by the Nightsister.

Is it slimy? No, it’s more like fire in real life, until they solidify it or infuse it into something else. They believe spirit ichor is a gift from the winged goddess.

Mana ectoplasm. Yes, which is the Nightsister equivalent of the light side of the Force, and they are able to infuse it into water to make something they call the water of life which is healing, perhaps not unlike the experiments in real life being done by the Japanese researcher.

What is he doing? He sets up isolated water samples, and labels them with various concepts.

Emoto? He was in “What the Bleep.” Ah, that’s it. After having them serve as the focus of those concepts and intentions for a while, they go from being structurally almost blank, to displaying odd patterns of crystallization, either very symmetrical and harmonious if the concept was a positive one, or messy and sickly looking if the concept was negative.

But the Nightsisters are also able to use spirit ichor as a base for all their aggressive energy, which they then infuse into a warrior, making this man more or less an avatar of the Fanged God, the Nightsister equivalent of the dark side of the Force. The witch clan that adheres to the Book of the Law deliberately turns away from the negative side of the spirit world/Force. The Nightsisters who adhere to the Book of Shadows embrace it equally alongside the light.

They give power to a warrior or they make a warrior? They give power to a warrior. The Nightsister clan is a bit segregated and separates its men and women. The women are trained deeply in the force. All aspects of it, but the men are trained more exclusively in the dark side, and to the Nightsister point of view their men are almost animals as they are so strongly influenced by the dark side.

Their clans leadership and decision making is done exclusively by the women, specifically by the clan mother, who may or may not be a shaman which would be the rough equivalent of a Jedi master. Women training as warriors and hunters also, where men differ being they serve more as berserkers, held in reserve for cases of warfare, either between clans or between the Nightsisters and off-worlders.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~