Miraculous Telekinesis is a Jedi Force Healing (JFH) technique. It involves the telekinetic manipulation of objects by reversal of motion, with greater precision than is ordinarily possible, and often allows feats of movement which are impossible by other means.
Miraculous telekinesis (MT) was invented by a healer, but also has applications outside of medicine.
Understanding the Technique
In some cases, it is unclear which techniques Healer Cheworralyka invented and which he only compiled, but for MT he details the story for us. Early in his practice as a Knight Healer, he encountered a near-mortally wounded wookie child who, after being struck by both shrapnel and a multitude of wooden shards in the Second Bombings of Kashyyyk. It is likely Healer Cheworralyka had been working on techniques for dealing with similar injuries since the First Bombings. The complexity of the numerous injuries and the difficulty of locating small entry wounds under wookie fur motivated his first trial of MT on a patient.
Unlike Vision Healing, which looks to the patient’s future for possibilities of healing, MT looks to the past, and reverses motion which brought harm to the patient.
To understand what is meant by “reverses motion” here, consider the way water flows down a drain. When there is only little left, it begins to swirl downward in a complex, unexpected spiral; this is the motion. Reversing it first appears impossible: neither turning the drain upside-down nor pushing the water up from below will induce the water to spiral up backwards. Indeed, even putting the same water back atop the drain is unlikely to recreate the same spiral. Yet there is no taboo in the universe against each quanta of water finding itself in the same location and with opposite velocity, only a great difficulty. And with the Force as our ally, we may overcome such difficulties.
In Healer Cheworralyka’s first patient, performing this reversal of motion meant searching the Force for knowledge of how both shrapnel and splinters had entered the child’s body, and reversing the process perfectly. The function of the technique is such that where ordinarily jagged shrapnel would catch on flesh and cause further harm as it was removed, instead the movement of the flesh is also reversed, moving around the shrapnel just as it did when the wound was inflicted. In this way, no further damage was done in its removal, and vision healing could be used to heal the existing wounds.
Learning the Technique
Learning MT requires deep understanding of knowledge. The student of MT should spend significant time meditating on knowledge, where it comes from, how it is stored, and to what extent it can be preserved. The instructor should not allow any student to insist they have sufficient experience in this matter unless they demonstrate competence with MT itself.
Prior to attempting the technique on a patient, the student should be able to complete several exercises, which may be revised and replaced according to the materials available:
The reassemblement of shattered pottery or glass. This exercise is assessed by how well particulates return to their positions in the whole alongside larger pieces, and reveals whether the student is using MT, or simply making a particularly skilled use of ordinary telekinesis. Since MT cannot not reattach the pieces to once another, the student will also demonstrate their ability with ordinary telekinesis by holding the pieces together long enough for assessment to occur.
Mixing dye or particulates into water or another fluid, and then reversing the mixing process using MT. This exercise may be done repeatedly with the same materials, mixing and un-mixing, and should also be used to practice control, with the student reversing the mixing by different amounts each time. [1]
The reversal of a spiral of water down a drain, as discussed earlier. Turning what was previously a thought experiment into reality affirms the student’s faith in the Force and their teacher, both essential to performing the technique consistently.
The removal of (harmless or mildly intoxicating) substances from their own blood. This exercise requires the student to trust their own ability and demonstrate their ability to transfer their knowledge to a physiological setting. As a precursor, the student may wish to try purifying water.
When the technique is mastered, it may be applied with great versatility, removing shrapnel from flesh or swallowed credit chits from a child’s stomach, breaking up clots, the reassemblement of pulverized bones or chitin, and indeed any mechanical feat requiring great precision.
Constraints on Miraculous Telekinesis
Miraculous telekinesis is limited in several ways:
While MT allows incredible feats in healing, it does not induce the body to change or increase its function directly.
Like all JFH techniques, the healer’s desire to help and the patient’s desire to be healed determine whether MT can be used on them. Unlike techniques that more directly affect the body however, MT requires a more adamant objection to healing to be prevented from working entirely.
Most uniquely, MT only allows the reversal of mechanical processes, not the execution of new ones.
As usual, Healer Cheworralyka gives us a metaphor by which to understand this third constraint; in some places, a river’s current will run into its bank in such a way that the water swirls backwards on itself before carrying on forward. By means of MT, we create this scenario, where motion travels backward the same course if followed forward.
This backwards travel cannot occur in a place where the river has never traveled; there will be no water there to move, and certainly no course worn into the ground for it to travel. The original motion is what creates for a healer the opportunity to reverse it.
For the majority of users, MT requires them to be close witnesses of the motion they are attempting to reverse. The better a user’s understanding, the less direct an observation of the original motion is required.
When to use Miraculous vs. Ordinary Telekinesis
Ordinary telekinesis is the much more casual ability of Jedi to move objects without touching them, and is shared by many Force traditions to varying degrees. While it does not have the same limitations as MT, it offers no greater precision or utility than a being might have using hands or implements. Something MT and ordinary telekinesis share, however, is the benefit of not requiring the invaisveness created by the extra space for an implement to maneuver or the potential for contamination which direct contact brings (as an aside, consider the relative invasiveness of using MT to break up or move a clot against that of a surgical thrombosis [2]).
It may be possible to use ordinary telekinesis in cases where healing is performed against a patient’s will, or when the required motion is new, rather than a reversal. There may also be cases where the concentration required to perform MT is inconvenient but healing is urgent.
Extraordinary Uses of Miraculous Telekinesis
While some accounts are shrouded by time and legend, there do exist confirmed incidents wherein particularly wise healers have been able to achieve greater versatility with MT by inducing movement based on the reversal of similar motions observed and understood in another scenario.
During the agriculture crisis on Kinyen [3] Master Nuien Di removed heavy metals from staple tubers [4] grown in contaminated soil, through the stems and leaves of the living plants before harvest rather than directly from the tubers themselves (as would be the standard application of MT). She did so to avoid re-contamination of the soil—from which she was unable to remove the contaminants directly—while leaving the foodstuff intact. From her accounts, we know that the motion she reversed was one she understood while healing hairless skeer-cats—which are particularly vulnerable to absorbing similar toxins through the skin and into the blood—earlier in the same crisis. Only a few Master Di’s fellow healers, even those working in the same crisis, were able to replicate her feat.
In another example, albeit a particularly gruesome one, Master Jyr-di—notably also a master of Shein—defended their infirmary against attack using MT. With limited weaponry, Master Jyr-di detonated only a few shrapnel bearing explosives, and then used MT to remove those pieces of shrapnel which hit attackers. Only they did so using the original motions which other pieces had followed, creating even worse injuries. Doing so without killing any of the attackers, and admitting those incapacitated to the very same infirmary earned them the epithet Jyr-di the Merciful on Minfar [5]. It is also no doubt part of what made the feat possible in the first place: quick incapacitation ended the fight for all involved, and in Master Jyr-di’s view, helped all involved.
For other aspects of JFH or other Force traditions, Return to Force Healing Masterlist.
References
[1] @tai-feng suggested this exersise. He pre-read this post and helped me develop ideas & metaphors around MT in conversation
[2] Thrombectomy, surgery to remove a blood clot from an artery or vein
[3] Planet Kinyen, known for "many peaceful farming communities"
[4] Growing Gardens in Urban Soils, pg. 9
[5] Planet Minfar
Healer Cheworralyka, Master Nuien Di, and Master Jyr-di are OCs, and the events surrounding their lives are mostly headcanon, including the First and Second Bombings of Kashyyyk (during the Sith Wars ~1100 BBY), the Agriculture Crisis on Kinyen (after 900 BBY), and the infirmary on Minfar (after 300 BBY).
[Large Text: Force Healing Introduction & Masterlist]
Force healing is a nebulously defined ability in Star Wars. Jedi do it sometimes, Sith do it sometimes, other Force-user sects like the Nightsisters do it too. It takes various forms, but none of these forms have either the consistent rules necessary for a hard magic system, or the strong philosophical & thematic basis necessary for a soft magic system. Often, examples of Force healing directly undermine one another on a narrative level (consider: Maul's survival).
As Force Healing has recently become relevant to my own fic, I have been creating a set of rules and techniques that I think are both neat and useful for story creation.
I have three guiding principles for this project:
Avoid common pitfalls of fantasy healing, most notably ableism. As a note, while some of the meta I am embarking on has been sensitivity read by a few helpful people (my sister in law is incredulous but accepting of my sw obsession), this entire project is something of a practice exercise for me in this area.
Create a magic system that is narratively compelling, fitting into the gffa thematically while preserving verisimilitude.
Incorporate Jedi and other Force sect philosophy and culture into the practice of Force healing.
My main focus will be Jedi techniques and traditions, but I will also dip into Sith and potentially Mirialan ideas as well. I know very little about the Nightsisters, and they don't interest me much, but if anyone were interested in building on them and other Force traditions' healing abilities in the spirit of the principles above, I would be delighted to hear about it. The topics I have planned are listed below, and links will be added as the actual posts are written. More topics may appear in future—please feel free to suggest any which come to mind, as well as point out any other meta which has been written on the subject.
Jedi Force Healing
An Overview of Principles and Limitations
Prophetic Vision Healing
Miraculous Telekinesis & Application of Normal Telekinesis
Mind Healing
Easing Pain, Calming Distress & Sleep Suggestions
Inducement & Applications of Healing Trances
Canon Portrayals of Jedi Injury & Disability: some problems and some adjustments
Sith Force Healing
An Overview of Principles and Costs
Canon Portrayals of Sith Injury & Disability: some problems and some adjustments
Mirialan Force Healing
An Overview of Principles and Practices
Overlap with Jedi Techniques due to Cultural Exchange
What is the state of medicine in your world? Are things like surgeries, chronic treatments, prosthetics even, common? How are these advancements viewed, and who has access to treatment? Is there stigma associated with medical conditions?
Due to starting editing, I just started doing my Technology Deep Dive -- and now have more of an answer to this: It's 1850 + Magic. So we have anasthesia, surgery, we're newly confirming why ancient sanitation practices work, and we do have fantasy prosthetics -- from limbs to hearts to whole prosthetic golem people! We also have a semi-spiritual, semi-factual understanding of mental health -- like Victorian Asylums + Romantic conceptions of Madness. (Also, I need to dig more into Arabian understandings of the body. I'm not sure how much they figured out that Westerners later took credit for)
I am not a big fan of writing diseases so I don't have a lot of specific info on like Tuberculosis or cancer or anything. Most diseases are probably caused by the Abyss and microbes and stuff. But disease depresses me, so unless they're eldritch, I don't focus on them so much.
So yeah, that's what I got for you! What about you? How do you handle disease, injury, and medicine in your work? @theprissythumbelina
Where are my stupid gremlin healers in fantasy? Like why does it always have to be some super powerful dingdong where it's a one touch or a huge thing to get healed. Imagine like a small healing group in fantasy where they can't ressurect maybe but can give you a limb back or even jsut heal up a gash. A battlefield medic type thing. It'd be so cool esp from an angle above a giant fight where the healers wore totally different outfits to be seen (bc we all know leaders can be stupid with outfits) so the viewer ((or reader for that matter)) visualizes the magic people scampering around
I just need to sit and write an entire ass fantasy novel sometime bc dang
