Church of the Dark Side
The Church of the Dark Side is an existing religious organization from Legends.[1]
Beliefs and practices
Many of the Church's practices, such as the phrase "Dark Greetings" and the name of the Church itself, were intentionally cartoonish in order to keep away the shallow-minded.
Initiates of the Church started out as Acolytes and had to pass through multiple levels of initiation until they reached the rank of Adept. Adepts in turn could induct new initiates into the Church.
At each level of initiation, the secret truths imparted at the previous level would either be contradicted or contextualized to mean something entirely different. For example, Acolytes were initially told that the Prophets of the Dark Side could accurately prophesy future events; then they would learn that Prophecies only came true if the right people knew of them; then it would be revealed to them that the Prophecies were lies required to comfort those of lower rank, and the Prophets used agents and machinations to make their Prophecies come true in order to instil a belief in miracles in the populace. This, too, would be superseded by the belief that the act of prophesising and then making those prophecies come true would, over time, make Prophecies actually work by habituating the universe to them; and so on.[2]
Locations
The headquarters of the Church of the Dark Side was the First Church of the Dark Side on Coruscant. It took the shape of a black crystal that was suspended by repulsorlifts in the canyon between Imperial City's business district and the Alien Protection Zone.[2]