Potentium

The Potentium was a sect of beings who had a particular way of viewing the Force.

Beliefs
Counter to millennia of Jedi teachings, the followers of Potentium claimed that there was no inherent evil in viewing the Force. They claimed that what others called the light side was actually just the Force itself, which is inherently good. This was backed up by the fact that Ashla, the ancient name of the Force, came later to describe the Light Side. What others therefore called the dark side was a perversion of the Force, twisted by those who used it. Believers of Potentium said that the potential for light and dark sides resided in the user, not the Force itself. They also thought that the Jedi Masters refused to believe in the Potentium view because it would mean the Jedi weren't needed to fight evil, for evil would not exist. And since there was no dark side, there were no dark side actions or Force techniques; in effect any action, good or evil, could be performed without risk as long as the intent wasn't evil.

About a century before the Battle of Naboo, the followers of Potentium were expelled from the Jedi Order, parallel to the Jedi Order's treatment of Gray Jedi as "misguided." Yoda and the rest of the Jedi Council didn't consider them Dark Jedi, but they said it was the duty of the Jedi to use the Force to protect others, not study its absolute limits. The Council said that testing the Force to its limits would lead to the dark side.

Followers
The basic precepts of the Potentium may have been influenced by the morally relativistic and solipsistic philosophy espoused by Jedi Master Phanius around 2,000 BBY.

The Potentium was theorized in 132 BBY. At the time the Potentium were expelled from the Jedi, Leor Hal was their leader. Prior to their expulsion, Hal had recruited many students from prospective Jedi among the aristrocratic families of Coruscant and Alderaan.

Sekot, the intelligence of Zonama Sekot, accepted Potentium after its awakening, when it was colonized by some of the outcast followers under Hal. The colonists felt Zonama Sekot was proof of the Potentium philosophy, and Sekot eventually came to consider itself the protector of the Force (though as some derisively pointed out, this protectorship was self-appointed). Vergere, an Old Republic Jedi who was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong, is believed to have taken this heresy as one of the contributing factors in her teachings, although contradicting the Potentiate's main edicts of evil being nonexistent.

Following the expulsion of Hal, Qui-Gon Jinn and Mace Windu had a run-in with a group of Potentium apprentices.

Although many believe that Luke Skywalker's New Jedi Order practiced this belief after the Yuuzhan Vong War through Jacen Solo's insistence, it was actually closer to the philosophy of Gray Jedi as stated by the Grand Master himself after the Liberation of Coruscant.

Behind the scenes

 * The Power of the Jedi Sourcebook states that the Potentium is a corrupt, misguided philosophy, and is the first canonical source to outright state this.
 * Historically, Potentium can be compared to Neoplatonic philosophy. While Manicheanism taught the existence of two separate powers, good and evil in the world, Neoplatonism taught that only the essence of good indeed existed as an entity, and evil was just absence of (or distance from) good.
 * While the Potentium was theorized in 132 BBY, Force-wielders such as Kreia were known to share the same beliefs thousands of years before.

Appearances

 * Rogue Planet
 * Traitor
 * Destiny's Way
 * The Unifying Force
 * Dark Nest I: The Joiner King
 * Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen
 * Dark Nest III: The Swarm War