Transfer essence Transfer essence , also known as essence transfer or transfer life , was a radical dark side Force power used to transfer a person ' s consciousness into another body , or in some cases an inanimate object . Ancient Sith Lords and other powerful darksiders used this technique to cheat death again and again , haunting their tombs and possessing those who stumbled across their sarcophagi in order to continue their reign of terror . In more recent eras , masters of this dark side art had used advanced cloning technology to assure their immortality . Description . The power enabled the wielder ' s spirit to survive the death of their organic body by usurping control of a suitable receptacle . If the invading consciousness was powerful enough , it could override and expel the mind of the target body . However , it was nearly impossible to overcome a spirit already residing in a body , and the practitioner ' s own body disintegrated in the attempt . If the target resisted the possession attempt , or if the user failed in their attempt to bond with the object , their disembodied spirit , with nowhere else to go , was consigned to Chaos . Given the power ' s inherent difficulty , its unpredictable nature , and the unspeakable consequences of failure , most would - be practitioners in the modern era chose to have their bodies cloned by trained technicians and kept in a hidden safe - house , unconscious in stasis tanks until they were needed . The clones , lacking life experiences or a sense of self , were each little more than a blank slate , upon which the original could imprint their consciousness with ease . Users . Among the earliest Sith Lords to use this technique was Karness Muur , a Lord of the Sith Empire , who bound his spirit to the Sith artifact that bore his name , the Muur Talisman . The talisman allowed Muur not only to cheat death , but also to take possession of whoever wore the Talisman , unless the wearer ' s willpower was strong enough to resist him , as was the case with Celeste Morne . The Sith Emperor Vitiate was one of history ' s most powerful practitioners of this art . Not only did he reign for over 1000 years using a multitude of different bodies he called Emperor ' s Voice , he also imparted some of his essence into several hundred , maybe thousand individuals he called his Children of the Emperor . His skill in this power was so great that he could continuously exist without a host without succumbing to chaos or madness , could inhabit a host ' s mind without displacing the original personality for extended periods of time , and even maintain complete control over several thousand bodies at once . Also unlike Sidious , Vitiate seems to have been able to limit the amount of premature degeneration which would usually be caused by powerful dark side energy , to the point where his last known body seems to have aged at the same rate as an ordinary human with little to no dark side degeneration . This might have been caused by Vitiate using the bodies of individuals already powerful with the force , while Sidious used empty clone bodies . Unlike his spiritual descendants , Exar Kun , Dark Lord of the Sith during the era of the Great Sith War , used this power not to suborn another body or possess an object but to anchor his spirit to the Massassi Temples on Yavin 4 . When his apprentice Ulic Qel - Droma betrayed him to the Jedi , Kun called all of his Massassi followers into the Temple of Fire , then used their life force ( and the alchemical apparatus left by his predecessor Naga Sadow ) to abandon his body , drawing on the remarkable focusing energies of the Massassi Temples to anchor himself to the physical world . Kun ' s spirit remained in hiding on Yavin IV for over four thousand years , driven slowly mad by his bodiless existence and the unthinkable isolation of the jungle moon . His spirit was finally vanquished by the students at Luke Skywalker ' s Jedi academy , seven years after the Battle of Endor . Darth Bane learned this power after acquiring Darth Andeddu ' s holocron . The gatekeeper of the holocron refused to teach this power to Darth Bane , so Bane decided to rip the information out of the holocron , absorbing it directly into his mind . He later attempted to transfer his essence into his apprentice , Darth Zannah , during their final duel , but her willpower was strong enough to repel the invasion , thus proving her worth to carry on Darth Bane ' s legacy . However , some of Darth Bane ' s consciousness still lingered within Zannah . Set Harth , a Dark Jedi from the era of the New Sith Wars , learned this technique from Darth Andeddu ' s holocron after taking it from the Stone Prison on Doan ; he used the power to shuttle his consciousness through a series of cloned bodies in much the same manner as Darth Sidious , nearly a millennium later . However , Set Harth ' s clones were provided by discreet third - party technicians , and never displayed degradation of the kind the Emperor experienced . Nevertheless , Harth tended to discard them around their 30th year . Unconfirmed reports suggest that he persisted to at least the Yuuzhan Vong Invasion — if true , he must have gone through dozens of clones over the intervening centuries . Darth Plagueis was aware of the concept of transfer essence . However , he deliberately avoided using it , as he intended to maintain his own body in complete immortality . Cronal also became aware of this ability after intense study of various dark side sites as well as knowledge imparted on him by Darth Sidious . However , he had no intention of using the ability to transfer his mind to a clone but rather use it to take over a living sentient body through Pawn s . He later attempted to accomplish this feat in order to place his mind in Luke Skywalker ' s at the Battle of Mindor . Darth Sidious was the most prolific practitioner of this esoteric technique in the modern era , surviving his first death at the hands of Darth Vader , and another at the hands of Vader ' s children , by transferring his spirit into fresh clone bodies . However , Sidious ' strength in the dark side of the Force caused each clone to degenerate at an accelerated rate , forcing him to take new clone bodies periodically . The clones ' rate of degeneration was increased further by sabotage . Additionally , he used this power to torture Bevel Lemelisk after the destruction of the first Death Star , and during perceived lack of progress on developing the second . In total , Lemelisk was killed and resurrected seven times — usually when one of the Imperial engineer ' s superweapon designs failed . Each time , Lemelisk died in agony , only to awaken in a fresh clone . His last words , when faced with a New Republic firing squad in 16 ABY , were " At least make sure you do it right this time . " The Hutt crime lord Durga Besadii Tai claimed to know transfer essence and implied that he ' ll use it on Lemelisk should he fail on the Darksaber . However , Lemelisk wasn ' t sure if this was true , or even if he was skilled at it to Palpatine ' s level , fearing that the result will be botched . Perhaps the most unusual examples of this technique in practice occurred in 18 BBY , and again in 12 ABY , when Jedi Knight Callista Ming made use of the power to transfer her soul into the mainframe of the Imperial battlestation " Eye of Palpatine " . She was able to " inhabit " the gunnery computer of the dreadnought for some three decades before swapping her essence with the willing Cray Mingla , although this came at the cost of her ability to use the light side of the Force . This incident differs from nearly all other reported examples of spirit transference in several ways . First , Callista was able to use this predominantly dark side ability , usually applied by powerful Sith Lords , to transfer her consciousness into an inanimate object , despite her commitment to the light side of the Force . Nor did she require alchemical apparatus or additional life energy . Second , rather than becoming a disembodied shade , Callista became part of the " Eye " gunnery mainframe , acting more like a self - aware computer program than a manifest presence . Thirdly , once she transferred her spirit into the body of Jedi trainee Cray Mingla , she could only touch the dark side of the Force . This was unusual , since both Callista and Cray were Force - sensitive . Since she remained committed to the Jedi way ( even going so far as to help Luke Skywalker train new Jedi at the Yavin IV academy ) , she was essentially cut off from the Force , unlike Sidious , Set Harth , or Exar Kun . As none of the Sith had any compunctions about using the dark side , this " handicap " , if they possessed it , was essentially meaningless . The dark side entity Abeloth utilized an ability similar to transfer essence , whereby she took control of various people and made them avatar bodies for herself . Behind the scenes . In the Star Wars Roleplaying Game , this ability was represented by the skill Transfer Essence . Unlike the ability described above ( such as in the example of Emperor Palpatine ) , the Transfer Essence skill required the player to make a conscious effort while still living and had a maximum range of 10 meters . Furthermore , a target who successfully resisted possession was forevermore immune to further attempts by that character . Activating the ability was extremely taxing , and if the first few attempts failed , the character ' s consciousness was dragged screaming into the yawning abyss of Chaos . Even if they successfully usurped control of another character , that character had a chance to reassert itself whenever the possessor called particularly heavily on the Force . The ability exemplified by Palpatine , however , had no range limit and functioned even if death caught Palpatine by surprise , as it did aboard the " Eclipse . " The object transfer version of the skill required that the player also have ranks in the Alchemy skill ( the in - game representation of the dark art of Sith alchemy ) and expend the life force of other willing beings in order to power the transfer ( as with Exar Kun and the Massassi ) . To take ranks in either Transfer Essence or Alchemy , the player had to possess the Sith Sorcery feat , which allowed the player to call upon the spirits of long - dead Sith Lords to improve their offensive and defensive capabilities as well as their skill with the dark side of the Force . However , the ability lasted only for a short time , and each use allowed the Sith Lords a chance to escape their imprisonment in Chaos by possessing the player character .