Okay, maybe more of a musing than a theory.
In 1971, Serbian director Dušan Makavejev released W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism, an avant-garde part-documentary, part narrative exploration of the "theories" of the titular "WR". Wilhelm Reich was a German "scientist" and "philosopher" (quotes doing quite a lot of heavy lifting here) who was most notable for his theory of *Orgonomy," an invisible form of energy that was both cosmic and biological -- coming both from a spatial aether and originating from all biological creatures. The name was arrived at via a form of etymological incest with "organism" and "orgasm" -- Reich believed that sexual energy was the most potent form of orgone energy, that orgasms were generative processes that could have literal, tangible metaphysical effects on the universe.
WR: Mysteries of the Organism was not just a (largely sympathetic) documentation of Reich's beliefs and his followers, but a narrative film that explored the sexual politics of Yugoslavian communism in comparison to the Soviet Union. Throughout the film, Makavejev juxtapositions the two, Reich's orgone energy and sexual communism, and argues that they are inextricable, that a politically liberating revolution is necessarily a sexually liberating revolution, that orgasm itself is revolutionary, and that revolution is orgasmic.
My suspicion is that George Lucas was inspired by W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism when revising his scripts for Star Wars.
I have absolutely no evidence that Lucas has ever seen W.R., but I genuinely think it's likely. Lucas has made no secret of his tremendous amount of respect and affection for Soviet / Communist / Socialist filmmaking, and given that plus W.R.'s acclaim at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival and its U.S. distribution, I think there's a decent chance that Lucas might have seen it.
There's a few years of wiggle room, too. While Lucas began working on treatments for what would become Star Wars as early as 1971 after finishing THX 1138, the first appearance of anything resembling "The Force" is in the 1975 draft titled "The Adventures of Starkiller (episode one): The Star Wars." Here, it appears as "The Force of Others," a semi-conscious ethereal and biological energy field.
Sound familiar?
In Star Wars, we are immediately introduced to revolutionaries: their hero is the man who can attune to the Force. The rebels' leader is Leia Organa, who is also the corporeal embodiment of the revolution, the main source of sexuality in the film. Just like in W.R., the political revolution, sexuality, and a mystical energy field that binds the universe together are all conflated, are all the same.
While the Force in Star Wars is developed into something entirely different than Reich's Orgone Energy, I believe that there is a link of inspiration between the ideas in W.R. and Star Wars, that the conceptual lineage of the Force is one of sexuality and revolution, and the -- most importantly -- Leia is literally named after "Orgasm."
Thanks for reading!
thinking about this again. There's this whole "The Force is just Daoism" thing that crops up all the time, but Lucas' eventual depiction of the Force is imo more in line with Orgone Energy, as this biotic creative energy that permeates all matter in the universe, and is generated by life, with a fundamental element of a "bion" - there's even the germ of Midichlorians in Reich's work. I think there's definitely an aesthetic influence on Star Wars that comes from a fuzzy Hollywood-goggled vision of eastern philosophy, but in terms of the pseudoscience here, I think the WR - Star Wars connection is more interesting, even if its less evidenced.