The Jedi are talking to Mother Aniseya, played by Jodie Turner-Smith, described as the leader of an independent “coven of witches” that places high value on the preservation of their practices and beliefs. While she’s an entirely new character, all her face markings, her gesturing, and her “Mother” title may have some High Republic fans’ minds afire: it certainly sounds a lot like the Path of the Open Hand.
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Introduced as a major faction in the second phase of High Republic stories—themselves set a further 150 years prior to the main period, so 250 years before The Acolyte—the Path of the Open Hand was a Force religion that vehemently disavowed against actually using the Force, considering any manipulation of it to be tantamount to abuse. The Path were the primary antagonists of the High Republic’s second phase, manipulating the Jedi Order and various other Force religions into conflict while also discovering the mysterious creatures known as the Nameless—monsters that could prey on Force-sensitive beings and turn them into ash and stone, sucking their life force out.
Over the course of the second phase, the Path splintered into various factions before practically dissolving entirely after a battle with the Jedi known as the Night of Sorrow—with one faction of survivors forming a new organization, the Elders of the Path, while another laid the foundation for what would eventually become the piratical group called the Nihil, the main antagonists of the High Republic’s first and third phases. So even if this coven has connections to the Path, they’re probably not actually the Path itself at this point. But they could be an offshoot of its teachings.
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