Shai-Hulud!: Religion in Dune
A reverse Incarnation denies human dignity
Warning: This post contains spoilers
Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune Part II”’s arrives in cinemas on Friday, which I am very excited to see. What makes Dune unique among science fiction, exception being A Canticle for Leibowitz, is that religion takes a front and center stage unlike many science fiction franchises where religion seems to be a backdrop or practically nonexistent. There is a true sense of honoring the transcendent among the people and many references to God. Although Liet-Kynes’ gender and death scene were both changed in the 2021 movie adaptation, I did really like Kynes’ cinematic death scene where she said, “I serve only one master. His name is Shai-Hulud,” to the Sardaukar before Shai-Hulud, the sand worm, devoured them both. Kynes understands God takes primacy, but who is this God mentioned, and do any of the characters actually have any real faith?
Frank Herbert was not religious himself though he self-identified as spiritual, and his son, Brian, described him as such in his Afterword. Still, religion influenced him. According to Brian, Frank’s Roman Catholic aunts strove to convert him, but he resisted; nevertheless, they provided the inspiration for the Bene Gesserit, which have been compared to nuns and pray litanies, such as the Litany Against Fear. Denis Villeneuve took advantage of these similarities to female monasticism in portraying the Bene Gesserit in his 2021 adaptation, for the Reverend Mother’s habit looks like that of a Byzantine Catholic or Eastern Orthodox nun’s liturgy regalia. Alia, in Dune Messiah and Children of Dune, is often called the Womb of Heaven, as she has the abilities and memories of a Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother due to being in Jessica’s womb when Jessica underwent the the spice agony to become a Reverend Mother herself, while at the same time being a young virginal woman. This sounds like Marian language. On the surface, the religion on Arrakis looks akin to Islam. The Fremen remember being deprived the “Hajj” during their ancient days when they were Zensunni wanderers. The word “jihad” is common. The glimpses of their language present in the novel bear resemblance to Arabic, and Denis Villeneuve exploited the surface similarities to Islam while portraying Arrakis in his film.
Yet it must be clear that as Frank Herbert belonged to no religion in particular, the religions in his books are also not any religion in particular. Doctrines in the religion of the Imperium nor in the religion of Maud’Dib are never clearly defined. Herbert’s ruling classes are agnostic and view religions as tools or a puppet show. None of the principle characters seem to be believers themselves. Ecumenism is the main religion of the Imperium, where the people follow the Fourteen Sages. Ecumenism happened following the Butlerian Jihad, the war against artificial intelligence, why there are no computers Dune. Frank Herbert presents the typical secular argument for ecumenism in the Appendixes: “The leaders of religions whose followers had spilled the blood of billions began meeting to exchange views” (814) that religious difference leads to violence and bloodshed. Still, this impulse cannot be eradicated, for even Yuval Noah Harari, in his book Homo Deus, acknowledges that if humanity were to construct a post-God society (it won’t), there would still be wars over religions, such as Marxism vs. Objectivism. Franks Herbert’s own lack of religion is evidenced in how the leaders of the religions were able to recognize a common commandment between them: “Thou shalt not disfigure the soul,” for most people who have actively studied religions recognize that most similarities between them are ultimately superficial, and in how the leaders of the religions were able to “remove a primary weapon from the hands of disputant religions. The weapon - the claim to possession of the one and only revelation” (814). This led to the production of the Orange Catholic Bible, frequently referenced in the Dune books. No devout follower of a particular religion would write a story where the claim to possession of the one and only revelation is relinquished. Speaking as a Christian, this would require relinquishing the Trinity, the Resurrection, and the Incarnation, our most primary doctrines. The Dune universe is a universe without these doctrines, which, in the absence of the Incarnation especially, has clear implications for how people are viewed.
The dignity of the human person in Christianity starts with the Imago Dei, that all persons are made in the image of God. This dignity is reinforced with the Incarnation, that God chose to be born of a woman and take on human flesh. This allows for humanity’s redemption and further elevates human dignity. Humans do not rise above humanity. Rather, God condescends to become human.
The Imperium in Dune has lost the Imago Dei and lost the Incarnation, and has, therefore, lost a sense of inherent dignity. The human person has no intrinsic worth. The Fremen, prior to Liet-Kynes’ cessation of the practice and then after the victory of Maud-Dib, sacrifice virgins to Shai-Hulud, who they view as a personification of God. Their blind are abandoned to the desert as a gift to Shai-Hulud, no longer worth anything to the tribe. Paul is quoted in an epigraph saying, “God created Arrakis to train the faithful” (501). For what, exactly, are the Fremen being brutally trained? When they are unleashed upon the universe, they bring destruction. The Fremen human sacrifices could perhaps, be explained as typical behavior of inhabitants of extreme environments; however, few of the other peoples in the Imperium place much value in the inherent dignity of the human person either. The Bene Gesserit believe they serve humanity. They have their breeding program to bring about the Kwisatz Haderach, but they deliberately waste a lot of human life in the process. If Paul were to have failed the gom jabbar test, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, the Emperor’s own Truthsayer, would have killed him without remorse. For the Bene Gesserit, to be unable to override animal self-preservation instincts, is to forfeit the right to live. Throughout the books, Reverend Mother Mohiam displays an easy willingness to kill. Regarding House Corrino, the Imperial House, the majority of boys training to be Imperial Sardaukar soldiers do not survive their training, and the Sublime Padishah Emperor keeps slave-concubines. The Harkonnens clearly view human life as highly disposable, for to punish his nephew Feyd-Rautha, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen has him kill all the innocent slave women in the pleasure wing of their compound. Clearly the Harkonnens do not necessarily consider their slaves to be people worthy of any dignity, and Feyd-Rautha launches a conspiracy to have his uncle’s weapons master killed. Yes, the Harkonnens are obviously evil, but this behavior is more of an excess of the same underlying principle, disregarding the inherent dignity of the person.
Paul Atreides himself, the hero, launches a war that takes the lives of billions. He is aware that will be the consequence of using the Fremen to bring him to victory, that he will end up unleashing them upon the universe, but he still does it. Only after he begins comparing himself to Hitler and Genghis Khan and suffers a personal tragedy does he choose to walk away from the prescient visions of himself, of horror. In doing so, he ultimately displays the failure of the reverse Incarnation, what happens when the Incarnation is lost.
When stranded on Arrakis without allies, Paul and his Bene Gesserit mother Jessica exploit the Fremen prophecies, many of which were laid by the Missionaria Protectiva of the Bene Gesserit for that purpose, so they can ally themselves with the Fremen and use them to retake power on Arrakis. The Fremen prophecies call for a Messiah, the Mahdi, the Lisan al-Gaib, the voice from an outer world, who will free them. This corresponds to the Bene Gesserit desire for the Kwisatz Haderach. Paul becomes that Messiah. His training, genetics, and exposure to Spice allow him to possess super-human abilities. He is worshipped as a god among the Fremen, yet as written in the epigraph to the first chapter in Dune Messiah, “Such a rich store of myths enfolds Paul Maud’Dib, the Mentat Emperor, and his sister, Alia, it is difficult to see there real persons behind these veils. But they were, after all, a man born Paul Atreides and a woman born Alia. Their flesh was subject to space and time. And even though their oracular powers placed them beyond the usual limits of time and space, they came from human stock” (7). Paul Atreides is a human being who gets caught up in a story that elevates him to godhood wherein he finds himself the perpetrator of multiple atrocities through unleashing his Fremen on the universe and later has a spectacular fall. He embodies a reverse Incarnation, man becoming God, instead of God becoming man. Instead of God condescending to dwell with people in humility for the salvation of the world, when Paul attempts to rise above humanity, he can no longer view humans with the same dignity and becomes responsible for the deaths of millions. The torture over what he has done and the loss of his beloved lead him to reclaim his humanity in his fall where he leaves his prescience behind and abandons himself to the desert becoming wholly decrepit in Children of Dune.
Though civilization in Dune has advanced to allow space travel, prescience, and super-human abilities, civilization has not advanced morally in safeguarding human dignity. In losing doctrines where human dignity is safeguarded, humans are reduced to objects for power. Without the Incarnation elevating humanity and the Imago Dei proclaiming human dignity, the concept of it is lost, leading to heroes attempting the reverse Incarnation and bringing about the deaths of billions.