Sephirothic view on Dune

[Caid Ivik]

Altough Herbert himself wrote that Dune was only a scifi based on messianistic myth, it's deep psychological and religious signs made it Bible-like, at least in comparision with most other scifi based on pure materialistic science. Spiritual dimension, which Herbert made here, overflowed the empty stereotype seen in most books of his era. Altough it was a perfect idea, which made him primarily a legend between scifi writers, it also seduces to apply various occult traditions on it, to search for some "hidden meaning". Sit with broken leg on bed as me and you will be able to "uncover" anything, altough I doubt Herbert had other motives for Dune as making some kind of perfect gold mine, which his Dune truly was.

With little insight into kabala psychology, characters of Dune could be easily described in its terms. It's not just an analysis of their life, acts and influences. It tries to describe their own thinking, motives, desires and emotions, as they were brilliantly showed by Herbert. Each of his heroes is truly like an universe within universe (what is also a concept going up from kabala, influenting european culture since renaissance), sole thing worth of same exploration as planets of Empire, an yet you won't need a Guild for it. I will use sephiroth terms, spheres of Tree of Life, which try to describe ten main characteristics, which provide the resemblence of human and God. As I may refer to few passages in various Dune books, I warn you that it may take few spoilers inside.

Shaddam IV - malkuth

"There is no worse moment than when you find out, that your father is a human - human made of flesh and bones." - Muad'Dib

Who else would be better to be viewed from sephira of malkuth, the kingdom, as the emperor himself? Herbert made him a typical dynastical ruler, with motives of preservation, control, perhaps limited by usualties, rituals and materialism. Relying on current state, on what he percepts as reality. With short-termed plans, as he understands his mortality and so he want to do as much as possible before the death.

And this all was his fight with Leto Atreides, punishment of Harkonnens and his personal failure in fight against Muad'Dib. Perfect macchiavelist, aware of his powers and limits, however, not able to discover unusual threats which may, tough highly unlikely, occur. Threats caused by higher purposes, unpolitical, but with political effect. Religious uprising on Arrakis, sparked by charismatic Muad'Dib, his underestimation of Bene Gesserit - this costed him everything.

Positive aspect of malkuth is self-control. Shaddam understood his fate, given to him after defeat and took it as fact he simply has to accept. We can see also that in some way he liked duke Leto, sometimes even thought about him as friend and suffered on fact he had to be his enemy. However, he could withstand this emotion, take him as a honorable challenge and defeat him. Macchiavelistic? Perhaps, but truly showing Shaddam's perfect selfcontrol, which should even BG adore.

Duncan Idaho - yesod

"Empires don't suffer emptiness of purpose at the time of their creation. It is when they have become so established, that aims are lost and replaced by vague ritual." - Words of Muad'Dib

Yesod (hebr."foundation") sephira provides in kabalistic ontology some kind of main interface between the living (we can say real) world and creative spheres. It's the system of the world. Schopenhauer says it's that irational will, Hegel that it's the universal mind. It's a concept, which is independent on the carrier, it emanates from anything capable, tough its base is from nothing. Idaho is such concept.

Idaho births, lives and dies perpetually troughout the Dune series. His soul changes body like a freeware game, without care when one "disk" falls. He simply does his function, whether it is personal protection of God Emperor or a Bene Gesserit breeder. We can be sure it's not his intention. He is simply bound to his task, and know that only death is a sufficient resistance to stop doing it, while also he knows it's rather futile.

Hard to say is, whether Idaho is a positive or a negative character. It's a typical yesodic characteristic. He can look good, when he helps ie Muad'Dib, but these are confused, when he comes back as assassin Hayt.

duke Leto Atreides - hod

"Fremen were masters in what ancestors called 'spannungsbogen' - it's a longered period between manifest of desire and the act, which leads to reach its target." - Wisdom of Muad'Dib

Purple duke occurs only shortly in the first book, so we don't have much about him directly. Much more is from saying of the else. And so I choose for him hod, hebrew for splendor, as his best descriptive sephira. Hod personality likes something good- or at least ordinary-looking. Unlike yesod, where we try to understand order by its signs, this wants to create it trough the signs.

Leto was like discontent with the Empire, so he tried to look like a lighthouse in the evil world. He ruled de facto democratically, followed the ancient laws, preserved a sole woman and tried to be a good father for his son. Ideal politician for ideal world. How he ends up? Betrayed by his personal doctor, mentat defected too, his power shattered and he himself dead.

This is problem of hod: it's an illusive order, not a true one. He was a popular and we can say he enjoyed his rule, but was too vulnerable, as he was bound in his ideals. Not obeying Shaddam when he sent him to Dune would save him, but it would be against his own morale. Like when Sokrates refused to flee from prison. Nevertheless, it's an example of extremely strong personality, tough lacking the full power needed to fulfill itself.

lady Jessica - necah

"Yueh! Yueh! Yueh! He deserves more than million deaths!" - Childhood History of Muad'Dib

Necah is victory in literal translation, however, the meaning itself is much more wider. It's a sephira of emotions, intuitive thinking, critical point between the material and spiritual desires. It is love, hate, friendship, loyalty, hostility. Pure feeling, irational, but strongly pushed by personal will. As some of us remember Matrix Revolutions where Smith stays over nearly defeated Neo and rationally tells him his fight has no reason, and asks him for one. What says Neo? "I want." No need for a logic or reason; you have will.

This is how acted Jessica. Without thinking, she disrupted whole Bene Gesserit project and brought Kwisatz Haderach a generation before. Why? You can say that love is a strong thing, nevertheless many people consider it as a strongest force. This is necah, Jessica did not care about BG plans when it was about her emotion.

She was BG sister herself, what should predestine her for binah or malkuth attribute, in fact looking like an opposite of necah: trying to withstand her emotions and control it with training to clear the way for higher targets. However, more times we see emotions defeating her ratio, and Paul was the highest result. Same we can see ie with dr Yueh and later with Siona, which could be even better example, as I could not find truly no reason in her acts than her pure will.

Emperor Leto - tifareth

"The memories apply their leverages to each of us-on what we think and what we do. You think you are immune to such influences? I am Galileo. I stand here and tell you: "Yet it moves." That which moves can exert its force in ways no mortal power ever before dared stem. I am here to dare this." - Stolen Journals

With Paul's only (surviving) son it is harder. Motives of "Golden Path" seem to be fitting more to chesed characteristic, his radical acts more to gevura, manipulative power to hod or perhaps yesod, motives seem to fade in necah. To finish the chaos, he struggles to absolute control of universe (malkuth) while trying to use (binah) all knowledge (choqmah) he has available. Also he declares himself a god (kether)... Still, only fully fitting sephira for him would be tifareth, the beauty.

Tifareth isn't only physical perfection, this would only hardly describe the Worm, that's for sure ;D  It's better translated as harmony, a balance between ratio and emotions. Absolute conscience, maximization of personal abilities. Truly, a golden path for individual. Leto refers to his Golden Path as something for universe itself, but also himself as one carrying whole burden of it as God Emperor. Little too proud, but that's a part of tifareth as well.

Leto becomes a slave to the Path, sacrificing everything, even his own humanity, hollow "self", for it. At the end he dies before finishing the Golden Path, but we can't say he failed. Be prevented existence of Arafel, also by sacrificing himself prevented the reason itself why someone would need this Arafel. And that was his Golden Path - survival of the humanity, for which he did everything, even allowed his death, followed by death of Arrakis itself and of all what he built.

Muad'Dib - gevura

"Arrakis teaches a philosophy of knife - you cut something and then say it is finished, because it ends here." - Muad'Dib

Gevura, meaning "strength" in hebrew, is a attribute of will, forced change, executive force. This is Paul Atreides in his whole life, a prototypal lifeway of a 1960s neoromantic epos hero. I wouldn't say he is stereotypical, when compared to other such literal heroes; he is archetype, perfect show of it.

First he ruins the plan of Bene Gesserit, then that of baron Harkonnen. Yet little acts, which were only manifestations of his strong will. Then he becomes a prophet and absolute lord of fremen, an extremely closed society, where it seems to be hard to very survive as a stranger, not talking about forcing them to not only follow, but to even worship you! Story continues and Paul leads the fremen horde even trough legions of Sardaukars. Before then feared as invincible, however, for gevura there is nothing truly invincible.

We have then Djihad, change of religion, imperial ideology, power balance...we can say everything he wanted to. His primary motives are unclear, starting point seems to be pure revenge for his father's death. Young Paul does nothing else then to fulfill it, by setting the hand of justice on everything what could be behind it. At the end he returns as a Preacher (well, we can say this is a hypothesis) to destroy his own system, which now seemed less perfect. Interesting guy.

Ghanima - binah

"Our God Emperor has been revealed as a sentimentalist. That is a weakness I had not expected." - Oral History

Primary formative force of the world in kabala is binah, the intelligence in sense of ability to understand thing in right meaning. As sephira, it's a calm, silent uncovering of truth, ability to accept the wisdom as well as to apply it. It's goal is logically the immortality, altough it is only starting ramp for other, much higher goals. Actually, it would be a perfect description of God Emperor Leto or perhaps Irulan and most other Bene Gesserit sisters.

However Ghanima, as we can see in latter Dune books, survived better than Leto. She survived in Atreides bloodline, Siona or Darwi are her personality as well, trying to understand the world they have benn given, as Ghanima wanted to understand her brother. Her personality controls the BG, controlling the Atreides gene pool (which could be resembled to chokmah force) in long term, we can say infinite process.

Let's return to Ghanima, altough resemblance with whole BG still will occur. She is a silent analyst, living behind the effect of "great deeds", in her case Leto's run for power and wormhood. She has no feeling of importance or pride, she simply does what needs to be done (not as what she felt what is needed, but what she rationally deducted), that is marrying Hark al'Ada and preserving the Atreides blood.

14-19.7.2004

[Caid Ivik]

Still missing ones for chesed, chokmah, daat and kether. I wouldn't say no one fits it, but I simply lost mood for it  ;D

[TMA_1]

hmm the thing about the khabala is that it is a system to order the universe like most other systems of that sort. I mean that isnt the main goal to khabalism, but the sepiroth was made to order the universe, the great tree of life.

So since the books in Dune mirror very well a "potential" universe, then you could take khabalistic philosophies and place them into the dune universe, just liek you could in our universe. Because of this I dont think there is any corrilation. Though That is really interesting stuff! :) 

by the way why are you so interested in khabalism? you talk about it a lot, I mean I know that you are a christian, and well... I dont think khabalism and christianity mix that well, and I have debated on the issue as I know many who try to mix philosophies like certain sects of buddhism and khabalism with christianity and it just doesnt work.lol

[Caid Ivik]

I wouldn't say there are contradictions between kabala and christianity. Kabala is a jewish tradition, and christianity is also based on judaism. Also it is more a descriptive system, an ontology, while christianity is full religion, based on a moral code. Not saying that it was mostly developed in societies, where Jews were mixed with christians or muslims. And influences are in both ways. Many great christian philosophers like Cusanius or Eckhard are influented by it...

[TMA_1]

and those philosophers are strictly on the fringe, and you know that. I have read some of what they wrote and I mix those kinds of philosophers into the "semi gnostic" category. They are more influenced by gnosticism than khabalism, which are very closely related. Besides "christianity" and "philosophy" are things that shouldnt mix, as one is based on the premise of rationality, and the other on faith. Of course they dont mix caid, I mean your a smart guy.lol Unless your docterns are really really interpritational on the bible.

[Caid Ivik]

Well, catholics (I suppose you're a protestant) always tried to create a sufficient philosophical background for the religion, but ratio has its limits, that's for sure. Mysticism, like kabala or Anselm's realism is not a true philosophy, as they use mostly own abstract terms, own logic. Compared to religion itself, it's only drawing another type of map of same world, showing paths to another targets, if you understand me.

Gnosticism is nothing else than trying to discover a path trough the Abyss between tifaret (human perfection) and kether (godlikeness), by filling the void-point daat (knowledge) ;D  We can say it's  a ripoff from kabala, but it has much different view on God and this godlikeness. Jews are monistic, while gnosticism is highly dualist. Kabalistic ontology has only one En Soph, eleatic form of infinite God, which creates finity, another subjects and their interaction. Tree of Life is a projection of En Soph, the "visible God", Holy Trinity in christian terms; attributes measurable by human, as they are part of human as well. Eckhard and Cusanius are much closer to this viewpoint. Gnosticism is like there were two En Soph, creating own Trees, which collide. More like francescan tradition, altough I HIGHLY doubt they encountered it.

[SpiceGuid]

i like categories, but the problem of categories is they are too universal to teach something specific enough.

let's say the duniverse is rock-scissor-paper:

DuneI: Shaddam is rock (brute force)

DuneII: Paul is paper (plan)

Messiah: The Jihad is scissor (superstitions diverge from Paul lessons)

then do you learn something about Dune?

probably not.

metaphors are attractive but they are weak because they don't speak about objects and properties.

instead of teaching something about something they teach nothing about everything.

the conflict also exists in science, some are only interested in metaphors, they speak about chaos theory, catastrophe theory, and singularities, others want only to speak about objects, atoms, cells and their properties.

[TMA_1]

you seem to know your stuff caid! :) though I still think it is a stretch to mix khabala with Dune. I mean I could take wiccan philosophies and probably place them into the duniverse. I could probably take some form of vedic belief and do the same. see waht I mean?

[Caid Ivik]

Philosophy is to describe the world and understand it. Like binoculars. It doesn't matter whether you look on real or fictional world, you can watch trough it anything. I wouldn't say it's mixing. SpiceGuid says that it doesn't teach me anything, but it's fun to see whole book from other view, written in specific terms. And I'm sure that vedantic or wiccan ansicht can be implemented as well, everything is possible with little imagination  ;D

[TMA_1]

yeah but that is the point. YOU can interprit it like that, but I dont think frank interprited the story like that. That is the beauty of good fiction though. It is like a well in that you read the story, which is the surface, but you can delve deeper with your's and other people's thoughts and go deeper and deeper into the story like the depth of a well. These are our interpritations of it though and that should be remembered.