Everything we know about the Bene Gesserit: Beliefs

The new Max series Dune: Prophecy set to come out on November 17th, 2024, explores the founding of the all-female Bene Gesserit order. In the wake of its release, let’s examine what we already know about the Bene Gesserit.

Like any political and quasi-religious organization, the Bene Gesserit are influenced by their own system of beliefs. So what exactly are these beliefs, and how do they influence their actions across the Imperium?

Beliefs

The ultimate Bene Gesserit belief is that of total control, evident from the motto of the new series, “True power begins with control.” The Bene Gesserit are introduced to us as a mysterious and extremely influential all-female organization. They are shown to be deeply involved with the Great Houses and the politics of the Imperium. Notably, the Emperor’s wife is a Bene Gesserit sister of hidden rank, as is the Lady Jessica, concubine to Duke Leto of House Atreides.

One of the first scenes in Dune, the film by Denis Villeneuve, is the test of the Gom Jabbar, the poisoned needle. In this scene, the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Jessica’s former teacher, tests her son Paul Atreides as to whether or not he is a “human or an animal.” Immediately, we are given insight into the chief Bene Gesserit belief, that people can be sorted as either animals that must be put down, or humans that may be allowed to live.

“The test is simple….. remove your hand from the box and you die.”

In this scene, the Reverend Mother Mohiam produces an ornate box from her robes and commands Paul to place his hand in it. When asked what's inside the box, she responds only with "Pain."
Upon Paul placing his hand in this pain-inducing box, Reverend Mother Mohiam tells Paul that “an animal caught in a trap will gnaw off its own leg to survive, what will you do?” The Bene Gesserit view pain as a test, and ultimate control over one’s reaction to pain as the only right answer.

Spoiler Alert: Paul passes the test and does not remove his hand from the box.

If Paul had removed his hand from the box, Reverend Mother Mohiam would have killed him with the Gom Jabbar, regardless of the fact that he is the Duke’s son. Paul’s ability to withstand great pain and not give in to “animal instincts” is the only reason he was allowed to live.

However, there are two additional reasons that the Reverend Mother Mohiam would have killed Paul had he not passed the test. Firstly, Jessica’s decision to train her son in the Bene Gesserit's “weirding way” was forbidden for male children, and could not be allowed to continue if Paul had failed. Simply put, the knowledge that Paul had of the Bene Gesserit's teachings would have been too dangerous to entrust with someone who was deemed to be an animal. Secondly, the Bene Gesserit did not allow “animals” to mix into the gene pool of their breeding program, with their ultimate goal of the program being the creation of the Kwisatz Haderach, a male with all the powers and abilities of the Bene Gesserit.

After this scene in the movie, as the Reverend Mother Mohiam is departing Caladan, she delivers these hilarious parting words to Lady Jessica:

"So much potential wasted in a male."

In a world so dominated by patriarchal views, this quote is like a breath of fresh air! It is almost humorous to see the Bene Gesserit's disdain for men. For reasons that I'm sure will be explored in Dune: Prophecy, the Bene Gesserit are an all-female organization. They don't necessarily look down on men per se, but they don't exactly value them for anything besides what they can contribute to their infamous breeding program. This scene in the Dune film, the test of the Gom Jabbar, is not much more than that in the movie. However, in the book after Paul passes this test, he converses with the Reverend Mother about the exact motives of the Bene Gesserit. It's in this scene from the book that we find out what the Bene Gesserit holds true disdain for:

“Why do you test for humans?” he asked.
“To set you free.”
“Free?”
“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”
“ 'Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind,’ ” Paul quoted.
“Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible,” she said.
“But what the O.C. Bible should’ve said is: “Thou shalt not make a machine to counterfeit a human mind.”

The Bene Gesserit above all else fear human imitation. Their organization is dedicated to the perseverance of humans as a species and to the human spirit. When questioned by Paul as to the purpose of the Bene Gesserit, the Reverend Mother gives enough clues for him to correctly guess that their primary purpose is guiding the politics that will ensure humanity's survival.

“Politics indeed. The original Bene Gesserit school was directed by those who saw the need of a thread of continuity in human affairs. They saw there could be no such continuity without separating human stock from animal stock—for breeding purposes.”

To the Bene Gesserit, the ends justify the means. The ends being the "survival of humanity", ideally through the leadership and wisdom of the Kwisatz Haderach, the man who will be able to see into the masculine side of his past, where the women of the Bene Gesserit cannot.

“We are repelled by it, terrorized. It is said a man will come one day and find in the gift of the drug his inward eye. He will look where we cannot—into both feminine and masculine pasts.”
“Your Kwisatz Haderach?”
“Yes, the one who can be many places at once: the Kwisatz Haderach...."

From both the book and the series, we know that Bene Gesserit sisters who have undergone the Spice Agony become Reverend Mothers, which gives them access to all the memories of her female ancestors before her, the Other Memory. It is never clearly explained why they cannot look into the male side of their ancestral memories, but it's for this reason that they seek to breed the Kwisatz Haderach. The man who will have all the abilities of a full Reverend Mother and who will be able to look into both the female and male side of his ancestral memory. In my next post, I will explore some of the many abilities of the Bene Gesserit, starting with this Other Memory.

Dutifully Yours,
Mother Superior