Dune Setting & Symbolism

Dune Objects/Places

The Bene Gesserit Sisterhood

A quasi-religious women's order, the Bene Gesserit has for countless generations manipulated gene pools to create the Kwisatz Haderach, a male Bene Gesserit who can be many places at once and see inside the fearful place where the sisters dare not look. The order is founded at the same time as the Spacing Guild's school for Mentats, as a means of protecting humanity against the iconoclasm of the Butlerian Jihad against mechanical computers. Full-fledged Reverend Mothers undergo a fearful "spice ordeal" using unconverted melange. Those who fail die. Those who succeed are filled with the memories of all the sisters backward in the lineage of the Reverend Mother who presides at the trial. They form a great cloud of potential helpers and consultants. Bene Gesserit novices receive intensive physical and mental training. The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam runs the school when Lady Jessica is a novice. At the time...
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