Bene Gesserit
The Bene Gesserit are a group in Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe. A powerful social, religious, and political force, the Bene Gesserit are described as an exclusive sisterhood whose members train their bodies and minds through years of physical and mental conditioning to obtain superhuman powers and abilities that seem magical to outsiders. The group seeks to acquire power and influence to direct humanity on an enlightened path, a concerted effort planned and executed over millennia.
Members who have acquired the full range of Bene Gesserit abilities are called Reverend Mothers; some outsiders call them "witches" for their secretive nature and misunderstood powers. As the skills of a Bene Gesserit are as desirable as an alliance with the Sisterhood itself, they are able to charge a fee to teach women from Great Houses, and install some of their initiates as wives and concubines to their advantage. Loyal only to themselves and their collective goals, Bene Gesserit sometimes feign other loyalties to attain their goals and avoid outside interference.
The Bene Gesserit are primary characters in all of Frank Herbert's Dune novels, as well as the prequels and sequels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. They also feature prominently in the multiple adaptations of the Dune series: the 1984 film Dune; the 2000 TV miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune; and its 2003 sequel, Frank Herbert's Children of Dune; as well as the 2021 feature film Dune, and its 2024 sequel, Dune: Part Two. A television series based on the Bene Gesserit, called Dune: Prophecy, debuted on November 17, 2024, on Max.
Some of their fictional powers are analyzed and deconstructed from a real-world scientific perspective in the book The Science of Dune.
Plotlines
Original ''Dune'' series
In Frank Herbert's 1965 novel Dune, the Bene Gesserit are a secretive matriarchal order who have achieved superhuman abilities through physical and mental conditioning and the use of the drug melange. Under the guise of humbly "serving" the Empire, the Sisterhood is in fact a major power in the universe, using its many areas of influence to subtly guide humanity along the path of its own plan for humanity's future. Herbert notes that over 10,000 years before the events of Dune, in the chaotic time after the Butlerian Jihad and before the unveiling of the Orange Catholic Bible, the Bene Gesserit "consolidated their hold upon the sorceresses, explored the subtle narcotics, developed prana-bindu training and conceived the Missionaria Protectiva, that black arm of superstition. But it is also the period that saw the composing of the litany against fear and the assembly of the Azhar Book, that bibliographic marvel that preserves the great secrets of the most ancient faiths."Millennia later in Dune, the Bene Gesserit base of power is the Mother School on the planet Wallach IX, whose graduates are fit mates for Emperors, and whose specially trained Truthsayers can detect falsehood. But beyond the outer virtues of poise, self-control, and diplomacy, Bene Gesserit training includes superior combat skills and precise physiological control that grants them total control over their bodies, including direct control over conception and embryotic sex determination, ageing, and even the ability to render poisons harmless within their bodies. The Bene Gesserit power of [|Voice] allows them to control others by merely modulating their vocal tones. Sisters who survive a ritualized poisoning known as the spice agony achieve increased awareness and abilities through access to Other Memory, and are subsequently known as Reverend Mothers. Every member of the Bene Gesserit is conditioned into singular loyalty to the order and its goals with allegiances to even family being secondary, and no goal is more paramount than the Sisterhood's large-scale [|breeding program]. It aims to create a superbeing that can tap into abilities even the Bene Gesserit cannot, a being whom they can use in order to gain more direct control over the universe. To this end, the Bene Gesserit have subtly manipulated bloodlines for generations, using breeding sisters to "collect" the genes they require.
File:Mohiam+BeneGesserit-2000.jpg|thumb|Reverend Mother Mohiam and other Bene Gesserit, from the Dune miniseries
The Bene Gesserit super-being – whom they call the Kwisatz Haderach – arrives a generation earlier than expected in the form of Paul Atreides, who is free from their direct control though his mother is the Bene Gesserit Lady Jessica. In Dune, Paul seizes control of the harsh desert planet Arrakis, the only source of the all-important spice melange; by threatening to destroy all spice production, he maneuvers himself onto the Imperial throne. With Paul holding a tight monopoly on melange, a decade later the Bene Gesserit participate in a conspiracy to topple his rule in Dune Messiah. Even after a blinded Paul walks into the desert to die, his sister Alia rules his empire and keeps the Bene Gesserit at bay until Paul's young son Leto II takes control himself in Children of Dune. Over 3,500 years later, Leto – now a hybrid of human and sandworm – still dominates the universe as the tyrant God Emperor in God Emperor of Dune. Through prescience, he foresees humanity's possible destruction, and has forced humanity into what he calls the Golden Path, a plan which he believes will assure their survival. Having halted all spice production and thus making his own stockpile the only source of melange left in the universe, Leto is able to maintain firm control over the various factions and effects a "forced tranquility". He takes the Bene Gesserit breeding program from them and uses it for his own mysterious purposes, and their limited spice supply is conditional on their obedience to him and his prescient vision. Recognizing that his work is finally done, Leto allows himself to be assassinated.
Fifteen hundred years later in Heretics of Dune, the Bene Gesserit have regained their power and relocated to a hidden homeworld they call Chapterhouse, and the spice cycle has been renewed on Arrakis, now called Rakis. Although they still have a reputation as manipulators and witches, the Bene Gesserit operate much more openly than they did before, since many of their schemes are common knowledge thanks to the religion of Leto II. New opposition arrives in the form of a violent matriarchal order calling themselves the Honored Matres, a ruthless and brutal force who seek domination over the Old Empire and who do not use or rely on melange for their powers. As the Matres all but exterminate the Tleilaxu and next target the Sisterhood, Bene Gesserit Mother Superior Taraza implements a bold plan to release humanity from the oracular hold of Leto II by goading the Honored Matres into destroying Rakis. Meanwhile, the Bene Gesserit have terraformed Chapterhouse into a desert planet like Rakis by bringing a single sandworm there and drowning it, releasing its sandtrout, to begin a new spice cycle. In Chapterhouse: Dune, the Honored Matres begin to destroy all of the Bene Gesserit-controlled planets and enslave the populace of the other planets they conquer. The Matres themselves are hunted by a far more powerful force from out in the Scattering. The new Mother Superior Darwi Odrade recognizes that the threat of this unknown enemy is greater than that of the Honored Matres, and forms another bold plan. The captive Honored Matre Murbella, who has been assimilated into the Bene Gesserit and gained the full powers of a Reverend Mother, defeats the leader of the Honored Matres in combat and thus becomes Great Honored Matre. She immediately succeeds Odrade as Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit, joining the two forces under a single leader in an uneasy truce that, it is hoped, will be able to defeat the unknown enemy.