with the release of the June movies by denil NV a lot of people are becoming interested in this fascinating fictional Universe the books by Frank Herbert are considered some of the greatest masterpieces in science fiction literature especially that first book and the world that he built is a deep complex and really engaging one that tackles themes of religion philosophy ecology politics and much else I'm sure many of you who have watched the movies have recognized many of the themes and terms like uh the Mahi and the lisan in fact when creating June Frank Herbert drew a lot of inspiration from different religious traditions and particularly Middle Eastern and North African culture for this reason we find a lot of themes related to Islam and Sufism but also a bunch of different religious Traditions from around the world I know this episode has been requested by a lot of you for a long time and I thought that with the excitement over the new movies it was high time to explore the Intriguing world of June and its Many religious [Applause] themes June is a series of science fiction novels written by Frank Herbert from the 1960s through the80s the first book Dune came out in 1965 and introduces an intricate Universe where the story is centered around the desert planet oracus where the desert sand contains something called spice a substance that can basically be used to run whole Empires but it's also greatly hallucinogenic to humans who are exposed to it the story revolves on the one hand around political intrigues between different houses or Clans that tried to control araus in order of course to control the spies the famous quote summarizes this well quote he who controls the spice controls the universe but on the planet of arus there also lives an indigenous population called The freman Who live in the desert and are greatly oppressed by the many political powers that try to control the planet but they also await a certain savior figure the so-called Mahi that is prophesized to save them from this oppression already you can probably see some of the key themes in the book that reflect aspects of real life such as colonialism and messianism now full disclosure I haven't actually read the full Dune book um I did start reading it couple of years ago um because I've always been intrigued by this universe and this series um but you know it's it's a lot as many of you probably know so many houses and names and uh cultures and planets and all this stuff it was just I felt like I didn't have the mental energy or time at the at that time to to to to tackle all that so I never finished the book uh but I do I am generally aware of of the universe and the plot and and everything that goes on on in that Universe because I've sort of absorbed it over the years through pop culture and just because I've been interested in this series um and of course I've also greatly enjoyed the new movies by D VN but what I mean to say by this is that there are there are sort of elements of this analysis that are unavailable to me because I have not read the book um so keep that in mind that I don't have the same amount of knowledge about the lore and all this that that people who are actual like devoted fans of these books that I've read the books uh might have but I do still think that um I have enough knowledge and there are enough very clear and obvious um parallels in this universe with real life religions for example that it enables me to make um or to have a really interesting discussion here about some of these themes Frank Herbert was an ecologist and journalist but became primarily known as a science fiction author after the immense success of the June books starting as we said in 1965 it seems that he had a vast array of different interests all of which were gathered into June and its many different themes it's clear that he studied religions and the culture of the Middle East and he also appears to have been familiar with the writings of people like Yung and Haider Freud and also studied Zen Buddhism which we can definitely sense in the books it also seems somewhat clear that he had studied or was familiar with Islam and Sufism possibly through the writings of people like anre koban which we will see later and generally he must have had a great interest in knowledge of different religions generally albe perhaps not that deep of an understanding of particular Traditions per se whatever the case the different interest of Herbert from religion to ecology politics and philosophy they all show up in one way or another as important themes in Dune deeply embedded in the story are thus influences from Middle Eastern North African and Islamic culture and religion the freman the indigenous population of baracus was inspired by Arab and amazir also known as Berber tribal culture and it is peppered with different Islamic themes the political implications of the story are obvious the great Empire subduing the local population to control the spice trade is a clear nod to and critique perhaps of things like colonialism and the Imperial struggles to control natural resources like oil and of course the oppression that often accompanies such a venture but with within this wider world and story there are also outright religious themes that are borrowed from the real world and I will have to get into some spoilers about the general story here to explore it properly so this is your warning for that the story of June at least the first book basically revolves around Paul atres known also as the muad a royal of the House of atres who after very dramatic political circumstances becomes basically a part of the freman people the indigenous population eventually he also becomes identified with a Messianic figure that they are expecting to liberate them from oppression call the Mahi or also the now both of these terms are real Arabic phrases and have a direct connection with Islamic religion and lore the Mahi is a very prominent Concept in Islam and denotes much like in June an expected Messianic figure that will come at the end of time to help rid the world of evil and Injustice in time for judgment it is common belief in Islam that Jesus will also return at this time and the role of the Mahi and Jesus are very much interconnected the idea of the Mahi exists in both Sunni and Shi Islam but is perhaps most prominent in shiism here the idea of the Messianic Mahi is one of the core characteristics of their view of the world and of religious history and in the TW branch of shiism the largest branch of Shia Islam Today the identity of of this Mahi is actually known indeed the twers are called the twers precisely because they believe that there are 12 hereditary imams that succeeded the prophet Muhammad the Imam in shiism is probably their most important and characteristic concept it is the idea that when the prophet Muhammad died succession to lead his community both politically and spiritually was handed down in his family in a patrilineal line of Imam m s which started with his cousin and son-in-law Ali and then being handed down in the family from him the twers so-called believe that there are precisely 12 such imams starting with Ali and ending with Muhammad iban Hassan who is Imam in the 9th and 10th centuries what is unique about this 12th Imam is that the sheis believe that he never actually died he wasn't hiding for a large portion of his life only communicating with his community Through uh letters basically before going into what is known as occultation or uh full hiding in 941 and he remains in hiding to this day and will only come back at the end of time to lead the community to Victory and establish peace and Justice in the world hence he is more widely known as Muhammad al- Mahi or Muhammad the Mahi it's clear that Herbert used this real historical idea of the m not just the particular 12 sh version but generally in Islam as the inspiration for the Mahi in dun and he even keeps the same Arabic word for it a second name used for this awaited Messianic figure in Dune is Lan this is also an essentially Arabic phrase Lis which means something like the tongue of the Hidden I think in the recent movie they translate as something like the voice of the Hidden which is also a legitimate translation it's a little disputed what this is supposed to mean in the context of this story it may have connections with Sufism what is often referred to as Islamic mysticism and this concept of the as the hidden aspects of reality that are accessible to Mystics and Prophets for example the famous Persian Sufi poet Haz has been called the L this would make sense as paul/ Adib essentially becomes a prophetic figure to the fman peoples being able to see the future and have hidden knowledge but there's often a secondary meaning to this phrase too as something translated to something like a voice from the outer world it is indeed part of the prophecy that this m or the is supposed to come from the outside so not from within the ranks of the fmen themselves and this kind of makes sense too thus in this case meaning hidden as in from another unknown place I'm sure both of these eological meanings of the phrase is considered in this story and is just one more example of uh the use of an Arabic and maybe even Sufi Mystic uh phrase or term used in the Dune Universe the role of Paul or mu as the Mahi and how he gradually grows into that role is really at the core of the first dune book and was one of the things that I was most fascinated with as I was watching the new film I couldn't help but draw parallels to real historical examples of prophets or individuals that had claimed to be the Messiah or M and how this has actually played out in history one can see clear similarities with the story about the prophet Muhammad for example and other similar historical figures it's widely known that the story of June is a kind of critique or a cautionary tale about the dangers of Messianic movements and how such religious fervor can be used to control people and Herbert as well as the movies used some really fascinating parallels to show how such movements have actually played out in history to great effect the way that Paul seemingly breaks certain L held rules and Customs as he proclaims his identity as the is a common feature of real world Messiahs in the film and in a sequence that has basically become like a famous scene already uh there's a certain Council in which Paul steps into the circle and he isn't really allowed to step into the circle unless he is a tribal leaders this is one of the sort of rules of their culture and religion and when someone points this out he simply said that he's is the one showing the way now completely going so going going against this cultural uh uh rule that they have and this is the kind of thing we see with real historical figures that have claimed to be the Messiah or a prophet as an example we can look at someone like shab a Jewish figure in the 17th century who claimed to be the awaited Messiah and seems to have convinced maybe most Jews at that time that he was speaking the truth as part of this he did did things that completely challenged religious laws and Norms in a famous account he said to have walked into a synagogue and loudly said the tetragramaton out loud the four-letter name of God that is forbidden to pronounce this was utterly shocking to the congregation that was present but also signaled that with his coming as the Messiah things were changing dramatically we can even consider Someone Like Jesus if we are to believe the stories about him from the Bible and that he did claim to be the Messiah the same is of course true here Jesus openly challenged Jewish law and the authority of the Pharisees and the Sadducees to me as a nerd of religion and religious history this was one of the most exciting things about June when I was watching the movies for instance being able to draw these parallels between uh Paul mu Adib and real world historical figures who claim to be prophets or or Messiahs right um and the different sociological and psychological effects that can have on a religious community and how that can gather people together and all these kinds of things I think that's something that um that that Herbert as well as vov in the movies captured really well as Paul becomes and um you know another spoiler alert here this is going to be like revealing some stuff that happens at the end of at least the first book uh as Paul becomes the emperor he unleashes the destructive Jihad along with the fman which is also of course taken from an Arabic word and the Islamic religion too where Jihad means a kind of struggle and can often mean particularly armed struggle in a religious sense so in terms of a war for instance of course in the movies they have replaced the word Jihad with holy war which is you know from one perspective perhaps understandable but from another perspective that kind of creates even more problems surrounding that term but whatever in any case these are just some of the obvious observations that one can make about the sort of core Narrative of the story surrounding Paul or M um that are so interesting to me that that that excited me the most as I was you know reading the book all those years ago and as I was watching the movies now these uh parallels and examples and how they use all these religious themes and examples from history and the real world to to portray this Messianic figure and this Messianic movement I thought that was very powerful uh but what about the wider Universe of of Dune and this wider world what is is religion or how is religion tackled in this universe as a whole what are the different religions that exist in this universe for example this is of course a vast topic but it is one that contains a lot of fascinating material as we saw Herbert drew a lot of inspiration from The Real World and he wasn't afraid to use actual words and terms for some of these things as we saw in general we can say that religion in Dune is based on the idea of Perpetual change you could say that religions are always changing over time which is of course very true thus we find that the many religions in this universe often have connections with religions that we find in the world today but very much modified and sometimes even combined with each other there is an quote unquote official state religion of the Jun Galaxy you could say one that is a combination of many different Traditions that we know in the real world this religion is based primarily on a scripture called the Orange Catholic Bible which as we said aims to create a kind of concordance or synthesis of some of the most prominent religions in the older world and when we take a look at these different religions from the old world so to say we find a whole collection of familiar names that have been combined left and right these old religious Traditions include Nava Christianity buddhis Islam Mahayana Christianity and Zen Sunni Catholicism while the Theology of this religion of the orange Catholic Bible isn't necessarily explored in any great detail at least as far as I know uh there seems to be a belief in some sort of uh Trinity adjacent god um which is sort of androgynous or doesn't have gender less and which carries names like Buddha law and great mother very important to the orange Catholic Bible and the general culture of the Galaxy is also something called the ban Jihad this was an event where thinking machines so AI or robots had risen up against humans the humans were then forced to fight back to destroy all these machines in a kind of crusade or a Jihad this had major impacts on the later culture which generally forbade the creation of any thinking machines this becomes a very important theme in the orange Catholic Bible where one of the key principles is that quote Thou shalt not create a machine in the likeness of a human mind thus in an interesting way June also explores question of a eye and Consciousness as well as their consequences and implications but aside from this official religion of the Galactic Empire different peoples of course have particular traditions of their own too in terms of the Fran which are so Central to The Wider story and of course to our discussion today the very complex story and lore of this people tells us that they are descendants of a people called the Zenni the Zenni originated on Earth as an offshoot of a religion connected to Islam basically this can of course be heard in the second part of the name Sunni and to simplify greatly the Zen Sunni is a religious group that is very Islamic in nature but with certain features of Zen Buddhism the Lord tells us that this group of people wandered around or were moved around between different planets across history before eventually arriving on arus where they evolved into what is known as the freman and even at this point these strongly Islamic character and features of the fman religion can clearly be seen we have already for example explore their ideas of the m and the and there's also a mystical aspect to the fman spirituality that at least to me has clear parallels to Sufism the so-called Reverend mothers or seers of this culture the so-called sadas have the ability to contain within themselves the memories of all previous sadas by drinking the Water of Life which is a substance taken from the blood of the sand worms on arus they can access something called the this is another Arabic term and a very common aspect or theme within Sufism it translates to something like the world of similitudes or likeness or sometimes also the imaginal world another word often used for the same concept is which means literally the the world of imagination or the something the world of the isas the world of the in between particularly in famous Sufi Mystics likei the is a very important term that denotes a kind of intermediary World between the physical world and the spiritual this is often the world that is the source of mystical and spiritual Insight It Is by accessing this world of imagination that Mystics have visions for instance this doctrine of imagination so important to thinkers like IB Arabi was famously written WR about extensively by Andre kban in the early to mid 20th century and it seems to me likely that Herbert got these ideas from sources like Coran the AL in June is explained as a quote mystical world where all physical limitations are removed and it is accessed by the M which gives him his prophetic powers and Visions or his ability to see into the future for instance the fman believe that each person has something called the r spirit that it's always rooted in the Adam and methal and is able to access it so to say I don't even think I have to mention that this concept is also deeply Islamic the r or spirit is often considered the deepest part of the human being breathed into Adam by God in the Quran and which often stands in contrast to the so-called nefs or lower self that should be fought against and conquered then is sometimes translated as the ego so these often stand in opposition to each other that we have a NFS an outer a lower self or ego that we that is dangerous that seeks uh Power and and money and fame and all these things in the world the ego that we are to to to fight against but then at the very core of our being there's there is the spirit the r which is connected more directly to the Divine world right so this this these two aspects of ourselves one which is mostly destructive and one that is more Divine is an important Concept in Sufi metaphysics uh and and so the um not just in Sufi metaphysics it's important in Islam generally the idea of the r of the spirit is Central to to Islamic Theology and to abrahamic theology really um and that it is very interesting that this word shows up in this way also connected to the adamal in the June Universe while the freman religion is essentially a continuation of the so-called Zenni religion that they originated from it is said that they also adapted certain uh folk beliefs uh that were related to their home of arus for example the Great Sand worms of the planet the so-called Shai hulud are seen by the Fran as a kind of manifestation of God also called the demiurge and they play an important role in their culture again terms like the Demi urge will be familiar to viewers of this Channel or those familiar with platonism and gnosticism the characteristic blue eyes of the fman are also called The Eyes of ibba ibad being another Arabic word which means worship basically this might be a reference to the iadi branch of Islam or it could be just a more generic reference to to the word for for worship the fman also have a kind of religious scripture a kind of manual for how to survive on arus called theab this book contains their which means knowledge as well as and sh this in the Islamic context means jurist prudence and law basically basically theab is also the name of a famous work by the Muslim historian and Scholar IB khun dealing with history and Berber culture or amazia culture it seems likely that Herbert based his quote unquote fan Bible on this book and was also inspired by the sociological theories and ideas ofal in that book the introduction of which ala is one of the most famous writings in the history of the Islamic world but the story of the Fran is ESS one of manipulation they are constantly being manipulated by outside sources including their strong belief in the Mahi and the most significant of these forces is another key group in the June Universe the benzer the bener is a kind of race or order that covertly controls a lot of the events in the Galaxy they are at the center of the events of the June books scheming from the Shadows these benzar have an ability called the other memory which allows them to know the memories of all other female Benz before them the male Benz had this ability once too but they lost it and this becomes important for their activities in the Galaxy you see one of their main goals is to create something called the Quadra I totally pronounced that completely correctly uh and they want to control this um person through controlled breeding this kitak is to be a male benzer that has the powers of the other memory thus unlocking half of their history that had been lost with the males and gain all the power that comes with that for this reason among others the benzer are involved with spreading religious beliefs and myths to various populations in the Galaxy including the freman in order to control them this is a clear theme in Herbert's book that religion can be very dangerous and destructive when it is used to control people and to some degree this is of course true religion is an incredibly powerful factor in the psychological and sociological aspects of human life and can Inspire powerful beliefs and resulting actions both for good and bad and the Benny jzr is the very embodiment of this control through religion theme It Is by spreading the beliefs of a coming Messiah or Mahi among their F and peoples that they can gain control once they quad sort of appears as that Messiah and of course in Dune Paul M Adib is of course identified as that very person but some of the features of the Benz also have very interesting parallels I've heard some people say that they were inspired by Catholicism to some degree but I have a hard time seeing any at least any clear parallels between those two um if any of you have insights into that and feel free to leave a comment and and sort of uh let me know there but for example the Benes go through a kind of training where they learn to control their nerves and muscles their body to withstand pain for instance and this training is known as pranab Bindu which has a clear connection to Hinduism and indic religious Traditions Prana literally means breath in Sanskrit and is used across Hindu Traditions to mean a kind of life force that permeates all things including the human body the school of yoga for example sees Prana as an important aspect that is controlled to create balance of this life force in the body for instance Bindu is a more complex term it literally means a spot or a DOT sometimes a drop and in a metaphysical sense it can mean the singular point from which all things are created and return the unity that is at the core of all multiplicity in mandalas for example the middle point of that mandala is often called the Bindu a according to the junan wiki in the context of the Benes it seems to be used in a sense where one trains to achieve Mastery over the body through energy points these points being the the Bindu I guess this of course reminds us also of the system of chakras in Hindu Traditions which is also strongly related to the Pana and how One controls this life force throughout these um energy uh channels in in the body so as you can see the Dune universe is absolutely packed with references and commentaries on religion as it exists in the real world from exploring how religions evolve over time and often combine and influence each other to clear Islamic and Sufi themes in the religion of the freman and all the other religions and religious themes across the books and the movies not to mention that a huge part of the Thematic core of the whole story deals precisely with religion Superstition and how these things can become a powerful tool of political control I'm so happy that the new films by VNV are so good like how good was that second movie uh that more people will become interested and intrigued by this really really interesting fictional universe and all these themes that are included within it thank you as always to all my patrons who support this channel monetarily uh all of this is thanks to you and I am forever humbly thankful and grateful for all of your support I would highly appreciate if anyone else wanted to become a patreon I will leave links to that in the description you can also support the channel by leaving a one-time donation on PayPal don't forget that there is a let's talk religion podcast which exists everywhere that you find your podcast if you want to listen to these episodes while you're on the go uh you can also find me and my music and my other work on social media on Instagram on Tik Tok uh and so on uh I also have a second Channel called phip Palm that is dedicated primarily to my music and music content of different sorts so similar content to here these kinds of uh lectures and documentary style stuff but more focused on music and and music topics right so check that out and go subscribe to that channel for now I hope you found this an interesting uh sort of dive into the universe of June and The Many religious themes that exist within it I I I am I've been so fascinated by this universe for a long time and I'm again I'm really excited about these new movies that really bring that Universe to life in such a beautiful and fascinating way so thank you all for watching um look forward to more content like this let me know if you want me to tackle other fictional universes and religion within those universes until then I'll see you next [Music] time