The entire process initially required a period of renunciation and detachment during which the initiate became as a vessel wherein transformation of self was precondition to later stages and requirements. As in the early training of a B.G., consciousness of base reality would be transformed into apprehension of the Absolute, so in the later and final training the poisons would be purified into liquid knowing. Like a prehistoric alchemist whose mission it was to transmute base material into pure gold, so the Reverend Mother would quest in the common labyrinths of the spirit for the incorruptible substance which she alone could transmute into new form. And only she who would be Reverend Mother could behold what was to others concealed. The complex ceremonial actions involved in transforming the mundane into the sanctified, the poison into the pure, symbolized the right of guardianship.
The rituals of induction for a Reverend Mother constituted a battle between self and its long-held territory (which would resist any incursions), and the transcendental Self (which could expect to be rebuffed and abused). But by persistence and will the corrupt self would lose ground. The spiritual repository of generations and millennia would grow stronger and harder to dislodge as the ceremony advanced. Conclusively, the territory of character would replace the ground of the other. There it would stand unchallenged by onslaughts from without since the fierce inner strife had been resolved. The sacred field that remained was inviolate, all spiritual perception growing there. These final trials of transformation show a Reverend Mother in the act of creating self, a spiritual eye opening on to the infinite and eternal plateau. In the stillness through which all movement is possible, she could then see the connection of all things in one unending stream.
Excerpts from the Seated Sermones corroborate the five ordinances and the levels of accomplishment the aspirant to Elect status had achieved: service for its sake alone; surrender of self to the cause; obedience in behalf of mission; challenging the unknown; converting the dread into the blessed.4
The supreme difficulties inherent in achieving these goals is attested to in the journals, diaries and private correspondence of those submitting themselves to the test. Moreover, though the annotated Sanctae Vitae5 records only the history and genealogy of the Order of Reverend Mothers, the Holy Dialogs adds to these more personal experiences of the early group of Reverend Mothers.6 All sources lead credence to the supposition that a Reverend Mother was the rallying point for unity in diversity. She was to represent a meeting ground of various realities, a union of finite and infinite. She was to participate in the communal life and by so doing impart to it sacramental meaning and significance. She could encompass the All-changing and the Changeless One and thus become the resting place of the paradox of existence. Through her being, she would reconcile that paradox into a comprehensible and acceptable vision.
But first the Reverend Mother had herself to engage in a struggle for enlightened consciousness. This struggle was often characterized as the Lucius Duorum, in which her worldly and flawed spirit entered into fierce combat with the awakened consciousness and the Spirit of Reality.7 In the struggle, the flawed spirit sought to hold itself together against the fixed and immutable center of true Reality. Disintegration challenged integration with now one, now the other, alternating in moves for control. Illusion was seen as an adroit trickster, but Reality's constant light exposed every feint and dodge; and finally, through the power of Will, Reality won through. Only then could She become a center of spiritual direction, the guide and guardian, the tutor and superintendent, the vessel of communion with the Absolute in behalf of the unknowable.
The journal of the Reverend Mother Edda Josefa contains a dramatic account of her early experiences on the way to transcendental perception:
I found that though I would practice the exercises of self-exorcism, of discipline and control of will so as to overcome weak resolve, I was afflicted with the petty intrusions of self's sorrow, overtures of vanity and ambition, and the temptation to self-preservation. Holding on to self as cosmic center, like a sun around which attendant bodies turn, is the most insidious of illusions. But then I found I could summon courage to unveil that imposter self. I closed my eyes and turned inside, with all the power of my concentration, to a vision of ascending steps leading to light that at once enfolded me and led me to my return. My spirit remained in the heart of that light; my heart and my mind were made new and free. I now possessed within what I had sought elsewhere. I had come to understand the distance between dutiful piety and obedience, and intuition and acceptance of the Reality and the Uncreated Light. I was now ready to take up my office.8
A similar entry in the Holy Dialogs documents the experience of Reverend Mother Averginna Rellim, who described the process of becoming immune to the phenomenal world so as to intensify consciousness of a more perfect reality. The life of the senses, she found, took over the proper place of intuition:
My energy had been too much directed to self-regard and vain and idle thought. Henceforth, I would dedicate my will and detach myself from illusion so that I might work the wonders of Reality within myself. I dedicated my active thoughts and thoughtful actions to disinterested service stripped of self-regard. So will faithful discipline afford me the freedom of consciousness I seek.9
Many other such testimonials are contained in the Liber Ricarim, which purports to chronicle the early experiences of those Reverend Mothers whose lives should serve as an example. The Reverend Mother Lucilla Godyar, for example, was able to recount her first vision, that of an open door through which she could see, on the other side, the eternity of Reality. It was, she reported, like a linked chain of endless being contained in perfumed light. She knew she stood on the threshold of cosmic consciousness. But before she could cross that threshold, she was restrained by a vision of herself as a single candle dwarfed by the sun. In this terrifying moment, she was to foresee the awesome path of humility and self-surrender, of denial and repentance, of pain and solitude, that she would have to traverse on her way to crossing the threshold. "I was to come to know the poisons; and if I endured, then I would also know how to control and direct them," she concluded.10
In all cases, the objective of enhanced powers of intellectual vision of clairvoyance was, for each Reverend Mother, to uncover the "human." The essence of the meaning of "human," they believed, would open itself as a manifold creation exposing layer upon layer down to its beating heart. It is this essence that a Reverend Mother had first to discover in her Self, testing and probing the outer layers of illusion, vanity, and fear.
The diary of a founding Reverend Mother, Augusta Cserna, detailed her vision of the human, and the quest she and her sisters were committed to carrying on. It reads, in part:
I could, at once, see the eternal generation of all living things, and the origin of the world in the womb of the Great Mother. Therein, like a flower of infinite layering was all Creation — the changeless and the changing, the infernal and external, the spirit and the flesh, the essence and the existence. The light shown over the endless space of Time, as being and non-being wrestled with each other for supremacy. The puny resistance of the ever-changing will-to-become was pitted against the perfect form of the immutably fixed.
What monstrous collisions I foresaw then. The obedient, coldly efficient minions of the dark and the scattered but passionate protectors of the flame; the flame from which only the truly human can pierce the secret heart of the All.
Through the flame I could see back to Mother Jehanne for whom ALL was a vision of the possible, and forward to Mother Jessica whose destiny and mission it shall be to embody forth and preserve all human treasure. The long line between, like a golden thread yoking them together, is an unbroken series of clasped hands dedicated to this purpose: that the quest for the imperishable human spirit shall be an eternal hunger fed by discipline, by patience, by devotion, by sacrifice, and by love."11
NOTES
1R.M. Lepidus Eileen Gwarren, ed., Athanor Proctrices, tr. Zhaiva Gan, Bene Gesserit F
ound. Stud. 5 (Diana: Tevis); p. 179.
2R.M. Varrus Deborah Lommis, Exerci Animae, tr. K.L. Maur, Bene Gesserit Found. Stud. 1 (Diana: Tevis), p. 5.
3Ruuvars Shaigal, ed., Fundamentals of the Way: A Bene Gesserit Mental Exercise Book (Grumman: Lodni), p. 78.
4Juusepiin Kazagrando, ed., Sancti Sermones (Work-in-Progress, Arrakis Studies Temp. Ser. 44 Lib. Conf.), p. 72.
5R.M. Claudius Amarylla Sernovik, Sanctae Vitae, Rakis Ref. Cat. 4-BG779.
6Rakis Ref. Cat. 2-BG 3869, Area 16.
7Shaigal, pp. 45-57.
8R.M. Gaius Edda Josefa, Journal, Rakis Ref. Cat. 1-BG2110.
9Rakis Ref. Cat. 2-BG3869, Area 24.
10Liber Ricarim, tr. Zhana Feliin, Bene Gesserit Found. Stud. 4 (Diana: Tevis), p. 89.
11R.M. Augusta Cserna, The Diary of a Bene Gesserit, tr. Virlin Loke (Centralia: Kutath Brothers), pp. 194-95.
G.E.
Further reference: BENE GESSERIT entries.
RICHESE
The fourth planet of the system of Eridani A: diameter at equator 55,000 kilometers; 60% land area, freshwater lakes 5%, salt oceans 35%. Polar ice normal; mean annual temperature 180°, average low 2°, average high 29°. Planet rich in minerals and metallic ores; sole source in seventeen sectors of Gallanium, used extensively in micro-miniaturization. Planet serves as manufacturing center for Ix. Capital: Lugdunum. Present population: c. 2,000,000,000.
Richese is the planet which spawned the Butlerian Jihad. The rebels from Komos, rising against the domination of their larger industrialized neighbor, discovered on Richese a society designed by self-programming and self-reproducing computers acting in concert with a few thousand technicians and scientists. The alternations in the temperament and intelligence of the population, combined with the mutational experiments which had produced human beings unrecognizable as members of the species, transformed a rebellion into a jihad.
After the Jihad departed Richese, the planet was deserted for almost two and a half centuries. Beginning in the middle of the second century B.G. the inhabitants of Ix (formerly Komos) began to exploit the resources of Richese for manufacture of various technological products. With the conclusion of the arrangement between Ix and the Imperium during the reign of Saudir I, Ix and Richese were left isolated, and became suppliers to the Imperium of what technology would be used for the next ten millennia and more. Shortly after their agreement, Richese was colonized by an expedition from Ix. The population of Richese was continually controlled by Ix throughout the period of the Imperium and during the reign of Leto II. Even now it is only approximately forty percent of the pre-Butlerian Jihad level.
Further references: IX; THE BUTLERIAN JIHAD; BUTLER, JEHANNE.
RIDULIAN CRYSTALS
The first person to successfully produce a crystalline form of ridulite was Jams Rondel, an Ixian scientist specializing in crystalliform research. Rondel had been seeking a process which would permit him to crystallize the durable and highly reflective substance as part of a top-secret research project: the Ixians wished to learn to manufacture a physical shield which would protect its user from a lasgun attack. (The secrecy of the project is more easily understood when it is recalled that the God Emperor banned personal shields during the first years of his reign, and limited possession of lasguns to members of the royal military at the end of his first century on the throne.) When Rondel finally announced, in 10937, that he had discovered the proper combination of solvents and temperatures required to manufacture ridulian crystals, he was forced to temper the good news with bad. The crystals, though even tougher than their parent substance and divisible into sheets of amazing thinness, darkened when exposed to bright light. Striking a shield made of ridulian crystal with a lasgun beam would render it opaque and useless within seconds.
The discovery was better received by his superiors than Rondel had dared to hope. Rather than shunting him off onto another project, they ordered him to continue working with the crystals, with particular emphasis on producing the thinnest possible sheets without sacrificing any of the material's strength and durability.
The result of this new direction of research was ridulian crystal paper which Rondel first exhibited in 10938. Only several molecules thick, the paper was capable of withstanding temperature extremes from — 103° K to + 1700° K with no change in structure; it was as durable as a much thicker sheet of gold leaf and much harder; and it would turn a rich, dark purple when struck by a beam of coherent light (while maintaining its off-white clarity in light of any other sort).
Once it was certain that Rondel had produced what was needed, he was informed of his creation's purpose. The first dictatel had been built in 10936, intended as a gift to Leto II, whose habit of keeping comprehensive journals was already known. The Ixians wished to provide him with a means of keeping a longer-lasting record, and to secure for themselves the God Emperor's continuing favor and tacit approval of their "forbidden" research. But they had been stymied by their failure to come up with a truly imperishable recording medium. Ridulian crystal paper solved their problem handily; the dictatel was adopted to "write" with coherent light and presented to Leto.
Jarris Rondel was awarded high honors by the Ixian Council of Scientists and given far more spacious quarters in which to continue his research. The reputation of his invention far outlived that of its inventor, however, and the many generations of Ixians who acted as stationers to the God Emperor would have been at a loss to name him.
C.W.
Further references: DICTATEL; ATREIDES, LETO II, JOURNALS OF; Alan Bartke, Survey of Ixian Technology, 10900-13500 (Finally: Mosaic).
RYA WOLVES
Found only on Salusa Secundus, these insatiable predators were among the most fearsome naturally evolved creatures known to humankind. They represented one of the main ecological checks on that planet, keeping weaker lifeforms — including humans — from becoming too numerous. An adult wolf could bring down a full-grown ganja.
The average male of the species had a shoulder height of 1.5 meters; the female, only slightly less. Weights ranged from 50 to 60 kilos, making the animals sleek and devoid of excess fat. Bursts of speed in excess of 95 kmph by hunting females had been reported, while the average traveling speed of a pack without young was estimated at somewhat less than half that figure.
Pups — born after a gestation period of four Standard months — were capable of seeing and walking easily within two hours of their birth, and within four weeks could bring down their own food (generally the smaller ground animals). Only this rapid development allowed their survival in the harsh ecosystem of Salusa Secundus, and a sixty percent mortality rate was still the norm.
If they survived, the young wolves underwent a color change from their light gray (at birth) through dun to a deep brown coat at maturity. Rya wolf fur was extremely glossy and much valued in fashionable society.
The species' origin is not known with certainty. They may have evolved from a smaller, less fierce species, the Valye wolves, but the theory has yet to be proven. It is certain, however, that Rya wolves were known — and feared — on Salusa Secundus as early as 4492 when the Zensunni Wanderers were taken to that planet. Fremen records accounting for that time indicate that their people suffered a substantial number of losses to the wolves during their first generation on the prison planet.
House Corrino was known to have made several attempts to export Rya wolves to their various holdings for use as sentinels, but they were not successful. Trial and error showed that the wolves sickened and died on milder planets, and all such efforts were abandoned.
It was precisely this inability to adapt which led to the species's extinction. Following the exile of Shaddam IV (the last Corrino emperor) to Salusa Secundus, Emperor Paul Muad'Dib Atreides ordered the placement of weather satellites and other climate-modifying devices around that world. In the gentler environment these modifications induced, the Rya wolves could not survive.
C.W.
Further references: SALUSA SECU
NDUS.
S
SALUSA SECUNDUS: AS A PRISON PLANET
The expansion of the Corrino Empire was achieved through means that stopped short of annihilation of the conquered, resulting in a large and steady stream of prisoners of war, refugees, and the discontented. Saudir al-Harkonnen III (r. 388-389), who usurped the throne at the end of the Lishash Confederation's rebellion, faced the problem of dealing with the prisoners-of-war his predecessor, the Regent Henli al-Qair I, had spared. Saudir III reigned for only a year, yet his designation of Salusa Secundus as a prison planet proved so expedient that the practice was later continued.
Saudir's motive was not humanitarian: he reasoned that Salusa Secundus was a cheap executioner. The first penal colonies on the planet were concentration camps providing only the barest necessities. Their populations consisted of people of every age and walk of life, but mostly of soldiers, with a sprinkling of civic leaders, merchants, academicians, and clerics. They were generally hardy, as they needed to be to deal with the Salusan weather, and were buffered from the planet's marauding tribes by the Sardaukar.
Wallach I (r. 362-369, 390-416, 451-453), when restored to the throne after the assassination of Saudir III on New Year's Day, 390, decided to use the penal colony as an experimental laboratory. He knew the prisoners would not long survive if exposed to the depredations of the native tribes. But what if they were given weapons and training? Those who managed to carve out a niche would not be abandoned, but used. Since economy was an important part of effective rule, why waste even prisoners if they might eventually be of service to the emperor?
The Dune Encyclopedia Page 94