In Frank Herbert's fictional Dune universe, Kwisatz Haderach (pronounced /ˈkwɪsɑːts ˈhɑːdəræk/[1]) is a term which refers to a prophesied messiah and superbeing. In the series, the Bene Gesserit, a matriarchal secret society, hope to create a male who can survive the deadly ritual spice agony that changes a capable female acolyte into a Reverend Mother. A female Bene Gesserit is limited:
She ... was confronted immediately with a cellular core, a pit of blackness from which she recoiled. That is the place where we cannot look, she thought. There is the place the Reverend Mothers are so reluctant to mention — the place where only a Kwisatz Haderach may look.[2]
The Sisterhood theorize that such a male would possess absolute prescience, seeing all possible futures thus being able to cause select threads of time to be realized through manipulation. The Bene Gesserit intend to use their Kwisatz Haderach to make their order more powerful than the other factions within the Old Empire.
In the texts, Herbert also refers to the Kwisatz Haderach as "the one who can be many places at once." The phrase "Kwisatz Haderach" bears close resemblance to the Hebrew phrase "Kefitzat Haderech" (literally: "The Way's Jump"), a Kabbalic term related to teleportation. Herbert provides the following definition in Terminology of the Imperium, the glossary of the 1965 novel Dune:
KWISATZ HADERACH: "Shortening of the Way." This is the label applied by the Bene Gesserit to the unknown for which they sought a genetic solution: a male Bene Gesserit whose organic mental powers would bridge space and time.[3]
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The Bene Gesserit breeding program had been conducted for centuries to preserve important bloodlines, but with the Kwisatz Haderach as its primary goal. A product of the program herself, Lady Jessica, concubine to the Duke Leto Atreides, had been instructed to bear him a daughter, but no sons. This daughter was to be wed to Feyd-Rautha, nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and heir to House Harkonnen, healing the generations-old rift between House Atreides and House Harkonnen. Their son would be the Bene Gesserit's long-awaited Kwisatz Haderach. However, Jessica fell in love with Leto, and produced for him the son he desired: Paul Atreides.
As Dune begins, the Sisterhood is still furious over Jessica's insubordination; the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Jessica's former instructor, confronts her:
"You were told to bear only daughters to the Atreides."
"It meant so much to him," Jessica pleaded.
"And you in your pride thought you could produce the Kwisatz Haderach!"
Jessica lifted her chin. "I sensed the possibility."
"You thought only of your Duke's desire for a son," the old woman snapped. "And his desires don't figure in this. An Atreides daughter could've been wed to a Harkonnen heir and sealed the breach. You've hopelessly complicated matters. We may lose both bloodlines now."
And yet Mohiam is somewhat intrigued by the potential she sees in 15-year old Paul. Unknown to them at first, Paul is indeed the Kwisatz Haderach, a generation earlier than expected. After later surviving the spice agony himself, Paul further explains the divide between the female Reverend Mother and the male Kwisatz Haderach:
There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it's almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed ... The greatest peril to the Giver is the force that takes. The greatest peril to the Taker is the force that gives. It's as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking ... I'm at the fulcrum ... I cannot give without taking and I cannot take without ...[2]
Unprepared for his early arrival, the Bene Gesserit fail to control the young man as planned; by seizing control of the planet Arrakis and the all-important spice melange, Paul manages to seize control of the Known Universe. The very superbeing for whom the Bene Gesserit had schemed and waited becomes the instrument by which their order is diminished.
In Dune Messiah (1969) and Children of Dune (1976), Paul and his Empire set the Imperium on a course that will ultimately last thousands of years. Much to the frustration of the Bene Gesserit, they do not control Paul or his son, Leto Atreides II, also a Kwisatz Haderach, and even their breeding program is taken from them. Jessica's infraction becomes notorious to the Sisterhood; in the coming centuries, for a Bene Gesserit to choose her love over the instructions of her order is known as "the Jessica Crime."
Leto II becomes effectively immortal by transforming into a sandworm hybrid, and oppresses humanity during his 3,500 year reign. The Bene Gesserit are subsequently terrified of accidentally producing another Kwisatz Haderach. They believe that being able to see the future fixes the future along a certain path; to avoid this, the Bene Gesserit provoke the Honored Matres into destroying most of the remnants of Leto II, whose prescience had locked the human race into such a fixed path. The Bene Gesserit also kill a number of offspring of the Atreides line in order to prevent another Kwisatz Haderach from controlling their destiny ever again.
In Dune Messiah, the Face Dancer Scytale reveals that the Bene Tleilax "once bred a kwisatz haderach of our own." When asked how this individual was "overcome," he notes that "A creature who has spent his life creating one particular representation of his selfdom will die rather than become the antithesis of that representation." Mohiam realizes that the Kwisatz Haderach had committed suicide.
In Sandworms of Dune (2007) (written by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson), Duncan Idaho is revealed to be the final Kwisatz Haderach destined to bring together humans and thinking machines. While he is not a product of a breeding program, his multiple rebirths and deaths as a ghola throughout the series had given him the opportunity to gain experience and develop himself as no other human could. After the Oracle of Time banishes Omnius to an alternate dimension, Erasmus shares all his knowledge with Duncan, making Duncan the new evermind of the Synchronized Empire as well as the Kwisatz Haderach of the humans.
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