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diff --git a/local/share/fortune/children-of-dune b/local/share/fortune/children-of-dune deleted file mode 100644 index a543071..0000000 --- a/local/share/fortune/children-of-dune +++ /dev/null @@ -1,614 +0,0 @@ -Muad'Dib's teachings have become the playground of scholastics, of the -superstitious and the corrupt. He taught a balanced way of life, a philosophy -with which a human can meet problems arising from an ever-changing universe. -He said humankind is still evolving, in a process which will never end. -He said this evolution moves on changing principles which are known only -to eternity. How can corrupted reasoning play with such an essence? - - -- Words of the Mentat Duncan Idaho -% - CHALLENGE: "Have you seen The Preacher?" - RESPONSE: "I have seen a sandworm." - CHALLENGE: "What about that sandworm?" - RESPONSE: "It gives us the air we breathe." - CHALLENGE: "Then why do we destroy its land?" - RESPONSE: "Because Shai-Hulud [sandworm deified] orders it." - - -- Riddles of Arrakis by Harq al-Ada -% - The sietch at the desert's rim - Was Liet's, was Kynes's, - Was Stilgar's, was Muad'Dib's - And, once more, was Stilgar's. - The Naibs one by one sleep in the sand, - But the sietch endures. - - -- from a Fremen song -% -melange (me'-lange also ma,lanj) n-s, origin uncertain (thought to derive from -ancient Terran Franzh): a. mixture of spices; b. spice of Arrakis (Dune) with -geriatric properties first noted by Yanshuph Ashkoko, royal chemist in reign of -Shakkad the Wise; Arrakeen melange, found only in deepest desert sands of -Arrakis, linked to prophetic visions of Paul Muad'Dib (Atreides), first Fremen -Mahdi; also employed by Spacing Guild Navigators and the Bene Gesserit. - - -- Dictionary Royal fifth edition -% -The Fremen must return to his original faith, to his genius in forming human -communities; he must return to the past, where that lesson of survival was -learned in the struggle with Arrakis. The only business of the Fremen should be -that of opening his soul to the inner teachings. The worlds of the Imperium, -the Landsraad and the CHOAM Confederacy have no message to give him. -They will only rob him of his soul. - - -- The Preacher at Arrakeen -% -I give you the desert chameleon, whose ability to blend itself into the -background tells you all you need to know about the roots of ecology -and the foundations of a personal identity. - - -- Book of Diatribes from the Hayt Chronicle -% -The Universe is God's. It is one thing, a wholeness against which all -separations may be identified. Transient life, even that self-aware and -reasoning life which we call sentient, holds only fragile trusteeship on any -portion of the wholeness. - - -- Commentaries from the C.E.T. (Commission of Ecumenical Translators) -% -And I beheld another beast coming up out of the sand; and he had two horns like -a lamb, but his mouth was fanged and fiery as the dragon and his body shimmered -and burned with great heat while it did hiss like the serpent. - - -- Revised Orange Catholic Bible -% -It is commonly reported, my dear Georad, that there exists great natural -virtue in the melange experience. Perhaps this is true. There remain within -me, however, profound doubts that every use of melange always brings virtue. -Me seems that certain persons have corrupted the use of melange in defiance -of God. In the words of the Ecumenon, they have disfigured the soul. -They skim the surface of melange and believe thereby to attain grace. -They deride their fellows, do great harm to godliness, and they distort -the meaning of this abundant gift maliciously, surely a mutilation beyond -the power of man to restore. To be truly at one with the virtue of the spice, -uncorrupted in all ways, full of goodly honor, a man must permit his deeds and -his words to agree. When your actions describe a system of evil consequences, -you should be judged by those consequences and not by your explanations. -It is thus that we should judge Muad'Dib. - - -- The Pedant Heresy -% -Either we abandon the long-honored Theory of Relativity, or we cease to -believe that we can engage in continued accurate prediction of the future. -Indeed, knowing the future raises a host of questions which cannot be answered -under conventional assumptions unless one first projects an Observer outside of -Time and, second, nullifies all movement. If you accept the Theory of Relativity, -it can be shown that Time and the Observer must stand still in relationship to -each or inaccuracies will intervene. This would seem to say that it is -impossible to engage in accurate prediction of the future. How, then, do we -explain the continued seeking after this visionary goal by respected scientists? -How, then, do we explain Muad'Dib? - - -- Lectures on Prescience by Harq al-Ada -% -I hear the wind blowing across the desert and I see the moons of a winter night -rising tike great ships in the void. To them I make my vow: I will be resolute -and make an art of government; I will balance my inherited past and become a -perfect storehouse of my relic memories. And I will be known for kindliness -more than for knowledge. My face will shine down the corridors of time for as -long as humans exist. - - -- Leto's Vow, After Harq al-Ada -% -These are illusions of popular history which a successful religion must -promote: Evil men never prosper; only the brave deserve the fair; honesty is -the best policy; actions speak louder than words; virtue always triumphs; a -good deed is its own reward; any bad human can be reformed; religious talismans -protect one from demon possession; only females understand the ancient -mysteries; the rich are doomed to unhappiness . . . - - -- From the Instruction Manual: Missionaria Protectiva -% -A sophisticated human can become primitive. What this really means is that the -human's way of life changes. Old values change, become linked to the landscape -with its plants and animals. This new existence requires a working knowledge of -those multiplex and cross-linked events usually referred to as nature. -It requires a measure of respect for the inertial power within such natural -systems. When a human gains this working knowledge and respect, that is called -"being primitive." The converse, of course, is equally true: the primitive can -become sophisticated, but not without accepting dreadful psychological damage. - - -- The Leto Commentary, After Harq al-Ada -% -This was Muad'Dib's achievement: He saw the subliminal reservoir of each -individual as an unconscious bank of memories going back to the primal cell of -our common genesis. Each of us, he said, can measure out his distance from that -common origin. Seeing this and telling of it, he made the audacious leap of -decision. Muad'Dib set himself the task of integrating genetic memory into -ongoing evaluation. Thus did he break through Time's veils, making a single -thing of the future and the past. That was Muad'Dib's creation embodied in his -son and his daughter. - - -- Testament of Arrakis by Harq al-Ada -% -And he saw a vision of armor. The armor was not his own skin; it was stronger -than plasteel. Nothing penetrated his armor -- not knife or poison or sand, not -the dust of the desert or its desiccating heat. In his right hand he carried -the power to make the Coriolis storm, to shake the earth and erode it into -nothing. His eyes were fixed upon the Golden Path and in his left hand he -carried the scepter of absolute mastery. And beyond the Golden Path, his eyes -looked into eternity which he knew to be the food of his soul and of his -everlasting flesh. - - -- Heighia, My Brother's Dream from The Book of Ghanima -% -Atrocity is recognized as such by victim and perpetrator alike, by all who -learn about it at whatever remove. Atrocity has no excuses, no mitigating -argument. Atrocity never balances or rectifies the past. Atrocity merely arms -the future for more atrocity. It is self-perpetuating upon itself -- a -barbarous form of incest. Whoever commits atrocity also commits those future -atrocities thus bred. - - -- The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib -% -I will not argue with the Fremen claims that they are divinely inspired to -transmit a religious revelation, it is their concurrent claim to ideological -revelation which inspires me to shower them with derision. Of course, they make -the dual claim in the hope that it will strengthen their mandarinate and help -them to endure in a universe which finds them increasingly oppressive. -It is in the name of all those oppressed people that I warn the Fremen: -short-term expediency always fails in the long term. - - -- The Preacher at Arrakeen -% -The life of a single human, as the life of a family or an entire people, -persists as memory. My people must come to see this as part of their maturing -process. They are people as organism, and in this persistent memory they store -more and more experiences in a subliminal reservoir. Humankind hopes to call -upon this material if it is needed for a changing universe. But much that is -stored can be lost in that chance play of accident which we call "fate." -Much may not be integrated into evolutionary relationships, and thus may not -be evaluated and keyed into activity by those ongoing environmental changes -which inflict themselves upon flesh. The species can forget! This is the -special value of the Kwisatz Haderach which the Bene Gesserits never suspected: -the Kwisatz Haderach cannot forget. - - -- The Book of Leto, After Harq al-Ada -% -A Fremen dies when he is too long from the desert; this we call "the water -sickness." - - -- Stilgar, the Commentaries -% - You have loved Caladan - And lamented its lost host -- - But pain discovers - New lovers cannot erase - Those forever ghost. - - -- Refrain from The Habbanya Lament -% -The assumption that humans exist within an essentially impermanent universe, -taken as an operational precept, demands that the intellect become a totally -aware balancing instrument. But the intellect cannot react thus without -involving the entire organism. Such an organism may be recognized by its -burning, driving behavior. And thus it is with a society treated as organism. -But here we encounter an old inertia. Societies move to the goading of ancient, -reactive impulses. They demand permanence. Any attempt to display the universe -of impermanence arouses rejection patterns, fear, anger, and despair. Then how -do we explain the acceptance of prescience? Simply: the giver of prescient -visions, because he speaks of an absolute (permanent) realization, may be -greeted with joy by humankind even while predicting the most dire events. - - -- The Book of Leto, After Harq al-Ada -% -Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of -those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the -will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of -government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders. - - -- Law and Governance, The Spacing Guild Manual -% -This is the fallacy of power: ultimately it is effective only in an absolute, -a limited universe. But the basic lesson of our relativistic universe is that -things change. Any power must always meet a greater power. Paul Muad'Dib taught -this lesson to the Sardaukar on the Plains of Arrakeen. His descendants have -yet to learn the lesson for themselves. - - -- The Preacher at Arrakeen -% -When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that is according to -your principles; when I am stronger than you, I take away your freedom because -that is according to my principles. - - -- Words of an ancient philosopher (Attributed by Harq al-Ada to one Louis -Veuillot) -% -You Bene Gesserit call your activity of the Panoplia Prophetica a "Science of -Religion." Very well. I, a seeker after another kind of scientist, find this an -appropriate definition. You do, indeed, build your own myths, but so do all -societies. You I must warn, however. You are behaving as so many other -misguided scientists have behaved. Your actions reveal that you wish to take -something out of [away from] life. It is time you were reminded of that which -you so often profess: One cannot have a single thing without its opposite. - - -- The Preacher at Arrakeen: A Message to the Sisterhood -% -The universe is just there; that's the only way a Fedaykin can view it and -remain the master of his senses. The universe neither threatens nor promises. -It holds things beyond our sway: the fall of a meteor, the eruption of a -spiceblow, growing old and dying. These are the realities of this universe and -they must be faced regardless of how you feel about them. You cannot fend off -such realities with words. They will come at you in their own wordless way and -then, then you will understand what is meant by "life and death." -Understanding this, you will be filled with joy. - - -- Muad'Dib to his Fedaykin -% -It is said of Muad'Dib that once when he saw a weed trying to grow -between two rocks, he moved one of the rocks. Later, when the weed -was seen to be flourishing, he covered it with the remaining rock. -"That was its fate," he explained. - - -- The Commentaries -% -Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. -No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the -aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in -the interests of the ruling class -- whether that class be hereditary royalty, -oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy. - - -- Politics as Repeat Phenomenon: Bene Gesserit Training Manual -% -In this age when the means of human transport include devices which can span -the deeps of space in transtime, and other devices which can carry men swiftly -over virtually impassable planetary surfaces, it seems odd to think of -attempting long journeys afoot. Yet this remains a primary means of travel on -Arrakis, a fact attributed partly to preference and partly to the brutal -treatment which this planet reserves for anything mechanical. In the strictures -of Arrakis, human flesh remains the most durable and reliable resource for the -Hajj. Perhaps it is the implicit awareness of this fact which makes Arrakis the -ultimate mirror of the soul. - - -- Handbook of the Hajj -% -In all major socializing forces you will find an underlying movement to gain -and maintain power through the use of words. From witch doctor to priest to -bureaucrat it is all the same. A governed populace must be conditioned to -accept power-words as actual things, to confuse the symbolized system with the -tangible universe. In the maintenance of such a power structure, certain -symbols are kept out of the reach of common understanding -- symbols such as -those dealing with economic manipulation or those which define the local -interpretation of sanity. Symbol-secrecy of this form leads to the development -of fragmented sub-languages, each being a signal that its users are -accumulating some form of power. With this insight into a power process, our -Imperial Security Force must be ever alert to the formation of sub-languages. - - -- Lecture to the Arrakeen War College by, The Princess Irulan -% -The password was given to me by a man who died in the dungeons of Arrakeen. -You see, that is where I got this ring in the shape of a tortoise. -It was in the suk outside the city where I was hidden by the rebels. -The password? Oh, that has been changed many times since then. -It was "Persistence." And the countersign was "Tortoise." -It got me out of there alive. That's why I bought this ring: a reminder. - - -- Tagir Mohandis: Conversations with a Friend -% -I saw his blood and a piece of his robe which had been ripped by sharp claws. -His sister reports vividly of the tigers, the sureness of their attack. -We have questioned one of the plotters, and others are dead or in custody. -Everything points to a Corrino plot. A Truthsayer has attested to this testimony. - - -- Stilgar's Report to the Landsraad Commission -% -Above all else, the mentat must be a generalist, not a specialist. It is -wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and -specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nit -picking, the ferocious quibble over a comma. The mentat-generalist, on the -other hand, should bring to decision-making a healthy common sense. He must -not cut himself off from the broad sweep of what is happening in his universe. -He must remain capable of saying: "There's no real mystery about this at the -moment. This is what we want now. It may prove wrong later, but we'll correct -that when we come to it." The mentat-generalist must understand that anything -which we can identify as our universe is merely part of larger phenomena. -But the expert looks backward; he looks into the narrow standards of his own -specialty. The generalist looks outward; he looks for living principles, -knowing full well that such principles change, that they develop. It is to the -characteristics of change itself that the mentat-generalist must look. -There can be no permanent catalogue of such change, no handbook or manual. -You must look at it with as few preconceptions as possible, asking yourself: -"Now what is this thing doing?" - - -- The Mentat Handbook -% -The one-eyed view of our universe says you must not look far afield for -problems. Such problems may never arrive. Instead, tend to the wolf within -your fences. The packs ranging outside may not even exist. - - -- The Azhar Book; Shamra I:4 -% -Only in the realm of mathematics can you understand Muad'Dib's precise view of -the future. Thus: first, we postulate any number of point-dimensions in space. -(This is the classic n-fold extended aggregate of n dimensions.) With this -framework, Time as commonly understood becomes an aggregate of one-dimensional -properties. Applying this to the Muad'Dib phenomenon, we find that we either -are confronted by new properties of Time or (by reduction through the infinity -calculus) we are dealing with separate systems which contain n body properties. -For Muad'Dib, we assume the latter. As demonstrated by the reduction, the point -dimensions of the n-fold can only have separate existence within different -frameworks of Time. Separate dimensions of Time are thus demonstrated to -coexist. This being the inescapable case, Muad'Dib's predictions required that -he perceive the n-fold not as extended aggregate but as an operation within a -single framework. In effect, he froze his universe into that one framework -which was his view of Time. - - -- Palimbasha: Lectures at Sietch Tabr -% -We can still remember the golden days before Heisenberg, who showed humans -the walls enclosing our predestined arguments. The lives within me find this -amusing. Knowledge, you see, has no uses without purpose, but purpose is what -builds enclosing walls. - - -- Leto Atreides II, His Voice -% -If you believe certain words, you believe their hidden arguments. When you -believe something is right or wrong, true or false, you believe the assumptions -in the words which express the arguments. Such assumptions are often full of -holes, but remain most precious to the convinced. - - -- The Open-Ended Proof from, The Panoplia Prophetica -% -Because of the one-pointed Time awareness in which the conventional mind -remains immersed, humans tend to think of everything in a sequential, -word-oriented framework. This mental trap produces very short-term concepts of -effectiveness and consequences, a condition of constant, unplanned response to -crises. - - -- Liet-Kynes, The Arrakis Workbook -% -You will learn the integrated communication methods as you complete the next -step in your mentat education. This is a gestalten function which will overlay -data paths in your awareness, resolving complexities and masses of input from -the mentat index-catalogue techniques which you already have mastered. Your -initial problem will be the breaking tensions arising from the divergent -assembly of minutiae/data on specialized subjects. Be warned. Without mentat -overlay integration, you can be immersed in the Babel Problem, which is the -label we give to the omnipresent dangers of achieving wrong combinations from -accurate information. - - -- The Mentat Handbook -% - O Paul, thou Muad'Dib, - Mahdi of all men, - Thy breath exhaled - Sent forth the hurricane. - - -- Songs of Muad'Dib -% -Many forces sought control of the Atreides twins and, when the death of -Leto was announced, this movement of plot and counterplot was amplified. -Note the relative motivations: the Sisterhood feared Alia, an adult Abomination, -but still wanted those genetic characteristics carried by the Atreides. -The Church hierarchy of Auqaf and Hajj saw only the power implicit in control of -Muad'Dib's heir. CHOAM wanted a doorway to the wealth of Dune. Farad'n and his -Sardaukar sought a return to glory for House Corrino. The Spacing Guild feared -the equation Arrakis = melange; without the spice they could not navigate. -Jessica wished to repair what her disobedience to the Bene Gesserit had created. -few thought to ask the twins what their plans might be, until it was too late. - - -- The Book of Kreos -% -There is no guilt or innocence in you. All of that is past. Guilt belabors the -dead and I am not the Iron Hammer. You multitude of the dead are merely people -who have done certain things, and the memory of those things illuminates my path. - - -- Leto II to His Memory-Lives, After Harq al-Ada -% -Humankind periodically goes through a speedup of its affairs, thereby -experiencing the race between the renewable vitality of the living and the -beckoning vitiation of decadence. In this periodic race, any pause becomes -luxury. Only then can one reflect that all is permitted; all is possible. - - -- The Apocrypha of Muad'Dib -% -Natural selection has been described as an environment selectively screening -for those who will have progeny. Where humans are concerned, though, this is an -extremely limiting viewpoint. Reproduction by sex tends toward experiment and -innovation. It raises many questions, including the ancient one about whether -environment is a selective agent after the variation occurs, or whether -environment plays a pre-selective role in determining the variations which it -screens. Dune did not realty answer those questions: it merely raised new -questions which Leto and the Sisterhood may attempt to answer over the next -five hundred generations. - - -- The Dune Catastrophe, After Harq al-Ada -% - One small bird has called thee - From a beak streaked crimson. - It cried once over Sietch Tabr - And thou went forth unto Funeral Plain. - - -- Lament for Leto II -% -Peace demands solutions, but we never reach living solutions; we only work -toward them. A fixed solution is, by definition, a dead solution. The trouble -with peace is that it tends to punish mistakes instead of rewarding brilliance. - - -- The Words of My Father: an account of Muad'Dib reconstructed by Harq al-Ada -% -This rocky shrine to the skull of a ruler grants no prayers. It has become -the grave of lamentations. Only the wind hears the voice of this place. -The cries of night creatures and the passing wonder of two moons, all say his -day has ended. No more supplicants come. The visitors have gone from the feast. -How bare the pathway down this mountain. - - -- Lines at the Shrine of an Atreides Duke, Anon. -% -There exist obvious higher-order influences in any planetary system. This is -often demonstrated by introducing terraform life onto newly discovered planets. -In all such cases, the life in similar zones develops striking similarities of -adaptive form. This form signifies much more than shape; it connotes a survival -organization and a relationship of such organizations. The human quest for this -interdependent order and our niche within it represents a profound necessity. -The quest can, however, be perverted into a conservative grip on sameness. -This has always proved deadly for the entire system. - - -- The Dune Catastrophe, After Harq al-Ada -% -What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom -find real loyalties in commerce. When did you last hear of a clerk giving his -life for the company? Perhaps your deficiency rests in the false assumption -that you can order men to think and cooperate. This has been a failure of -everything from religions to general staffs throughout history. General staffs -have a long record of destroying their own nations. As to religions, I -recommend a rereading of Thomas Aquinas. As to you of CHOAM, what nonsense you -believe! Men must want to do things out of their own innermost drives. People, -not commercial organizations or chains of command, are what make great -civilizations work. Every civilization depends upon the quality of the -individuals it produces. If you over-organize humans, over-legalize them, -suppress their urge to greatness -- they cannot work and their civilization -collapses. - - -- A letter to CHOAM, Attributed to The Preacher -% -The future of prescience cannot always be locked into the rules of the past. -The threads of existence tangle according to many unknown laws. Prescient -future insists on its own rules. It will not conform to the ordering of the -Zensunni nor to the ordering of science. Prescience builds a relative -integrity. It demands the work of this instant, always warning that you -cannot weave every thread into the fabric of the past. - - -- Kalima: The Words of Muad'Dib, The Shuloch Commentary -% -Fremen speech implies great concision, a precise sense of expression. It is -immersed in the illusion of absolutes. Its assumptions are a fertile ground for -absolutist religions. Furthermore, Fremen are fond of moralizing. They confront -the terrifying instability of all things with institutionalized statements. -They say: "We know there is no summa of all attainable knowledge; that is the -preserve of God. But whatever men can learn, men can contain." Out of this -knife-edged approach to the universe they carve a fantastic belief in signs and -omens and in their own destiny. This is an origin of their Kralizec legend: the -war at the end of the universe. - - -- Bene Gesserit Private Reports/folio 800881 -% -The spirit of Muad'Dib is more than words, more than the letter of the Law -which arises in his name. Muad'Dib must always be that inner outrage against -the complacently powerful, against the charlatans and the dogmatic fanatics. -It is that inner outrage which must have its say because Muad'Dib taught us -one thing above all others: that humans can endure only in a fraternity of -social justice. - - -- The Fedaykin Compact -% -Limits of survival are set by climate, those long drifts of change which a -generation may fail to notice. And it is the extremes of climate which set the -pattern. Lonely, finite humans may observe climatic provinces, fluctuations of -annual weather and, occasionally may observe such things as "This is a colder -year than I've ever known. " Such things are sensible. But humans are seldom -alerted to the shifting average through a great span of years. And it is -precisely in this alerting that humans learn how to survive on any planet. -They must learn climate. - - -- Arrakis, the Transformation, After Harq al-Ada -% -Thou didst divide the sand by thy strength; Thou breakest the heads of the -dragons in the desert. Yea, I behold thee as a beast coming up from the dunes; -thou hast the two horns of the lamb, but thou speakest as the dragon. - - -- Revised Orange Catholic Bible Arran 11:4 -% -Fremen were the first humans to develop a conscious/unconscious symbology -through which to experience the movements and relationships of their planetary -system. They were the first people anywhere to express climate in terms of a -semi-mathematic language whose written symbols embody (and internalize) the -external relationships. The language itself was part of the system it -described. Its written form carried the shape of what it described. -The intimate local knowledge of what was available to support life was implicit -in this development. One can measure the extent of this language/system -interaction by the fact that Fremen accepted themselves as foraging and -browsing animals. - - -- The Story of Liet-Kynes by Harq al-Ada -% -After the Fremen, all Planetologists see life as expressions of energy and look -for the overriding relationships. In small pieces, bits and parcels which grow -into general understanding, the Fremen racial wisdom is translated into a new -certainty. The thing Fremen have as a people, any people can have. They need -but develop a sense for energy relationships. They need but observe that energy -soaks up the patterns of things and builds with those patterns. - - -- The Arrakeen Catastrophe, After Harq al-Ada -% -Any path which narrows future possibilities may become a lethal trap. Humans -are not threading their way through a maze; they scan a vast horizon filled -with unique opportunities. The narrowing viewpoint of the maze should appeal -only to creatures with their noses buried in sand. Sexually produced uniqueness -and differences are the life-protection of the spices. - - -- The Spacing Guild Handbook -% -By these acts Leto II removed himself from the evolutionary succession. -He did it with a deliberate cutting action, saying: "To be independent is to be -removed." Both twins saw beyond the needs of memory as a measuring process, -that is, a way of determining their distance from their human origins. But it -was left to Leto II to do the audacious thing, recognizing that a real creation -is independent of its creator. He refused to reenact the evolutionary sequence, -saying, "That, too, takes me farther and farther from humanity." He saw the -implications in this: that there can be no truly closed systems in life. - - -- The Holy Metamorphosis, by Harq al-Ada -% -Muad'Dib was disinherited and he spoke for the disinherited of all time. -He cried out against that profound injustice which alienates the individual -from that which he was taught to believe, from that which seemed to come to -him as a right. - - -- The Mahdinate, An Analysis by Harq al-Ada -% -Church and State, scientific reason and faith, the individual and his -community, even progress and tradition -- all of these can be reconciled in the -teachings of Muad'Dib. He taught us that there exist no intransigent opposites -except in the beliefs of men. Anyone can rip aside the veil of Time. You can -discover the future in the past or in your own imagination. Doing this, you win -back your consciousness in your inner being. You know then that the universe is -a coherent whole and you are indivisible from it. - - -- The Preacher at Arrakeen, After Harq al-Ada -% -Muad'Dib gave us a particular kind of knowledge about prophetic insight, about -the behavior which surrounds such insight and its influence upon events which -are seen to be "on line." (That is, events which are set to occur in a related -system which the prophet reveals and interprets.) As has been noted elsewhere, -such insight operates as a peculiar trap for the prophet himself. He can become -the victim of what he knows -- which is a relatively common human failing. The -danger is that those who predict real events may overtook the polarizing effect -brought about by overindulgence in their own truth. They tend to forget that -nothing in a polarized universe can exist without its opposite being present. - - -- The Prescient Vision, by Harq al-Ada -% -The child who refuses to travel in the father's harness, this is the symbol of -man's most unique capability. "I do not have to be what my father was. I do not -have to obey my father's rules or even believe everything he believed. It is my -strength as a human that I can make my own choices of what to believe and what -not to believe, of what to be and what not to be." - - -- Leto Atreides II, The Harq al-Ada Biography -% -The assumption that a whole system can be made to work better through -an assault on its conscious elements betrays a dangerous ignorance. -This has often been the ignorant approach of those who call themselves -scientists and technologists. - - -- The Butlerian Jihad, by Harq al-Ada -% -As with so many other religions, Muad'Dib's Golden Elixir of Life degenerated -into external wizardry. Its mystical signs became mere symbols for deeper -psychological processes, and those processes, of course, ran wild. What they -needed was a living god, and they didn't have one, a situation which Muad'Dib's -son has corrected. - - -- Saying attributed to Lu Tung-pin, (Lu, The Guest of the Cavern) -% |