The Dune Encyclopedia

by Willis E McNelly

  The Sattva Codex is a truly extraordinary document with a wealth of exhaustive detail and a breadth of continuity supplied by its addenda and appendices dating to the conclusion of the Butlerian Jihad. The original document constitutes a concise chronicle outlining the origin, purpose, philosophy, and character of the Holy Council of Nine as it evolved under the inspired leadership of Mother Jehanne.

  According to legend now authenticated by discovery of the Sattva Codex, humanity's quest for truth before the Butlerian Jihad had degenerated into a passion for accumulating and storing facts and data. This obsessive activity was encouraged and implemented by the machine mentality which dominated the times. With machines for testing veracity, men no longer searched within themselves for the eternal verities, the reality behind the illusion that is the phenomenal universe. In reaction to this soul-parching tendency, the Holy Council of Nine was formed as a sacred body of Reverend Mothers whose command of truthtrance imbued them with the power of Truthsayers.

  The Truthsayers were to represent the spiritual school of the Sisters, acting as their heralds and as the guardians of the Sacred Way to Truth. These holy Reverend Mother Truthsayers were responsible for the restoration and preservation of those qualities, characteristics, and objectives identified with the human cause. The Nine were to investigate the nature of humankind continuously, its customs, practices, societies, passions, weaknesses, and instincts, as well as to assess its cosmic destiny. To realize so monumental a task, each member of the Council had to have concentrated imagination, audacious conception, savage intention, unbridled psychic sensitivity, and iron will, qualifications then tempered and honed to suit the objectives of the Council.

  The special abilities of the Truthsayer supposedly were inherited through Mother Jehanne from the Great Mother (who was reputed to know all things in themselves). Accordingly, only a Truthsayer could properly identify those qualities in one of her Sisters, since the art of divining falsehood was vouchsafed only to a handful of the Elect Reverend Mothers at any one time, led by the Holy Mother, Head of the Cogita Vera Council. The Mater Cogita Vera, who retained the privilege of naming her own successor, served as Patroness of the Council and acted as the model of excellence and integrity, an example of dignity and the triumph of grace and intelligence.

  Since the call to become one of the Council was a heavy burden of responsibility, placing inordinate demands physically, mentally, and spiritually on a woman, the Patroness also served as arbitrator, moderator, and adjudicator, and counsellor. Though, ideally, these members would be without malice and envy, joined as they were in a mission requiring cooperation and obedience, in fact there were occasions when the Patroness would be required to intercede. Whenever she detected untoward ambition, her responsibility was to redirect it, all the while encouraging and deepening each Truthsayer's dependency on her leadership.

  All documentation relating to the Council of Nine blurs the occasional defection of a member, whether that desertion was attributable to psychological instability, political recalcitrance or, as was probably more often the case, moral and ethical backsliding. Such an instance probably was that of Reverend Mother Denora, whose assignment on Ecaz was sabotaged by her personal involvement with a minor functionary named Theos. The Truthsayer's special talents and abilities were thus subverted to the service of political intrigue — a personal power struggle within the Imperium seriously jeopardized the Sisterhood's plans for an advanced breeding program in that geographical area. A highly secret document, lately come to light, reported the malefactions of the Truthsayer Denora to her Patroness. What punishment was meted out is not recorded. Still, Denora's name was removed from the Sacred Index of Servitors, effectively erasing her from the rolls forever. The informer's motives and identity are unknown.

  With few exceptions, membership on the Council was a life term. A vacancy remained open until a suitable replacement was found. A list of prospective Council members was developed by means of recommendation, reputation, training or birth, providing a small pool of candidates available at all times to the Holy Mother in charge of the selection process. The responsibilities laid upon a Truthsayer were arduous, and the spartan existence, the self-discipline, the daily regimen of obedience, meditation and avowal demanded constant vigilance, dedication and restraint. A prospective candidate for the office was required to undergo various trials to test her mettle.

  One of the most gruelling tests put to a novice Truthsayer was an appearance before the Council to answer questions devised by the Patroness. These interrogative disputations posed questions of a philosophical and political nature, occasionally branching out into matters of cosmology. Once the various tests had been successfully passed, however, the initiation ceremony could commence. The candidate was led through darkness into a hall of immense proportions wherein only three lights shone. Surrounded by darkness, the chosen one was treated to a lanterna magica display during which she was bombarded with flashing images of human history — its glory and its failures, its hopes and its despair, its victims, its villains, and its heroes. For the space of a day and a night she was initiated into the mystery of Truthsayer by confronting the darkness, alone, in order to know light. Being sightless, she was expected to see. At the end of the ordeal, three Sisters would appear carrying a crystal cube on which was etched three overlapping triangles set in a circle, the emblem of the Nine. The newest member, dressed in stark white robes, would then take her place at the Council table.

  By all accounts, the glass enclosure housing the Cogita Vera Council on Wallach IX was set in the center of a shallow pool whose waters were fed by running streams. Arched walkways, like rays surrounding a sun, extended from the central cylinder and led to a small sealed meditation cubicle where a Reverend Mother Truthsayer could prepare herself. The glass Council chamber was designed to symbolize the clarity of Truth; and the waters surrounding it the nature of time and change in the mutable world of existence. The bridges represented the way between the self-abnegation of meditative truthtrance and the perfect completeness of Truth itself, a transcendence of the ever-shifting phenomenal world. Set amidst carefully tended gardens which concealed an arboretum famed for its rare herb collection, the whole configuration was a hallowed sanctuary of principle and tradition, merging the ideals of contemplation and action.

  In conformity with this ideal, the Nine Reverend Mother Truthsayers would don unadorned white robes as a sign that Truth requires no ornament, being the pure source of all light and vision. Historians have conjectured that the importance of the number nine for the Sisterhood had as its source the ninth card of the tarot, the eremite or Wisdom. The mystical attachment to this number can also be traced to the sum of the combined dates (201 B.G. and 108 B.G.) marking the beginning and end of the Butlerian Jihad. Needless to say, the home world and site of the Mother School of the Sisterhood was founded on Wallach IX, the ninth planet of Laoujin.

  For all the majesty and power clinging to the reputation of the elite Reverend Mothers, and the Truthsayers in particular, there is little controversy over their legendary beginnings as sorceresses and authors of the forbidden Pharmacopoeia manuals of ancient times. An intimate knowledge of the herbs of consolation, that family of plants used as both tranquilizers and stimulants, balms and poisons, was viewed as the early source of their influence and power. Because the sorceress could furnish and administer the black mullein, the henbane, and the belladonna — poisons that healed, soothed, and pacified — she took on the role of a divinely inspired priestess who could also cast spells, perform magic, and even prophesy. In this way, she fostered love and admiration, but also fear, for the priestess seemed to have an instinctive knowledge of truth and falsehood, of good and evil. No wonder that the secluded arboretum hidden among the trees on Wallach IX was rumored to be the special laboratory of the Truthsayers, the home of their experiments with narcotic drugs and compounds.

  How far the Truthsayer was removed from her origins as primitive sorceress is evident in the m
otto Homo Sapiente, which the first Council adopted as a declaration of the rational nexus it was claiming for itself. If the Council was to gain in credibility, its founders realized, it would have to tread the delicate balance between the mystery of revelation and the clarity of reasoned purpose, between ritual act and political necessity, between sacred duty and worldly deeds. The Truthsayers were meant to function as the apostles of the new order, disciples of the human spirit and universal guardians of Truth, dedicated to serving that Truth and advancing its cause.

  The Council had direct responsibility for the Elect, the Reverend Mothers whose influence would extend throughout space and time, spreading from the center like gentle ripples in a quiet pool. The individual Truthsayer was first to be a Truth-seeker, then a Truth-seer, and finally a Truth-knower, as a condition for promoting an ideal of humankind. For he who is human, says the Sattva Codex, holds values, makes decisions, faces possibilities, and also determines them. The human inquires, creates, uses and makes, and has infinite potential and singular value. But, it goes on, at the time of the Butlerian Jihad the human was shrouded in the winding sheet of its own weaving, buried by a mechanical replacement. Frozen, dead humanity had entombed itself in a strong but brittle sepulchre. Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, in the centuries before the Jihad, the monument of stasis and death began to totter as it sustained a series of jolts from within, the vestige of humanity that would not capitulate.

  Out of this tradition the Truthsayer was to consecrate her powers to human breeding (now raised to a sacrament) as the highest form of Truth partaking of the eternal spirit. To hold the office of Truthsayer was to undertake the pilgrimage to the Nine Mountains, arriving at last at the pinnacle of Truth where the air is clear and far removed from the valley of storm, strife, and confusion below. The journey in quest of the ninth mountain was called "truthtrance." Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam described it in this way:

  To travel the distance to Truth one need go only as far as one's Self. To conquer one's Self is to enter on the path to Truth. Summon the will to concentrate the mind on the object and then wait; learn the patience to listen to that which is not spoken; hear the unsaid; become an empty vessel, the receiver of Truth; vibrate as a harp in the wind to the sound of deceit, the shifting weight of insincerity, the clamor of falsehood. The Truth cannot be told; it must be lived and felt. Only untruth disturbs the peaceful air and perfect silence.

  The Exercitia by which the Truthsayer focuses the mind until the state of truthtrance is achieved is described both in Reverend Mother Gaius Helen's treatise on the subject and in the Sattva Codex. Classified as devotional meditation that begins as reverie or dream, truthtrance was accomplished through a series of stages. The Truthsayer had first to adopt a posture of perfect stillness, turning the gaze inward until she became insensible to any outside occurrence. This inward turning produced a sense of being a vacant body, weightless and light-headed, like a mote carried on the air. Once deep in contemplation, already on another plane of existence, the Truthsayer could reconcile and integrate spirit and mind, achieving an inner peace that refreshed and strengthened. A mystical marriage of mind and spirit would awaken all levels of subconscious receptivity and the body could then act as a conductor of charged particles of illumination.

  On occasion, the inward turning phase would be accompanied by a spoken ritual formula which aided in focusing the will and elevating perception. Each Truthsayer was assigned a series of words that formed a simple pattern. The series was repeated until the practitioner could, silently, allow the pattern to play itself within and then extend itself in a host of permutations. The words "Ye mansur amit" seem to have had a salutary effect when included in these ritual incantations. Essentially, however, the change in consciousness that accompanied truthtrance was achieved by a conscious alteration in the pace of breathing and blood circulation, lending the body a somewhat rigid posture. The trance enhanced pure intellectual vision, so it was claimed, by providing a total fixity of attention that blocked out all elements of external environment and surface consciousness.

  The object of the exercise was to empty the mind, to make it a vacant space bereft of discernible energy, in suspension and awaiting a mover or catalyst. In this state, the mind was susceptible and, like a magic mirror, perceived the illusion as reflection distinct from the palpable reality of Truth. The Truthsayer's ability to capture the instant, to lock in and hold the transient moment, was a bold challenge, flung out at the endless continuum of time and space to open the shadowy corners to light. The agile intuition could then slip into the obscuring shade and ferret out the Truth. On indisputable testimony, revelation occurred first as an experiential flash, more instinct than intellect. It was a presentiment turned to certitude. Thus, a state of equilibrium was achieved, sometimes called "rapt ecstasy," in which the subject became aware of increased power and an intense sense of knowing. At this stage, certitude of judgment was described as a ring of pure light encased in absolute silence.

  Truth, it was believed, is constancy amid the flow. What is false, no matter the degree, interrupts the surge of light that is all truthful saying. Truth glides without interruption as the constant of the universe. That which is not Truth is the aberration, the interruption, the disturbance in an even stream of time and a blot on the landscape of light.

  The credo of the Truthsayer held that the saying of Truth is commensurate with a creative act, born of divine fiat and partaking of the eternal. It held that Truth cannot be bought, bartered, or won but must be discovered, freely, as one discovers a rare blossom in an otherwise barren landscape, the culmination of patience, courage, perseverance, and faith. Truths may be communicated; but not Truth. Truth must be accepted as a paradox, as a union of all contraries, as the Oneness of all opposites.

  As the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen, herself Truthsayer and Patroness, confided in her private journal:

  The Truthsayer is the initiate of Eternity who must unravel the knotted threads of manifold truths warping, twisting, and obscuring the Truth. For the Truthsayer is as a less through which the divine light of Truth is focused and then beamed. The Truthsayer is the conscience and guide of all who aspire to be truly human. As such, she is the chalice into which must fall those tears, like bright stars, coursing down the round countenance of the cold universe.

  G.E.

  Further references: BENE GESSERIT; MOHIAM, REVEREND MOTHER GAIUS HELEN; Gwilit Mignail, The Nerus-Mohiam Controversy (Yorba, Rose); R.M. Varrus Deborah Loomis, ed. Sattva Codex, Rakis Ref. Cat. 3-BG-643; R.M. Gaius Helen Mohiam, Diaries, Library Conf. Temp. Series 133.

  TUPILE

  The name traditionally used for what may be one or more planets or star systems; the sanctuary planet for defeated Houses Major and Minor under the terms of the Great Convention; also, the secret support base of the Spacing Guild.

  About 100 B.G., three ships of refugee Ixian scientists led by Aurelius Venport and Norma Cevna touched down on a planet whose location and name are still unknown. A strong case can be made that the sanctuary planet established by the Great Convention was (or was near) the world the Ixians found, although without more evidence the question remains open. Tupile apparently had enjoyed an advanced technological base before it was visited by Butlerian fanatics in the latter stage of the Jihad. By that time, the original goals of the Jihad — the destruction of machine technology operating at the expense of human values — had been replaced by indiscriminate slaughter. The technology of Tupile was evidently benign, its government and economy stable, and its people prosperous and unaggressive. (The same may be said for the other planets, if any, in the system, for many references speak not of "Tupile" but of "the Tupiles.") Unfortunately for the Tupilians, the populace suffered far more from the Jihad than did the industrial base.

  Humans were punished for possessing any technology at all. The immediate consequence of this anomaly was the survival of Tupile's hardware relatively intact, but a paralysis of industrial activity until the arrival
of Aurelius Venport and the Ixians.

  Venport estimated the situation and seized the opportunity: he presented himself to a people fast reverting to savagery as a savior ordained to restore their society. His resources were strong: he had with him not merely zealots of interstellar travel, but experts in other scientific disciplines who had wearied of the restrictions and secrecy Ix had imposed on its scientific community. He cloaked these Aurelian exiles with religious trappings, renaming them the "Society of Mystic Mariners," and offered them as a priesthood dedicated to a divinely appointed task.

  Through these stratagems he enlisted the eager support of the Tupilians. Personally magnetic, Venport interpreted recent history to the Tupilians in terms of black and white, terms they were only too ready to believe. They needed little convincing that the Butlerians were evil incarnate, against which the Society, personifying human progress, moved toward a God-directed resurgence. Venport's real purpose — finding a substitute for computerized navigation of hyperspace ships — he withheld from the Tupilians at the beginning.

  In the years that followed, the minor damage to the planet's industrial complex was repaired, and the brightest of the natives began study at the Society's academy, founded to build a local intelligentsia capable of continuing the program after the Ixians were gone. In these efforts Venport succeeded in a remarkably short time. The first spice-navigated ships, the Golden Advent and the Norma Cevna, were built on Tupile, and the beginnings of the Spacing Guild fleet were laid down. The tightest security (aided by Tupile's location on the margin) was maintained throughout the next sixty years, but agents from Tupile kept their superiors well advised of events in the human universe, events that were rapidly moving toward the beginning of the Imperium of House Corrino.