the spice must flow

stopping the flow

Welcome back to the sietch all of you freedom loving warrior heretics!

Substack is telling me this is too long for some inboxes (google!). Clicking on the title will take you right to the full, online version.

Today we’re going to aim some arrows right at the heart of the Imperium and uncover some of their dark ways and how to bypass them.

Through much of my junior high and high school years I belonged to a science fiction book club. Of the numerous books I read during that time, Frank Herbert’s Dune remains the most memorable. Add his five follow up books to the original Dune and his son Brian’s 12 or so books that continue the series after his fathers death, and you have a topic that is only succeeded by my reading time about the plandemic. That’s a lot of reading time.

Herbert won both a Hugo award and a Nebula award for the first book (published in 1965). It has gone on to become the best selling science fiction novel of all time.

Why all the hoopla about Dune? It’s complicated. It may have something to do with the fact that it has so many facets that are so compelling to so many different people and parallel so many different issues that have been faced by so many civilizations down through the centuries. In fact, as will be pointed out in detail, events of the past 3 years are a prime example of the ongoing viability of Herbert’s Dune series.

Herbert created a series that serves to describe how politics, power, imperialism, intrigue, environmentalism, materialism, religion, wealth, superstition and mythology combine to make a novel series that not only describes past civilizations, but as long as the status quo remains intact, will remain relevant far into the future.

At its core, this book is about how spice (melange), which can only be found on the planet Arrakis - aka Dune - is such a valuable commodity that the entire known Imperium of over 13,000 worlds is in some part, dependent on spice.

What makes spice so special? When I first read Dune as a teenager in the late 60’s, because spice has mind altering abilities, I naively thought Herbert was relating spice to marijuana, which was just gaining a cultural foothold in the West at that time. The thing is, he could have been comparing spice to marijuana. But as I matured it became apparent that in our current version of syphillization, spice could be any aspect of society developed and controlled by powerful elites.

Thankfully, nothing like the exotic spice from Dune exists in our time. We can’t even deal with big pharmas toxic creations, let alone something as incredibly powerful as spice.

what is spice

Spice is made through a complicated biological process that involves the magnificently leviathan and beautifully dangerous sand worms that ply the vast sands of Dune like whales in our oceans. Melange (the spice) is gathered by hand by the native Fremen, who use it judiciously. It’s also greedily gathered by Landsraad House families appointed by the Emperor who use giant machinery to gather the spice from the sands.

In the time of Dune all aspects of society are dependent on spice. Elites from every major centralized authority need spice to keep their wealth flowing and to retain power. A phrase often whispered among the upper echelon of elites is… “The spice must flow”.

The first book, Dune, follows the story of the Duke Leto Atriedes family being appointed by the emperor to take over control of the planet Arrakis (Dune), the only source of spice in the entire known universe.

What follows are the major beneficiaries of this spice flow. This is by no means a complete list of the big players in the Dune universe, but it does represent the major ones. Each one is also paired with a contemporary counterpart.

navigators

The Navigator Guild uses spice to create beings who are capable of folding space and time to move gargantuan Guilding ships across the universe in the blink of an eye. Navigators begin as normal people who volunteer to take massive amounts of spice over a period of time. Doing so completely changes their DNA and their body into something other than human (sounds familiar). Once a person has gone through this transformation, they can no longer live in the natural atmosphere and must spend the rest of their lives in a closed chamber constantly charged with spice gas. Their leisure time is spent probing and contemplating the universe.

Because all commerce depends on navigators moving goods between the 13,300 planets of the Imperium, the Guild is comparable to the big oil companies that most of the world depends on today for commerce.

the bene gesserit

The Bene Gesserit are an ancient cult of witch-like women who use spice to gain power and influence. This is done by a combination of their millennia long breeding program and the consumption of spice. They can see into the past and communicate with earlier Bene Dessert to gain insight about present day circumstances. They also seek power and influence within ruling families by dictating breeding programs that they think furthers their goals and influence. They use all manner of devious tricks and tactics to achieve their goals.

A few Bene Gesserit have moral standards that prevent them from continuing down the path. Duke Leto’s concubine, the mother of the key figure in the first book, Paul Atreides, is such a Bene Gesserit. Paul’s mother is the result of thousands of years of Bene Gesserit breeding and was ordered to have a female child (by focusing their minds, they can determine the sex at the time of conception) who the Bene Gessert believed would in turn bear the long awaited Kwisatz Haderach - a male child with the ability to bridge space and time with prescience - the ultimate goal of their very long breeding program. Being a bit rebellious against the dictates of the Bene Geserit, and because she deeply loves her partner, Duke Leto Atreides, whom she cannot marry for political reasons, she chooses to have a male child, Paul, whose wife bears a son, Leto II, who does indeed become the Kwisatz Haderach. Leto II turns out to be far more powerful than the Bene Gesserit thought. He also turns out to be completely uncontrollable by the Bene Gesserit and in the end, scatters the order (and everyone else).

The current day counterpart to the Bene Gesserit would be the lineages and genetics of contemporary earth bound royalty, as well as the eugenics programs being carried out by powerful elites. The great world wide sterilization and culling-by-vaccination program we’ve been witnessing over the past three years is but one aspect of this. Wars in regions where certain groups of people are viewed by certain elites as inferior and hence, expendable, is another.

pharmacogenomics, toxicogenomics

the honored matres

In Heretics of Dune (1984) The Honored Matres emerge from the Scattering brought about by the great purge of Leto II. This a sect of Bene Gesserit that has been separated from the Bene Gesserit for so long they have developed their own culture and teachings. At the core of their goal is to gain power and control by the use of violence and sexual domination.

The current day counterpart to the Honored Matres would be Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffery Epstein.

mentats

The Machine Crusade is a prequel to Dune. This book tells the story of how computers, artificial intelligence and robots took over earth and nearly wiped out the human race. It’s a great, timely read.

Because of this terrible history, by the time of Dune, all parties have agreed that computers, robots and AI are forever forbidden. But the Great Houses need powerful cognitive and analytical abilities well beyond that of even the sharpest human mind. The solution is Mentats, who are trained from a young age to develop powerful abilities of cognition, perception and memory. They can also rapidly asses people and situations by interpreting minor changes in body language or intonation. At a certain age they are told what they’re being trained for and are given the choice to continue or not.

I can’t think of any contemporary counterpart. Our educational systems serve to dumb kids down, not make them incredible critical thinkers.

ixians

The Ixians are the most technologically advanced people in the Dune universe. They develop and build all of the space ships, weaponry and technology needed to arm and equip anyone who can afford their wares.

In contemporary terms, the Ixians would be a cross between Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Space X, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and all the other large tech companies and defense contractors that make up what Eisenhower appropriately called the military industrial complex.

At the rate that these entities acquire each other, it becomes easy to see how this could end in the distant future with one giant entity, like the Ixians, owning all aspects.

the tleilaxu

This is an extremely misogynistic culture led by masters whose real desire is to take over the Imperium (later books). They are at the top of the genetic manipulation game and traffic in regenerated humans and human body parts, all grown in axlotl tanks that are in fact, female bodies kept in stasis merely to be used as tanks for reproduction. Axlotl tanks are also used to regenerate cells of recently dead people into fully developed versions of the deceased, known as gholas.

Their face dancer servants can mimic any human. They’ve murdered leaders on numerous planets and installed their face dancers in their place.

The current counterpart to the Tleilaxu would be organizations like the WEF, the WHO, the Bilderberg Group, the Club of Rome, the Jesuits and so on.

how the few control the many

the federated great houses of the landsraad

In the Dune universe governments are kingdoms that rule over entire planets. Collectively they are known as the The Minor and The Great Houses of the Landsraad. These are the old families that control the various planets. Some are benevolent, like Duke Leto Atreides (Pauls father) who, before his appointed position to rule over Arrakis, ruled over the mostly watery planet of Caladan. Others are ruthless, like Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who rules over the dystopian world of Giedi Prime.

Modern counterparts to the Landsraad would be the United Nations, to a lesser extent NATO, China’s Belt Road Initiative and the Russian Federation of States.

choam

CHOAM’S official name is Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles. According to Dune Wiki (yes, Dune is so complex it has its own wiki), the name “…comes from multiple ancient Terran languages. It roughly translates as Honorable Union for the Advancement of Greater Trade.”

CHOAM is essentially structured like a contemporary corporation, with a centralized power structure. The difference is that only members of the Landsraad can be shareholders. That makes it more like an interplanetary Federal Reserve Bank - a slush fund for members of the good ol’ boys club to dip into when ever they need a bailout (like the banksters of the 2008 financial crises).

fremen

Last, but far from being the least important group are the Fremen, the simple living natives of the planet Arrakis (Dune). While they may live simply, the Fremen are a fiercely independent tribal people and hold autonomous freedom above all else. Because their planet is home to the valuable spice, they are in a constant battle to win their freedom. Paul Atreides, who, after great trials and tribulations - some involving large quantities of spice - goes on to join the Fremen as Maud’Dib and with the help of the Fremen, eventually overthrows all comers.

Most Fremen live as their ancestors have for many generations, in craggy mountain ranges that crop up here and there amongst the masses of sand dunes that make up most of the terrain of Dune. Some of these mountain ranges are permeated with complex cave systems which the Fremen call home. A particular Fremen tribes mountain range and its affiliated cave system is called a sietch. Although each sietch has a set of codes that the members of that tribe have agreed upon, there is a greater set of codes that ensure individual autonomy that all the tribes adhere to.

Contemporary counterparts to the Fremen would be any group of people seeking freedom and autonomy from the tyranny that’s occurring around the world today, whether individually or nationally. That would include all of you, dear readers.

Welcome to sietch heretic.

muad'dib

Although he is not a group or an organization, Paul Atreides becomes a force that all of the previous groups must contend with. As described, he goes through a tortuous set of trails and tribulations, becomes accepted into Sietch Tabr as Maud’Dib, goes on to marry Chani who bears Leto II, and along with the rest of the Fremen they lead a rebellion against… everyone else.

Yup, they tear the whole thing down. And it ain’t pretty. Like many rebellions, in the process of destroying the empire they became what they were seeking to destroy… tyrannical killers of billions.

The end result is… success… sort of. Yes, the old order has been torn down, but a new one ensues. The struggle continues.

movies

Several attempts to turn Dune into a movie have been made, but the epic story is so vast and complicated that it doesn’t lend itself to fitting into a single movie. The most recent effort was undertaken by director Denis Villeneuve who wisely decided to just make one movie of the first half of the first book. I saw it shortly after it came out in 2021. Of all the Dune movies, this is by far the best. In fact, it did so well that Dune: Part Two is currently set to open on November 17, 2022.

I recently came across a DVD set of the made-for-TV Dune mini-series titled Dune (a 3 disk set) and a second one titled Children of Dune (a two disk set), which is adapted from Herbert’s second and third books of the series. While the special effects are weak, especially in the first one, both nailed the script and the story line. The acting was also well done.

onward

What are some lessons we can learn from Dune? Honestly, if I knew I wouldn’t be a small time farmer trying to do some writing on Substack.

But it does seem apparent that there are good and bad ways to go about seeking change. Perhaps the biggest take way from Dune is that meeting blatant evil head-on with a less blatant form of evil is clearly not going to end well.

As slow and ponderous as it may be, it seems the best way to create change is on the individual level, one person at a time. However, to do so, we must be able to define what needs to be changed. Thankfully, this is easier than it might seem.

However, implementing the needed changes can be challenging. But I have a feeling all of you are cut from capable cloth. Besides, if this little ol’ farmer can do some of these things, so can you.

The best place to begin defining where change needs to occur in each of our lives is as easy as defining what form elite controlled spice is being used to control any aspect of our lives and then, severing our ties to them.

This is where Paul Atreides made his big mistake. Instead of seeking the higher moral ground of encouraging everyone to merely eschew spice, he fell prey to it, embraced it, and turned it upon the elite of his day. The source of all of the tyranny of the previous millennia under the old order became, under Maud’Dib’s new order, more tyranny in a new guise. Power that uses power to beget power merely creates what it seeks to destroy, in a new form.

True people power is multi-fold.

Over the years I’ve mentioned Vaclav Hovel a number of times. His creation of alternative societal structures within the existing Soviet socialist status quo system was effective at undermining the Soviet Union in Czechoslovakia. As people became disillusioned by the centralized Soviet system, it was easy to introduce decentralized local solutions as fairer and more viable alternatives. Soon, some of the underground ma and pa alternatives were doing more business than the official, centralized, socialist Soviet sources.

One of the best ways to determine if a product or service has a central, socialized, Soviet style corporate authority, or not, is to determine its source. If a product or service is locally produced by someone you can talk to, it can be assumed to be golden. If a product or service is being offered by a representative of a distant corporation, you can rest assured that it’s part of the centralized, elite controlled socialist/corporate problem, not part of what we want to make as our freedom oriented, local solution.

There are many aspects of our modern society that need to come under scrutiny for either supporting centralized authorities and harming local economies or, vice versa. We also need to determine their impact on our home - our Biblical responsibility to be good stewards of this planet. But the two biggest issues are food and energy. Fortunately, these are two that can be readily changed by steps each of us can take today.

food

what’s happening in the netherlands?

As I pointed out in that post, food is one of the primary necessities targeted by the elites as a way of controlling the masses. As one of the great proponents of centralized, socialist power, Henry Kissinger once said, “If you control food, you control the people”. Stalin said something along the same lines. Two peas in a pod, those two.

netherlands picnic food facility burns to the ground

As I pointed out in that post, food has come ever more under the control of elite, socialist, centralized forms of production, marketing and distribution. As that post also points out, food production is being weaponized by misinformation regarding nutrition and climate change, to get people to eat less meat and more of the highly centralized, socialist/corporate production of unhealthy fake meat and bugs.

Fortunately, the centralized, socialist food paradigm is easy to overcome because an alternative, one that Vaclav Hovel would embrace, already exists. Decentralized local farmers markets can now be found in nearly every city and town in the US. As someone who once supported myself by selling my farm products at a local farmers market, I can testify to the unique contribution that buying food produced by your local farmers can have on your local economy. Instead of that money being sent off to some distant corporate farm headquarters - or instead of your money being sent off to some corporate grocery store chain headquarters in some distant land, never to be seen again in your local economy, when you shop at your local farmers market all of your money remains in the local economy where it may very well get recycled back into your pocket someday. You can’t say that about shopping at Sprouts, Safeway, Kroger or any other centralized, corporate grocery stores.

But the ultimate food solution comes when you take full control of your food paradigm and produce it yourself. Here is how to combine gardening and chickens to produce an ongoing biodynamic/regenerative program to produce meat, eggs and vegetables, right in your backyard.

prepping - chickens, the ultimate regenerative farming tool?

energy

As I pointed out in the following piece, the history of energy runs the gamut, from ancient forms to new fangled high-tech forms. Interestingly, one of the most ancient forms is still viable today - wood.

why centralized energy is a bad idea - part 2

The recent sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea has many people once again thinking about the vulnerabilities of centralized energy dependency. As I pointed out in that piece, all of the forms of energy we currently use have drawbacks, but some have fewer drawback and shorter term drawbacks than others. Until, and if we ever do, come up with a better solution for our energy needs, it seems that a version of Occams razor should apply to our energy needs - the best solution is the most obvious one. In other words, if we apply some simple rules to determine the viability of an energy source, we should be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Rule #1 Is the energy being derived from a centralized source? If so, bypass it and seek a local solution.

Rule #2 Is the energy source vulnerable to sabotage? If so, bypass it and seek a solution that is not.

Rule #3 Does the energy source have any regenerative capacity? If not, seek a local source that does.

Rule #4 Is the energy in question being promoted or produced by big tech or by billionaires? If so, seek alternatives.

Historically, because big tech and big investors are seeking big returns on their investments, their so called ‘smarter solutions’ have almost always proven to be more problematic than the technologies they seek to replace. This type of entity is also notorious for installing back door programs in their software that enable them to track you and tamper with your system. Will these systems have a kill switch that can be remotely triggered if they decide they don’t like what your doing or saying?

What these people offer is always more than what it appears to be and that usually takes the form of some sort of subterfuge. The toxic vaccines that the Gates Foundation helped create and distribute offer a prime example. It’s for these reasons I would never trust any small scale nuclear power plants being developed by Bill Gates and his Terra Power nuclear company, or anyone else for that matter.

Rule #5 Local sources are better than non-local sources.

I would amend this to say that local means, right down to your household. Not your state, region, city or even your neighborhood. To take full responsibility for each of our energy needs and to keep them from becoming prone to socialist centralization, we need to seek solutions that are scalable downwards, unique to your particular situation. Each of us live in a different climate with different local resources available. It would be ridiculous to ignore a beautiful, simple, readily available local option to go with some imported, complex, high-tech solution that might break down at some point and require an expensive repair or upgrade.

A simple example of this are some new neighbors that recently purchased 40 acres of land near me. This land is about 1/2 mile from the power grid. These folks are from a northern state with a very different climate. They were going to pay $30,000 to have the power grid brought in, until I told them they could install a solar power system for less than that. I also told them that once installed they would never have another power bill and, unlike the local power grid which often goes down during our monsoon storm season, their solar system will never go down unexpectedly.

Rule #5 Beware of cookie cutter solutions. Cookie cutter solutions can be weaponized by centralized authorities for take-over. The exception to this rule would be when that type of solution is being done on your own or by a locally owned business and is completely disconnected from the grid. Grid tie-in solar systems fall into the category of becoming susceptible to external, centralized control. I have a friend who fell for the tax credit carrot that came with her new grid tie-in system and she has regretted it ever since.

Rule #6 Avoid energy sources that create long term disposal problems, but balance that with bang-for-the-buck over the long term.

Rule #7. All new construction should incorporate passive solar design.

As I recently pointed out, I have abundant naturally occurring wood resources on my farm in the form of mesquite and catclaw bosque. While I do burn small amounts of wood in the winter for heat and cooking, my electrical energy needs come from my solar power system. In my case, living in Arizona where sunlight is an abundant resource, solar power makes a lot of sense, especially since the price of panels is now around $.30 per watt or less. I installed my first solar power system in 1985 and have upgraded it myself over the years. Yes, solar has issues, but it’s cheap, it’ll last the rest of my life, it creates no long term toxic waste disposal issue, it’s dependable, and in my case, its very local - its on the roof of my cob house. And the big bonus - no one is going to sabotage a power plant or the ‘grid’ and cut off my energy source. In my mind all of those benefits outweigh any downside.

I also use the sun for most of my winter heating. My cob house is designed to passively allow the low winter sun to penetrate south facing windows which begins to warm my house right about this time of year. As the temperatures rise in the spring, the sun moves north and ceases to penetrate those south facing windows.

At nearly 4,000’ in elevation, summer nights are typically cool here, but daytime temps occasionally go over 100 degrees(F). To keep the house cool in the summer I just throw open some windows at night and close them shortly after sunrise. The thermal mass of the cob walls absorbs the cool might air and helps to moderate the inside temperature. I’m the external energy input for that cooling system and it takes me all of a minute or two per day to run the system.

Rule #8 Simple solutions are always the best:)

If you have ideas for other practical rules that anyone can incorporate to help stop the flow of spice, let me know in the comments.