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'' Dune '' film.)]] The Bene Gesserit (from ) are a key social, religious and political force in Frank Herbert 's Science Fiction universe of ''Dune'' . It is described as a secretive sisterhood whose members train their bodies and minds through years of physical and Mental Conditioning to obtain powers and abilities that can easily be seen as magical to outsiders. Due to their secretive nature and misunderstood abilities, outsiders often call them Witch es. In '' Dune '', Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is less than trusting of their motives: Trained at the Mother School on Wallach IX , and later headquartered at a hidden world known as Chapterhouse in the two last books of the original series ('' Heretics Of Dune '' and '' Chapterhouse Dune ''), the Bene Gesserit are loyal only to themselves. However, to obtain their goals and avoid outside interference, they often screen themselves with an illusion of being loyal to other groups or individuals. ORIGIN OF THE NAME In the real world, the name "Bene Gesserit" was likely extracted from the Legal Latin Phrase "quamdiu se bene gesserit" which means "as long as he/she shall behave himself well". Bene Gesserit by itself means "(s)he shall have behaved well". ''Gesserit'' is a form of the Latin verb "gerere" (third person singular, in either the future perfect active indicative or the perfect active subjunctive), whose meanings include "to carry", "to wear", "to manage", "to bear (a child)", "to behave", or simply "to do". Thus the translation of "bene gesserit" is open to wide interpretation. Among the possibilities are "it will have done well", "she will have borne (a child) well", "he will have behaved well", et cetera. In Brian Herbert 's biography of his father, Brian speculates that the name "Gesserit" is supposed to suggest to the reader the word Jesuit , thus evoking undertones of a Religious Order . Like the Jesuits they have also been accused of using Casuistry to obtain justifications for the unjustifiable. William F. Touponce writes: |
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