 What's up to all my dune lovers out there, my name is Ian and today we are going to be tracking the influences of dune back thousands of years and go on a journey through every single work that impacted Frank Herbert's writing of one of the greatest science fiction series of all time. So let us awaken the sleeper within and start to understand dune at a deeper level. Here's an ugly truth. Writer steal all of the time and once you accept that you realize writing is a skill is something to be built isn't this magical thing that a couple of talented people get to do and that's why a lot of people don't accept that or don't actually steal like an artist because they don't want to recognize that they don't have all the answers or to admit that their favorite author like Frank Herbert has been stealing ideas left and right like a thief. Also, Frank Herbert is a prime example of why reading widely and deeply is so important to become a better writer and to produce legendary works. Name an author in the last 100 years that has not read deeply and created masterpieces. They all did. Why is that? I know so many young writers and writers of all types that don't read deeply and are filling and saturating the market with a bunch of crap because they have a huge ego problem. So let's hop into the presentation and the first person we're going to be talking about today is Carl Jung and Carl Jung is a German cycle analytical thinker. He studied under Freud but then branched off into his own more esoteric work. He is most known for the collective unconscious and art types which we are going to be talking about today which most impact Frank Herbert. So first of all, Frank Herbert was friends with or was mentored under some Jungian analysts while he was in San Francisco and that had a big impact on him supposedly. So let's hear a quote from Frank Herbert on this. I often use a Jungian mandala in squaring off characters of a yarn against each other, assigning a dominant psychological role to each. So quick overview of the art types. Jung said that they were axiomatic forces that live within all of us that guide us. For instance, the trickster, the hero, the villain, the king, the magician, he usually has 12 but they can be expanded to an infinite degree. Things like astrology and tarot play upon the art types and what Herbert means by a Jungian mandala is that Carl Jung is also into mandalas. And another person that does this actually at an insane level because he's insane is the author David Foster Wallace. Another person who steals really well and is a prolific author in his own right. So what he means is that a Jungian mandala looks a certain way and what he would do is that according to the art types, Frank Herbert would put a character like Paul on one side and then on the other side have someone else and they would both have having a dominant psychological role but in opposition. And I've been trying to figure this out for a while now. For a couple months I've been trying to figure out with some of the main characters how this is all working and assigning some of the dominant psychological roles staying within Carl Jung's idea of the art types which Frank Herbert supposedly is using. And I ran into a problem and this is really crazy that Paul is not the hero and that sounds crazy right? Paul and I guess I should say this now. Spoiler alert. We are going to be talking about today all six books of Dune. If you haven't read them yet stop being lazy and go read them. What are you still doing? It's 2022. Time to get going. But Paul is not the hero and that seems like the whole narrative of Dune is kind of an anti-Messianic message. But Paul seems like the hero but when I put him into the mandala right, when I put Paul into the mandala, he doesn't fit as the hero because the oppositions don't make sense where he does fit. And it started to make sense to me. I'm going to make a whole video on this is that Paul is actually the trickster. If you look at Paul and his character and who he is, he actually has a lot more trickster qualities than he does hero qualities. And it fits a lot better into this idea of the mandala that I am creating that Frank Herbert once again supposedly used. And if you look at a lot of the different characters, they usually have these dominant archetypal roles. And I'll be making another video on this soon. So if you guys want to see that, subscribe to the channel. So now we have the man himself, William Shakespeare. And William Shakespeare is very influential on almost everyone, of course, in Western literature. But as we are about to see in Justine Shaw's article on some of Dune's inspirations, it's on Moongadget.com. Go check that out. She gets a lot of the connections, but not all. She hasn't talked about Carl Jung, for instance. And we're going to read from that right now. Quote. Particularly Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, the Tempest, and others. Paul carries his father's signet ring, as did Hamlet. Paul learns the true mood of his people by walking among them in the skies like Henry V. Herbert's most obvious borrowing is probably the climax of Hamlet, in which the hero publicly duels with his minor adversary, who carries the poison blade, which his major adversary looks on. Hamlet's conversation with the ghost of his dead father is echoed in the conversation between Keynes and the ghost of his dead father. Paul's home Caledon echoes Shakespeare's character Caliban. Shakespearean scholars have noted that Caliban is probably stinky rich spelling of cannibal. The Caledon is based on Caliban theories reinforced by Herbert's invention of the Caliban aliens in his subsequent novel Whipping Stars. Shakespeare conveyed his character's thoughts by having them make aside moments where they spoke directly to the audience, openly revealing their innermost thoughts. For instance, if we look at a quote, here's one that I like to use. The truth could be worse than he imagines, but even dangerous facts are valuable if you've been trained to deal with them. This must be Levin, though. He is young. And of course, this is one of the major themes in Dune that Herbert helps us get into the mind of the characters even more. That's why books are infinitely better than movies because they instantly help us get into the mind of characters, of what's going on. And Herbert takes that to the nth degree because he does it in the middle of a chapter with italics. That sometimes changes between multiple characters even though that's kind of wonky and crazy. He gets away with it because he is a good writer and he gets this supposedly from Shakespeare. And I would agree with that, but he's taking it to the next level. He takes these LSD, science fiction level, and he does it really well. And once again, this is such an important part of the book. And another big thing that Shakespeare takes from people like Shakespeare and others who wrote in the I Amic Pentameter in poetry in that era is that a lot of his work, according to him, quote, Much of the pros and dunes started out as haiku, and then it was given minimal additional word padding to make it conform to the English sentence structure. And this is so important because Frank Herbert started this off with basically haiku with a rhythmic metered, metered verse. And that's why some of this works too. If you want to layer a book and make it really good, what do you do? You bring in art types. You bring in sound and verse and meter. These are all things. And then if you disguise it within the text and don't let people see it, it subliminally makes it good. Why is this book still so popular 60 years later? Because of these things. This is what artists and writers don't understand. And how do you learn? Do you know how to write in I Amic Pentameter? Do you know how to write metered verse? Or maybe have you read the book The Mystery of the Seven Vows to understand how to use vowels in language? I'm still a beginner in all this stuff. It requires a high level of skill. And that's what once again, success leaves clues. Frank Herbert's success is obvious. The books are all very good. And yeah, this is just something I find really interesting. He's getting this from the East. And that's something that we will be talking about maybe in a bit, but let's just get to it now. The influence of the East on Frank Herbert. And of course, if we look, a lot of the things that people are doing, like the Ben Jezreths, they achieve that zen-like focus that people in the West obviously never really achieve. The East, especially yogis, have the highest rate of enlightenment, at least in history. And why do they do that? How did they get there? Because they focus on the control of the body, mind, and spirit at very high levels. That's all they would do. There was no pageantry or no knight's errant. They would focus on these things. And that's at some level what the Ben Jezreths are doing. And a lot of the inspiration for them comes from that. A lot of the certain things that they say to each other. A lot of the characters that sometimes speak in koans and there's riddles and rhymes all throughout this text. And that really isn't as present in Western society as it is in Eastern society. Frank Herbert liked Buddhism. He studied Buddhism. And all throughout the text, you kind of see that philosophical, natural, unopening connection to nature that are pinnacles in Eastern thought. So another perspective I've not heard anyone talk about is Dune's connection to the Iliad. I've seen some people talk about the connection to Achilles. I don't feel like that's very strong. But there is a connection to the breakdown of customs in Dune and in the Iliad. Because if we look at the Iliad, one of the strongest points of view to look at it through is the breakdown of customs in the honor culture. For instance, the breakdown of the institutional marriage at the start. Then as we get there, there with the fight between Paris and one of the kings. A lot of people have never even read the Iliad. They just saw the movie with Brad Pitt and they're like, or Troy or whatever. And they're like, oh my god. But in the book, there's actually a stray arrow. Someone shoots an arrow supposedly. Maybe a god made it happen and it hits the king. And Paris gets lifted off the battlefield. So then the custom of truces is now gone. Agamemnon takes one of Achilles' concubines away. And that breaks down the custom that the king gives out spoils of war and is fair about it. Then eventually at the end, the Greeks are doing human sacrifices. And it all gets restored when, I can't remember the king's name right now, Priam comes and meets with Achilles and asks for Hector's body back. And a lot of people don't know this. The Iliad doesn't end with the Trojan horse scene. It ends right there. Which kind of gives you a clue about what the climax and ending of the book is the restoration of justice and order in the kingdom. Or at least of some of the customs because they have 12 days of funeral rites. So that's just a really interesting connection I've never heard anyone talk about. Because in Dune, what do we start to see? We start to see the use of explosives and trickery by the emperor against the Atreides. And then we see the same thing starting to happen with the Atreides against the Harkinen and then against the Spacing Guild and against the Ben Jezera. All these orders and all these customs and eventually all customs and everything is totally destroyed by Lido II. All forms of power and they're all destroyed. And a new order is established. It is the order of Lido. And at some level you could view it that breakdown as similar to what happened because that's the first story in history. And that's interesting that's such a big theme because that happens all of the time. That's what, for instance, when we go into Afghanistan, for instance, and we obviously failed in an unjustified war to begin with because we couldn't replace the honor culture with our own system. We didn't have the time. And that's, for instance, what the Taliban do. They are the intermediaries. But now let's hop over to Sophocles's play, Oedipus Rex. So, of course, Oedipus Rex. And as we see right here, this is one of the connections to Dune. The blind prophet, the blind king, the blind king, Paul at the end of book number two. Book number two or three, can't remember tripping out right now. Becomes blind, I think, two, and then gets sent out. Yeah, number two, I'm sorry. Of course, he comes back as the preacher in number three. Come, gets exiled out into the desert as the blind prophet, as this blind person. And the other big connection that we see, of course, is the introduction of Prescience. Prescience is such a big deal in Dune because the quiz-exact hadaric, if I'm saying that correctly, literally means jump the path. And that's what Prescience does. It helps you jump the path and see into the future or see certain outcomes of events. And of course, that gets totally crazy and muddled, especially in four, five, and six. It goes absolutely crazy with the ideas of Prescience. But that's also, if we look at Oedipus Rex, or Oedipus, yeah. Of course, there's that idea, the oracle giving these ideas out. And this plays once again, where does this idea come from? Where are the axiomatic origins? And we have to track those if we are going to understand some of Frank Herbert's influences. And why would he include the blind prophet? You may say, oh, people are being able to tell the future. That's like a big deal. But why is there this connection to that? And at some level, incest is another big deal in the series. So in books number two and three, we started to see the idea of incest happening. Aaliyah is naked for Paul and at some level is trying to seduce him because she has gone to the evil. As she is starting to move toward evil. Lido II is in love at some level with his sister but chooses the path of light. In book number four, we realized that the Atreides have been known to mate together throughout history because there aren't that many people around for them. And it's kind of a wonky thing. We see the same thing in Oedipus Rex. I'm not going to surmise that to this much. It doesn't go to the HBO Game of Thrones level, but still really good. So next we have the brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dosvayevsky. And of course I say that wrong almost every single week on the channel. But who cares? So this has been talked about on the forums. I've seen people always mentioning the connection to the Dune series. If you know more than what I'm about to say, let me know. The only really thing that I see a connection to is of course some of the big moral questions and ultimately the religion that you are helping build kill you as Paul is killed or the preacher is killed by one of his own priests. I don't really see that connection, but apparently Frank Dune was influenced by this book and of course really everybody's influenced by this book, including me when I'm writing on one of the novels I'm working on right now. There is a slight influence of this book in there and no one would ever really know unless you really were reaching or really trying to analyze it. But a lot of these ideas, a lot of these great stories continue on even when we don't realize it. So next we have Alfred Corbixi and his book Science and Sanity, an introduction to non-Aristatelian systems and general semantics. And this I'll show you guys this book really fast. Before we get into a quote from this book, this book is kind of wild. And I remember reading this book after I read I think Cosmic Trigger or Quantum Psychology, Prometheus Rising, one of those by Robert Anton Wilson and a lot of people of course in our society today are stuck in the logical Aristotelian systems because to function in an objective reality, those are what you need most. But once you started maybe experimenting with psychedelic drugs, meditation, spending a lot of time out in nature, not caring about what the world thinks or about money, you start to realize there are cracks in the simulation that maybe life doesn't, maybe works in non-linear ways sometimes chaos theory and Alfred Corbixi is really the father of this and when I read this book when I was 19, it blew my mind and it actually sent me down a path of being a little bit too illogical, a little bit too right-brained. But Frank Herbert throughout the series is playing with language and the idea of language and how language controls us and apparently he took some seminars on this text and was really into it and let's read a quote from one of the Dune books. 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 is all the same. The governed populace must be conditioned as 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 whose imperial security force must be ever alert to the formation of sub-languages and of course this is so important and we see the sanity local interpretation of sanity boom it's right there and this is such a big deal when you are looking at the Ben Jezre and what they are trying to do they are controlling with language and Paul first gets to do and they are always seeding this sowing the seeds of the Messiah of the Mahdi coming and this is what happens in our society all the time people don't realize how much words affect us and my favorite thing to say on this channel is the greatest conspiracy of all isn't the conspiracy that everyone loves to talk about and maybe some of them are true some of them are it's the conspiracy that every single time when I leave my house I drove across Las Vegas today I was all around Las Vegas today not one time did I see one positive message all I saw was lack lack you need this you need that you don't have that you don't have the Tesla advertisements tell me what I need to do people is zooming by me trying to get somewhere fast I never saw a positive message saying hey this is an abundant world and you were loved and you should trust it and blah blah blah why don't we have that everywhere I would really think that because we know how subliminal words and linguistics influence people the greatest conspiracy I think and the greatest proof that we're not really in a very loving or very supportive society is that there are not affirmations all around us telling us that we can do good I don't know what that would do but I think that would do a lot maybe not though because we live in such a brain dead world that people might not even understand but they do anyway so this is a very very influential book and this kind of gets into Saussure and Derrida and the jump over the transcendental the abyss of the transcendental signifier and understanding all this is a very big rabbit hole and I would recommend everyone start to explore Alfred's work and if you there's some good summaries online I'm going to be doing a book review or book breakdown and by the time you see this we'll already be out so this is a hard book to read I'm not going to tell you that it isn't but it's one of the most valuable books on this list to read and to understand so another influence is Isaac Amieov I'm sorry I'm butchering his name right now he's Asimov excuse me Asimov's foundation series and what the influence on Dune with this series is that the epigrams at the start of each chapter where did Frank Herbert get that idea where did these ideas come from for each chapter and some chapters in Dune are only three or four pages and there's always one and it kind of gives you a looming foreshadowing of what's going to happen if not the whole plot if not just spoiling everything in those epigrams and that comes from Isaac Asimov's foundation series which I thought was a really cool connection because I've read that but I didn't know that that's where this really started at least in the sci-fi world so another interesting connection is to Lawrence of Arabia and T. Lawrence and Lawrence of Arabia and we're just going to read this whole passage from Moongadget.com this article by Justine Shaw because I think it's I'm just going to let her speak for this it's kind of a sensitive, weird topic so let's hop into it During World War I Thomas Lawrence got himself assigned to a kind of Li-Asian Li-Asian between Arabian Buddians in the British army he surprized the Buddians and his superiors by becoming a military leader organized a string of spectacular victories against the German-backed well-armed Turks he became a dark messiah to the Buddians and a mixed blessing to the British in 1926 Lawrence recorded his adventures in the autobiographical novel The Seven Pillars of Wisdom which was immediately lauded as the greatest adventure story of all ever told and all the elements of swashbuckling yarn and it was all true in 1962 Lawrence's story was retold, okay? Paul is a messianic man of two tribes leading the jihad of Buddians or the Fremen the Harkinins or the Turks the Sardikur or the German troops and the Partisat emperor Shaddam V or whatever that is IV represents both the German government and the British crown in his autobiography Lawrence explains how his homosexuality contributed to his military career he says that he was initially attracted to soldiering because of the all-male environment and his desire to impress other men sexually is what ultimately motivated him to become a hero rather than writing a gay male hero Herbert transformed Lawrence's homosexuality to Dunes villain the Baron Harkinin according to Herbert's biography he considered male homosexuality immoral and died without ever expressing love or approval for his gay son Bruce in a world where gay teens are four times more likely to commit suicide it's a shame that the stories of real-life gay heroes are more often retold so dishonestly as Herbert knew better than anyone Paul Atreides was largely based off on a real human being and his great love wasn't a woman named Chani but a man named Dahum Paul may have been also molded partially on Alexander the Great who made historians called the greatest military genius of all time Alexander was also gay and his boyfriend was a strikingly handsome soldier named Hefestein Hefestein and that's kind of a dark history that Frank Herbert ostracized and kicked out of his life his own son and strained his own son for being gay for being, you know, homosexual obviously that's not good obviously that's absolutely terrible and we're going to be getting into Frank Herbert's life personal life in just a hot second but this whole Lawrence of Arabian idea and reversing a lot of these things and books to steal like an artist is not to steal completely but is to actually just make the reverse to see a character and just reverse it to see the how someone acts and just reverse their behavior maybe in your life maybe in a text and you could take all that same power the whole character and just turn them into the opposite it's like an art-type shadow figure or a shadow figure turning into a figure of light it's a really dynamic technique that Herbert uses in multiple figures throughout the text all right so to conclude we're going to talk about Herbert's personal life and he does not have a great personal history you know I hope you know I really try to keep it together everybody if you're that author trying to make it please don't be violent don't be controlling don't be manipulative obviously don't sexually assault people like please can we get it together everybody like oh my god like it just never ends these stories of these terrible people and maybe that's what it takes that's what I've always heard that that's what it takes to become a great author I think that's just lies so and it's such a cutthroat industry so let's go over some of the this is from the website once again moongadget.com Paul's mother and most of the women in the story are Ben Jesuit Herbert's mother and 10 aunts were Jesuit Fremen displayed religious awe as they okay that one's not very good Paul would catch a ride from a giant sandwich as they passed by Herbert would catch a ride from tugboats pulling large barges okay Mentats are human computers Herbert's grandmother and parents were concerned with the safety almost to the point of distraction from their super heroically important jobs Herbert's parents were depressive alcoholics who barely registered his existence reversal Paul's receives the best education imaginable akin to Alexander Herbert wasn't able to attend university another reversal Ben Jesuits are true sayers possessing the magic ability to tell if people are lying or not they use the pain box to torture Paul his father often threatened to subject young Frank to a lie detector as an adult Frank made good on his father's threat actually purchasing a lie detector and often forcing his sons Brian and Bruce to submit to it Brian compares the lie detector to the pain box from his father's book an instrument of control through torture he later learned that his father had rigged the box to give him whatever answer he wanted and obviously that is not good and that's very manipulative but it takes a lot of people who have been crazy to have that range and hue of emotions and ideas and weirdness to write such a complex and wide ranging book as Dune as the Dune series so what did I miss everybody subscribe to the channel and make sure to tune in to more videos on Dune which are going to be displayed right here right here when they come out soon