Another day another messiah. Another day another superhero. Superheroes are a consistent feature of the human imagination, human need, human longing.
Back in the second century AD the inflated claims of Christianity, as we know it today from the canonical version of the Bible, had not become established.
Jesus as a superhero was by no means fixed in character or powers in those days.
In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a child disperses water that Jesus has collected. Jesus kills this child. At age one he curses another boy, which causes the child’s body to wither into a corpse.
In other “gnostic gospels”, Jesus has somebody else crucified in his stead, impregnates the “virgin” Mary, and sells his own twin into slavery.
Two thousand years ago, man had not invented science fiction. At that date man thought space was a physical canopy above the earth, and so early Superhero authors had to set their tall stories on the earth, since the earth was all they knew.
Why do you like Dune, why did Herbert concoct the story, why were the books and films so successful?
The subconscious is a strange thing – perhaps you too have a desire for “super-heroism” to be true. Even if not, many of us clearly find something about Dune amuses us, attracts us, interests us.
And so now to “truth”. Eventually, the early Christian Church bigots kicked out all the inconvenient gospels and said the only true version of their super-hero Jesus “Christ” was contained in what we now call the Bible. In that version JC is a real good guy and certainly did not impregnate his own mother or kill others out of sheer spite or anger.
Do superheroes “really” exist? The Church believes so. Others may take a more balanced view: no, I do not believe that JC or any other superhero exists or ever has existed.
But our longing for something beyond the physical world we can prod and measure does have some justification in reality. In the sense I have so often spoken about. That the world is far more mysterious than we pygmies can yet imagine and that while there may be no “god” as such, perhaps we have the power to become “godlike”. There certainly seems to be godlike power out there somewhere. To me at least.
That has always been my take on the matter.
And Dune? What is it? On one level it is simply a fun story, an amusement. On another level it takes on a very much more significant shape which can sometimes have very severe consequences. ”Good” ideas, like communism have a plethora of Superheroes but usually have horrendous consequences. The communist Superheroes far outdid the Nazis in terms of mass slaughter. The desire for a Superhero was of course also cruelly exploited by the Nazis who seemed to offer a paradise, a way out for a Germany impoverished by Versailles, Weimar and hyper inflation. Hitler and his cronies were worshipped before it all went disastrously wrong.
Christians twisted a good folk tale into what has often been an instrument of hideous cruelty and murder, and so have other religions which shall remain nameless. Lest I receive a bomb through my letter box or have my head cut off by an insane extremist. Lest I receive a police visit for hatred or prejudice of some sort or another against what is fast becoming an unassailable orthodoxy.
So Dune and stories like it point out tantalising images of possible, imaginary utopias. Which we have always sought.
If I wax lyrical as usual, you will understand that this is a topic of great interest to me. Since I believe the issues go far far wider than one story, one book, one attempt to explain our world and to explore possibly better places or incarnations.
