What 'Dune' Tells Us About Psychedelics' Past, Present, and Future

'Dune' is obviously about magic mushrooms. But what does it want us to know about them?

In the world of Dune, as author Frank Herbert writes, the “most precious substance in the universe is the spice mélange. The spice extends life. The spice expands consciousness.” Spice “gives insight,” and a chance to see with your “inward eye.” A man on spice “will look where we cannot—into both feminine and masculine pasts.”

Clearly, spice is pretty close to psilocybin, psychedelic mushrooms.

This is even more apparent in the recent second installment of Denis Villeneuve’s stunning film adaptation, Dune: Part Two. (Don’t think you’re a sci-fi nerd/Dune person? I thought the same, then I saw it.) In this gripping part of the story, all the major interplanetary forces seem to be after spice, for their own reasons. It focuses on maybe-messiah Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) as he becomes a warrior alongside the Fremen of Arrakis—essentially indigenous people—after casting off his nobleman heritage in the wake of his father’s assassination. A lot of Game of Thrones-like power dynamics are at play, but what’s important here is that his increased exposure to spice on the desert planet starts giving him visions that seem to show him the future, which underscore the growing belief that he is the savior of the Fremen, but also that widespread destruction lies ahead.

Our man is tripping.

But he’s not the only one. The entire Dune universe has its own ideas about, and hunger for, spice. The Fremen are fighting for their culture’s survival because modern neighboring kingdoms are attacking so they can control the spice supply (which turns out to enable galactic travel). Meanwhile, the Fremen have ingested so much spice—in their food, in their air—that their eyes have turned blue—and the powerful matriarchal leaders of the Bene Geserit religious order, including Paul’s own mother, are fueled by a concentrated version harvested from sand worms.

In fact, Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic novel was directly inspired by his own experience growing and taking magic mushrooms. Perhaps the world’s most famous mycologist (in fact, its only famous mycologist), Paul Stamets, wrote about it in his book Mycelium Running: “Frank went on to tell me that much of the premise of Dune—the magic spice (spores) that allowed the bending of space (tripping), the giant sand worms (maggots digesting mushrooms), the eyes of the Fremen (the cerulean blue of Psilocybe mushrooms), the mysticism of the female spiritual warriors, the Bene Gesserits (influenced by the tales of Maria Sabina and the sacred mushroom cults of Mexico)—came from his perception of the fungal life cycle, and his imagination was stimulated through his experiences with the use of magic mushrooms.”

Dune’s original publication came amid the first major wave of mainstream white American enthusiasm for psychedelics, which, of course, simply acknowledged and echoed the longstanding psychedelic tradition among indigenous people. So the timing of this adaptation, amid the growing Psychedelic Renaissance, is interesting. The climactic battle in Dune: Part Two takes place on Arrakis for only one reason, and that’s the presence of spice on the planet. This dusty planet, famously hard to navigate and barely livable, attracts shiny, powerful invaders because of this desirable resource, which, it must be noted, not only leads to religious experiences and visions, but also powers interstellar navigation. Fremen have learned to use it in everything from paper and fiber to explosives. It offers both health benefits and addictive qualities. But major powers want to use it to, presumably, conquer new lands, too.

Dune is considered one of the first sci-fi novels that serve as a cautionary tale for ecological exploitation, but we can see it as a warning against all exploitation, and the ways that human civilization encourages it. While the environmental parallels to mining or oil-drilling are clear, Dune is also a tale of colonization, and one of co-opting a natural substance that’s intrinsic to one culture for the needs of another. That is, it’s not far off from modern, Western society “discovering” psychedelics and exploiting them for its own purposes.

While Americans are beginning to embrace psychedelics for their powerful potential in the realm of mental health, not to mention the recreational purposes that have been well-known since the ‘60s, the substances’ spiritual side has also emerged as an area of great interest in a time when traditional, organized religions are on the decline. Many believe in the vision presented by Dune, that such substances can reveal ancient, pre-colonial wisdom that can transform the world.

The question Dune presents, but does not answer, particularly in this second of three installments, is: Just because these visions seem ancient and mystical, even pre-ordained, does that make them inherently good? Are the visions prompted by these powerful natural substances good, or true?

Who’s good and who’s evil remains to be seen in this saga—though, obviously, the Harkonnens are psychopaths and fascists. Dune doesn’t offer us easy answers, but it prompts plenty of complicated questions about religion, colonialism, and even who gets to “own” psychedelics, and what they really mean. The fact that it does so in a gorgeous, big-budget, very successful Hollywood film is even better.