Kwisatz Haderach
The Kwisatz Haderach is a fictional name of a prophesied messiah figure in the Dune universe, created by Frank Herbert, and later extended by his son, Brian Herbert, alongside science fiction author Kevin J Anderson.
The name means "Shortening of the Way," and is the label applied by the Bene Gesserit to the unknown for which they sought a genetic solution — a unique male Bene Gesserit whose organic mental powers would bridge space and time. Also known as "the one who can be many places at once."
The phrase Kwisatz Haderach originally came from Hebrew (קְפִיצַת הַדֶּרֶךְ, possibly originally Tiberian Hebrew Qəp̄îṣáṯ hadDéreḵ, Standard Hebrew Qəfiẓat haDéreḫ, commonly Kfitzat haDérech) and means verbatim "jump of the path", a Hebrew archaic equivalent of the English expression "short cut".
In East European Jewish folktales, especially those associated with the Hassidic movement, the term was used to describe the ability to jump instantaneously from one place to another, attributed to various revered holy men.
The term is used in some of the works of Shmuel Yosef Agnon, an Israeli writer who won the 1966 Nobel Prize for literature. In an Agnon story based on one of the above-mentioned Hassidic folktales, a righteous Rabbi is given the gift of "Kfitzat Haderech" and uses it to 'jump" into the treasuries of the Habsburg Empire, take sacks full of newly-minted gold coins, and jump back to his shtetl, unnoticed by anybody . He uses the money to help poor or persecuted Jews, and the story implies that the power would be taken away should he take any of the gold to himself.
Later, when the Emperor plans to make decrees harmful to the Jews, the Rabbi uses his power of "Kfitzat Haderech" in order to jump into the audience chamber and beat the Emperor with his stick - being visible (and tangible) to the Emperor himself but invisible to his councillors and guards.
The Bene Gesserit hoped to create a male Reverend Mother capable of absolute powers of prescience, able to predict all possible futures and to cause select threads of time to be realized through manipulation. They hoped to use him to strengthen Bene Gesserit power among other power loci within the Empire. Unknown to them at first, their breeding program came to a successful conclusion with the birth of Paul Atreides, except for the fact that they could not control him. The result was the being they had prized and anticipated the most became the instrument by which their order was diminished.
Jessica Atreides was conceived through the blackmail of the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen by Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, and born to the Bene Gesserit in the year 10,154 after the formation of the Spacing Guild. The blackmail was necessary because the Baron was and had always been homosexual. The first child conceived between them was deformed and was promptly killed by Mohiam. Afterwords Mohiam returned to the Baron but since he found the act of cross-gender sex horrible he painfully raped Mohiam and well in the act Mohiam released a powerful sickness into his body which caused him to gain weight. Jessica was raised to be bound as a concubine to the Duke Leto Atreides, and instructed to produce a daughter, but no sons, for him. This daughter would be wed to Feyd-Rautha, nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen and heir to House Harkonnen, healing the generations old rift between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, and producing the Kwisatz Haderach for the Bene Gesserit. The Kwisatz Haderach is the male reverend mother who has other memories of his male line, something the all-female Bene Gesserit lack, along with the female line.
However, Jessica falls in love with Leto, and produces a son for him, Paul (there is some indication that Jessica believed she could achieve the Kwisatz Haderach herself, one generation early). Paul is the Kwisatz Haderach, and eventually sets the Imperium on a course lasting thousands of years in the person of his son, Leto Atreides II. Much to the frustration of the Bene Gesserit, they do not control Paul, and the events of the coming millennia leave Jessica noteworthy as a figure of history who committed a great wrong (according to the Bene Gesserit); in the coming centuries, for a Bene Gesserit to choose her love over the instructions of her order is known as "the Jessica Crime".
Due to the advent of Paul and Leto II, the Bene Gesserit become terrified of accidentally producing another Kwisatz Haderach because being able to see the future fixes the future along a certain path; to avoid this, the Bene Gesserit provoke the Honoured Matres into destroying most of the remnants of Leto II whose prescience had locked the human race into a fixed path and also were forced to kill a number of offspring of the Atreides line in order to prevent another Kwisatz Haderach from controlling their destiny ever again.
The Bene Tleilax claim to have bred their own Kwisatz Haderach. The Tleilaxu ran into the same problems the Bene Gesserit had with Paul Atreides: they were unable to control their creation. He eventually committed suicide.