and most people can not take that level of weirdness which is Herbert liberated. (He was also stressed out of his mind for he was working on the movie, becoming famous after the movie, his 2nd wife died, he got married to his third wife, his own health problems, then his death all in a period of 4 almost 5 years.)

But yeah Frank Herbert did more of his religious syncretism themes with the Missionaria Protectiva , Orange Catholic Bible, Fremen Buddhist Muslims which is a ZenSunni mixture, the Bene Tleilax who are all men have a mixture of ZenSunni and ZenSufi mixture, Space Jews, etc. All of this was in Book 1 as background but in Book 2 and especially Book 4, 5, and 6 the background is moved to more prominent foreground where it was beating your head over it if one understands what it was saying and not being a teen with limited life experiences / knowledge.

Now Frank Herbert in real life was raised Catholic and both loved and hated his upbringing, learning the forms but rebelling against it per multiple biographies including the son he was not estranged with. (There are rants about Jesuits and Nuns) with Frank Herbert converting to Zen Buddhism later in life. Herbert was an arch conservative in his own fashion, who did drugs, and hated certain aspects of imperialism for he loved tradition, and he understood tradition is often a synthesis of things (some of which are false), yet imperialism and hegemony hollowed out the traditions which he loved if the leaders did not see any use to them. Likewise Herbert also had a rebellious streak such as running away from his parents as a teen and living with his aunts.

That man was a mixture of things, that seem contradictory and alien to many people, except they kind of make sense when one takes them together from his perspective. shrug