Editing Melange (Dune) (section)

===Properties===
Melange is a drug that prolongs life and bestows heightened vitality and awareness, and in some humans unlocks prescience, a form of precognition based in genetics but made possible by use of the spice. In the story, the [[Spacing Guild]] uses humans mutated by excessive consumption of melange, and thereby endowed with limited prescience, to safely navigate [[heighliner]] [[starship]]s through [[folded space]].<ref name="New Yorker Michaud">{{cite magazine |url=http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/dune-endures |title=''Dune'' Endures |first=Jon |last=Michaud |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |date=July 12, 2013 |access-date=August 18, 2015}}</ref><ref name="SR 2021">{{Cite web|url=https://screenrant.com/dune-sandworms-importance-book-movie-explained/|title=''Dune''{{'s}} Sandworms Explained: Why They're So Important|website=[[Screen Rant]]|first=Bella|last=Ross|date=November 5, 2021|access-date=November 12, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220807191854/https://screenrant.com/dune-sandworms-importance-book-movie-explained/|archive-date=August 7, 2022|url-status=live}}</ref> In larger quantities, the spice possesses intense [[Psychoactive drug|psychotropic]] effects and is used as a powerful [[entheogen]] by both the [[Bene Gesserit]] and the [[Fremen]] people of [[Arrakis]] to initiate [[clairvoyant]] and [[precognitive]] trances, access [[genetic memory (psychology)|genetic memory]], and heighten other abilities.<ref name="Dune"/> The Fremen also use the spice to make, among other things, paper, plastics, and chemical explosives,<ref name="Dune"/> and the existence of "spice-cloth" and "spice-fiber" rugs are noted in ''[[Dune Messiah]]'' (1969) and ''[[Children of Dune]]'' (1976).<ref name="Messiah">{{cite book |last=Herbert |first=Frank |title=[[Dune Messiah]] |year=1969 }}</ref><ref name="Children">{{cite book |last=Herbert |first=Frank |title=Children of Dune |url=https://archive.org/details/childrenofdune1976herb |url-access=registration |year=1976|publisher=Berkley Publishing Corporation |isbn=9780425043837 }}</ref> Melange can be mixed with food, and it is used to make beverages such as spice coffee, spice beer, and spice liquor.<ref name="Dune"/>

By the events of ''Dune'', the spice is used all over the universe and is a sign of wealth.<ref name="Dune"/> Duke [[Leto I Atreides|Leto Atreides]] notes that of every valuable commodity known to mankind, "all fades before melange. A handful of spice will buy a home on Tupile."<ref name="Dune"/> Jon Michaud of ''[[The New Yorker]]'' wrote: "Imagine a substance with the combined worldwide value of cocaine and petroleum and you will have some idea of the power of melange."<ref name="New Yorker Michaud"/> Due to the rarity and value of melange and its necessity as a catalyst for interstellar travel, the [[Padishah Emperor]]'s power at the outset of ''Dune'' is secured by his control of Arrakis, which puts him on equal footing with both the assembly of noble families called the [[Landsraad]] and the Spacing Guild, which [[monopoly|monopolizes]] interstellar travel.<ref name="Dune"/> Seizing control of the planet, [[Paul Atreides]] intensifies this form of [[Hydraulic empire|hydraulic despotism]] by asserting control over both the Landsraad and Spacing Guild, as well as other factions in the universe.<ref name="Dune"/> Paul's sister [[Alia Atreides|Alia]] says in ''Children of Dune'', "The spice often called 'the secret coinage'. Without melange, the Spacing Guild's heighliners could not move ... Without melange and its amplification of the human immunogenic system, life expectancy for the very rich degenerated by a factor of at least four. Even the vast middle class of the Imperium ate diluted melange in small sprinklings with at least one meal a day."<ref name="Children"/>