The “Missionaria Protectiva” and the engineering of consensus: from Dune to contemporary politics

This article examines the engineering of political consensus through Frank Herbert’s Dune, analyzing the Missionaria Protectiva as a model for contemporary narrative manipulation. The Bene Gesserit’s implantation of myths prefigures modern cognitive preconditioning via digital platforms. Drawing on cases from Italy, the US, Brazil, Hungary, and Russia’s troll farms, the article demonstrates how engineered narratives function as “cognitive viruses” – behavioral operating systems shaping collective perception before leaders emerge to harvest prefabricated consensus. Integrating neuroscience on narrative processing with analysis of algorithmic micro-targeting (Cambridge Analytica, computational propaganda), it traces how myth becomes weaponized, producing “transreality”: overlapping, incompatible realities fracturing consensual understanding. The article concludes proposing transparent, horizontal algorithmic governance as counter-strategy – reclaiming the internet’s decentralized ethos to transform citizens from passive manipulation objects into active subjects of collective myth-making.