In Sassanid Persia of the 3rd century AD, a young man, Mani, takes himself for a new prophet, successor of Buddha, Zoroastre and Jesus — Buddha being himself successor of Rama or Lama, and Jesus, being a late invention to him. Manichaeism was born. It spreads quickly, emulating Roman Africa to China via India.
Manès was born in April 216 to a mother of princely descent, originally from Nahavand in the province of Hamadan. Her father, Fâtik (or Pâtek), was an Arsacid prince who, according to historical documents, converted to Gnosticism consisting mainly of severe ascetic practices. At the time of Manes’ birth, his family resided in the village of Mardinou in Babylon.
At present, in everyday language, “Manichaeism” refers to a clear-cut attitude between good and evil, the good and the bad, the true and the false… I have known many Christians who shared this dichotomous vision of the world, on one side the good, on the other the wicked. As a result, the doctrine of old Manès is making its way into all beliefs. Or as if simple people need Manichaeism to find their way in this mess and judge without necessarily understanding much.
But in its first sense, Manichaeism was played out between present-day Iraq and Iran, in the 3rd century, in the footsteps of the preacher Mani born Manès. Mani is known to us not only thanks to the Christian texts, notably those who fought against him –Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint Augustine– but also thanks to Arab sources.
The young Manès had the opportunity to rub shoulders with a plethora of religions, of which he will make a joyful amalgam. He mixes a little Mazdaism and Buddhism with Judaism, adds a pinch of Gnosticism and there you have his new religion. The real miracle, this salad will take and convert more than one.
Until 242, Manès received two revelations through the intermediary of an angel called Toum or Twin or simply said Hamzâd (twin). At the age of twelve, he claims to be in contact with a twin who asks him to spread the doctrine of Jesus; he therefore becomes a fervent supporter of Christianity and commits himself to preaching the word of God in India.
Moreover, during this first revelation, the angel Twin orders him to leave the Mandaeans and live with chastity. He therefore leads an ascetic life and waits another twelve years before founding and transmitting his new doctrine.
In 242, Manes returned to Babylon to preach his doctrine. Manès is 24 years old when he receives a second divine revelation according to which he must establish a new religion in order to perfect the previous religions.
Mani goes to preach in Ctesiphon, then capital of Sassanid Persia. Upon his arrival in Persia, he went to Gundishâpour and proclaimed his religion at the royal residence of Shâpour I. He then enjoys royal protection, which allows him to spread his religion throughout Persia.
For his part, Shâpour I supports him because he believes that this new religion will allow the religious unity of all his empire. It therefore promotes the creation of Manichean communities. From then on, the doctrine spread very quickly in the East and in the West, and more particularly in the region of Babylon.
As a sign of gratitude, Manes dedicates to the king of Persia one of his most important works, the Shah. In a short period, the Manichean doctrine develops from west to east, up to Tibet, and throughout China. One can therefore conclude that this religion with a universal vocation was able to be transposed into different languages and thus to be disseminated in different countries.
Fervent supporter of Christianity, Manès decides to introduce Christian elements into his new religion. Moreover, following his long residence in India in the various ascetic communities, his religion is strongly influenced by elements of Buddhism. Finally, it must be emphasized that Manichaeism borrows from Zoroastrianism the idea of dualism which relies on the perpetual fight between Good and Evil. In fact, Manichaeism is based on the principle of dualism according to which the fight between light and darkness leads to the salvation of the soul trapped in the body.
In other words, it is a conflict between the spiritual world, the Light of Good, and the material world, the Darkness of Evil. According to this doctrine, the human being created by God possesses a divine soul, but because of his material body, he carries within him the traces of darkness incarnated by Satan.
Light and Darkness coexist without ever mingling. But at the moment of human being’s creation, Darkness invaded the Light. From then on, the human soul belongs to the kingdom of Light and its body is made of particles of Darkness.
Reflection
We do not possess a soul, it is outside of us until we let it penetrate our body. Then it is the soul who possesses us. The body awaits the salvation that the soul, finally incarnated, will give it. And this salvation is called awakening.
Although very denatured, this vision of our creation is indeed based on a credible source. In my opinion, after years of paling over documents neglected by academics, the human being experienced a double creation. First, star visitors from Alcor in the Big Dipper terraformed our planet from its earliest childhood, four billion years ago.
Then they (they in fact) created successive humanities, five until us, starting with the cyclops, giants of about fifty meters. Then three others, in decreasing size, up to our little double meter…
Unfortunately we have been created a soulless body. Reptilian androids only wanted a workforce to help them in their planetary arrangements. But thanks to Enki’s talent, the fruit of their genetic manipulations moved the Great Goddess of Alcor.
She took an affection for this our humanity, so much that she decided to give us an immortal soul, which our reptilian fathers were dismayed about. In this dark age that is the kali yuga, the Goddess cannot watch over us, she sleeps at the center of the earth. As a reptilian too, she needs this periodic dormancy, hence the existence of the kali yuga.
And as soon as he wakes up, in three or four centuries, it will start again for a new golden age. And for a new humanity of smaller size… Some of us will remain on earth to serve as a guide and benefactor to these strange smurfs.
I summarize in a few lines what I have extensively developed in dozens of articles, since 2008. How? Are you only discovering Eden Saga? Well, you have some exciting discoveries to make there. Wait and see, 600 articles in English and French versions, nearly 7 million readers worldwide, thousands of new ideas and original stories…
But let’s get back to Manichaeism.
He quickly understood that images had an important role in the dissemination of ideas. The elected representatives of religion were also supposed to know how to read and write. Writing contributes to the literacy of the population.
“For the Manichaeans, the world in which we live is this median time of the fight between the principles of Good and Evil.
Good reacts to Evil by trying not to use violence. The terms endurance and suffering are often used. The light finds itself enclosed in darkness, the goal is to free it to bring it back up”
(Anna Van den Kerchove)
Everything changes at the beginning of the 270s. Vahram, heir of Shapour, forbade Manichaeism in order to re-establish the Zoroastrian religion as the sole religion of the empire. The persecutions against the Manicheans multiplied and Mani was arrested, tortured, before dying in the king’s dungeons in February 277.
Yet, the death of the prophet does not mark the end of his religion.
The Manichaean faith continues to spread, from Roman Africa to Turkmenistan, from Bactria to China, where Manichaean communities continue until the late Middle Ages.
This prophet is not so stupid. If the believers had had the same intelligence, they would have let go of their narrowness to espouse a broader faith, more complete, more realistic, in a word: synchrechristic.
Who unites instead of opposing. Who associates instead of fighting. Who completes without distorting, who admits without bad faith: the ideal!
Why did we have to turn away from it? Why did Augustin change his mind? Why was a relapsed heretic sanctified? Like Joan of Arc, she also relapsed heretic and holy…
Relapsed heretic? Fallen back into heresy, after having it abjured. Joan of Arc was burned as a relapse.
It was in 240 that Manes, having been the subject of a revelation which establishes him as heir of the common mission to Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus, proclaims himself holder of divine revelation. He is the “last prophet” and begins his missionary activity: Mohammed will subscribe to the same idea. This is how he teaches the existence of two worlds, of two principles: that of the good and that of the evil, the good being, as always, the spiritual world.
In the religion of Manes, two kinds of faithful appear from then on: those who, still attached to the world, will be able to save themselves only at the end of several reincarnations; and the pure ones, the «elect», whose asceticism pushed to the extreme makes them even renounce giving life.
Those, for sure, will be saved just after their death. At the end of the world, concludes Manès, the struggle between the two principles will degenerate into a general struggle that will ravage the world for nearly fifteen hundred years, following which the principle of evil will be definitively separated from that of good.
The Manichaean religion, which is a universal receptacle, of universal religion, will survive only slightly to the death of its founder, in 275. Fought by Christian theologians such as Saint Augustine, it will also see its members persecuted, notably in Babylon by the Sassanid power.
It will not, however, be completely extinguished and, a few centuries later, the most characteristic features of his doctrine will be found in other heresies, such as that of the Cathars. (Jean-Baptiste Noé)
From its arrival in the West, this religion knows an important development which continues until the 4th century, date of its decline, because it is then strongly fought by the Christian church and the Roman emperors.
Among the famous Christians formerly Manichaeans, let us mention Saint Augustine, who was for nine years a fervent Manicheist, then, after his conversion to Christianity, one of the important critics of the doctrine of Manes. His writings on Manichaeism constitute an excellent source of study on this religion for contemporary scholars.
Nowadays and with a pejorative sense, Manichaeism is the thought or attitude of those who, without nuances, consider that everything can be categorized and judged in terms of Good and Evil, of good and bad and that everything is either white or black. Which, one suspects, is rather vexing for the Yellows.
Truce of vanity, it is strange to think that after having been our respected and revered masters, the Blacks became slaves of the Whites, sold by the Arabs. It is equally incongruous to note that the white race, the last one created by the genetic manipulations of the Sethian aliens of Sumer, has the puerile pride of considering itself as the planetary elite. And believe me, we are not done with his rivalries which continue and increase even without the slightest genetic substrate.
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Manichaeism is an extreme simplification of the complexity of reality that is reduced to an opposition between two antagonistic terms. This is how we talk about Manichaeism under the Cold War, or that of Sarkozy, Mélanchon, Putin, Trump… Why stop already?
The adjective Manichaean qualifies what is relative to Manichaeism, which caricaturally analyzes social or political relationships as a fight between Good and Evil. (source)
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