Mani (Middle Persian Mānī; Syriac ܡܐܢܝ Mānī; Greek Μανιχαῖος; Latin Manichaeus)
c. 216-274 CE · Gnosticism · Prominent
Mani was a Mesopotamian prophet raised in a baptising sect, which he broke with after visions of a heavenly Twin. He then founded a missionary religion meant for the whole world and wrote his own scripture so that no successor could corrupt it. Light and Darkness are two uncreated powers, once apart, now mixed by catastrophe and to be pulled apart for good. Your body is manufactured matter, your soul is trapped light, and knowledge is what lets it out.
Signature
The position Mani is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence
- Good and Evil
- Cosmic Dualism
Positions on the 7 axes the sources answer
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain (94 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (100 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence (100 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (85 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Ignorance
- leans Bondage (25 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
13 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Mani refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Duotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Good and Evil
- Cosmic Dualism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Division of Good and Evil
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Beginning of Things
- Demiurgic
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Prophetic
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul / Reincarnation
What happens at death?