What is Manichaeism?

One of practitioners of Manichaeism established Ming dynasty in China. The word Ming (明）takes inspiration from Manichaeism as it represents the brightness of human spirits. However, the emperor himself later brutally eradicated Manichaeism, since it was quite effective in fermenting peasant uprising..

Alright, I'm a Comparative Religion student and I'm only discovering this channel now!? Mate, your work is fantastic, definitely some of the best content I have seen. I'm back-watching some videos and your videos on Ibn Arabi and Taoism is great! Please make more 'Introduction to' traditions and maybe something on Perennialism/Traditionalism and Hindusm! I'm glad You Tube is bringing people with our particular interests together like this, although I'm late to discovering you.

It is refreshing to hear scholarly information spoken, not read, imparting research in a congenial way. Thank you for speaking with emphasis and calm enthusiasm.

I am Indian Muslim women interested in comparative religion. I greatly benefited from this lecture of yours. At the same time marvelled at your knowledge and memory. I think that manichaeism became extinct not only because of onslaught of other rival religions but also because of the rules which were too austere to be followed by common people. Too much of ascetism is hard to digest. Thanks for the knowledge you shared.

Manichaeism eating habits sounds a lot like the eating habits of Jainism.

The man who later became st Augustin was a manichean fot 10 years.

I don't remember hearing "Manichaean" to mean dualistic (though one of my parents used "Zoroastrian" that way), but I had vaguely heard of it as some Abrahamic-adjacent religion that I knew nothing about until I saw it was the state religion of Uyghur Khaganate and decided to look into it and got really interested. I just thought it was fun to think that the Uyghurs once ruled an empire in Mongolia whose religion upheld Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ, and someone named Mani as the 4 prophets (a nice geographical distribution of prophets, and interesting in mixing Indian and Abrahamic traditions much earlier than Sikhism, Baha'i, or anything else I knew of like that).

I’ve become a bit obsessed with Mani and his teachings especially since I’m reading. *The Gardens of Light * by Amin Maalouf which is fictional biography of Mani written by Maalouf who’s a historian. As oddball as his cosmology is I’ve always found Mani an attractive figure in his attempt to unify, or better said harmonize the manifold systems of humanity.

I can't get enough of your content, such good work every single time !

I lived in South a France in an area where Cathars lived in 12th and 13th centuries.The Cathari professed a neo-Manichaean dualism—that there are two principles, one good and the other evil, and that the material world is evil. They were prosecuted and masacured by Christian armies sent by Vatican regularly. I am Iranian so I knew about the artist Mani and his religion, and I was very surprised to realize that Manichaeism had arrived even as far as France. Your description of Manichaeism and its history is the most comprehensive I have ever heard. Thank you for this work. The reason the follows of Mani were prosecuted however, I believe, is the fact that they were opposing the power of clergy that in Iran was the Zoroastrian priests, and in France, was Vatican. I think this was what the core of Mani movement all about.

In the movie "The Fifth Element" weren't the alien beings referred to as " Manicheans", along with the Elements and dualism a main component of the story? Just occurred to me. Great video!

I'm a Persian (well actually Iranian cause there is no Persia anymore ...), I can only say thank you for this great video, I wanted to write something about the art in the Manichaeism, we call the Mani the painter prophet because their main book(Arzhang...ارژنگ.) written by Mani himself was so beautifully designed and written with beautiful calligraphy, they had their own alphabet and calligraphy style, they saw the different forms of art (because of the spirit of the beauty within them) as the best way to represent light, you could say their only alive relative religion is the Mandaeans in southern Iran and the border cities of Iraq they still have about 75000 followers, although with a deeper research one can find their footsteps and influence in many belief systems around the world, thank you once again for your great video 🙏🙏🙏

That "Buddha of Light" carving is actually from the last Manichean temple in China -- the Cao'an in Jinjiang, Fujian province (as mentioned by someone else in the comments). While prophet Mani has the face and look of a Buddhist figure, if you look closely, the carving is showing him wearing Taoist religious garb and not Buddhist. This was likely due to the cultural assimilation with local Chinese religions after its initial entry into the region during Tang Dynasty in 7th century, and transformed into a mix of Buddhist-Taoist Mani. There are some local Chinese folktales that mentioned Manicheans being a large portion of the Red Turban militia force - along with White Lotus Buddhist sect - that helped the Ming Dynasty founder to overthrow the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. Legend has it (no concrete evidence) that the naming of the "Ming Dynasty" was named after "Ming Religion" -- the name of Manichean religion in China during that period. During Song Dynasty (before the Mongolian Yuan), Manichean was called "vegetarian demon worshippers". Hahahaha. The term "demon" here is in the Chinese tradition of evil spirit and not the Greek origin of "daemon".

I'm impressed by how well you pronounce all names. Your pronunciation of Arabic, Aramean, and Swedish are good enough to think that you are native to any one of these. Edit: Oh you're Swedish, that explains it. Also something notable about Manicheanism is that their Syriac terminology is lifted straight from the Syriac/Assyrian churches under Antioch. Every single word they used "ecclesiastically" are words which are used by the Syriac churches to this day.

There's a French comic by Enki Bilal (can't remember which one, but probably La foire aux immortels) which has Neomanicheans who live in space because space has very little matter and are actively trying to destroy matter, including entire planets. That was probably my first introduction to Manicheism. Also: the relationship of the Elect with the Hearers sounds an awful lot like the Cathars from what I read about them.

This was interesting, informative, eloquent and beautifully illustrated. Thank you from someone who teaches Comparative Religion.

The Manichean tradition seems to have been revived or continued in Southern Europe as the Cathars (Good Christians), who were much persecuted by the official church.

Yes, more please especially the art and quotes from his writings. Many thanks-we love your channel.🙏

This is helpful in trying to understand St. Augustine's initial attraction to Manichaeism (I'm reading the Confessions for my Catholic book club.) Your presentation is very respectful to different cultures also.

This was the most thourough explanation of the cult of Mani. I would like to share with you about a very lucid dream that I had about Mani. I dreamed this dream back in 1993 and have never forgotten it. In my dream I was in a strange type of environment. I couldnt figure out whether I was inside of a building or outside. It shone with a certain kind of light that was neither glaring or bright and I found myself confronted with this mini maze of a building that was about 8 feet high and it had 8 sides all with connecting hallways and outer openings but no doors. I wandered around inside of this weird little structure when suddenly seemingly from thin air out popped this short little man with a rounded face and a continuous smile on it. He kept his hands together in a typical prayer type manner with both hands together and pointed straight up. I said to him hello who are you? He answered back, I am Mani. I could sense from him a feeling of peace and tranquility and of no fear whatsoever. I asked him what this little maze building signified or meant. All he said was it teaches us about eternity and how to be happy within it.