Manichaeanism is Alive:
The Neo-Manichaean Church
This is the preliminary home page for the Neo-Manichaean Church. We represent a revival of the ancient teachings of the prophet Mani, who established a religion which spread across Europe and Asia and lasted for centuries despite horrible persecution. We believe that Manichaeanism was closer to the truth than the corrupted religions which attacked it, and should be updated and revived as a living faith to solve the problems of the modern world.
Contents:
MANICHAEANISM
Manichaeanism was not just a "Christian heresy" (as some Catholics regarded it) but was a separate religion, with basic truths recognizable to Zoroastrians and Buddhists as well as Christians. The basic Manichaean worldview is dualistic, or "ditheistic"--there is an endless battle between the moral and evil principles, neither of which ever creates or annihilates the other (unlike the Jehovah/Satan duality of Christianity). The conflict between the moral and evil principles resulted in the "light" of our souls--an eternal light emanated from the Moral God--being trapped within the corrupted, doomed bodies of the physical universe, which was created by the Evil God to divide and separate our souls from the Ultimate good so that we would be trapped in a cycle of suffering and death. The ultimate goal of a Manichaean was the release of the soul from the cycle of death and rebirth in the physical world. This would be brought about by understanding the truth of Manichaeanism, recognizing the connections we have with all other beings, and therefore adopting the moral worldview advocated by Mani.
Mani considered himself the last of a series of prophets; each of the earlier prophets, while wise and enlightened, only partially understood the revealed Truth, and so their religions remained incomplete and easily perverted. However, Mani recognized elements of true wisdom in the earlier teachings. Zarathustra (in Persia) taught ditheism (dualism), that there are two opposed Gods, one of order and one of chaos ('the devil'), in eternal opposition--a concept which was copied and twisted by Christians and Muslims. The Buddha (in India) provided insight into the nature of suffering and the eternal cycle of life and death--and how to escape it. Jesus (in the Roman Empire) tried to sacrifice himself to take on the suffering that the evil God intended for others; although Christian beliefs about his relation to the evil Creator-god Jehovah were corrupted, Mani felt the basic impulse of Jesus was pure. The final prophet, Mani, understood the truth, and preached the coherent, logical religion that we call Manichaeanism. Ironically, Zoroastrians, Christians and Buddhists have all claimed that Mani was one of their own--and in the first two cases, a dangerous herectic whose words were feared by corrupt and power-hungry leaders. Although Buddhism may just be an incomplete version of Manichaeanism, many other religions including Christianity are violent and hate-filled, spiritual traps set for us by the Evil Lord of this universe to blind us from Mani's teachings.
NEO-MANICHAEANISM
The Neo-Manichaean Church represents a modern incarnation of the ancient religion. Reviving Manichaeanism is an extremely difficult task, because of the destruction of much of the original religion's texts, laws, artwork, and records of ceremonies by the persecutors. However, we believe that the basic truths of the old religion are logical and universal, and therefore can be preserved and spread in the new.
The revival of the Religion of Light is the ultimate triumph of truth over power. Those who used brutality to destroy Manichaeanism are now suffering their ultimate defeat, for the revival of Mani's teachings as a living religion represents the only form of revenge a moral being can promote: the revenge of survival and remembrance.
WHY NEO-MANICHAEANISM?
The Neo-Manichaean faith addresses the issue that is the great weakness of the world's largest religions: the origin of evil and suffering. The answer is simple, but dangerous to the false religions that now dominate our world: the creator-God is ultimately responsible for the evil and suffering in the world, because that God is itself evil. There is no other explanation for our situation. No moral being would willingly create suffering, or allow it to exist. There is no "plan" so wonderful that it would justify such suffering--the plans of Gods do not require trade-offs. A God would not "need" to allow suffering as a way to define pleasure, or to teach us a lesson about life, because by definition a God could accomplish these goals just as easily without harming a fly. There is only one reason why a God would create evil: because it wanted evil to exist.
Although we believe that the Evil God continues to intervene to prevent the liberation of our souls from his trap, our goal is not to simply destroy a horde of devils and demons in some final battle for planet Earth. Neo-Manichaean beliefs focus not on the power struggle between rival gods of order and chaos, but on the fundamental difference between the Evil and Moral principles. The Ultimate good is within us--the "light" of our souls, trapped within the shell of the physical universe. The moral side of the struggle should not be considered a "king god", the popular image of a bearded old white guy sitting on a throne with power and punishment at its disposal. Such images are false and misleading.
Instead, the Moral principle is a pure IDEA, the Ultimate good, and its influence is intrinsic and timeless.
The enlightened prophets--Zarathustra, Buddha, Jesus, and Mani--all advocated the cause of morality, the only idea that can end our suffering and remove the world from the grasp of evil. Because we have consciousness, humans have the potential to gain wisdom and understand the truth, which is the first step in escaping the endless cycle of suffering and death. We can choose to practice moral behavior, voluntarily rejecting the selfish desires of our corrupt physical bodies whenever this selfishness harms others. Morality is not the following of orders, be they laws of governments or commandments of gods. Morality is about empathy, the ability to imagine the world through the eyes of another being, and the mindfulness to place the interests of another above your own WITHOUT REWARD OF ANY KIND.
Even if you accept that humans evolved from purely selfish lower animals, this does not mean you have to accept selfishness and natural selection as the future of our species.
Our sapience may have the effect of magnifying our awareness of the world's suffering, but this can be considered our advantage as well as a curse. We know that things do not have to remain as they are.
"Heaven" or "Pure Land" or "Paradise" are not the goals of the NeoManichaean. We are not trying to go somewhere else, to another world created by the same evil principle as our own. The Buddhist concept of Nirvana best represents the breaking down of barriers to the connections between all our souls, the triumph of morality and the spirit over the limitations and suffering in the physical world, and the renunciation of the power of the evil God.
A moral being will never use force even for a "righteous cause", because coercion and power are the weapons of evil. Moral beings must by definition lack power, except for the influence of truth. This is why the side of morality cannot destroy evil in battle, but must instead overcome evil by teaching every individual how to escape it. Of course, this limits the ability of moral beings to rapidly or continuously defeat evil, for the functioning of our minds is limited by our corrupted physical bodies, created with distracting needs and desires. It will be a long, difficult battle.
In order to win, Neo-Manichaeanism must avoid the errors of the world's ruling religions. If you use power over another person to convert them, you have not followed the Neo-Manichaean path. "Power" does not just mean physical force but any unfair influence, such as superior wealth, social pressure, or even taking advantge of a person's loneliness by taking them into the family of the Church. These are the tactics of the false religions--religions inspired or corrupted by worship of the evil Creator-god. The teachings of Mani cannot be spread in such immoral ways; only fair, logical debate can be used to convince others of the truth of Neo-manichaeanism.
A CALL TO ORGANIZE
Join us! Learn the teachings of Mani, organize a Church in your community or on your campus. All across the world, neo-paganism and cults are being spread by a grass-roots effort. We should aspire to do no less to revive one of the great religions of humanity.