This week I’ve been studying Manichaeism and composing a relating essay. This is all in preparation for my talk this coming Sunday. Usually I do not write an essay for my talks, but this time I felt the urge to do so. This composition is still a bit choppy in that I repeat ideas in different places.

And I still do not have a flowing description of the belief that the Manichaean felt was so compelling. They would say: “ this matter is obvious even to the blind.” (Jonas, p.234; ed.2). So, here I am, other believer who I am, trying to make it all look natural.

Without getting way laid by my composition and study, I just wanted to mention what kept me from making my daily entries for this week. I’ll probably wait with giving final form to my essay until after my oral presentation on Sunday.

Oral presentations require a certain rhythm and harmony in order to hold the attention of the ‘hearers’ and it is this that I’m looking for in my essay. I’m hoping for some ‘transference’ as psychologists call that.

Last Friday night I had been invited for dinner at BJ and Sarah’s family. There I found BJ and Laddie working hard at building the back yard deck, with little Alec helping out at times. Mother and daughter Solé are doing fine, but Sarah will stay home a bit longer now with their two little ones. Dinner from the barbeque was very tasty as usual and so were all the accoutrements that Sarah does so well.

John and Derrick have joined Edward at Cowichan Lake on the Island for a late spring break. This means no coffee walks and other visits for me until next week. This suits me just fine, busy as I am. Today though, Herman and I have our lunch and I have to stop at DJ’s for some produce.

Last weekend the building’s water heater was shut down due to water dripping on the heater control unit. It took a few days to get it fixed and then the hot water was way up at the scalding level. All in all, it was yesterday that things were back to normal in the hot water department; talking about getting into hot water, this was a case in point!

I’ll make a small note under writings that relates to my talk on Manichaeism and why it was considered so obvious at the time, as I quoted above.

Doing my studying of Manichaeism, its concept of the battle between Light and Darkness and Light being trapped in the lowly human body as the Soul, I recalled an old theory held at Mani’s times. I retrieved the related book in my library titled “Lost History”, by M. Hamilton Morgan, Nat. Geogr. Publ.

Morgan’s book is about the ‘Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artist’ as the subtitle explains. One of those scientists was Ibn al-Haytham, ca 1 000AD (p.103/4), who showed that the light with which we see is reflected sunlight. Now you may say ‘What else is new?’ However, there was another theory by Ptolemy that was still current in Europe until the Renaissance!

Ptolemy was the go to authority in Antiquity, living in Alexandria, the center of the knowledge for centuries. In his famous ‘Almagest’ Ptolemy explained that the light with which humans see comes from the eyeballs and al-Haytham’s new theory was considered a dangerous heresy at his time. That was hundreds of years after Ptolemy, Mani and many others had passed on.

So, in Mani’s time the light with which people see comes from within and that made Mani’s theory about the Light being trapped in matter in the lowly body a very natural and acceptable concept.

I will leave it at this here, but refer to my essay which will appear next week under the category ‘Topicals’ on my website ‘ TonysThoughtShoppe.info’.