"In defining it, it must be pointed out that the general outlook of this philosophy is more important than what can be described as its actual content. The first and most remarkable thing about it is that the division of human experience into a spiritual and a material side had no meaning for it. The words or ideas "spirit" and "matter" convey no distinction to it. It sees the spiritual in what appears to the senses as material, and when it speaks of the spiritual it does not rise above that which manifests itself to the senses.
"It is true to say of Manichaeism- much more so than the abstract and intellectual world of today can realise- that it actually saw spiritual phenomena, spiritual facts, in the stars and their courses, and that in the mystery of the Sun it saw a spiritual reality manifesting itself to us on earth. It conveys no meaning for Manichaeism to speak of matter and spirit separately, for to the Manichaean what is spiritual manifests itself in the form of matter, and that which appears as material is itself spiritual.
"Therefore Manichaeism speaks quite naturally of astronomical things and world-phenomona in the same way that it would speak of moral phenomena or happenings within the evolution of the human race. Thus, the existence side by side of "light" and "darkness" which - imitating something from ancient Persia- it embodies in its philosophy is both a physical and a spiritual fact. In the same way Manichaeism speaks of the Sun in its movements in the heavens as related to the moral realities and impulses in the development of mankind. It sees the relation of this "spiritual physical" Sun to the signs of the Zodiac, as the relation of the Original Being, the source of the world's light, to the twelve Beings through whom He delegates his activities."
-The Redemption of Thinking, Rudolf Steiner
-The Redemption of Thinking, Rudolf Steiner
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