Manichaean cosmology portrays reality as structured around two primordial and eternal realms: the Realm of Light and the Realm of Darkness. The Realm of Light, ruled by the Father of Greatness, is characterized by peace, knowledge, purity, and goodness; it is populated by spiritual beings and divine emanations. Opposed to it stands the Realm of Darkness, ruled by the Prince of Darkness, marked by chaos, violence, ignorance, and destructive passions. These two domains originally exist in complete separation, each self-contained and fully itself, with no interaction between them. The drama of existence begins when Darkness, driven by its own turbulent nature, rises up and attacks the Realm of Light.

To respond to this assault, the Father of Greatness emanates a savior figure known as the Primal or First Man, equipped with elements of light as a kind of spiritual armor. This Primal Man descends to confront the forces of Darkness but is overwhelmed, and the light-essence that constitutes his armor is seized and absorbed by the dark powers. Through this defeat, light and darkness become mixed, and from this mixture the present cosmos is fashioned. The material world thus emerges as a paradoxical reality: at once a prison in which particles of light are held captive within matter, and a carefully ordered mechanism through which those same particles can be gradually purified and released.

Within this framework, human beings stand at the very heart of the cosmic struggle. The human soul is understood as a fragment of the divine light, while the body is aligned with the dark, material principle. Ethical conduct, ascetic discipline, and true knowledge serve as means by which the soul’s light can be disentangled from its bodily bonds. Divine beings such as the Living Spirit, along with a series of prophets, work in concert with this process, awakening awareness of the soul’s origin and destiny and guiding it toward liberation. The sun, moon, and other cosmic structures function as repositories and vehicles for the rescued light, gathering it up and bearing it back toward the Realm of Light.

Over the vast course of this process, more and more light is separated from darkness and restored to its native realm. As the work of purification advances, the forces of Darkness are increasingly isolated and rendered powerless, deprived of the light they had once seized. The eschatological hope of this cosmology is a final and definitive separation, in which all remaining light is withdrawn to the Realm of Light and the dark realm is sealed off, unable to mingle with it again. The entire sweep of cosmic history, and every individual life within it, is thus interpreted as part of a grand drama of rescue and restoration, in which the scattered light struggles to return to its transcendent source.