Roland van Vliet, Dutch philosopher (1960-2016), saw it as his life's work to "rehabilitate" Manichaeism from the criticism rooted in Augustinian thought through the ages, to a new understanding of it based on the latest archaeological finds of the 20th century which shed new light on Manichaeism as a deeply Christian stream, where love, inspired by the love-sacrifice of Jesus Christ, freely given by the human being to both suffering humanity and the suffering earth and to evil itself can work as a transforming catalyst towards redemption and the Light.
In this book, an early translation of his major work on Manichaeism, written during his studies at the Free University of Amsterdam, culminating in a PH.D. in Philosophy, with a doctoral dissertation on Manichaeism, van Vliet expands on themes such as: Manichaean cosmology; good and evil; radical dualism vs. moderate dualism; Mani's life and his early Christian church; reincarnation and karma vs. original sin; freedom and love as essential themes in Manichaeism and docetism vs. gnostic adoptionism in relation to the question of Manichaean belief as to the incarnation of the cosmic Christ into the historic Light-Apostle Jesus at the Baptism in the River Jordan.