Mani (216 - 276 A.D.)

Mani was a prophet and the founder of a gnostic religion than became known as Manichaeism, a religion that was once widespread but it now extinct.  He was born in around Seleucia-Ctesiphon in Assyria (modern-day Iraq).

He received visions at the ages of 12 and 24 telling him to leave his father's Jewish Christian sect and to teach the true message of Christ.  From there he traveled to India and Afghanistan and may have been influenced by Buddhism.  When he returned in 242 A.D. he became favoured by King Shapur, yet when Bahram succeeded to the throne everything changed, Bahram was a supporter of Zoroastrian movement and persecuted the Manichaeans, Mani was caught and put in prison and later crucified.

It is said that he wrote seven works, although none of these have survived in their complete form, they include the Mani-Codex and the Book of Giants.  His teachings that have survived tell us that he believed that good and evil existed in a constant struggle.  He believed that salvation was possible through education, self-denial, fasting and chastity.  He claimed to be the last of the prophets, and followed the teachings of other prophets; Seth, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Nikotheos, Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus.

False Prophecies of Merlin?

As I continue my research into the Mirabilis liber which was published in 1522, I wish to talk about a set of prophecies that appear in the book under the author name of St Gregory the Great.  But the document can be linked to an earlier publication that was attributed to that of Merlin, hence a conclusion that the collector of the Mirabilis liber chose to either disguise the name for some purpose... or simply had presumed incorrectly.

So why would prophecies from the source of Merlin be false?  As discussed previously, the character of 'Merlin' originates from a welsh person from the 6th century called Myrddin Wyllt, who had made a mess of his own prophecies and was driven to madness and lived in the wild as a crazed man.  Therefore any written prophecies said to originate from this source must have been faked or copied from elsewhere.  Yet as I studied the prophecies, they actually foretold things that have happened; 

"born of a tree a bird"

(seems to predict the invention of the plane)

[the plane] "shall wander around all those deserts killing the evil beasts"

(seems to predict planes hitting enemies, possibly the Iraq wars)

"truly even the Indies shall share in it, and know that the sea shall rise greatly and miraculously"

(seems to predict the devastating tsunami on 26th Dec 2004)