[Manicheans regarded themselves as intellectually superior to the common folk. Certainly, common folk were just as intelligent as any Manichean philosopher. However, common folk could not explain why they were not inferior.]

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[The prior interscopes also suggest this: The Manichean solution arrived after the stoical common folk interscope turned into an intersection.

Speculative reason resolved the intersection.

Thus, the speculative reason of the Manichean was born through detachment from the practical reason of stoical common folk.]

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[The identical situation, where our good spiritual being was trapped within the matrix of evil material, emerges from two types of reason.

The stoicism of the common folk rely on one type of reason.

The enlightenment of the Manicheans rely on the other.

In both cases, reason serves as evidence for the spark of spiritual good.

Both types of reason produce content that could be situated within the situation.]

[The faculty of reason solved practical problems.

The same faculty of reason allowed the possibility to escape slavery to the material world.

Reason could learn (recognize) the secret knowledge (gnosis) that would liberate the spirit from its material impediments.

Reason could learn the incantations to recite after death, when the spirit migrated back to the source.]

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[Common folk practiced a brutal style of Stoicism.

Reason was one of the characters that indicated the spiritual spark within this material being.

Yet, reason was confined to finding practical solutions to keeping the flesh alive.]

[No doubt, Manichean philosophers criticized common folk.

For common folk, reason was at the service of material need. The flesh (the practicality of living) dictated the situation. Only reasonable (or sensical) content was relevant.

Unreasonable content was situated through religious experience, regarded by the Manicheans as superstition.]