“THE SOUL IS A CAPTIVE OF THE BODY, A FRAGMENT OF THE DIVINE LIGHT IMPRISONED IN THE DARK MATTER CREATED BY THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS, AWAITING THE GNOSIS THAT WILL SET IT FREE.”
— Jason David BeDuhn, The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual
the soul (as a particle of divine light) is trapped within the material body (associated with darkness and created by adversarial forces), requiring salvific knowledge (gnosis) for liberation.