Mani's teaching about the Luminaries and Disgorgings is ludicrous.

But who will not laugh at the words of children, that the Luminaries have finally become the Receiving-Vessels6 of the School of Mani, and not of anything which is great, but of Disgorgings ! For by these the Light is refined if it is refined. For there is no evidence that it is refined by Prayer as they say, but that (it is refined) by Disgorgings its taste gives evidence. And if not, let them pray and disgorge, and let incontrovertible experience show in which of them is the taste of food, in Prayer or in Disgorgings! But above all there is evidence that he who disgorges looks upwards in order to send upwards by means of the force and violence of the wind that thing which is refined to the Domain from which it has come down. And, perhaps, this Mystery was secretly in the world, and the world did not perceive it! And, perhaps, even Mani did not perceive it. And here it is not the man who prays much who is refined, but the man who disgorges much. For those physicians by means of things which are very different excite Disgorgings in order to purge (?) the stomach which does not digest. [P. 29.] For when it does not disgorge there comes the evidence of its (i.e., the food's) heaviness and coldness. And it must be that if it does not digest, it does not liquefy, and if it does not liquefy, it (i.e., the stomach) does not disgorge, and if it does not disgorge, it does not go forth ; and if it does not go forth, it is not refined. For the coldness shuts up the food heavily there, that is to say, the cold phlegm, which is over the food—the great enemy of the School of Mani. For it wishes by its coldness to restrain the Refining, lest it (i.e., the food) should be released, and go forth thence. And, therefore, [lxiii] that pungent radish7 can be the enemy of their enemy ; for it enters and does combat, and as it were, engages in a contest with it, and rends the veil which is spread over the face of the food ; and then a way is opened up for the imprisoned Light which is there that its Refining may go forth in the Disgorging.

And thus when the Manichaeans disgorge, because their food has not yet been digested, it is clear that their Refining has not [P. 30.] yet 'gone up,' and we must say that their Light is still mixed in their vomit, and it would be right for them to turn and swallow it anew in order that that Light which is concealed in it may not abide in corruption. Above all if (?) a dog comes and swallows it behold that Light which has gone forth in vomit from the midst of a Manichaean called a Righteous one (ZADDIQA), has entered and become imprisoned in the unclean stomach of a dog, [and it is clear] that if the Manichasan had turned and swallowed his vomit immediately, there would have been an ascent to the Height for the imprisoned Light to fly away and 'go up' to the House of its Father. And that Manichaean ought to be tormented instead of it (i.e., the Light), because he knew (?), and (yet) that Light went in and was imprisoned in the belly of the dog, and thence it was sent forth by a Transmigration (?) when the dog produced young ; and that Light was transmitted in the race of mad dogs and biters ; and it must be mad like them, and bite like them. It is right, too, that it should bite and tear in pieces that Manichaean who disgorged it and did not swallow it again ; for he is the cause of this madness. [P. 31.] But if they say that in a dog too it is refined, then are dogs more than they are in the Refining-process, and it is right that they should be fed more than they.