Evil only endures for a season So we see how Powers work together in the world, how everything that appears to oppose the progress of mankind subsequently turns out to be a blessing…For everything in the great world Plan is good and the evil endures only for a season.
Therefore he alone believes in the eternity of the evil who confounds the temporal with the eternal; he who does not rise from the temporal to the eternal can never understand evil. ~Rudolf Steiner, The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers, March 22, 1909.
Let us arrange our lives in accordance with these three mysteries of our time, the Michael mystery, the Christ mystery and the Soradt mystery as understanding human beings who know how to interpret the signs of our time, and we will be able to work in the right way in the field into which karma has led us, as for instance, the priest in his priestly field. ~Rudolf Steiner, Lectures to Priests: The Apocalypse. GA 346.8.
Thus by a strange paradox mankind is led to a renewed experience of the Mystery of Golgotha in the fifth epoch through the forces of evil. Through the experience of evil it will be possible for the Christ to appear again, just as He appeared in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch through the experience of death. ~Rudolf Steiner, Good and Evil. Individual Karmic Questions. GA 95.8
Similarly, humanity needs the ferment, the germ of wickedness and evil to reach the highest state of perfection. That is the mission of evil. Man becomes strong when he has to exert his muscles; similarly, if good is to rise to the highest perfection, it must first overcome evil opposite him. Evil's mission is to raise mankind higher. ~Rudolf Steiner, From Symptom to Reality in Modern History. GA 185.4
Selected quotes by Steiner on the four opponents of human development.
I have another collection of texts by Steiner on how to hinder the dark powers from taking control over our technology, if that happens technology takes power over us: Technology without Love, will become Demonic
These are the three members [physical, etheric and astral body] with which man was endowed before his earthly existence. The foundation of the physical body was laid on Old Saturn, the ether-body on the Old Sun, the soul [what he call soil here he call astral body in later texts] or sentient body on the Old Moon. On the Earth was added the sentient soul — which is actually a transformation, an elaboration carried out unconsciously, of the sentient body. Lucifer anchored himself in the sentient soul; and there he remains.
Through the unconscious transformation of the ether-body, the intellectual soul came into being, a more detailed description of which is contained in the book entitled The Education of the Child. It was in this second soul-member, the intellectual soul — the transformed part of the ether-body — that Ahriman established his footing. From there he lures man to false conceptions and judgments of material things, leads him to error, to sin, to lying — to everything that originates in the intellectual or mind soul. In every illusion that matter is the sole reality, we must perceive the whispered promptings of Ahriman, of Mephistopheles.
The Asuras are especially active after 1998 as Sorat or Antichrist work through the Asuras, both creating trauma in the old souls and making warriors especially fierce and sexually aggressive.
Thirdly, there is the consciousness soul (spiritual soul), arising from an unconscious transformation of the physical body. You will remember how this transformation came about. Towards the end of the Atlantean epoch, the etheric body corresponding to the head came right into the physical head and gradually brought about selfconsciousness in the physical body. Fundamentally speaking, man is still working at this unconscious transformation of the physical body, at the development of the consciousness soul.
And in the age now, approaching, those spiritual Beings known as the Asuras (see Note 1) will creep into the consciousness soul and therewith into the human ‘I’ or ego — for the ‘I’ lights up in the consciousness soul.
The Asuras will generate evil with a far mightier force than was wielded by the Satanic powers in the Atlantean epoch or by the Luciferic Spirits in the Lemurian epoch.
From The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers. Lucifer, Ahriman
Quotes from mainly Steiner's texts.
These beings we call Ahriman and Lucifer are right here in the world, they have their task in the universal order, and one cannot sweep them away. Besides, it is not a question of annihilating them, but — as in the case of the weights on both sides of the scales — the ahrimanic and luciferic forces must balance each other in their influence on human beings and on other beings.
We do not bring about the true activity of any of the various forces by removing it but by placing ourselves in the right relationship to it.
We have the wrong attitude to these luciferic and ahrimanic beings if we simply say that they are bad and harmful. Although these powers rebel in a certain sense against the general order of the universe — which had already been designed before they entered it — this does not stem from the fact that they invariably have to exercise a harmful activity, but rather that — like the others whom we have met as lawful members of the higher worlds — they have a definite sphere of activity in the sum total of the universe.
Their opposition to and rebellion against the cosmic order consists in their going beyond their own sphere; they exert beyond this sphere the forces they should employ only within their lawful domain.
From Secrets of the Threshold, Lecture II
It's our job to teach them how to behave, through handling our karma.
The Luciferic spirits had taken a hand in the shaping of man's astral body; and now, because he had united with the physical world, Zarathustra's “Ahrimanic spirits”— we can also call them “Mephistophelian” spirits — interfered with his outer perception, with the relation of his ego to the outer world, with his ability to distinguish his ego from the outer world.
The constitution of his physical, etheric, and astral bodies is not as it would have been had only the superior Gods worked on them. Beings we term Luciferic gained access to his astral body and expelled him from Paradise sooner than was intended; and the consequence of this Luciferic activity was the interference of the Ahrimanic, or Mephistophelian, spirits in his perception of the outer world, which they now showed him in its physical form only, not as it is in reality. That is why these spirits that dupe mankind with what is spurious are called by the Hebrew People mephiz-topel: mephiz, the corrupter, and topel, the liar. This eventually became Mephistopheles; and it is merely another name for Ahriman.
Now, what did Ahriman effect in man, as opposed to Lucifer? Lucifer brought about a deterioration of the forces of the astral body greater than it should have been, as well as the premature induration of man's physical substance though it must be kept in mind that thereby the attainment of freedom was made possible.
The
Mephistophelian spirits, on the other hand, prevented man from discerning
the spiritual basis of the world, tricking him instead with a mere illusion
of it. Mephistopheles induced in men the belief that the outer world is
nothing but a material existence, that there is no such thing as spirit
underlying and permeating all material substance.
The scene so beautifully portrayed in Goethe's Faust has been enacted by mankind throughout the ages. On the one hand we see Faust seeking the path into the spiritual world; on the other, Mephistopheles, who calls that spiritual world “nothingness”, because it is to his interest to represent the sense world as being all that exists. Faust replies, as would every spiritual scientist in this case, “In what is nothingness to thee I hope to find my all”. — Only when we know that in every tiniest particle of matter there is spirit and that the idea of matter is a lie; only when we recognize Mephistopheles as that spirit in the world who vitiates our conceptions — only then can the outer world appear to us as it really is.
From Gospel of John: Lecture V: Human Evolution within the Embodiments of our Earth.
'The prince of this world’, who in the Middle Ages became ‘the unlawful prince of this world’, is an Ahriman-like being. We can find such a being everywhere, in external nature and in the inner being of man. Indeed, only when we are in a position to find such a being in its manifestation both in external nature and in the inner being of man can we gradually come to an understanding of its essence.
Look at external nature. You will find there two contrasts, but what matters is to be able to sense the essence of these contrasts.
Think of the blue sky. Of course in southern climes the blue sky must be seen rather differently than is the case here. When the envelope of air round the earth is filled by the effect of the sun, this is not the pure essence of the blue sky, for it is then overcast with something else. But the pure effect of the blue sky is that of coldness.
The blue sky as such is cold. What you sense in the coldness of the blue sky, unmitigated by earthly sultriness — this is an all-embracing ahrimanic influence. The ahrimanic influence causes space to be petrified, congealed into blueness. Take note of this expression! It is unusual, but if you gradually come to sense what it means to say that space is petrified, congealed into blueness, you will have discovered the ahrimanic tendency in external nature.
The contrasting effect is that of the reddish, yellowish clouds sailing past. The effect is one of warmth, exactly the opposite.
This, too, can be disguised by the coldness of the earth's environment but, all in all, a cloud lined with red, a yellowish cloud, has something warm about it. This is the contrasting effect, the effect of air. Between these two polar opposites something takes place, and that is what benefits the earthly life of man. We can say, then, that the effect on the earth of space petrified, congealed into blueness was seen in the Middle Ages to be the cosmic working of ‘the prince of this world’.
And when we look into human beings we find that they can be in a condition which makes them pale. You know how there is something livid, something blueish about palor in human beings.
When human beings turn pale, when they feel their way into coldness, they are then sensing something ahrimanic working in them.
Flushed redness, on the other hand, shows something luciferic at work in their nature. Out of all these details together we can gradually build up a full picture of what this ahrimanic being, ‘the prince of this world’, really is. People's pallid, often so clever, thoughts, running along always in straight lines — the whole intellectual aspect of man — this is the ahrimanic influence, the influence of ‘the prince of this world’, on the working of the human head.
These things must be understood from the point of view of spirit and soul.
In the livid blueness, in the way human beings grow pale, in the way they devour themselves inwardly and feel their way into coldness, in the way they are filled with pale, abstract thoughts — in all this we have to feel the ahrimanic influence, the rulership of ‘the prince of this world’. And then we have to feel the warming influence of the Christ-impulse.
From Rudolf Steiner: Old and New Methods of Initiation.
From Rudolf Steiner, Esoteric Lessons III, Lesson 14, GA 266
Ahriman is the lord of death, as it's conditioned by man's nature. There's no life in a stone, so it belongs to him.
But Ahriman would like to extend his power over what goes through the portal of death to what belongs to the spiritual world. That's why he foists the lie on modern materialists and monists that there's nothing eternal, that the soul is contained in the physical body and ends with it.
Ahriman can approach men because of their fear. It's not too bad if it's only normal fear of which a man can easily become aware. But it's worse if the fear is slumbering in subconscious depths. Such a man falls prey to Ahriman.
This fear is in adherents of materialistic science, although they wouldn't believe it if you told them, and it's in all people who have no relation to the spiritual world. Goethe is quite right when he lets Mephisto say: «Simple folk never sense the devil's presence, even if his hands are on their throats.»
If one goes to a laboratory where many people are working one soon sees how impregnated their etheric bodies are with Ahriman. A clairvoyant sees the very same forms there that he sees in the etheric body of someone who's filled with fear. If a man passes a mirror he sees his image, that however can only be there because the man is there.
Likewise what one sees of a man on earth is only his mirror image, but Ahriman tries to make one think that it's a reality.
How can one protect oneself against Ahriman? By being satisfied with what's given to one:
Be glad for what's given to you;
Gladly do without what's not given to you.
Then Ahriman can't get at us. One shouldn't be an ascetic who flees the world and neither be someone who enjoys himself all the time.
Europe is in the center between the Egoism symbolized by the rulers of Russia and the Heartlessness of the materialistic system of America, swaying from side to side, split in two over many years.
What we have experienced in connection with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is that Europe and even the world have shown compassion for the victim, usually, the world is separated into two equally large blocks. Humanity are now following an inner moral where they earlier followed an outer moral.
The Founding Fathers of the Central European Culture.
From Rudolf Steiner in Central Europe between East and West:
“Our souls have to tend to that which was prepared in the Central European culture especially expressing that we are put pendulum-like between two powers permeating the world and that we must find the balance.
We have to realise that, on the one side, the world strives for ahrimanic hardening, strives to get solidified in the fire of the purely material; that it strives, on the other side, to ascend egotistically to an abstract spirituality. Following the one or other side would ruin the Central European human being.
Following only the science engaged in the external senses would persuade us to tear the roses from the cross and only to look at that which solidifies. We would gain a world view gradually which would completely deflect the human being from looking at the spiritual. It would allow to only looking at that which has solidified ahrimanically. …
Therefore, the cross wound around by roses was the symbol of Goethe who positioned himself in the spirituality of the Central European culture. It must be our symbol. …
It is expressed to us in our symbol, in the rose cross, what we want to take up more and more in our souls, in our feelings when we come together in a room dedicated to our attempts. Then we can be sure that the spirits who lead the earth development in good sense exist invisible among us; that our words, that all our thoughts and feelings, while we dedicate ourselves to the spiritual-scientific attempts that all this is really supported in such a room by the spiritual powers guiding our attempts.” GA 159
Europe becoming one again
To develop an I without egotism Europe was placed between Egotism to the East and Heartless materialism to the West. Europe became a pendulum that moved between these extremes.
Today Europe is finding their Equilibrium and is beginning to stand on their own feet, and both Russia and USA is becoming free of their curses.
From Rudolf Steiner’s “Genghis Khan and the Discovery of America”:
“It was actually the descendants of the old Atlantean teachers who were now working from a place in Asia. A priest there had been educated to behold — to have a belated vision, as it were, of what the Atlanteans called the “Great Spirit,” and to receive his commands.
These the priest communicated to a young man of remarkable energy and strength who, by virtue of this authority, received the name “The Great Ruler of the Earth” from his community. This was Genghis Khan (c. 1158–1162 – August 18, 1227). The Great Spirit, through his follower and through that priest, gave to Genghis Khan the command to summon all the powers of Asia to spread the influence that would lead the fifth post-Atlantean age back into a luciferic form. …
Genghis Khan’s generals
All the unrest and disturbance that came into the evolution of modern man through the Mongolian invasions, everything connected with them that has gone on working into the fifth post-Atlantean epoch — all this unrest, which was prepared long ago, is nothing more than the great attempt that is being made from Asia to bring about a visionary European culture.
It would cut it off from the conditions of its further evolution and lead it altogether away from the earth, just as the East has experienced again and again this feeling of being filled with vision and of wanting to be estranged from the earth. [Eighth Sphere.]
Something was needed to counterbalance this tendency. An opposite trend had to be created as a counterforce that moves in the direction of the normal evolution of mankind.
The influence of Genghis Khan's priest was intended to bring about a kind of buoyancy and lightness in the human race that would draw man away from the earth.”
“Over against this, a corresponding heaviness had to come to man from the weight of the earth; this was provided through the discovery of the western world. America, with all that it holds, was discovered and thereby earth heaviness, the desire to remain on earth, was given to man.
The discovery of America and everything connected with it, and the way man carried his life into the many new places of the earth, all this, when seen in wider connections, shows itself as a counterbalancing force to the activity of Genghis Khan.
America had to be discovered so that man might be brought to grow closer to the earth, to grow more and more materialistic. Man needed weight and heaviness to counterbalance the spiritualization that was the aim of the descendants of the “Great Spirit.” …
While it is comparatively easy to see how the luciferic [Egoistic] influence worked on Genghis Khan — we have exact knowledge of the fact that a priest was initiated by the follower of the “Great Spirit” — it is much more difficult to say how the ahrimanic spirit worked. This is because the ahrimanic [materialistic] influence is dispersed and scattered. [Materialism is a system not individuals.] …
Study the reaction of Europe to the gradual discovery and opening up of America and you will see what temptations came from that direction. Taken all in all, it is a history of temptation woven in with a history that runs a normal course.” ~GA171
It is interesting that Vladimir and Volodymyr both are of Viking heritage, Valdamarr in old Scandinavian, Valdemar in modern Danish, meaning Ruler of the World. This is the choice, the egoism of Djengis Khan or the freedom of Michael.
Man consists of body, soul and spirit, but besides that there is a foreign element called the double, containing elemental beings we fight with through our life. The double is the animal part in us, what we developed through the old Moon, together with the added karma and trauma developed on earth. This double is like a nature power influenced from the earth depending on where the person lives. In America the double is influenced by Ahrimanic powers and in Asia by Luciferic powers.
From Rudolf Steiner’s “Individual Spirit Beings and the Undivided Foundation of the World”:
“The strange thing is that this subconscious that we carry within us is taken hold of by another being under all circumstances. This means that we are not only a fusion of body, soul, and spirit, carrying within us through the world our soul, which is independent of our body; shortly before birth another being takes possession of the subconscious portions of the human being. This being is there, this subconscious being that accompanies man the entire way between birth and death. Somewhat before birth it enters man and accompanies him.
One can also characterize this being as one that permeates man in those parts that do not come into his ordinary consciousness: it is a very intelligent being and possessed of a will that is akin to the forces of nature; in its will it is much more closely related to the forces of nature than is man. …
This earth, however, not only consists of skeleton but is a living organism, and this earth sends from its center to every point on the surface, to every territory, special forces. Picture for yourself the surface of the earth (see drawing):
Ahriman, the heartless, to the West, Lucifer, egotism, to the East.
Here is the Eastern region, there the Western region, to take it only on a large scale. The forces that are transmitted from the earth are something that belong to the life organism of the earth. Depending on whether a human being lives on this or that spot on earth, his soul, this immortal soul, does not come directly in contact with these forces but only indirectly — the immortal soul of man is relatively independent of earthly conditions. The soul is only artificially dependent upon earthly conditions, as was shown today. …
It is thus this “double,” which man bears within him, upon whom the geographic and other differentiations particularly exert their influences.”
Only if we clearly elaborate the Ahrimanic element and know the nature of the supersensible influences which now arise as the counterpart, as it were, of Michael's casting down of the Dragon. It is like a lifting up, out of Ahrimanic depths, of certain beings. And these beings find special points of attack in the human being if the latter yields to unbridled instinctive impulses and does not strive for clarity in relation to them.
At the beginning of Earth becoming we have to do with a downfall of Luciferic beings; today we have a rise of Ahrimanic beings. The former beings influence the Luciferic power of thought, the latter the human power of will; we have to recognize the arrival of these latter beings within the evolution of mankind.
From The Mission of the Archangel Michael V.
More on the Gemini-Saggitarius Axis, materialism and technology here: How to Tame Technology
From The Wrong and Right Use of Esoteric Knowledge, lecture 3
".....In the future there will be a great battle. Human science will stretch out to the cosmic, but will try to get there by different paths. [And we are part in the fight!]
It will be the task of good, healing science to find certain cosmic forces which can reach the earth through the co-operation of two cosmic streams, those of Pisces [Michael] and Virgo [Sophia].
The great secret to be discovered will be how the influence which works from the direction of Pisces as a power of the sun unites itself with the influence working from the direction of Virgo. It will make for good when it is learnt how the morning and evening forces from the two sides of the cosmos can be brought into the service of humanity. (See diagram.)
Virgo and Pisces attract each other under the resistance from Gemini and Saggitarius. This attraction makes the physical and spiritual worlds permeate each other, as shown through the two rectangles that overlap each other. This is what the Return of Christ is about, the Earth becoming spiritualized.
These forces, however, will be left aside by those who try to achieve their whole purpose through the polaric duality of positive and negative forces. The forces which enable the spiritual to stream down to earth with the aid of positive and negative magnetism come from Gemini; they are the midday forces.
In ancient times it was known that cosmic influences were involved in this, and to-day even exoteric scientists are aware that in some or other way positive and negative magnetism lie behind Gemini in the Zodiac.
The aim will be to paralyse all that could be gained through a revelation of the true duality in the cosmos — to paralyse it in a materialistic, egotistic way by means of the forces which stream in particularly from Gemini and can be placed entirely at the service of the human “Double.”
Other brotherhoods, concerned above all to divert attention from the Mystery of Golgotha, will try to make use of the duality in human nature — the duality which in our epoch embraces man as a unity, but includes within him his lower animal nature.
A human being is really a centaur in a certain sense: his humanity rests on his lower animal nature in its astral form. This working together of the duality in man gives rise to a duality of forces.
This duality of forces will be utilised particularly by certain egotistic brotherhoods, chiefly from the side of India and the East, in order to mislead eastern Europe, whose task it is to prepare for the sixth post-Atlantean epoch. And this will be done with the aid of the forces which work in from Sagittarius.
Saggitarius and Gemini repel each other, as shown through the rectangles without overlap. Sagitarius longs for the spiritual whereas Gemini is attracted to the physical. For different reasons, they work together to resist the Return of Christ.
The Chthonic gods are the elemental world, the Ahrimanic and karmic beings.
Now I have often brought to your attention that besides this external mythology the Greeks had their Mysteries. The Greeks revered in the Mysteries other Gods as well as the celestial Gods, namely, the Chthonic Gods. And of one who was initiated in the Mysteries one could say with truth: he learns to know the upper and the lower Gods, the Upper and the Lower Gods.
The upper Gods were those of the Zeus-circle; but they only have rulership over what is spread out before the senses, and what the intellect can understand. The human being is more than this. Man is rooted with his being in the kingdom of the lower Gods, in the kingdom of the Chthonic Gods.
From Ancient Myths, Lecture VI
I like this description of the upcast of the Ahrimanic spirits. With depth of cosmos is meant Mars.
We have a predator that came from the depths of the cosmos and took over the rule of our lives. Human beings are its prisoners. The predator is our lord and master. It has rendered us docile, helpless. If we want to protest, it suppresses our protest. If we want to act independently, it demands that we don’t do so...
Sorcerers believe that the predators have given us our systems of beliefs, our ideas of good and evil, our social mores. They are the ones who set up our hopes and expectations and dreams of success or failure. They have given us covetousness, greed and cowardice. It is the predators who make us complacent, routinary and egomaniacal.
From Gnostic Parallels...
Archons is another name for Ahrimanic beings.
What is amazing about the Gnostic theory of the Archons is not only the cosmological background (explaining the origin of these entities and the reason for their enmeshment with humanity), but the specificity of information on the alien m.o., describing how they operate and what they want from us. For one thing, Gnostics taught that these entities envy us and feed on our fear. Above all, they attempt to keep us from claiming and evolving our “inner light,” the gift of divine intelligence within.
From The Gnostic Theory of Alien Intrusion
Christ brings a kind of deep consolation and hope, to counteract the terrible impression made upon the pupil by the meeting with death and Lucifer, and moreover the meeting with the picture of himself, — which is in a certain sense the Guardian of the Threshold.
From Man in the Light of Occultism, Lecture X
Ahriman want to alienate people from one another. Each man his truth, is an Ahrimanic belief. The shared truth of humanity is what makes it possible for people to understand each other.
All that is connected with man's lust for ruling over his fellows, all that is in opposition to healthy social impulses, is of an Ahrimanic nature.... The man possessed by Ahriman would like to have as many men as possible in his power and then to proceed...to make use of human frailty in order to rule over men.
From 1/20, TS
Below in the cave, we can see another shape. Its wings do not resemble birds' wings, but those of a bat. Its body is like that of a dragon, or of a worm, and its head again reminds us of a human head. Whereas in Lucifer's forehead everything is powerfully developed, the forehead of this second Being recedes and is quite undeveloped. Instead, the lower parts, towards the jaw, are strongly developed.
This Being is enwrapped in gold; it is the gold contained in the earth. The gold of the earth takes on the shape of strong fetters that chain this shape to the cave. It writhes under the influence of Christ's hand pointing downward, the hand of the Representative of Mankind. The shape in the cave is Ahriman; it is Ahriman fettered by the gold of the earth.
From The Etheric Body as a Reflexion of the Universe
Our ego organisation is connected, firstly, with gravity — that is, with the element of “earth”. For there is no such thing as what the physicists call matter. In reality there are only forces and the forces — as, for example, gravity (there are other forces too, of course; magnetic and electric forces are all alike in this, that the ego organisation is in direct connection with each one of them and, in the normal human being, is so during the whole of waking life. All that we include under the term “earth” is, really, these forces.
From Curative Education: Lecture 3
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn is seen as below and Moon, Venus, Mercury and the Sun is seen as above Earth.
Jehovah's aim was the perfection of form. Lucifer would have been able to develop in astral substance his passion for premature spirituality. The result would have been a violent battle between the Jehovah-spirits and the hosts of Lucifer. There was the danger that through Jehovah some human beings would become living statues and that others would be too quickly spiritualised through Lucifer. Means of bringing about equilibrium would have to be obtained elsewhere.
In order to annul the battle between Jehovah and Lucifer, the White Lodge, which was just in its beginning, had to obtain material from one of the other planets. This differed essentially from the astral substance that had come over from the Moon, from the astral-kamic animal substance. The possibility arose of leading over substance from other planets: new passions, less vehement but conceived on the basis of independence.
The new material was brought over from Mars. Thus in the first half of our Earth evolution astral substance from Mars was introduced. A great advance was brought about through the introduction of this astral substance from Mars
From Foundations of Esotericism: Lecture XXVI
From Theosophy of the Rosicrucian, The Law of Destiny VI
The beings who permeate the astral body and make it unfree are known as “Demons.” Your astral body is always interpenetrated by demons and the beings you yourselves generate through your true or false thoughts are of such a nature that they gradually grow into demons. There are good demons, generated by good thoughts; but bad thoughts, above all those that are untruthful, generate demoniacal forms of the most terrible and frightful kind and these interlaid the astral body — if I may so express it.
The etheric body is also permeated by beings from which man must free himself; these beings are called “Spectres”, “ghosts.” And finally, permeating the physical body there are beings known as “Phantoms.” Besides these three classes there are yet other beings, the “Spirits,” who drive the Ego hither and thither — the Ego itself also being a Spirit. In actual fact the human being generates such creatures who then determine his inner and outer destiny when he descends to incarnation. These beings work in your life in such a way that you can feel the “demons” created by your astral body, the “ghosts” or “spectres” created by your etheric body and the “phantoms” created by your physical body. All these beings are related to you and approach you when the time comes for reincarnation.
You will remember that religious documents express these truths. When the Bible speaks of the driving-out of demons, this is not an abstraction but is to be taken literally. Christ Jesus healed those who were possessed of demons; He drove the demons out of the astral body. This is an actual process and, the passage is to be taken literally. The wise man Socrates also speaks of his “Daimon” which worked in his astral body. This was a good demon; such beings are not always evil.
There are, however, terrible and corrupt demonic beings. All demons that are born of lying work in such a way as to throw man back in his development; and because owing to the lies of eminent figures in world-history demons who grow into very powerful beings are all the time being created, we hear of the “Spirits of Hindrance”, “Spirits of obstruction.” In this sense Faust says to Mephistopheles: “Thou art the Father of all hindrances!”
From "The Fall of the Spirits of Darkness," by Rudolf Steiner (page 62)
Luciferic and Ahrimanic spirits. “In earlier times, the elemental spirits of birth and death essentially served the divine spirits who guided the world; since our day — and this has been going on for some time now — the elemental spirits of birth and death are serving technology, industry and human commerce. It is important to let this disturbing truth enter into our souls with all its power and intensity.” /p>
The inhabitants of the Mars sphere is beings with animal consciousness, the higher elementals and animals. These large animals are therefore from the Mars sphere.
From The Second Coming
Once there were enormous animals, up to 20 meters long. Nature sent them to the spiritual world. Now the large animals of the past are within us – these are our ravenous desires.
Seen from the spiritual world this implies that Ahriman was drawn into the evolution of the earth by the hierarchies belonging to Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, etc. But his claims of rulership were hedged in because they were placed at the service of the evolution of the earth.
Ahriman has, as it were, been forced to enter the evolution of the earth. Without him, the gods could not have placed intellectualism into mankind and if they had not succeeded in taking off the sharp edge to Ahriman's rule through the Christ event, Ahriman would have rendered the whole earth intellectual from within and material from without.
From Exoteric and Esoteric Christianity
Again, it will be an important artistic task not to show the Christ as wanting to shackle this figure; rather, he has infinite compassion for this being, which is Ahriman. Ahriman cannot bear this compassion and he writhes with pain from what the hand of the Christ exudes.
From Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman
For you cannot find Lucifer anywhere in the world of the senses; it is utterly impossible for Lucifer to be an external impression in the physical world of the senses. Neither is the picture of death to be found in the world of the senses.
From Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy and Philosophy
If thinking were not luciferic, human beings on the earth would be like one whose thought was utterly non-luciferic, namely Goethe. Goethe was one of those who, in a certain respect, deliberately set out to confront and defy the luciferic powers.
That, however, makes it essential to keep constant hold of the concrete, individual reality.
The moment you generalize or unify — at that moment you are nearing luciferic thinking. If you were to contemplate each human individual, each single plant, each single animal, each single stone in itself alone, having in mind the one, single object, not classifying into genera and species, not generalizing in your thought — then you would be little prone to luciferic thinking. But anyone who was to attempt such a thing, even as a child, would never get beyond the lowest class in any modern school.
From The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman IV
Whence then has man this form and figure? He has it because he stands in the midst of a battle. A being from the left is fighting in man with a being from the right. If we were able to be entirely within our left half we would have a powerful perception of the one being, and if we were in our right half we would have a correspondingly powerful perception of the other being. Our existence as a double being arises from the fact that the Luciferic being is fighting in us from the left and the Ahrimanic being from the right.
Let us try to make a picture of it in our minds. From the left the Luciferic being fights his way through and throws up, as it were, his fortifications, and from the right Ahriman fights his way through and throws up his fortifications. And all that you can do is to stand in the middle between the two.
The left part of you — your left man, as it were — is the fortification set up by Lucifer, and your right man is the fortification set up by Ahriman. And the whole art of life consists in finding the true balance between them.
We do it unconsciously whenever we perceive with the senses. When we hear with the left ear and with the right ear, and then unite into a single perception the impulses that reach us in this way, or when we feel with the left hand and with the right hand and unite the two perceptions, we are placing ourselves into the surface that lies on the boundary of the conflict between Lucifer and Ahriman.
As narrow as — no, narrower than — the blade of a knife is the space that is left to us in the middle, where we have to play our part. Our organism does not really belong to us; we are a battlefield for the Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers — and for other powers too, of like nature with them, but into that subject we cannot enter now.
We men are thus in reality surface beings wedged between two entities that are no concern of ours! Our left man does not concern us, neither does our right man: what concerns us is the process that goes on between the two.
...
Our researches in physiology and anatomy reveal to us the fight that is being waged within us between Lucifer and Ahriman, but they do not compel us to give ourselves up to the superstition that the life of the soul owes its origin to these processes going on between Lucifer and Ahriman. That is a complete mistake; the life of the soul takes its course within the soul itself — that is to say, in the surface, in the plane, not in the spatial organism at all.
Now the working of Lucifer and Ahriman is not the same in all parts of the human organism, and it is interesting to observe its gradation. Beginning from the head, we find that there Lucifer and Ahriman have thrown up fairly equal fortifications; the left and right halves of the head are very similar. This means that the forces of left and right have in the head not much possibility of interplay and the surface between them is left comparatively undisturbed.
There in the middle is the surface, with Lucifer on the left and Ahriman on the right; and because the left and right halves of the head are so similar in form, Lucifer and Ahriman spring back from one another, and in between them man is able to develop a quiet surface activity. Thinking, pure thought as such, is very little disturbed by Lucifer and Ahriman; because in the head they recoil from one another.
When, however, we follow the form of man further down, we find a change. On one side Lucifer works powerfully and builds up the stomach, on the other side Ahriman does the same and builds up the liver.
The stomach is the means with which Lucifer fights from left to right; and no true understanding can come about of the relation between stomach and liver, until we see how Lucifer has built up the stomach as a kind of weapon of defence, and Ahriman the liver. These two — stomach and liver — are perpetually waging war one against the other, and physiology would do well to study the conflict.
And if the heart of man tends to lean a little over towards the left, then that is an expression of the fact that Lucifer from one side and Ahriman from the other are trying each to grasp something for himself, The whole left and right relationship is an expression of the fight that is being waged in man between Lucifer and Ahriman.
We said that in the case of man, what lies on either side of the middle surface is, generally speaking, alike. We have, however, already seen that this is true only for the upper part of man; as we follow the form of man downwards, the similarity gradually disappears. In the case of the being of whom I spoke before, with the three outstretched limbs — Lemminkäinen, Ilmarinen and Wainämöinen — the one half is air and the other water; the two halves are totally different in kind. And even in man, when we attain to clairvoyant knowledge it becomes clear to us that there are two distinct halves. For no sooner have we suggested away the physical body and turned our attention to the etheric body, than we find that the left half grows brighter and clearer than the right half. The left half is all shining and gleaming with radiant light, and the right half is wrapped in darkness and gloom. Yes, that is actually how it is with the left-right human being.
From The Balance in the World and Man, Lucifer and Ahriman
If we want to characterize Ahriman and Lucifer we might say: Lucifer is a proud Spirit who likes to soar away into the heights where lofty visions open out.
Ahriman is a morally lonely Spirit who does not readily make his presence known; he sets his nature to work in man's subconscious... conjures judgments out of it.
People then believe that they judge out of their own consciousness, whereas they often derive an opinion from (subtle) subconscious instincts...or they even allow it to be conjured forth by the Ahrimanic forces themselves.
From Three Streams in the Evolution of Mankind
In another form of symbolism the Kabalist tells us a man has two companions, or guides; one on the right, Yetzer ha Tob [Lucifer,] to good acts, he is from the higher Sephiroth; and one on the left, Yetzer ha Ra [Ahriman,] encouraging the appetites and passions, temptations to evil, is an agent of Samael and of The Beast. Man is in a very unfortunate position according to the Zohar 95 b, for it is there said that the Evil Angel joins him at birth, but the Good Angel only at the age of 13 years.
From Westcot Kabbalah
In the old Sun period:
I told you also how the Sun, which hitherto we have thought of as being supreme in power and might, now appears as a planet among the seven planets, and Christ as the Spirit of the planet of the Sun. Christ himself manifests in this connection as a planetary Spirit, brother to the Spirit of Venus.
We find the Sun still as a planet among the seven planets, we find Venus with Lucifer as her ruler; and these two, the Sun Spirit and the Venus Spirit — in other words, Christ and Lucifer — appear at first sight like brothers. ...
When we direct our gaze now to Christ, now again to Lucifer, a new perception begins to dawn upon us. Lucifer, the ruler of Venus, appears in a form that is extraordinarily full of light, — I mean, of course, spiritual light. We have the feeling that all the glow and brilliance we can ever experience on Earth in looking upon a manifestation of light is weak and dim in comparison with the majesty of Lucifer in the old Sun time.
But then we notice, when we begin to perceive his intentions — and we are able to see through these—, that Lucifer is a Spirit endowed in his very nature with infinite pride, so great a pride that it can prove a temptation to man. For, as is well-known, there are things which up to a point are not temptations for man but become so when they grow majestic in their proportions, and pride is one of them. When pride is majestically great it tempts man. Lucifer's proud greatness, Lucifer's pride in his majestic figure of light — these contain a seductive element. “Unmanifest light,” light that does not shine outwardly but has immense, strong power in itself — that Lucifer has in full measure.
And how does the Christ figure look beside Lucifer? The Christ figure in the time of old Sun — the Lord and Ruler of the Sun planet — is a picture of utmost devotion, entire devotion to all that is around Him in the world. Whereas Lucifer looks like one who thinks only of himself — we are obliged to clothe it all in human words, notwithstanding the fact that these are quite inadequate — Christ appears as wholly given up, in devotion, to all that is around Him in the great wide world.
And whilst Lucifer alone — I must now begin to speak more in pictures; human words do not in the least suffice — whilst Lucifer had the impulse to let stream out upon all things the light that was present in him and therewith come to a knowledge of all things, the Christ on the other hand, gave Himself up to the Impression of this Word of the Worlds, received It in its fullness and entirety into Himself, so that this Christ Soul was now the Being that united in Himself all the great Secrets of the World that sounded into Him through the inexpressible Word. Such is the contrast that presents itself, — the Christ Who receives the Word of the Worlds, and the proud Lucifer, the Spirit of Venus, who rejects the Word of the Worlds and wants to found and establish everything with his own light.
In other words, Christ appears as a brother of Lucifer. All subsequent evolution is a direct outcome of what Lucifer and Christ were at that time.
The Christ Being, as we saw, received into Himself the great and all-embracing secrets of the Worlds.
The Lucifer Being, having what I can only describe as a “proud figure of Light,” lost thereby his kingdom, lost his Venus kingdom. On other grounds, to enter into which would take us too far afield, the other Spirits of the Planets lost also their kingdoms, or rather changed their natures. But they need not concern us here. What is important for us here is the contrast between Christ and Lucifer.
It came about that Lucifer lost more and more of his rulership; the kingdom of Venus gradually fell away from him. Lucifer with his light became a dethroned ruler, and the planet Venus had thenceforward to do without a proper ruler and was consequently obliged to undergo a backward evolution.
The Christ, however, had during the old Sun time received the Word of the Worlds, and this Word of the Worlds has the quality of kindling itself to new light in the soul by which It is received; so that from that time forward the Word of the Worlds became in the Christ Light, and the planet of which the Christ was ruler, the Sun, became the centre of the whole planetary system, the other planets being brought into subjection to It. The same is true also of their spiritual Rulers.
We must let these scenes live before us, we must learn to see the divergence that came about during the old Sun time between the path of Lucifer and the path of Christ. Lucifer went downward, he had to remain behind in his evolution, and he remained behind also during the Moon time.
We learn how Christ already on the old Moon overcame Lucifer, and in the scene that is given us in the Gospels we have to see, as it were, a recurrence of the fact that Christ attained to victory over Lucifer.
On Earth Christ repels Lucifer from the outset. This is because on the Moon, when He was Himself less highly evolved — for Christ also undergoes evolution — He had repelled, through the uttermost devotion of His Being to Highest Powers, all the attacks of Lucifer which at that time still meant something to Him. Already on old Moon Lucifer approached Christ. On Earth he was no longer dangerous to Him: on Earth Christ repels Lucifer at once. On the Moon, however, Christ had to exert all the forces at His disposal in order to repel Lucifer. This is then the added experience that comes to us when we cast back the gaze of higher consciousness into the remote time of Moon.
From Man in the Light of Occultism X
Anthropos is walking with man and are taming the dark powers together with us.
All that arises in the course of history as wonderful programmes, marvelously beautiful ideas, by which it is always believed that in some way or other a return can be made to the Golden Age--all this has its origin in the Luciferic tendencies which flow into man.
Everything by which he tries to loosen his connection with reality, to soar above his actual circumstances--all this points to the Luciferic.
So, too, does the impulse that is always tending to diminish the interest we take in our fellow-men.
From 1/16-7, TS
People love numbers and figures in science, but they also love figures in the social sphere as well. Social science consists almost entirely of statistics. And from statistics, that is to say from figures, the weightiest conclusions are reached. Well, with figures too, anything can be proved and anything believed; for figures are not a means whereby the essential reality of things can be proved — they are simply a means of deception! Whenever one fails to look beyond figures to the qualitative, they can be utterly deceptive.
From Influences of Lucifer/Ahriman: Lecture Three
But they can also be contemplated from the aspect of the higher hierarchies, and then they will appear as follows: The higher hierarchies contain in their being the forces that have formed Saturn, the Sun, the Moon and finally the Earth. If the higher hierarchies had expressed their teachings amongst themselves, as it were, up to the Mystery of Golgotha, they would have said: We can form the Earth out of Saturn, Sun and Moon. But if the Earth were to contain only what we have placed into Saturn, Sun and Moon it would never have been able to develop beings who know something about death, and can therefore develop the intellect within them.
We, the higher hierarchies, are able to let an Earth proceed out of the Moon, on which there are men who know nothing of death, and on which they cannot develop the intellect. It is not possible for us, higher hierarchies, to form the Earth in such a way that it is able to supply the forces which lead man towards the intellect. We must rely, for this, on an entirely different being, on a being who comes from another direction than our own — The Ahrimanic Being.
Ahriman is a being who does not belong to our hierarchy. Ahriman comes into the stream of evolution from another direction. If we tolerate Ahriman in the evolution of the Earth, if we allow him a share in it, he brings us death, and with it, the intellect, and we can take up in the human being death and intellect. Ahriman knows death, because he is at one with the Earth and has trodden paths which have brought him into connection with the evolution of the Earth. He is an initiate, a sage of death, and for this reason he is the ruler of the intellect.
The gods had to reckon with Ahriman — if I may express it in this way. They had to say: the evolution cannot proceed without Ahriman. It is only a question of admitting Ahriman into the evolution. But if Ahriman is admitted and becomes the lord of death and, consequently, of the intellect too, we forfeit the Earth, and Ahriman, whose sole interest lies in permeating the Earth with intellect, will claim the Earth for himself. The gods faced the great problem of losing to a certain extent their rule over the Earth in favour of Ahriman. There was only one possibility — that the gods themselves should learn to know something which they could not learn in their godly abodes which were not permeated by Ahriman — namely, that the gods should learn to know death itself, on the Earth, through one of their emissaries — the Christ. A god had to die on earth, and he had to die in such a way that this was not grounded in the wisdom of the gods, but in the human error which would hold sway if Ahriman alone were to rule. A god had to pass through death and he had to overcome death.
From Lecture: Exoteric and Esoteric Christianity
Der Satz, daß alles auf dem Boden ruhen muß, wegen der Gravitation, gilt nur für die Dinge der Erde. Er gilt nicht mehr für die Weltenkörper, und es wäre eine Torheit, das, was für die Erde gilt, auf den Zusammenhang der Weltenkörper zu übertragen. Die tragen sich gegenseitig. GA212.29
Für den Okkultisten sind die Naturkräfte nichts Wirkliches, sondern sie sind die Maya*, sie sind die Abprägung der Naturgeister, die hinter der Sinneswelt wirken. Licht, Wärme, Magnetismus, Elektrizität, Anziehungskraft (Gravitation), Abstossungskraft, Schwere und so weiter sind diejenigen Wahrnehmungen in der Welt der Maya, denen in Wirklichkeit die Welt der Naturgeister zugrunde liegt, der Ätherleib der Erde. GA136.45f
Die Gnomen (siehe: Elementarwesen des Festen) binden zusammen, möchte ich sagen, alles, was an Schwerkraft vorhanden ist, und formen sich aus der flüchtigen, unsichtbaren Schwerkraft ihren Körper, der übrigens fortwährend in Gefahr ist zu zerfallen, seine Substanz zu verlieren. GA230.129
The Christ was the first who clearly spoke about the elementals, calling them the evil spirits. He not only described them but also said how they are created and how they behave. He said that an evil spirit, coming out of the human body, from the human mind, goes to "waterless places" (He described those surroundings), and then, returns back home, comes back to the man, carrying with it seven other spirits worse than it, though finding its home clean (it means that at that moment there were no more evil thoughts). Yet, it finds the way back through the seven gates - the seven centers of energy in the etheric double. Seven. He even described the number. And then, when it enters, what happens? What we call possession - being influenced and possessed by the evil spirits (people throwing themselves down, showing signs of epilepsy and all other things). You can find everything in the Bible, in the New Testament. These evil spirits, that we call bad elementals, have their own intelligence, the intelligence of the fellow who had projected them.
In one case He met a fellow on the ground showing fits of epilepsy. When He approached him, that man started speaking, expressing the elementals in him who took over, "Yes, we know you. You are the Son of God and you came to torture us." That means that even these elementals have ill feelings. They knew that feeling of being tortured because they were torturing the fellow who accepted them. They even had suggestions, "Don't cast us to the darkness, but allow us to go to this herd of swine." It is stated in the Bible. "All right," He said, "yet, who are you?" They said, "We are many. We are a legion." A legion torturing that fellow. He ordered them to leave that man and they entered the herd of swine. The swine didn't accepted them and threw their material bodies into the sea where they drowned. Even the swine did not like to accept them.
From anthroposophy_tomorrow: Elementals and Christ
This “Holy Spirit” is none other than the Lucifer-Spirit, resurrected now in higher, purer glory — the Spirit of independent understanding, wisdom-inwoven.
From Deed of Christ: Lecture 2
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The Ahriman incarnation is not dangerous in itself, only if we haven't developed following our plan.
The Ahrimanic incarnation will be greatly furthered if men fail to establish a free and independent spiritual life and allow it to remain entangled in the economic or political life.... To the Ahrimanic power a free spiritual life would denote a kind of darkness, and men's interest in it, a burning, raging fire. The establishment of this free spiritual life is essential in order that the right attitude, the right relationship, may be adopted to Ahriman's incarnation in the future.
Ahriman's "preserving jars" where disinterested students do research to write papers practically no one reads. "These 'preserving jars' of wisdom are a particularly favourable means of furthering Ahriman's aims.
From Link Text
Our own evolution, of course, went on alongside all this, by way of preparation.
If we go back to the Moon state we must say: Here the Angeloi were human beings, human beings, to be sure, with an appearance quite different from ours, for there were quite different conditions upon the ancient Moon.
But alongside these Moon men, the Angeloi, we developed in a pre-state of the Earth evolution, in a very advanced state, so that we had to be taken into consideration by the Angeloi.
Especially during the descending phase of the Moon evolution did we, at times, constitute a troublesome concern for the Angeloi. The same, however, is the case with us in descending Earth evolution: since the Earth evolution has entered its descending phases, other beings make themselves felt.
My dear friends, it is a significant, an important result of spiritual-scientific research which is to be taken very, very seriously, that we have already entered the period of Earth evolution when certain beings make themselves felt who upon Jupiter — the next state of Earth evolution — will have advanced to the form of man, a different form of man, to be sure, but which, nevertheless, may be compared with the being of man.
From The Mission of the Archangel Michael V
You know, for we have often considered this matter — but let me mention it again at the conclusion of this lecture — that Lucifer and Ahriman have a share in our spiritual existence.
We also know that in the Bible Lucifer is symbolized as a Serpent, as the Serpent on the Tree. The physical serpent, such as we see it to-day, and as modern painters always paint it when they depict the Paradise Scene, is not a real Lucifer; it is only his outer image, his physical image.
The real Lucifer is a Being that remained behind during the Moon-stage of evolution. He cannot be seen upon the earth, among physical objects. If a painter wishes to paint Lucifer's real aspect he would have to paint him so that he can be grasped as an etheric form, through a kind of inner clairvoyant form of contemplation. He would then appear in the shape in which he works upon us; he would show that he is not connected with our head or with our organism in so far as these are exclusively formed by the earth, but that he is connected with the continuation of our head, with the spinal cord.
A painter who knows something through spiritual science, would therefore paint Adam and Eve, the Tree, and on the Tree the Serpent, but this serpent would only be a symbol and it would have a human head. If we would come across such a painting to-day, we would assume that the painter has, of course, been able to paint this picture through spiritual science, Probably such a painting may even be found here in Leipzig; but people do not go about with open eyes, they go through the world with bandaged eyes.
In the Art Gallery of Hamburg there is a painting of the Middle Ages by, Master Bertram, setting forth the Paradise Scene. In that painting, the Serpent on the Tree is painted correctly, as described just now. That picture can be seen there. But other painters have also painted the Paradise Scene in that way. What may we gather from this? That in the Middle Ages, people still knew this, they knew it to the extent of being able to paint it. In other words: It is not so long ago, that human beings were pushed completely on to the physical plane.
From The Ego-consciousness of the So-called Dead (1916)
Steiner hasn't written much about the Asuras as they weren't as strong a threat then as the Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers who caused the wars in the last century.
With every error, every lie, every illusion, we cast an obstacle in the way of progress.
Suppose that in some life you commit a wrong. If this wrong were to become firmly fixed in your life it would mean nothing less than that you would lose the step forward which you would have taken had you not committed the wrong; with every wrong, a step would be lost — enough steps to correspond exactly with the wrongs committed. If the possibility of surmounting error had not been given, man must ultimately have been submerged by it.
But the blessing of karma was bestowed. What does this blessing mean for man? Is karma something at which to shudder, something to dread? No, indeed! Karma is a power for which man should be thankful.
For karma says to us: If you have committed a wrong, remember that “God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap”. An error demands that you shall right it; then, having expunged it from your karma you can again take a step forward!
And now let us go further. In our days we are moving towards the epoch when other Beings will draw near to man — Beings who in the future before us will intrude more and more deeply into human evolution.
Fundamentally speaking, man is still working at this unconscious transformation of the physical body, at the development of the consciousness soul. And in the age now, approaching, those spiritual Beings known as the Asuras will creep into the consciousness soul and therewith into the human ‘I’ or ego — for the ‘I’ lights up in the consciousness soul.
The Asuras will generate evil with a far mightier force than was wielded by the Satanic powers in the Atlantean epoch or by the Luciferic Spirits in the Lemurian epoch.
In the course of the Earth-period man will cast away all the evil brought to him by the Luciferic Spirits together with the blessing of freedom.
The evil brought by the Ahrimanic Spirits can be shed in the course of karma. But the evil brought by the Asuric powers cannot be expunged in this way.
Whereas the good Spirits instituted pain and suffering, illness and death in order that despite the possibility of evil, man's evolution may still advance, whereas the good Spirits made possible the working of karma to the end that the Ahrimanic powers might be resisted and the evil made good, it will not be so easy to counter the Asuric powers as earth-existence takes its course.
For these Asuric Spirits will prompt what has been seized hold of by them, namely the very core of man's being, the consciousness soul together with the ‘I’, to unite with earthly materiality.
Fragment after fragment will be torn out of the ‘I’, and in the same measure in which the Asuric Spirits establish themselves in the consciousness soul, man must leave parts of his existence behind on the earth. What thus becomes the prey of the Asuric powers will be irretrievably lost. Not that the whole man need become their victim — but parts of his spirit will be torn away by the Asuric powers.
From ~Rudolf Steiner The Deed of Christ and the Opposing Spiritual Powers. Lucifer, Ahriman
Christ started his slow descending hundred years ago but he is first entering the Earth sphere fully now, 2024. Antichrist began his concentrated influence in 1998, working into humanity through the Asuras, and that is through our trauma, what made us feel unwelcome on earth, caused by an insecure childhood up to seven years of age. We know it as OCD, eating disorders, other self-destructive behavior, skin sicknesses, often painful, and sicknesses in the digestive system, also often painful. Children who are taught to hate, fear, and kill before the seventh year are fully in the hands of Sorat and the Asuras. Steiner describes it in more detail below in connection with Arabism.
The prophets of old, like Abraham and Moses and the members of the two streams, are becoming conscious of Christ now. Their mission is to transform materialism, and Antichrist tries to hinder it. It's now the wars between Love and Hate are fought, the leaders of the old Luciferic nations are fighting the spiritual that came from the West but also the old Eastern spirituality and the freedom and spiring spirituality in their own people. under communism, the people fought with passion for the state ideology, but today people want to live in peace, and if they have to fight they will have a proper payment.
The fight is in the hands of a 2000-year-old powerful karma from Golgotha, so the two streams are not involved directly in the fight against Antichrist, they work out of love. They may be incarnated as avatars to direct karma, often recognizable through their personality.
Steiner describes the work of Antichrist under the name Arabism and it covers Czarism in Russia represented by Putin, by Xi in China, by Orthodox Islam in Iran and their associates in Irak, Yemen, Lebanon, Syrien, Gaza, and sympathizers in the West. I look at Steiner’s prediction of a potential WW between the USA and allies on one side and Russia and especially China on the other in On Rudolf Steiner’s prediction of the Third World War and its Spiritual Background.
Yesterday I pointed out that the Apocalypticer sees something which is breaking in upon what he feels is the real Christianity, something which wants to make Christians renounce Christianity and lead them back to the Father principle that can only take on materilistic and naturalistic forms if it wins through in this epoch. …
The main thing for something deep down in human souls which are combatting Christianity will always be to oppose the idea that the really spiritual part of Christianity is connected with the sun. …
And in fact the breaking in of Arabism gave rise to the great danger that the secret of the sun as the secret of Christ himself would be forgotten and that the whole evolution of humanity would be deflected away from the Michael direction which should always only as it were prepare for men's Christ-evolution and give them their human understanding. …
But when he looked behind the scenes of the outer Arabian and Islamic deeds it was obvious to him that the sun demon was working there against the sun genius or sun intelligence.
Hence he had to present the sun demon as something which works against the actual Christian principle in man, so that if he yields to the sun demon he will not want to make the connection with the divinity of Christ, but he will want to remain in the subhuman element.
If the Apocalypticer had been asked what kind of human souls were devoted to the sun demon, he would have pointed to the supporters of ∙Arabism in Europe∙.
It was clear to him that everything which brings men in the direction of bestiality in their views and also gradually in their will impulses has arisen from Arabism. And this is obviously, in them.
The things which happen in the world in a very real way are such that one doesn't always see cause and effect side by side, — the object and that which has the object in view. …
When it comes right down to it, everything which flowed out of Arabism was directed against an understanding of transubstantiation. To be sure, it doesn't look like it from an outer point of view, but the sun demon only acknowledges the old Father principle and natural connections, and he wants to make men forget about the kinds of connections that are particularly active in a sacrament like transubstantiation. …
the sun demon Soradt, one of the mightiest demons in our solar system. It is basically possession by sun demons which is at work in the materialism of human beings. …
Soradt mainly came to life again in such a way that he used the views of the Roman church to exterminate the Templars. …
If one looks at what went on in these human beings and Templars as they were being tortured before they were executed, one gets an idea of how what had been instigated by Soradt lived in the visions of the tortured Templars, so that they denied their beliefs and so that one had a reasonable accusation from their own mouths. …
the people who advocated something quite different were unable to speak about it while they were being tortured, for various spirits from the hosts of Soradt spoke out of them instead and said the most disgraceful things about the order out of its own members. …
And we have the age of the third 666: 1998. We are coming to the end of this century, when Soradt will again lift his head from the waters of evolution very strongly, where he will be the adversary of that vision of the Christ which prepared human beings will already have in the first half of the 20th century through the appearance of the etheric Christ. It will then take almost two thirds of a century until Soradt raises his head in a mighty way.
When the first 666 went by Soradt was still hidden in the evolutionary course of events; one didn't see him in an external form; he lived in the deeds of Arabism, although initiates could see him. [In the astral body through the Lucciferic beings.]
When the second 666 came he already showed himself in the thinking and feeling of the tortured Templars. [In the etheric body through the ahrimanic beings.]
▪️He will show himself before the end of this century already, and he will appear in a great many people as a being by whom they will be possessed. [In the physical body through the asuras.]
▪️One will see people coming up to one and one will not be able to believe that they are really human beings. They will develop in a very strange way even outwardly. They will be intensive, strong natures outwardly with fierce features and a destructive rage in their emotions; they will have a face in which one will see a kind of a beast's face outwardly.
▪️Soradt men will also be recognizable outwardly; they will be those who not only ridicule spiritual things, — they will fight it in the most terrible way and they will want to thrust it down into a cesspool. [Terrorism in its most inhuman forms.]
One will see that what is concentrated in a small region in present-day Russian communism will be inserted∙ into the whole earth evolution of humanity. [Western Intellectualism — especially present in modern day Wokism, this is actually anti-spiritual. Interestingly enough is Trumpism inspired by the same powers, both are inherently egoistic Luciferic ideologies without empathy. One is anti-western and the other is anti-democratic.]
This is why it is so important that everything which can strive towards spirituality should really do so.
Everything which opposes spirituality will be there, for this does not work in accordance with freedom but in accordance with determinism.
… whom the Apocalypticer prophetically sees with their bestial faces and their strength of a tiger with respect to the execution of their adversarial deeds against the spiritual. Outbursts of rage against the spiritual are already here today: but they are only the first seeds. …
▪️Let us arrange our lives in accordance with these three mysteries of our time, the Michael mystery, the Christ mystery and the Soradt mystery as understanding human beings who know how to interpret the signs of our time, and we will be able to work in the right way in the field into which karma has led us, as for instance, the priest in his priestly field.
From Rudolf Steiner, Lectures to Priests: The Apocalypse
The devil whispers into the ear of antichrist, seduces the luciferic thinkers.
From Revelation 13:16-18.
16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
18 This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.
Jews and Christians in arab countries had to pay an exorbitant tax to be allowed to live, at least until recently where they had to flee.
From The Number of the Best, translated with Google.
The new Testament was translated from Hebrew (John’s language) into Greek and then into English. Studying the manuscript evidence, in the “Codex Vaticanus” dated 350 AD those three letters (that were translated 666) are not Greek in that sentence, but were translated that way wrongly. They are actually Arabic letters. John wrote what he saw the bible says, so when it came to 666, it was not Greek text. Even in the original manuscript in Greek when you turn the three letters, they become and look exactly like the Arabic letters. What it means is Bis’m Allah or “In the Name of Allah! That is the very thing that all the Islamic warriors wear on the headbands and armbands on their right arm!
One of the attacks we see today is to only acknowledge the Father as God, as it removes the whole foundation of the New Testament, of Christianity. Islam, Jehova Witness, Satanists, pre-Christian Gnostic traditions except Plato, and Atheists are examples of groups who have done this for years, but a new group of Conspiracy Theorists has joined the choir.
Here a more precise definition of the two incarnations. Lucifer prepares the incarnation of Christ from the Start of Kali Yuga, where the gods leave the earth. Ahriman comes at the time when the veil between the physical world and the spiritual world is lifted, where the gods again can show themselves to humankind.
The problem is that not all of humanity can understand what they see, only those who have gone through the illumination or initiation will be ready, and that is the tragedy that comes together with Ahriman, just as Kali Yuga that came with Lucifer was felt as a tragedy, as the Aborigines of Australia tells in their stories about the End of Dreamtime.
There goes 3000 years between Lucifer to the incarnation of Christ, and Christ needs 3000 years to prepare humanity for the incarnation of Ahriman, to the lifting of the veil:
From The Ahrimanic Deception, GA 193, October 27, 1919
▪️The impulses entering humanity from a Luciferic source sank down gradually into the soul. On the other hand, however, another impulse, which we call the Ahrimanic, is growing stronger and stronger in modern times. It will become increasingly strong in the near future and on into future ages.
The Ahrimanic impulse proceeds from a super-sensible Being different from the Being of Christ or of Lucifer. Equally with ‘super-sensible’ one can say ‘subsensible’ — but that is not the point here.
The influence of this Being becomes especially powerful in the Fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch. If we look at the confused conditions of recent years we shall find that men have been brought to such chaotic conditions mainly through the Ahrimanic powers.
Just as there was an incarnation of Lucifer at the beginning of the third pre-Christian millennium, as there was the Christ Incarnation at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, so there will be a Western incarnation of the Ahriman being some little time after our present earthly existence, in fact, in the third post-Christian millennium.
▪️To form a right conception of the historical evolution of mankind during approximately 6000 years, one must grasp that at the one pole stands a Luciferic incarnation, in the center, the incarnation of Christ, and at the other pole the Ahrimanic incarnation.
Lucifer is the power that stirs up in man all fanatical, all falsely mystical forces, all that physiologically tends to bring the blood into disorder and so lift man above and outside himself.
Ahriman is the power that makes man dry, prosaic, philistine — that ossifies him and brings him to the superstition of materialism. And the true nature and being of man is essentially the effort to hold the balance between the powers of Lucifer and Ahriman; the Christ Impulse helps present humanity to establish this equilibrium.
▪️Thus these two poles — the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic — are continuously present in man. Viewed historically, we find that the Luciferic preponderated in certain currents of cultural development of the pre-Christian age and continued into the first centuries of our era. On the other hand the Ahrimanic influence has been at work since the middle of the fifteenth century and will increase in strength until an actual incarnation of Ahriman takes place among Western humanity.
Now it is characteristic of such things that they are prepared long in advance. Ahrimanic powers prepare the evolution of mankind in such a way that it can fall a prey to Ahriman when he appears in human form within Western civilization — hardly then to be called ‘civilization’ in our sense — as once Lucifer appeared in human form in China, as once Christ appeared in human form in Asia Minor.
From The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture I, GA 191
To the many things we have learned about the evolution of humanity, this knowledge too must be added: that just as there was the incarnation which culminated in Golgotha, the incarnation of Christ in the man Jesus of Nazareth, there was an actual incarnation of Lucifer in far-off Asia, in the third millennium B.C.And the source of inspiration for much ancient culture was what can only be described as an earthly incarnation of Lucifer in a man of flesh and blood.
Even Christianity, even the Mystery of Golgotha as enacted among human beings, was understood at first by the only means then available, namely the old luciferic wisdom. The one-sidedness of the gnosis, for all its amazing profundity, stems from the influence that had spread from this Lucifer incarnation over the whole of the ancient world.
The significance of the Mystery of Golgotha cannot be fully grasped without the knowledge that rather less than three thousand years previously, there had been the incarnation of Lucifer.
In order that the luciferic inspiration might be lifted away from its one-sidedness, there came the incarnation of Christ and with it the impulse for the education and development of European civilization and its American offshoot.
But since the middle of the fifteenth century, since the impulse for the development of individuality, of personality, has been at work, this phase of evolution has also contained within it certain forces whereby preparation is being made for the incarnation of another super-sensible Being.
Just as there was an incarnation of Lucifer in the flesh and an incarnation of Christ in the flesh, so, before only a part of the third millennium of the post-Christian era has elapsed, there will be, in the West, an actual incarnation of Ahriman: Ahriman in the flesh. Humanity on earth cannot escape this incarnation of Ahriman. It will come inevitably. But what matters is that people shall find the right vantage point from which to confront it.
We are in the time of the Second Coming, the meeting of Christ in the Etheric, and not in the age of Ahriman, Ahriman is only a lesser disturbance for the Christ powers now forming in the outer world. Through the next 2500 years [Dvapara Yuga] humankind will work to meet Christ in the etheric. This is the Golden Age Krishna said would start now. Full text see The True Nature of the Second Coming - According to Steiner
From The Appearance of Christ in the Etheric.
What is important is that we are living just at the time when the Dark Age has run its course and a new epoch is just beginning, in which human beings will slowly and gradually develop new faculties and in which human souls will gradually undergo a change.…
Kali Yuga has run its course, and now human souls are beginning to develop new faculties, faculties that — because this is precisely the purpose of the age — will cause souls, seemingly out of themselves, to exhibit certain clairvoyant powers that were necessarily submerged in the unconscious during Kali Yuga. … Through what we call esoteric training, these clairvoyant faculties will be acquired much more readily, but because humanity progresses they will appear, at least in rudimentary form, in the most elementary stages, in the natural course of human evolution.…
This epoch could pass by humanity without notice, as it were, although we are letting the call sound forth today, even as John the Baptist, as the forerunner of Christ, and Christ Himself once let it resound: A new age is at hand, in which the souls of human beings must take a step upward into the kingdom of heaven! …
The event to which we refer is that human beings can acquire the new faculty of perception in the etheric realm — a certain number of human beings to begin with, followed gradually by others, because humanity will have 2,500 years [Dvapara Yuga] in which to evolve these faculties increasingly.… He will have pictures and premonitions of events in the spiritual world and will find that such events are carried out on the physical plane after three or four days. He will see certain things in etheric pictures and will know that tomorrow, or in a few days, this or that will take place.
The New Age.
Kali Yuga consists of two parts, the lesser and the darker Yuga. The first starts with the death of Krishna, the etheric gods don't walk the earth any longer, they become invisible to man. The second and darker Yuga starts with the death of Buddha, the angelic beings who had stayed back as human teachers of humanity, the Father's or Luciferic teachers, raised and became angels, they couldn't any longer incarnate as avatars, now humanity was alone on earth, but the spiritual world could still work through the old souls and pioneers of humanity. The twelve around Buddha, Christ and Christian Rosenkreutz are the leaders and archetypes of humanity.
From The Second Coming of Christ in the Etheric World, Lecture II
The last three millennia prior to the founding of Christianity belong to an epoch in the history of human evolution called the Dark Age, the lesser Dark Age — Kali Yuga. Kali Yuga began in the year 3101 B.C.
With it is connected everything we recognise nowadays as the great achievements of humanity, as the fundamental characteristics of present-day culture.
Before this Dark Age, before Kali Yuga, all human thinking, all the powers of the human soul, were in a certain respect differently organised.
The year 3101 B.C. is an approximate date, for in the process of development qualities of one kind passed over gradually into others; but before that time the last vestiges of ancient clairvoyance were still present. In the course of evolution the sequence of the ages is: Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, Kali Yuga. It is the last that is of particular interest to us to-day. …
