Lucifer, Ahriman & the Adversaries
The adversary powers in anthroposophy: Lucifer, Ahriman, Sorat and the double, and their balance through the Christ-impulse. Part of Thalira's Anthroposophical Glossary of 943 terms, and companion to the in-depth guide Anthroposophy.
The cosmological being of materialisation. The downward-pulling, mechanising actor in human evolution, distinct from Lucifer above and balanced by Christ at centre.
The materialising, hardening, mechanising tendency in human evolution. One of three opposing impulses balanced by Christ at centre.
The Ahrimanic Deception names the specific lecture-cycle (GA 191, 1919) in which Steiner warns of Ahriman's coming attempt to incarnate in a single human body in the third millennium.
In Steiner's spiritual science, the third and most dangerous opposing power: retarded Archai spirits of egoism who attack the consciousness soul and tear away fragments of the I.
In anthroposophy, the Eighth Sphere is a spectral counter-world Lucifer and Ahriman build by tearing matter from Earth, set against the seven spheres of evolution.
Steiner's name for a luciferic Asian counter-impulse that sought to make Western culture visionary, balanced by the discovery of America.
The upward-pulling, ego-inflating, mystical-escapist force. Distinguished from Satan, balanced by Christ at centre.
Steiner's tripolar moral cosmos: Christ at the heart, balancing the Luciferic upward pull and the Ahrimanic downward pull.
The third-century teaching of the Persian prophet Mani, rehabilitated by Steiner as the path of redeeming evil through love, distinct from the Augustinian heretic-narrative.
Three classes of artificial elemental being that human moral failure detaches from the spiritual world: lying breeds phantoms, bad laws breed spectres, coercion of thought breeds demons.
Steiner's name for the Sun-Demon, the being hidden behind the apocalyptic number 666 and pictured as the two-horned beast opposing the Christ.
The realm of purely earthly, mechanical forces that work one step below nature, the field Steiner named in 1925 as the home of technology and Ahriman.
An Ahrimanic spirit-being of the ancient Mexican mysteries who, Steiner taught, drove a sacrificial cult aimed at mechanizing the earth and stripping souls from human evolution.
Steiner's name for the Eastern wisdom-stream born of Lucifer's light, destined to unite with the Western Christ-stream and become the brothers of Christ.
An Ahrimanic spirit-being that enters the human body shortly before birth, leaves at death, and carries cold intelligence and sub-earthly electrical force.
Steiner's teaching that ahrimanic angel-beings, beaten by Michael, were cast from the spiritual world into human minds in November 1879.
Steiner's name for the decadent Atlantean mystery stream of pre-Columbian America, whose Taotl priests used ritual murder as black magic to mechanize the earth.
The virgin-born Mexican sun-hero whom Steiner calls the unknown contemporary of the Mystery of Golgotha, who crucified the black magician of the Taotl.
Two ways of working occult forces: white in harmony with earth's central spiritual leadership, black through the betrayal of occult secrets and machinations of cruelty.