“And just as there was a physical incarnation of Lucifer, and a physical Incarnation of Christ, so before even a part of the 3^rd millennium of the Christian era will have run its course there will be in the West an actual incarnation of Ahriman: Ahriman in the flesh.” 

 Rudolf Steiner, Lucifer and Ahriman (11/4/1919)

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One of the most debated topics in spiritual science is the timing of the incarnation of Ahriman in the West. Ahriman, the lord of death and destruction, certainly seems to be incarnated now during this pharmaceutical World War III that is being waged by globalists against the populations of the world, hegemonists who wish to depopulate the world through a war against the human bloodstream. These eugenicists have set aside their normal weapons of bullets and bombs and taken up the more effective, and clever, methods of needles, pills, masks, and lockdowns to create the first ever voluntary suicide via fake vaccines, poisonous graphene, self-organizing nanoparticles, 5G wireless, and other less obvious machinations of death and suffering that are the new tools of Ahriman who wishes to annihilate the entire human population of the Earth.

Ahriman’s cohort in these draconian plans are his old friends Lucifer and the Ausras, the fallen angels of heaven who convince billionaire global elitists that only they will survive. These Ahrimanic biological weapons have previously been outlawed in all countries but now are written into the laws of most nations under the auspices of the United Nations World Health Organization as safety and security measures to guard the world from supposed “pandemics.”

The raging debate about when Ahriman, the lord of death, will incarnate in a physical body is revealed most specifically by the great spiritual scientist Dr. Rudolf Steiner and his followers called Anthroposophists. Other inspired Theosophists and esotericists have also outlined the timeline for this dreaded incarnation and place this event somewhere between 2001 to 3000 AD. Doctor Steiner has given indications of when and where Ahriman will incarnate and many details on what his mission will entail. Ahriman, an ancient Persian name for the god of darkness, also called Angra Mainyu, does not work alone but enjoins the help of Lucifer, the Asuras, and the Sun Demon Sorat. Sorat is predicted to incarnate in the distant future to lead the Apocalyptic demise of the world.

Currently, Ahriman’s minions, called the Asuras, are ripping apart the “I Am” of each human through immoral machines and machinations that steal and annihilate the divine willpower of the individual’s soul and spirit which is striving towards its divine spiritual nature. The presence and influence of Ahriman and the Asuras is easy to see but the insidious undermining of human intelligence that is actively destroying the “I Am” of each individual through the power of the Luciferic hosts is more camouflaged and obscured by laws and government mandates.

The incarnation of Ahriman is eminent but he has not fully shown his hand yet. Some theorists (Robert Powell and associates) have speculated that Barry Soetoro (a.k.a. Barack Hussein Obama) is Ahriman incarnated, but that is an unimaginative and weak guess concerning this brilliantly clever father of Artificial Intelligence who desires to supplant human intelligence through transhumanism. Ahriman’s great desire is to live forever in machines through all of the tools of transhumanism (wetworks, cybernetic implants, neural net interfaces with machines, etc.). Ahriman’s plan for humanity is to transform humans into automaton machines instead of evolving biological humans who are ascending into the angelic realms.

Ahriman carries out his plan through the work of Asuras who supplant human willpower with robotic devices that “save time” but eliminate human free will.

He also uses his old friend Lucifer, the “Father of Lies” to brainwash human intelligence through artificial intelligence that tries to overwhelm humans with futuristic machines that deplete human thinking with the cold, digital thinking of robots, machines, and technologies that create the appearance of omniscience (internet search capacity destroying human memory), omnipresence (worldwide digital hyper-connectedness) and omnipotence (AI robots that supplant human willpower). Ahriman is incarnating right now to bring death and destruction to the world, and with the help of the Asuras and Lucifer is doing an effective job driving humanity into extinction as human thinking, memory, and willpower are lulled into a digitally induced sleep, like unto death. What human isn’t convinced by Lucifer to let machines and robots do their work for them while they are busy with shopping, entertainment, sports, and a busy hedonistic lifestyle?

Ahriman is incarnating as a counter-pole to the physical (human) incarnation of Lucifer in China which happened during the third millennium BC, with the mid-point being the incarnation of Christ in Jesus of Nazareth in Israel at the ‘Turning Point of Time.’

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Lucifer brought the over-exuberant development of discarnate cosmic thinking into the development of human thinking (intelligence). Ahriman has now, in our time, brought the deadening of human emotions and feelings in all realms of life on Earth. The Asuras are actively working in our time for the future overthrowing of human free will, which will serve the master of the Asuras, the Sun Demon Sorat, in a fiery Apocalyptic demise.

Sorat intends to overthrow the love that Christ brought to, and instilled in, human hearts through stealing the divine nature found in each person’s “I Am.” Sorat is aided in this process by his army of demons called Asuras who cripple the individual’s capacity to exercise free will out of a foundation based upon love. Thus, Ahriman and his hosts utilized what Lucifer accomplished during his incarnation in China thousands of years ago, as well as the current efforts of the Asuras to “eat” the spiritual parts of the human soul and spirit. If Ahriman, Lucifer, and the Asuras are successful, Sorat will easily conquer spiritual human development and end the progressive ascension of humanity back to their original source in the spiritual world.

Lucifer is active in and wishes to manipulate human thinking, while Ahriman desires to rule human feelings with the Asuras attacking human willpower to freeze and annihilate the spiritual capacities of love and freedom in the human soul and spirit. Once these three demonic forces capture the soul and spirit of an individual, the Sun being Christ becomes obscured and hidden from human thinking, feeling, and willing.

The current zeitgeist of our time is the Archangel Michael who is now leading the battle against these demons as he has ascended to the rank of an Archai, or Time Spirit. The Archai Michael is the leader of our spiritual cycle of time (since 1879) who is called the Countenance of Christ who leads the Mother Lodge of Spiritual Beings on the Sun, called the Elohim. Christ’s origins are much higher than this realm of the Elohim because His source is the Divine Trinity which is above the nine ranks of the spiritual hierarchy. Thus, we can turn to the Archai Michael, and his mother Sophia (emanating from the rank of the Kyriotetes) who is the embodiment of Cosmic Wisdom that has not fallen from grace as Lucifer has done during the ancient past of spiritual evolution. Michael, Sophia, and Christ nourish the thinking, feeling, and willing of each person with spiritual nutrition from the Trinity and the nine hierarchy. This spiritual battle rages in every human incarnated physically on Earth.

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Or as we are told in the Bible in Ephesians 6:11-12 (KJV): “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”                                                                                 

The victory of Christ over Sorat is not a given, it must be played out over time in the heart of every human being. Christ is being crucified again in the life body (etheric body) of the Earth in our current times. The materialism of Ahriman acting in the human heart is pain for Christ that is equivalent to crucifixion – a second crucifixion of sorts. Luciferic delusion and Ahrimanic cold-heartedness creates darkness in the light-filled realm of the etheric world that encircles the Earth. When humans die, the darkness of Lucifer, Ahriman, and the Asuras make it impossible for the human being to see and interact with Christ in the etheric realm, also called the realm of Shambhala. If that happens, humans die into a cold, dark realm that is void of love and freedom and therefore limits the ability of the human to ascend to higher spiritual realms. This tragedy is a devolution of humanity that makes them descend into the hell-realms instead of ascend into the divine spiritual worlds. This is the “second death” of the Apocalypse which destroys the divine work of Christ to redeem humanity from their sins against the spirit, and creates a second crucifixion of Christ created by humans who become “fallen” beings like Lucifer, Ahriman, and the Asuras.

Each individual is loved by Christ, Sophia, and Michael and is seen as the greatest treasure to the spiritual evolution of humanity. Each human soul must decide whose side they are on in this battle and seek the spiritual help to overcome these evil fallen beings acting as demons in the physical realm of the Earth. The battle is fierce and the gains and losses are a matter of spiritual life and death. But only the human individual can make the free choices of love that will conquer the plans of these three groups of demonic beings fighting for the human soul and spirit. The question is: Will the free human being receive the grace and help of good spirits, or be pulled into the Apocalyptic second death of the evil overlords of our world? Only time will tell the outcome.

We have gathered numerous selections of Rudolf Steiner’s teachings that inform us about the incarnations of Lucifer and Ahriman which help describe the nature and workings of these beings. In other articles we have described the nature of evil and the workings of the Asuras and Sorat to illuminate these ideas. Steiner’s teachings of liberation from these forces through the Cosmic Deed of Christ, which he calls the ‘Mystery of Golgotha at the Turning Point of Time’, can be found in our trilogy of books entitled, The Gospel of Sophia which constitutes a modern path of Christian spiritual initiation that can be attained through directly working with the beings of Sophia, Christ, and the divine hierarchy of spiritual beings. This initiation entails developing an individual “spiritual language” that is custom-made for each aspirant which can open and maintain a dialogue with the spiritual world.

But it is incumbent upon the aspirant to freely take up this individualized language in the spirit of love. Once this process of initiation is started, the free flowing nutrition of the divine world flows into the heart of the sincere aspirant and becomes a spiritual path that leads back to the sources of spirit wisdom. No one can do this work for anyone else and each person must choose to engage in this battle for the sake of stopping the second crucifixion of Christ, which happens to Christ in the etheric realm and in the Christened self in the heart of each aspirant. The choice is yours, but the results effect the entire world and the ultimate direction of human spiritual evolution. So, choose wisely for the fate of humanity and your eternal spirit is in your hands.

The Incarnation of Lucifer

Screwtape (Archdevil) to his nephew (Devil): “To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. We want cattle who can finally become food; we want to suck in; we are empty and would be filled; our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below (Satan) has drawn all other beings into himself.”

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture 1, November 1, 1919, GA 191 & 193

If we were to go much farther back, to a time more than three thousand years before the Christian era, we should find that together with the promptings of wisdom there did come a moral impulse, that the moral principles, the ethics needed by these people of old were contained in this wisdom. But a specific ethos, a specific moral impulse such as came with Christianity was not an integral part of paganism. Why was this? It was because through the millennia directly preceding Christianity, this pagan wisdom was inspired from a place far away in Asia, inspired by a remarkable being who had been incarnated in the distant East in the third millennium before Christ – namely, Lucifer.

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.

As I told you, Ahriman and Lucifer will always work hand in hand. The only question is which of the two predominates in human consciousness at a particular epoch of time. It was a preeminently luciferic culture that persisted until after the Mystery of Golgotha – a culture inspired by the incarnation of Lucifer in China in the third millennium B.C. Many influences of this incarnation continued to radiate and were still powerful in the early Christian centuries; indeed they are working to this day.

But now that we are facing an incarnation of Ahriman in the third millennium after Christ, Lucifer’s tracks are becoming less visible, and Ahriman’s activities in such trends as I have indicated are coming into prominence. Ahriman has made a kind of pact with Lucifer, the import of which may be expressed in the following way. Ahriman, speaking to Lucifer, says: “I, Ahriman, find it advantageous to make use of ‘preserving jars.’ To you I will leave people’s stomachs, if you will leave it to me to lull them to sleep – that is to say to lull their consciousness to sleep where their stomachs are concerned.”

You must understand what I mean by this. The consciousness of those human beings whom I have called devourers of soul and spirit is in a condition of dimness so far as their stomachs are concerned; for, by not accepting the spiritual into their human nature, they drive straight into the luciferic stream everything they introduce into their stomachs. What people eat and drink without spirituality goes straight to Lucifer!

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture Two, November 02, 1919

The lecture yesterday will have shown you that if we are to acquire insight into the nature and evolution of humanity, we must be constantly mindful of the power and influence of Lucifer, of Christ, and of Ahriman.

It should be realized that just as external science becomes ahrimanic, the higher development of our inner nature becomes luciferic if we give ourselves up to mystical experiences. The luciferic tendency wakens and becomes especially powerful in everyone who, without the self-training described in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, sets about any mystical deepening of the impulses already inherent in their nature. The luciferic tendency shows itself in everyone who begins to brood over experiences of their inner life, and it is extremely powerful in present-day humanity. It takes effect in egoism of which most people are entirely unaware. One comes across so many today who are quite satisfied when they can say of something they have done that they have no cause for self-reproach, that they did it to the best of their knowledge and according to their conscience. That is an entirely luciferic attitude. For in what we do in life the point is not whether or not we have cause to reproach ourselves; what really matters is that we shall take things objectively, with complete detachment, and in accordance with the course of objective facts. And the majority of people today make no effort to achieve this objective understanding or to acquire knowledge of what is necessary for world evolution.

It all amounts to this, that modern people only speak truly of themselves when they say that they hover perpetually between two extremes: between the ahrimanic on the one side, where they are presented with an outer delusion, a fata morgana, and, on the other, the luciferic element within them which induces the tendency to illusions, hallucinations and the like. The ahrimanic tendencies in people today live themselves out in science, the luciferic tendencies, in religion, while in art they swing between the one extreme and the other. But the truth of the matter is that Lucifer and Ahriman must be regarded as two scales of a balance and it is we who must hold the beam in equipoise by permeating what takes ahrimanic form within us with a strongly luciferic element. Nevertheless if the fata morgana that arises out of chemistry, out of physics, out of astronomy and the like can fill us with fiery enthusiasm and interest, then through our interest – which is itself luciferic – we can wrest from Ahriman what is his own.

What wells up in our inmost being today is very strongly luciferic. It is never a matter of a subjective rejection or acceptance of things, but of an objective recognition of the extent to which things are either luciferic or ahrimanic, with the result that the scales are overweighted on the one side or the other. Had there been no luciferic wisdom, no understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha could have been acquired through the gnosis in the early centuries of Christendom. Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha diminished with the fading of the luciferic wisdom.

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture 3   

At the beginning of the third millennium in the east of Asia a momentous event took place when human beings could not acquire knowledge through their own thinking, through their own powers of intellectual discernment because they were dependent upon what was imparted to them from the Mysteries. At that time, a child of a distinguished Asiatic family was allowed to grow up in the precincts of the Mystery ceremonies. Circumstances were such that this child was actually permitted to take part in the ceremonies, undoubtedly because the priests conducting the rites in the Mysteries felt it as an inspiration that such a child must be allowed to participate. And when the being incarnate in that child had reached the age of about forty something very remarkable came to light. It became evident – and there is no doubt at all that the priests of the Mysteries had foreseen the event prophetically – that this man began suddenly to grasp through the faculty of human intellect itself what had formerly come into the Mysteries through revelation. He was the first to make use of the organs of human intellect. In this man, Lucifer himself was incarnated. And from this incarnation of Lucifer in the flesh – for this being became a teacher – there went forth what is described as the pre-Christian, pagan culture which still survived in the gnosis of the earliest Christian centuries.

The influence of the Lucifer incarnation was still powerful in the south of Europe, in the north of Africa, and in Asia Minor during the first centuries of Christendom. And when the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place on earth, it was essentially the luciferic wisdom through which it could be understood. The gnosis, which set about the task of grasping the import of the Mystery of Golgotha, was impregnated through and through with luciferic wisdom. The significance of the incarnation of Christ was grasped because the power of the old Lucifer incarnation still survived. This power did not actually fade from the human faculty of comprehension until the fourth century A.D.

Through Lucifer, human beings have acquired the faculty of using the organs of their intellect, of their power of intellectual discernment. It was Lucifer himself, in a human body, who was the first to grasp through the power of intellect what formerly could be imparted to humanity only through revelation, namely, the content of the Mysteries.

The incarnation of Lucifer could be recognized only by the prophetic insight of the priests of the Mysteries. People were also very unconscious of what the incarnation of Christ and the event of Golgotha really signified. But they must live on toward the incarnation of Ahriman with full consciousness amid the shattering events which will occur on the physical plane. It must be remembered that the Gospels came into existence at a time when the luciferic wisdom still survived. The Gospels were given as a necessary counterweight to the luciferic gnosis.

Just as once in the East there was a Lucifer incarnation, and then, at the midpoint, as it were, of world evolution, the incarnation of Christ, so in the West there will be an incarnation of Ahriman.

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture 4   

It must always be remembered that the whole of the old pagan wisdom emanated from a luciferic source. The farther back we go in the evolution of humanity, the more do we find certain individuals who through the qualities attained in earlier incarnations were sufficiently mature to apprehend the treasures of wisdom possessed by the luciferic beings. For what the luciferic beings brought with them into earth evolution was, above all, the world of thought, of intellectualistic thought pervading culture, the world of reason in the highest sense of the word – the world of wisdom. And going back to the primeval origins of human existence, we find that the sources of pagan wisdom always lie with luciferic beings.

Those who possessed the knowledge and the inherited, primeval wisdom were not fearful of receiving this wisdom from luciferic sources. They took upon themselves the obligation incumbent upon everyone to whom luciferic beings impart knowledge from spiritual realms. The obligation was to use this luciferic, cosmic wisdom rightly, for the good of earth evolution. In olden times the wisdom needed for the progress of humanity could be obtained only from a luciferic source; hence the initiates were obliged to receive it from that source and at the same time to take upon themselves the obligation not to yield to the aspirations of the luciferic beings.

Lucifer’s intention was to convey the wisdom to humanity in such a way that it would induce people to abandon the path of earth evolution and take a path leading to a super-earthly sphere, a sphere aloof from the earth. The luciferic beings inculcated their wisdom into human beings but their desire was that it would make them turn away from the earth, without passing through earthly evolution. Lucifer wants to abandon the Earth to its fate, to win humankind for a kingdom alien to the kingdom of Christ.

The sages of olden time who received the primeval wisdom from the hands of Lucifer had, as I said, to pledge themselves not to yield to his wishes but to use the wisdom for the good of Earth evolution. And that was what was accomplished through the pre-Christian Mysteries. Human beings received the rudiments of what has developed in the course of evolution into the faculties of speech and of thinking. Speaking and thinking are, in their origins, luciferic, but were drawn away from the grip of Lucifer by the sages of old. If you are really intent upon fleeing, from Lucifer, then you must make up your minds to be dumb in the future, and not to think!

It must be known that the art of speaking and the art of thinking have become part of evolution only because they were received through the mediation of Lucifer. The luciferic element can still be observed in thinking. Speech, which has for long ages been differentiated and adapted to earthly needs. The luciferic tendency is always toward unification, the fundamental tendency of the ahrimanic principle is differentiation. And because this is so, through their own inherent nature, people are less allied with the luciferic element which always tends to draw them away from the earth. But woe betide if humanity were simply to draw away from the luciferic element without putting something different in its place. To combat this, a counterweight must be created; and this counterweight can only be created if, like the old wisdom inherent in paganism, a new wisdom, acquired by the free resolve and will of human beings, is infused into earthly culture. This new wisdom must again be Initiation wisdom.

From the Contents of Esoteric Classes, Stuttgart, February22, 1912, (101. EL)

These complications are created by Luciferic beings who remained behind in their development at the Mystery of Golgotha, that is, they didn’t accept the consequences of this Mystery. What’s happening now in spiritual worlds is shocking in many respects for one who can see into them. Lucifer brought it about that we moved into our physical and etheric bodies and didn’t remain floating above them, and this was actually good for us, for this enabled our ego to attain cognitional power and memory. The Luciferic beings who remained behind at the Mystery of Golgotha have created a kind of a vanguard for themselves out of people they overpowered after their last death. But as we said, memory is Lucifer’s gift. Through him, we descended into our physical body on being driven out of the paradise of spiritual worlds. We must now revoke Lucifer’s deed, but we shouldn’t think that it wasn’t necessary.

The Ahrimanic Deception, Zurich, October 27, 1919, GA 193

The incarnation that took place at the beginning of the third millennium B.C. is extraordinarily difficult to follow up, even with the science of seership, of initiation. It gave humanity something of immense brilliance, having an incisive effect. What it gave to humanity, in fact, was the primeval wisdom.

Viewed externally, one can say that it was a wisdom penetrating deep into reality; cold, based purely on ideas, permeated little by feeling. The actual inner nature of this wisdom can be judged only by going back to that incarnation which took place over in Asia at the beginning of the third pre-Christian millennium. It is revealed to the retrospective clairvoyant gaze that this was an actual human incarnation of the Luciferic Power.

And this incarnation of Lucifer in humanity, which in a certain way has been achieved, was the origin of the widely extended ancient wisdom based on the Third Post-Atlantean civilization.

There was still an after-effect, even in Grecian times, of the widespread cultural impulse that was derived from this Asiatic, Luciferic human being. Luciferic wisdom was of the utmost benefit to man in that epoch of evolution – brilliant in a certain way, graduated according to the different peoples and races among which it was spread. It was plainly recognizable throughout the whole of Asia, then in the Egyptian civilization, the Babylonian civilization and even in the culture of Greece.

All that was possible to the humanity of that time in thought, in the realm of poetry, in deeds, was in a certain way determined through the entry of this Luciferic impulse into human civilization.

The whole of Gnostic thought existing at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, an impressive wisdom shedding light deep into cosmic realities – this whole Gnostic knowledge was inspired by the impulse coming from Luciferic forces. One must not say that Gnostic thought is therefore false; one is merely characterizing it by saying that it is permeated by Luciferic forces.

Then, considerably more than two thousand years after the Luciferic incarnation, came the Mystery of Golgotha. It may be said that the men among whom the impulse of this Mystery spread were still fully imbued in their thinking and feeling with what had come from the impulse of Lucifer. And now there entered into the evolution of civilized humanity an entirely different impulse, the impulse proceeding from the Christ. We have often spoken of what this Christ Impulse signifies within civilized humanity. The Christ-Impulse was taken up by the hearts and minds that I have just characterized. One might say that it shone into all the best that came to man from Lucifer. And in the first Christian centuries, men understood the Christ through what they had received from Lucifer. These things must be faced without prejudice; otherwise it is not really possible to understand the particular way in which the Christ Impulse was received in the first centuries of our era.

As the Luciferic impulse began to fade more and more, men were also increasingly unable to absorb the Christ Impulse in the right way. 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.

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.

The Incarnation of Ahriman

The Ahrimanic Deception, October 27, 1919 Zurich, GA 193

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. 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. 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. 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.

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. Ahriman will appear in human form and the only question is, how he will find humanity prepared. Will his preparations have secured for him as followers the whole of mankind that today calls itself civilized, or will he find a humanity that can offer resistance. The fact that people reject these things is just one of the means which the Ahrimanic powers can use and which will give Ahriman the greatest possible following when he appears in human form on earth. This disregard of the weightiest truths is precisely what will build Ahriman the best bridge to the success of his incarnation. And nothing will help us to find the right position in regard to the part played by Ahriman in human evolution except an unprejudiced study of the forces through which Ahriman’s influence works, as well as learning to know the forces through which mankind can arm itself against being tempted and led astray.

Now, in order that his incarnation may take the most profitable form, it is of the utmost interest to Ahriman that people should perfect themselves in all our illusory modern science, but without knowing that it is illusion. Ahriman has the greatest possible interest in instructing men in mathematics, but not in instructing them that mathematical-mechanistic concepts of the universe are merely illusions. He is intensely interested in bringing men chemistry, physics, biology and so on, as they are presented today in all their remarkable effects, but he is interested in making men believe that these are absolute truths, not that they are only points of view, like photographs from one side. To conceal from mankind that in modern intellectual, rationalistic science with its supplement of a superstitious empiricism, one is dealing with a great illusion, a deception – that men should not recognize this is of the greatest possible interest to Ahriman. It would be a triumphant experience for him if the scientific superstition which grips all circles today and by which men even want to organize their social science, should prevail into the third millennium. He would have the greatest success if he could then come as a human being into Western civilization and find the scientific superstition.

We do not safeguard ourselves against Ahriman by avoiding modern science, but by learning to know its character. For modern science gives us an external illusion of the universe, and we need this illusion. This, then, represents one of the means used by Ahriman to make his incarnation as effective as possible – this keeping of man back in scientific superstition.

These Ahrimanic powers are working, in fact, wherever dis-harmonies arise between groups of men. Ahriman makes use of this confusion in order to prepare the triumph of his incarnation and to drive men with increasing force into what they find so difficult to realize – namely, that by intellectual or modern scientific reasoning today, one can prove anything and equally well prove its opposite. And so, in order to create dissensions, Ahriman also makes use of what develops from the old conditions of heredity which man has really outgrown in the Fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch. The Ahrimanic powers use all that is derived from old circumstances of heredity in order to set men against each other in conflicting groups. All that comes from old differences of family, race, tribe, peoples, is used by Ahriman to create confusion.

For, you see, Ahriman skillfully prepares his goal beforehand; ever since the Reformation and the Renaissance, the economist has been emerging in modern civilization as the representative governing type. If men do not realize that the rights-state and the organism of the Spirit must be set against the economic order called up through the economists and the banks, then again, through this lack of awareness, Ahriman will find an important instrument for preparing his incarnation.

The Gospel was given to those who lived in the first centuries of Christianity, and to believe that today the Gospel can give the whole of Christianity is simply a half-truth. It is therefore also a half-error which befogs people and thus furnishes Ahriman with the best means of attaining the goal and the triumph of his incarnation.

These very people who swear by the Gospel alone and reject every kind of real spiritual knowledge, form the beginning of a flock for Ahriman when he appears in human shape in modern civilization. From these circles, from these members of confessions and sects who repulse the concrete knowledge brought by spiritual endeavor, whole hosts will develop as adherents of Ahriman. Humanity will only acquire the right attitude to the earthly incarnation of Ahriman if it sees through these things and has the courage, will and energy to illumine both secular science and the Gospel by the Spirit.

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture 1, November 1, 1919, GA 191

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.

With a view to his incarnation on the earth, Ahriman guides certain forces in evolution in such a way that they may be of the greatest possible advantage to him. And evil would result were people to live on in a state of drowsy unawareness, unable to recognize certain phenomena in life as preparations for Ahriman’s incarnation in the flesh. The right stand can be taken only by recognizing in one or another series of events the preparation that is being made by Ahriman for his earthly existence. And the time has now come for individual human beings to know what tendencies and events around them are machinations of Ahriman, helping him to prepare for his approaching incarnation.

It would undoubtedly be of the greatest benefit to Ahriman if he could succeed in preventing the vast majority of people from perceiving what would make for their true well-being, if the vast majority of people were to regard these preparations for the Ahriman incarnation as progressive and good for evolution. If Ahriman were able to slink into a humanity unaware of his coming, that would gladden him most of all. It is for this reason that the occurrences and trends in which Ahriman is working for his future incarnation must be brought to light.

One of the developments in which Ahriman’s impulse is clearly evident is the spread of the belief that the mechanistic, mathematical conceptions inaugurated by Galileo, Copernicus, and others, explain what is happening in the cosmos. It would augur success for Ahriman’s temptings if people were to persist in merely calculating the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, in studying astrophysics for the sole purpose of ascertaining the material composition of the planets – an achievement of which the modern world is so proud. But woe betide if this Copernicanism is not confronted by the knowledge that the cosmos is permeated by soul and spirit. It is this knowledge that Ahriman, in preparing his earthly incarnation, wants to withhold. He would like to keep people so obtuse that they can grasp only the mathematical aspect of astronomy. Therefore he tempts many people to carry into effect their repugnance to knowledge concerning soul and spirit in the cosmos. That is only one of the forces of corruption poured by Ahriman into human souls. Another means of temptation connected with his incarnation is to preserve the already widespread attitude that for the public welfare it is sufficient if the economic and material needs of humanity are provided for.

To keep people in the state of being devourers of the soul and spirit is one of Ahriman’s impulses in preparation for his incarnation. To the extent to which people can be roused into conducting their affairs not for material ends alone and into regarding a free and independent spiritual life, equally with economic life, as an integral part of the social organism – to that same extent Ahriman’s incarnation will be awaited with an attitude worthy of humanity.

Another tendency in modern life of benefit to Ahriman in preparing his incarnation is all that is so clearly in evidence in nationalism. Whatever can separate people into groups, whatever can alienate them from mutual understanding the whole world over and drive wedges between them, strengthens Ahriman’s impulse. But blood relationship has ceased to be the decisive factor and if this outworn notion persists, we shall be playing straight into the hands of Ahriman. His interests are promoted, too, by the fact that people are taken up with the most divergent shades of party opinions, of which the one can be justified as easily as the other. A socialist party program and an anti-socialist program can be supported by arguments of equal validity.

If people could be brought to a standstill at this point, not pressing on to the real Christ but contenting themselves with a hallucination of Christ, Ahriman’s aims would be immeasurably furthered.

With the dimming of consciousness that inevitably occurs when the deeper content of the Gospels is not revealed, people would fall wholly into Ahriman’s service, helping in a most effective way to prepare for his incarnation, and adopting toward him the very attitude he desires.

The point to remember is, however, that the people who do most to prepare for the incarnation of Ahriman are those who constantly preach. “All that is required is to read the Gospels word-for-word-nothing more than that!”

Strange to say, in spite of their radical differences, the two parties play into each other’s hands: those whom I called “devourers of soul and spirit” and those who demand the literal, word-for-word reading of the Gospels. A good deal of what is spreading in external Christianity today is a preparation for Ahriman’s incarnation. And in many things which arrogantly claim to represent true belief, we should recognize the preparation for Ahriman’s work.

As I told you, Ahriman and Lucifer will always work hand in hand. But now that we are facing an incarnation of Ahriman in the third millennium after Christ, Lucifer’s tracks are becoming less visible, and Ahriman’s activities in such trends as I have indicated are coming into prominence.

Truth is beyond the reach of the kind of knowledge for which people aspire today. They feel on secure ground when they can reckon by means of figures, when they can prove things by statistics. With statistics and figures Ahriman has an easy game. Nothing can stand up against figures because of the faith that is reposed in them; and Ahriman is only too ready to exploit figures for his purposes.

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture 2, November 2, 1919, GA 191

Those who still do not recognize the gravity of the present situation in the world are also, in a certain respect, helping to prepare for Ahriman’s incarnation. The Ahrimanic incarnation will be greatly furthered if people fail to establish a free and independent spiritual life and allow it to remain entangled in the economic or political life. For the ahrimanic power has everything to gain by the spiritual life being even more closely intermingled with these other spheres. To the ahrimanic power a free spiritual life would denote a kind of darkness, and people’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.

Therefore spiritual science must emphasize the following: That Ahriman is actually preparing for his incarnation; where we can recognize how he is preparing for it; and with what attitude it must be confronted.

But the truth of the matter is that Lucifer and Ahriman must be regarded as two scales of a balance and it is we who must hold the beam in equipoise.

There is nothing more ahrimanic than this knowledge of the material world, for it is sheer illusion. Nevertheless if the fata morgana that arises out of chemistry, out of physics, out of astronomy and the like can fill us with fiery enthusiasm and interest, then through our interest – which is itself luciferic – we can wrest from Ahriman what is his own.

If the right stand is to be taken to Ahriman’s future incarnation, people must become more objective where their own impulses are concerned, and far, far more subjective where the external world is concerned – not by introducing pictures of fantasy but by bringing interest, alert attention, and devotion to the things of immediate life.

When people find one thing or another in outer life tedious, possibly because of the education they have received or because of other circumstances, the path which Ahriman wants to take for the benefit of his incarnation is greatly smoothed. Nothing does more to prepare the path for Ahriman’s incarnation than to find this or that tedious, to consider oneself superior to one thing or another and refuse to enter into it. Again it is the same question of finding the point where everything is of interest. It is never a matter of a subjective rejection or acceptance of things, but of an objective recognition of the extent to which things are either luciferic or ahrimanic, with the result that the scales are overweighted on the one side or the other.

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture 3, November 4, 1919, GA 193

What is now in preparation and will quite definitely come to pass on earth in a none-too-distant future is an actual incarnation of Ahriman. As you know, since the middle of the fifteenth century we have been living in an era in which it behooves humankind to come more and more into possession of the full power of consciousness. It is of the very greatest importance that people should approach the coming incarnation of Ahriman with full consciousness of this event. They must live on toward the incarnation of Ahriman with full consciousness amid the shattering events which will occur on the physical plane. Amid the perpetual stresses of war and other tribulations of the immediate future, the human mind will become very inventive in the domain of physical life. And through this very growth of inventiveness in physical life – which cannot be averted in any way or by any means – the bodily existence of a human individuality in whom Ahriman can incarnate will become possible and inevitable.

From the spiritual world this Ahrimanic power is preparing for incarnation on the earth, endeavoring in every conceivable way to make such preparation that the incarnation of Ahriman in human form may be able to mislead and corrupt humankind on earth to the uttermost. A task of humankind during the next phase of civilization will be to live toward the incarnation of Ahriman with such alert consciousness that this incarnation can actually serve to promote a higher, spiritual development, inasmuch as through Ahriman himself humanity will become aware of what can, or shall we say, cannot be achieved by physical life alone. But people must go forward with full consciousness toward this incarnation of Ahriman and become more and more alert in every domain, in order to recognize with greater and greater clarity those trends in life which are leading toward this Ahrimanic incarnation. People must learn from spiritual science to find the key to life and so be able to recognize and learn to control the currents leading toward the incarnation of Ahriman. It must be realized that Ahriman will live among people on the earth, but that in confronting him people will themselves determine what they may learn from him, what they may receive from him. This, however, they will not be able to do unless, from now onward, they take control of certain spiritual and also unspiritual currents which otherwise are used by Ahriman for the purpose of leaving humankind as deeply unconscious as possible of his coming; then, one day, he will be able to appear on earth and overwhelm people tempting and luring them to repudiate earth evolution, thus preventing it from reaching its goal.

This stream of spirit-and-soul-consumption is particularly encouraged by Ahriman because in this way he can lull humankind into greater and greater drowsiness, so that then, through his incarnation, he will be able to come among people and fall upon them unawares because they do not confront him consciously.

Everything that is developing as intellectual life without being suffused by warmth of soul, without being quickened by enthusiasm, directly furthers the incarnation of Ahriman in a way that is after his own heart. It lulls people to sleep in the way I have described, so that its results are advantageous to Ahriman.

The time for founding empires based on relationships of blood and race is past and over in the evolution of mankind. If an appeal is made today to national, racial, and similar relationships, to relationships arising out of the intellect and not out of the spirit, then disharmony among humankind will be intensified. And it is this disharmony among humankind which the ahrimanic power can put to special use. Chauvinism, perverted patriotism in every form – this is the material from which Ahriman will build just what he needs.

Deeper understanding of the Gospels in the light of spiritual science is essential today, for the apathy that takes hold of people who are content to live merely within the arms of the denominations will be used to the utmost by Ahriman in order to achieve his goal – which is that his incarnation shall catch people unawares. And those who believe they are being most truly Christian by rejecting any development of the conception of the Christ mystery, are, in their arrogance, the ones who do most to promote Ahriman’s aims. The denominations and sects are positively spheres of encouragement, breeding-grounds for Ahriman. Just as the materialistic attitude, rejecting the spiritual altogether and contending that the human being is a product of what people eat and drink, furthers Ahriman’s aims, so are these aims furthered by the stubborn rejection of everything spiritual and adherence to the literal, “simple” conception of the Gospels.

In their day, the Gospels were given as a necessary counterweight to the luciferic gnosis; but if no attempt is made to develop understanding of their content, the aims of Ahriman are furthered, not the progress of humankind. Sublime though they are, the Gospels can also have the opposite effect if people are too lazy to search for a deeper understanding based on spiritual science.

Hence there is a great deal in the spiritual and unspiritual currents of the present time of which people should be acutely aware, and determine their attitude of soul accordingly. Upon the ability and willingness to penetrate to the roots of such matters will depend the effect which the incarnation of Ahriman can have upon human beings, whether this incarnation will lead them to prevent the earth from reaching its goal, or bring home to them the very limited significance of intellectual, unspiritual life. Human beings must consciously wrestle through to an understanding of this trinity of the Christian impulse, the ahrimanic and the luciferic influences; for without this consciousness they will not be able to go forward into the future with the prospect of achieving the goal of earth existence.

This ahrimanic incarnation cannot be averted; it is inevitable, for humanity must confront Ahriman face to face. He will be the individuality by whom it will be made clear what indescribable cleverness can be developed if they call to their help all that earthly forces can do to enhance cleverness and ingenuity. And certain secret societies – where preparations are already in train – will apply these things in such a way that the necessary conditions can be established for an actual incarnation of Ahriman on the earth. This incarnation cannot be averted, for people must realize during the time of the earth’s existence just how much can proceed from purely material processes! We must learn to bring under our control those spiritual or unspiritual currents which are leading to Ahriman.

Equally we shall be convinced that deeper and deeper penetration of the Gospels is necessary through spiritual science. The literal, word-for-word acceptance of the Gospels that is still so prevalent today promotes ahrimanic culture.

If what I have characterized in this lecture continues to be offered the reception that is still offered to it today by the vast majority of people on the earth, then Ahriman will be an evil guest when he comes. But if people are able to rouse themselves to take into their consciousness what we have been studying, if they are able so to guide it that humanity can freely confront the ahrimanic influence, then, when Ahriman appears, human beings will acquire, precisely through him, the power to realize that although the earth must enter inevitably into its decline, humankind is lifted above earthly existence through this very fact. When human beings have reached a certain age in physical life, the body begins to decline, but if they are sensible they make no complaint, knowing that together with the soul they are approaching a life that does not run parallel with this physical decline. There lives in humankind something that is not bound up with the already prevailing decline of the physical earth but becomes more and more spiritual just because of this physical decline.

The Influences of Lucifer and Ahriman, Lecture 4, November 15, 1919 Dornach, GA 191

Speech, which has for long ages been differentiated and adapted to earthly needs, has already been assailed by Ahriman. It is he who has brought about different tongues on earth. Whereas the luciferic tendency is always toward unification, the fundamental tendency of the ahrimanic principle is differentiation.

If, in the future, people were to do nothing themselves toward acquiring a new wisdom, then, without their consciousness, the whole of culture would become ahrimanic, and it would be easy for the influences issuing from Ahriman’s incarnation to permeate all civilization on the earth. As soon as Ahriman incarnates at the destined time in the West, the whole of culture would be impregnated with his forces. Through certain stupendous acts he would bring to humanity all the clairvoyant knowledge which until then can be acquired only by dint of intense labor and effort. The ahrimanic streams would continue their unimpeded course. When Ahriman incarnates in the West at the appointed time, he would establish a great occult school for the practice of magic arts of the greatest grandeur, and what otherwise can be acquired only by strenuous effort would be poured over humankind.

Let it never be imagined that Ahriman will appear as a kind of hoaxer, playing mischievous tricks on human beings. No, indeed! Lovers of ease who refuse to have anything to do with spiritual science would fall prey to his magic, for by means of these stupendous magic arts he would be able to make great numbers of human beings into seers – but in such a way that the clairvoyance of each individual would be strictly differentiated. What one person would see, a second and a third would not see. Confusion would prevail and in spite of being made receptive to clairvoyant wisdom, people would inevitably fall into strife on account of the sheer diversity of their visions. Ultimately, however, they would all be satisfied with their own particular vision, for each of them would be able to see into the spiritual world. In this way all culture on the earth would fall prey to Ahriman. Human beings would succumb to Ahriman simply through not having acquired by their own efforts what Ahriman is ready and able to give them. But the result would be the establishment of Ahriman’s kingdom on earth and the overthrow of everything achieved hitherto by human culture; all the disastrous tendencies unconsciously cherished by humankind today would take effect.

Our concern is that the wisdom of the future – a clairvoyant wisdom – shall be rescued from the clutches of Ahriman. Again let it be repeated that there is only one book of wisdom, not two kinds of wisdom. The issue is whether this wisdom is in the hands of Ahriman or of Christ. It cannot come into the hands of Christ unless people fight for it. And they can only fight for it by telling themselves that by their own efforts they must assimilate the content of spiritual science before the time of Ahriman’s appearance on earth.

That, you see, is the cosmic task of spiritual science. It consists in preventing knowledge from becoming – or remaining ahrimanic. A good way of playing into Ahriman’s hands is to exclude everything of the nature of knowledge from denominational religion and to insist that simple faith is enough. If people cling to this simple faith, they condemn their soul to stagnation and then the wisdom that must be rescued from Ahriman cannot find entry. The point is not whether people do or do not simply receive the wisdom of the future but whether they work upon it; and those who do must take upon themselves the solemn duty of saving earthly culture for Christ.

We have to battle for the wisdom of the future; for the ahrimanic powers do not allow this wisdom to be wrested from them without a struggle. Let it not be thought that wisdom can be attained through blissful visions. Real wisdom has to be acquired “in travail and suffering.” We have only to remember that it is the endeavor of the ahrimanic powers to reduce the earth to a state of complete rigidification. Their victory would be won if they succeeded in bringing earth, water, and air into this rigidified state. Were that to happen, the Earth could not again acquire the Saturn warmth from which it proceeded and which must be regained in the Vulcan epoch; and to prevent this is the aim of the ahrimanic powers. If this lack of enthusiasm were to persist, the first impulse toward the rigidification of the earth would emanate from human souls themselves, from their apathy, their indolence and love of ease. If you reflect that this rigidification is the aim of the Ahrimanic powers, you will not be surprised that compression, the feeling that life is becoming granite-like, is one of the experiences that must be undergone in the struggle for the wisdom of the future.

What is essential is that from now onward, knowledge of the driving forces of evolution must not be withheld from humankind. It must be realized that in very truth the human being is balanced as it were between the luciferic and the ahrimanic powers, and that the Christ has become a companion of human beings, leading them, first away from the battle with Lucifer, and then into the battle with Ahriman.

The Cosmic New Year, Lecture 2, The Michael Path to Christ: A Christmas Lecture, December 25, 1919, GA 195

Ahriman will appear, objectively, on the earth. Just as truly as Lucifer has walked the Earth, and as Christ has walked the Earth, objectively, in human form, so will Ahriman walk the Earth, bringing with him an extraordinary increase of power to the earthly human understanding. We men have not the task of hindering in any way this incarnation of Ahriman, but it is our task so to prepare humanity beforehand, that Ahriman may be estimated in the right way. For Ahriman will have tasks, he will have to do this and that, and men must value rightly and make a right use of that which, through Ahriman, comes into the world. Men will only be able to do this if they are able to adjust themselves now in the right way to that which Ahriman is already sending to the Earth from the worlds beyond in order that he may control the economic life upon Earth without being noticed. We must thoroughly learn to know his particular qualities. We must be able to oppose him with full consciousness.

When the representatives of so-called religious societies accept the Gospels today simply as they are written, and when every new revelation is rejected, such devotion to the Gospels, such a way of furthering Christianity, is really the best way to prepare for Ahriman’s appearance on earth. A great many of the exponents of the so-called creeds of today are working intensively for Ahriman; they leave unnoticed the truth: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the Earth-age,” when they declare heretical all that proceeds from the immediate vision of the Christ today. They leave this truth unnoticed because it is more comfortable to take the Gospels in a literal way only, that is, to hold to what they deem to be the literal interpretation of the Gospels.

It is most important for man at the present time to place Christ in the center between Ahriman and Lucifer. The Christ power must permeate us. But as men we must always seek the balance between the mystic enthusiasm which tends to lift us above ourselves, and the materialistic understanding which by its bourgeois heaviness drags us down to earth. In the effort to gain this balance we find the Christ. When we strive to gain this balance, then alone can we find the Christ.

The Cosmic New Year, Lecture 3, The Mystery of the Human Will, December 28, 1919, GA 195

When the time is ripe – and it is preparing itself – Ahriman will incarnate in a human body in the Western World. This fact must take place just as the others have taken place – viz. that Lucifer has incarnated and that Christ has incarnated. This fact is predetermined in the evolution of the Earth. The all-important fact is simply this: to keep the fact in mind, that we shall rightly prepare ourselves for it, for Ahriman will not begin to work only when he has incarnated in a human body; he is now preparing his appearance from the super-sensible world. He is already working from thence into the evolution of mankind. From that side he is seeking his tools through which he prepares for what must come.

Now, it is essential for the favorable working of that which Ahriman will bring to humanity – he will bring advantageous gifts just as Lucifer did – that man shall take the right attitude. The all-important thing is that man shall not through sleeping miss the coming of Ahriman. When the incarnation of Ahriman takes place in the Western World we shall simply see inscribed in the local Register, the birth of John William Smith (of course, this will not be the name) and people will look upon the child as a citizen in comfortable circumstances like any other, and they will sleep through what has in reality taken place. Among the most important means which Ahriman has to work with from the other side, is the furthering of abstract thinking in Man. This is one of the ruses, one of the clever tricks, by which Ahriman prepares in his own way for his lordship over the earth. Instead of showing men today out of conclusive experience, what has to happen, leaders offer them theories on every subject, including the social question. To those who give out these theories, knowledge gained by means of experience is abstract, because they have no inkling of what real Life is. All this is preparation from the Ahrimanic point of view.

It is of the most extreme importance to Ahriman so to prepare his incarnation that through Spiritual Science man shall not follow this path of imagination in the Gospels on to the reality of the Mystery of Golgotha. Just as it is in the greatest interest of Ahriman that man should keep up the love of abstraction, so it is in his greatest interest that man should cherish more and more a form of piety built upon the mere Gospels. When you think over this, you will realize that a great part of the creeds existing today is the preparatory work of Ahriman for his purposes in this Earth existence. No greater service could be done to Ahriman than to make sure that a great number of people do not read anthroposophical literature. I have already mentioned in these lectures who the people are that have resolved upon this course. The only way to present certain facts today is to place them unreservedly in the light of truth. It must be realized today that the progress of the World has a certain relationship to cosmic periods, limited through the Luciferic incarnation, which in time and space, lies before the Mystery of Golgotha. But in the way of this progress the incarnation of Ahriman in the West places itself, so that the forces in opposition are strengthened. The incarnation of Ahriman, in a future not very far distant, can be helped on its way just as well by an obscured worship of the Gospels as by abstract thinking.