Ahriman’s Eighth Sphere

The Eighth Sphere and Beyond – by Douglas Gabriel

“The heart of a person however is in effect a Universe turned inside out, and that is how the physical world is joined to the spiritual.”
Rudolf Steiner, GA 218

Ahriman’s Eighth Sphere, about which Rudolf Steiner has spoken in various contexts, is of decisive importance for the development of the Earth and humanity. It is not easy to grasp conceptually, for on the one hand it involves the sphere of the earthly activity of the creator gods, the Elohim (Spirits of Form), but on the other hand it is virtually identical with what is called “hell” in the various religious traditions. The difference between Christian hell and the Eighth Sphere is that fallen beings from the ranks of the hierarchy also have fallen into this realm and exert much pressure on souls to turn away from the spirit and look solely to the material plane and the sub-natural plane below them – the realm of hell. This is a realm where many of the dead get caught by their materialistic vices and are imprisoned in their insatiable desires. Fallen light, in the form of electromagnetism, helps construct this sub-earthly plane that pulls angels and humans into a dark realm devoid of spirit. It is a realm of living death, frustration from addictions, and a cold immoral hell made of the cast-off dross of the material world.

The Eighth Sphere is a subterranean layer beneath the earth where demons from many realms try to immorally consume human willpower as their means of incarnating into the material world. Thus, it is also called the “hell realm of hungry ghosts.”

The problem of the Eighth Sphere is that beings reaching as high as the Elohim (Exousia, Spirits of Form) have also fallen into this realm through a retarded (backward) evolutionary choice, remaining behind normal progressive evolution. They have chosen to become “Luciferic angels.” All fallen Luciferic beings can be called “angels”, even though their rank might be much higher. Thus Christ (Solar Logos), who works through the seven central Elohim on the Sun is now facing the fallen Elohim named Sorat (or Sorath). This being is known as the Anti-Sun Being or the Anti-Christ. He works with beings called Asuras (fallen Archai from Old Saturn) who try to consume the physical body and the “I Am” of humans and lead them over to a sub-material realm in the Eighth Sphere, effectively making them sub-humans. Sorat is the opposite of Christ and thus “anti-love”, “anti-human”, and fights against the Holy Trinity and the nine hierarchies trying to destroy humanity and its spiritual evolution.

The Ahrimanic Beings (fallen Archangels from Old Sun) work in the human etheric body while of Luciferic Beings (fallen Angels from Old Moon) work in the human astral body. Sorat (fallen Spirit of Form) has yet to come to the Earth from the Sun but works against Christ in the etheric realm of the Earth (and the human etheric body) and through the Asuras and Ahrimanic beings of the Eighth Sphere. Sorat’s Asuras already do his bidding from the Eighth Sphere, from these hell realms that Ahrimanically penetrate the human etheric body through human vices, sins, machines, and hyper-materialism. The Eighth Sphere is the fortress of Anti-Sun beings inspired by Sorat who are trying to crucify Christ in the etheric realm and end human spiritual evolution.

A fierce battle for the etheric realm continues between Sorat and Christ, just as the assaults of Asuras on the human physical body, Ahriman’s assaults upon the etheric body, and Lucifer’s assaults upon the astral body. These attacks weaken the human physical body, soul, and spirit so that a person might fall into illnesses of many types. Lucifer attacks thinking, Ahriman attacks feeling, while Asuras attack the physical body, leaving the “I Am” (ego) for viscous attacks from Sorat who wishes to annihilate the Christ-given ego (I Am) of each human being and destroy the divine plan – the completion of the seven spheres.

The evil threefold attack upon the bodies of humans intends to deaden the physical, etheric, and astral bodies until the life is sucked out of the human soul as the human spirit is annihilated by the Asuras consuming the human body (and ego) and imprisoning the dross in the Eighth Sphere, thus attempting to destroy human spiritual evolution.

If Sorat, Ahriman, and Lucifer have their way, humans will die and not return to the spiritual world because their selfish vices and sins have led them down the path to the Eighth Sphere’s hell realms. These “Avitchi” sub-humans, specters, phantoms, and Ahrimanic demons from the Eighth Sphere are constantly trying to influence humans to devolve and “stay behind” through sub-human desires of immortality in the material world through Ahrimanic black-magic technology and other delusions. These are powerful demons and evil beings helping Sorat fulfill his desire to destroy human spiritual development and possibly the divine plan for humanity.

After death, these sub-humans are pulled down into the Eighth Sphere into a cold, dark grave that materialism predicts is exactly what a godless universe offers a materialist in the after-death state. Godless materialistic science will create for these sub-humans the self-fulfilling prophecy that humans have neither soul nor spirit, thus no afterlife. Sorat’s destruction of Christ’s love for humanity will be lost if this happens and Christ will be crucified again in the etheric realm of the Earth, much like He was crucified in the material world for the sake of humanity. If the influences of the Eighth Sphere and the Luciferic, Ahrimanic, and Soratic evil win the battle, then sub-humans will forget their pre-birth home in heaven and will live in a hell of their own making with the specters, phantoms, and demons.

It is imperative to teach the reality of the Eighth Sphere so that humans will know that currently humanity has been collectively pulled across the threshold between the material and spiritual worlds and are being attacked from all sides during this “threshold crossing” which demands an answer to the question of whether the soul will wallow in materialism, and ultimately the Eighth Sphere, or ascend back to the spiritual world from whence they came. Not only do these three groups of evil beings wish to lead us astray (Lucifer, Ahriman, Asuras/Sorat), but beings from the Eighth Sphere are working diligently to pull us down into the mud of hell and hypnotize us into automatons of cleverness who deny the spirit.

Much of what we hear about the Eighth Sphere is confusing and sometimes false. The perennial questions about hell, purgatory, heaven, Abraham’s Bosom, Tushita Heaven, enlightenment, transcendence, and ascension plague traditional religious leaders who have inadequate answers. The descriptions of the Eighth Sphere from ancient Indian philosophy, Christian theology, Theosophy, and Spiritual Science spell out a hell realm that is logical and directly connected to human physiology, psychology, and theology.

Spiritual Science counteracts the deadening forces of materialistic science and its warnings about the void that awaits the human being after death. Becoming familiar with the invisible beings beyond the threshold between the material and spiritual worlds liberates the soul through knowledge of the immortality of the spirit and creates a steady path which progresses at the right pace through the divine spiritual plan of evolution. Leaving your spirit’s ascension to a traditional church, guru, or spiritual cult may not be enough to empower you to put Lucifer, Ahriman, Sorat and his Asuras “behind you.” Knowing the path that is ‘straight and narrow’ from the ‘path of perdition’ is essential for guiding your sojourn upward to heaven, instead of downward to the Eighth Sphere. Christ stands between Lucifer and Ahriman keeping them at bay and treading Sorat beneath His feet like a serpent. It is through Christ’s love and wisdom that we transcend the earthly, and the Eighth Sphere, and ascend into the New Jerusalem, the New Eden.

Originally, humanity was to live on earth in order to follow his path of evolution in a very fine etheric corporeality. As a result of the Luciferic rebellion, the body was condensed to the point of sensual visibility and physicality instead. For this purpose, the Moon was drawn out of the Earth and the dual nature of human sexuality was necessitated. Some have argued that the Eighth Sphere is one and the same as the moon, but this is not true. The Eighth Sphere does supply the forces of attraction which hold the Moon in a certain proximity to the Earth and binds human sexuality to the material plane. The Asuras also work through the Moon and many fallen angels work in this realm also. At the same time, the Eighth Sphere also supplies the forces which protect man from being spiritualized too early by the Luciferic forces that are a counterbalance to the deadening forces of Ahriman’s Eighth Sphere. The allurement of Ahrimanic vices and the seven deadly sins gives man more gravity and earthiness, it binds him to his lower organism of flesh and blood through the reproductive forces and through sensual-earthly desire. Humanity gets such a pull and inclination towards his lower sexual nature that Lucifer sometimes cannot bring the higher nature of the “fallen human” out of this Ahrimanic hold. Every time Lucifer made his efforts in ancient times to spiritualize humanity, they were too addicted to the sensual nature of flesh to follow Lucifer into the rarified atmosphere above the earth, to Lucifer’s Castle in the Clouds.

The Eighth Sphere becomes a decisive obstacle with new dangers that have become more and more apparent since the time of the fall of the spirits of darkness in 1840. Ahriman has long been secretly unfolding his effects as the adversary of the rightful divine spiritual beings by bringing materialism and science forward as a new religion which controls and deadens human thinking, feeling, and willing. Ahriman wants to create his own subterranean kingdom which separates itself from regular world evolution (divine plan) and into which he wants to draw as many human souls as possible. This is not Lucifer’s fiery hell, this is where the dark icy underworld of sub-humans comes into being, the realm of the Ahrimanic shadows, the actual “hell” as a place of damnation of which many religious traditions speak. The Tibetans call this the “hell realm of hungry ghosts.”

Just as the Moon is the dross left behind from the recapitulated previous incarnations of the Earth, in which all those forces condensed that could no longer take part in the further regular development to the present earthly existence, so similarly a dross will remain from our Earth evolution called the Eighth Sphere. It will consist of sub-humans who have fallen out of the progressive spiritual development of humanity and remained behind in a material condition. The Eighth Sphere also accumulated dross from the three previous incarnations of the Earth. Essentially, what Rudolf Steiner calls “retarded” beings, or fallen Luciferic hosts, comprise this Eighth Sphere of “failed” spiritual evolution. These beings who have fallen from the human kingdom enter a realm that will not be redeemed, in some cases, until the end of the great seven Incarnations of the Earth. The first hierarchy (Seraphim and Cherubim) will recycle these beings and the dross in the next great cycle of seven Incarnations, the Manvantara, as it is called in ancient India, or the ‘divine plan’ in the West. These fallen humans are called the Avitchi by the Vedas and are essentially beings from the Eighth Sphere who fell behind in past times and now must wait eons to reintegrate with progressive evolution. In the next Manvantara, they will be nature forces and nature beings beginning the golden ladder of evolution over again.

Thus, there is no permanent hell, just great cycles of time to try again and again until ascension and perfection is reached.

Sub-humans and Earth’s dross will remain from the fallen humans of Earth in the Eighth Sphere and will become somewhat like our Moon is to the Earth today. This will happen in the far distant future Incarnation of the Earth called Future Jupiter. This new “moon” of Future Jupiter will be a very unpleasant place where slug-like humans crawl through the endless mud and can hardly raise their head to look toward the light of the Sun. There will also be a new Earth called Future Jupiter that will be filled with beings of light and love nourished by the living ethers of the Sun. The contrast will be extreme between the evolving humans/angels on a beautiful light-filled, transparent planet and the slug-like sub-human people wallowing in the dark on their cold barren “new moon” surrounded by evil black magicians.

A person who is deeply interwoven with hedonistic sensual pleasures and instinctive desires connects himself more and more with the immoral fallen light that becomes the dross of the Eighth Sphere. The moment may come when humans have become too closely related to the sensual forces and cannot find the bridge to progress to the next Incarnation of the Earth (Future Jupiter) and they will tragically unite with the dross and become sub-human in the Eighth Sphere, just as fallen angels now inhabit the Moon sphere.

Humanity must pass through seven spheres, or Incarnations of the Earth. The seven spheres also correspond to the sevenfold division of the constitution of the human being:

Sphere Incarnation Form Donated

Ancient Saturn sphere corresponds to the Physical body (Thrones)
Ancient Sun sphere corresponds to the Etheric body (Kyriotetes)
Ancient Moon sphere corresponds to the Astral body (Dynamis)
Current Earth sphere corresponds to the I Am – ego (Elohim)
Future Jupiter sphere corresponds to the Spirit Self (Angel)
Future Venus sphere corresponds to the Life Spirit (Archangel)
Future Vulcan sphere corresponds to the Spirit Human (Archai)
Eighth sphere corresponds to specters, demons, sub-human (Elohim)

There are seven spheres in the divine spiritual plan, but there is also an Eighth Sphere where beings go that cannot join the complete process of seven Incarnations of the Earth and progress on pace with the plan. Other hierarchical beings in the three higher ranks of beings above our human rank had their “human” stage in one of the first three spheres and may have “fallen” into the Eighth Sphere at that time as a result of their choice to devolve instead of evolve according to the divine plan. Even in the future spheres of Future Jupiter, Future Venus, and Future Vulcan there will be beings who fall into the Eighth Sphere instead of keeping up with the pace of the divine plan. The sub-humans in the Eighth Sphere will have a chance to try again in the next large cycle of seven Incarnations of the Earth in a “new Zodiac.” They will be “carried over” by the Seraphim and Cherubim as cosmic dross that will become the basis of the next creation cycle. The sub-humans will then start again from the realm of the nature beings and this time, hopefully, keep up with evolution. Thus, there is no permanent fiery hell, and the divine creators leave nothing behind.

Rudolf Steiner on the Eighth Sphere

“Electricity is light in the sub-material state. Light is there compressed to the utmost degree. An inward quality too must be ascribed to light; light is itself at every point in space. Warmth can expand in the three dimensions of space. In light there is a fourth; it is of fourfold extensions – it has the quality of inwardness as a fourth dimension.”
Rudolf Steiner, GA 92

The Mission of the Archangel Michael, Rudolf Steiner, Lecture III, Michaelic Thinking. The Knowledge of Man as a Supersensible Being. The Michael Path and the Deepest Impulses of the Social Question, November 23, 1919, Dornach, GA 194

“If we now hold this Eighth Sphere in view, we find living there not only our Divine Creator Spirits [Elohim], but also the Ahrimanic beings. Thus, by living in the surroundings of the Eighth Sphere we live together with the Ahrimanic beings. The Ahrimanic influence is the reverse of the Luciferic tendency. It makes itself felt from the Eighth Sphere out of which the rest of our organism, exclusive of the head, is fashioned; this organism is full of vitality through its very nature. Into these forces of vitality, the Ahrimanic powers endeavor to send the forces of death which properly, in the divine process of evolution, belong to the head. Thus, out of the Eighth Sphere the forces of death come to us through Ahriman as intermediary. This, again, is spoken of from the physical aspect.

Speaking from the soul aspect, I would have to say: everything that sends its influence into us out of the Eighth Sphere acts upon the human will, not upon intelligence. Wish and desire underlie human willing; all willing contains a certain amount of desire. It is Ahriman’s constant endeavor to insert the personal element into the desire-nature which underlies the willing; and through the fact that the personal element is concealed in our desire-nature, our human soul-will activity bears the imprint of our gradual approaching the moment of death. Instead of permitting ourselves to be permeated by divine ideals and letting them enter our desires and thus our will, the personal element is introduced into our wishing, into our willing.

Thus, we are actually in a state of equilibrium between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic element. The Luciferic-Ahrimanic element delivers us to illness and death in the physical; in the soul sphere it develops deception in so far as we consider something a reality which merely belongs to the world of thought, of fantasy.

If we disregard the human being for a moment and consider those beings which we always have called, in the order of the hierarchies standing above us, the Spirits of Form, the Creative Form Beings, then we shall have to say that we, as human beings, shall only reach the sphere which we ascribe to our Divine Creator Beings when the Earth has passed through three further stages of evolution, which you will find designated in my Occult Science as Jupiter stage, Venus stage, and Vulcan stage, and shall have reached the eighth stage. Thus, these Creative Spirits are at the stage which we human beings shall have reached after the Vulcan evolution. This is their sphere which belongs to them just as the fourth sphere [Earth] belongs to us. But we must think of these spheres as being inserted into one another, as interpenetrating one another. Thus, this designates the sphere of which I have just spoken as the Eighth Sphere, we do not live only in the fourth but also in this Eighth Sphere through the fact that our Divine Creators live in this sphere together with us. Now we must not conceive of these successive stages of evolution as existing side by side, but we must conceive of them as interpenetrating one another. Just as the atmosphere surrounds and permeates the Earth, so this Eighth Sphere of evolution to which the Form Spirits belong permeates the sphere in which we human beings live.”

Reading the Pictures of the Apocalypse, Rudolf Steiner, Lecture XII, Munich and Oslo, April 22, 1907–May 21, 1909, GA 104a.

“But those who have proven themselves to be immature in the age of the Venus Incarnation of the Earth, who have placed themselves under the rulership of Sorat, must now isolate themselves on a special sphere of earth while the other seven proceed downward and again upward. Thus, the colony of Sorat falls away. The black magicians inhabit this Eighth Sphere, which goes to the left and away, and the beast gives a home to all that thus falls away: that is the Eighth Sphere. The lamb, who will be the lord over the lower nature, forms one of the seals. Sorat is as if expelled in the Eighth Sphere by the woman who shows us another seal of the Rosicrucian. The seer can also see this in the spiritual world. In this way, these Rosicrucian seals have an awakening effect when we meditate upon them with understanding.

Foundations of Esotericism, Rudolf Steiner, Lecture XIV, October 09, 1905, GA 93a.

“If however the human being has connected himself too strongly with the forces of the senses, which should now detach themselves, if he is related to them and has not found the way to attach himself to what is to pass over to the next Globe, he will depart with the slag and become an inhabitant of this body of slag, in the same way as other beings are now inhabitants of the present moon. Here we have the concept of the “Eighth Sphere.” Mankind must go through Seven Spheres. The Seven Planetary Evolutions [Incarnations] correspond to the seven bodies of the human being. Old Saturn corresponds to the physical body, Old Sun corresponds to the etheric body, Old Moon corresponds to the astral body, The Earth corresponds to the Ego, Future Jupiter corresponds to the Manas [Spirit Self], Future Venus corresponds to the Buddhi [Life Spirit], Future Vulcan corresponds to the Atma [Spirit Human]. Beside these there is an Eighth Sphere to which everything goes that cannot make any connection with this continuous evolution. A person who cannot escape from his own separateness goes into Avitchi [Eighth Sphere]. All these Avitchi men will eventually become inhabitants of the Eighth Sphere. The other human beings will be inhabitants of the continuing chain of evolution. It is from this concept that religions have formulated the doctrine of hell.”

From the Contents of Esoteric Classes, Part I, 1904-1909, Esoteric Lesson, Rudolf Steiner, GA 266

“The Asuras inhabit the moon and from there they work on the men whom they want to drag down into the Eighth Sphere and thereby tear away from progressive evolution and its goal – the Christ. All those who strive towards the Eighth Sphere will eventually live on a moon.”

The Karma of Vocation, Lecture X, Rudolf Steiner, GA 172

“They did not follow Lucifer because something was introduced into the evolution of the earth by the higher gods that prevented them from becoming light enough to do so. As I have shown you, what is called the Eighth Sphere was introduced into earthly evolution in ancient times. As one of its aspects, the Eighth Sphere consists of man’s acquiring such a preference for and attachment to his lower nature that Lucifer is not able to remove the higher nature from it.”

The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century, Rudolf Steiner, Lecture V, October 18, 1915, Dornach, GA 254

“How was it that the expression “Eighth Sphere” came to be used? – You know that human evolution takes its course through the seven spheres of Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. We will conceive that besides these seven spheres there is still something else which lies outside them and yet is in some way related to the Earth. Here, then, we have a sphere, visible only to visionary-imaginative clairvoyance, which stands there as an Eighth Sphere over and above the seven which constitutes the domain of the ordered and regular evolution of mankind.

On the Old Moon certain pictures were present. These should have passed over to the Earth as something everywhere perceptible. But Lucifer and Ahriman retained them for themselves. Lucifer and Ahriman wrested from the Earth certain of its constituents and made them into Imaginations, so that these Earth-substances became, not Earthly formations, but Moon formations. Into our Fourth Sphere [Incarnation of the Earth], therefore, there has been instilled a sphere that is really a Moon-sphere but is filled with Earthly substantiality and is therefore a bogus creation in the Universe. To the seven Spheres, an Eighth, created in opposition to the progressive Spirits, has been added. The necessary consequence of this is that the Spirits of Form must do battle on the Earth for every morsel of substantiality capable of mineralization, lest it should be wrested from them by Lucifer and Ahriman and borne into the Eighth Sphere.

In truth, therefore, our Earth – the Fourth Sphere – is simply not what it appears outwardly to be. Were it really to consist of atoms, all these atoms would still be impregnated by formations belonging to the Eighth Sphere – which are perceptible only to visionary clairvoyance. These formations are present everywhere; so too is the specter-like content of the Eighth Sphere which can therefore be perceived just as actual specters are perceived. All earthly being and existence are involved here. Lucifer and Ahriman strive unceasingly to draw from the Earth’s substances whatever they can snatch, in order to form their Eighth Sphere which then, when it is sufficiently advanced, will be detached from the Earth and go its own way in the Cosmos together with Lucifer and Ahriman. Needless to say, the Earth would then pass over to Jupiter as a mere torso. But man, as you realize, has his established place in the whole of Earth-evolution, for he is mineralized through and through. We are permeated by the mineralizing process which is itself drawn into this battle, so that morsels of this substance can be continually wrested from it. Therefore, we ourselves are involved in the battle. Lucifer and Ahriman battle against the Spirits of Form, with the aim of wresting mineral substance from us everywhere.

We can soar upwards in thoughts, we can distinguish between the good and the evil. And for that very reason, Lucifer and Ahriman have there been the most successful in wresting away substantiality; in the so-called noblest organ of man, they have been able to wrest away the greatest amount of mineralized substantiality. This alchemy, by which mineral substance is sent over into the Eighth Sphere, is taking place all the time behind the scenes of our existence.

No less a prospect looms as a consequence of this intention of Lucifer and Ahriman than that the whole evolution of humanity may be allowed to disappear into the Eighth Sphere, so that this evolution would take a different course.

But the endeavor of Lucifer and Ahriman is to drag the free will of man, and whatever stems from it, into the Eighth Sphere. This means that man is perpetually exposed to the danger of having his free will wrested from him and dragged by Lucifer and Ahriman into the Eighth Sphere. It would be the richest prize for Lucifer and Ahriman if they could ever succeed in capturing a whole soul for themselves; for thereby such a soul would disappear into the Eighth Sphere and be lost from Earth-evolution.

Cosmology and Human Evolution. Introduction to Theosophy – Color Theory, Rudolf Steiner, 1903-1906, GA 91

“We have the physical world, the astral world, the lower devachan (low spiritual) and the higher devachan (high spiritual). If the body is thrust down lower even than the physical world, one comes into the sub-physical world, the lower astral world (counter astral), the lower or evil lower devachan (counter low spiritual) and the lower or evil higher devachan (counter high spiritual). The evil astral world is the province of Lucifer, the evil lower devachan the province of Ahriman, and the evil higher devachan the province of the Asuras. When chemical action is driven down beneath the physical plane – into the evil devachanic world – magnetism arises. When light is thrust down into the sub-material – that is to say a stage lower than the material world – electricity arises. If what lives in the harmony of the spheres is thrust down farther still, into the province of the Asuras, an even more terrible force – which it will not be possible to keep hidden very much longer – is generated. It can only be hoped that when this force comes to be known – a force we must conceive as being far, far stronger than the most violent electrical discharge – it can only be hoped that before some inventor gives this forces into the hands of humankind, human beings will no longer have anything immoral left in them.”

Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts, Rudolf Steiner, March 1925, GA 313

“There are very few as yet who even feel the greatness of the spiritual tasks approaching man in this direction. Electricity, for instance, celebrated since its discovery as the very soul of nature’s existence, must be recognized in its true character – in its peculiar power of leading down from nature to sub-nature. Only man himself must beware lest he slide downward with it.”

From the Contents of the Esoteric Classes, Rudolf Steiner, GA 266

“Asuras (demons) are spirits of the very greatest egoism who remained behind during Old Saturn evolution. They want to condense matter and compress it ever more so that it can’t be spiritualized and brought back to its original condition. They are the dregs of the planetary evolution that goes from Saturn to Vulcan. The Asuras inhabit the moon and from there they work on the men whom they want to drag down into the Eighth Sphere and thereby tear away from progressive evolution and its goal — the Christ. All those who strive towards the Eighth Sphere will eventually live on a moon.”

The Influence of Spiritual Beings Upon Man, Rudolf Steiner, Lecture VIII, May 16, 1908, Berlin, GA 102

“Why have they deserved this? By reason of the fact that they have not made use of life! The world is around them; they have possessed senses in order to perceive the world, to enrich the life-kernel and mold it to a higher stage. They do not advance with world evolution, they remain behind at a certain stage. Beings that stay behind at such stages appear in a later epoch with approximately the character of the earlier age. They have grown together with it, but not in the forms of the later epoch. They appear in a later epoch as subordinate nature-spirits.

In fact, the human race will furnish a whole number of such new nature-spirits in the second half of the Future Jupiter evolution, for man will have fully completed the fifth principle at the Future Jupiter stage. For those who have not used the opportunity on Earth to develop the fifth principle there will be no available form. They will appear as nature-spirits and they will appear then with four principles.

And as the destructive forces of wisdom originate from those beings who stayed behind on Old Moon, so there will appear upon Future Jupiter the destructive forces of love from beings who have remained behind. Into the midst of the general tapestry of the Future Jupiter existence will be set the hideous forms of the retarded beings with egoistic demands for love and they will be the mighty devastating powers in the Future Jupiter existence. The staying behind of human beings in individual incarnations creates the destructive nature-powers on Future Jupiter. Thus, we see how the world is woven, harmful elements as well as beneficent; we have a moral element woven into the world process.”

The Mysteries of Light, of Space, and of the Earth, Rudolf Steiner, Lecture IV, December 15, 1919, Dornach, GA 194

If the world continues in the course it has been taking under the influence of the degenerating spiritual life derived from the Orient, then this spiritual life, although at one end it was the most sublime truth, will at the other rush into the most fearful lies. Nietzsche was impelled to describe how even the Greeks had to guard themselves from the lies of life through their art. And in reality, art is the divine child which keeps men from being swallowed up in lies. If this first branch of civilization is pursued only one-sidedly, then this stream empties into lies. In the last five or six years more lies have been told among civilized humanity than in any other period of world history; in public life the truth has scarcely been spoken at all; hardly a word that has passed through the world was true. While this stream empties into lies, the middle stream empties into self-seeking; and an economic life like the Anglo-American, which should end in world-dominion — if the effort is not made to bring about its permeation by the independent spiritual life and the independent political life, it will flow into the third of the abysses of human life, into the third of these three. The first abyss is lies, the degeneration of humanity through Ahriman; the second is self-seeking, the degeneration of humanity through Lucifer; the third is, in the physical realm, illness and death [Asuras]; in the cultural realm, the illness and death of culture.

The Anglo-American world may gain world dominion; but without the Threefold Social Order it will, through this dominion, pour out cultural death and cultural illness over the whole earth; for these are just as much a gift of the Asuras as lies are a gift of Ahriman, and self-seeking, of Lucifer.

Lucifer and Ahriman -Warmth/Light vs. Water/Earth

The lecture by Rudolf Steiner below is extraordinary in its description concerning the different battles that rage for the soul and spirit of each human being. Seldom does Steiner address the polarities of Lucifer and Ahriman in such graphic terms. This is perhaps one of the best imaginations he has given spiritual science on the nature of these two opposite beings. This battle is real, and it is constantly being fought in every aspect of the human soul as it strives towards the spirit.

Understanding these ever-present tempters that lead us into the Eighth Sphere or Castles in the Clouds, is crucial for winning the war of Good vs. Evil. This battle is fought in each person’s heart, the battleground of the spirit. Each heart is as significant as our entire cosmos of celestial spheres. In Steiner’s lectures entitled, The Planetary Spheres and their Influence on Man’s Life on Earth and in the Spiritual Worlds, he tells us: “For if we have the faculty to concentrate in a single point within the heart and thence to turn ourselves inside out in spirit, we simply do become the Universe — which in the normal course we experience between death and a new birth.” Thus, the human heart is a microcosmic universe unto itself.

This explains why so many fallen forces of the hierarchy combine to capture a single human soul to pull them down into the Eighth Sphere which has “remained behind” throughout three prior Incarnations of the Earth – Old Saturn, Old Sun, Old Moon. Through heterochronic manifestation of all those who “remained behind”, “fell from grace”, “rebelled against heaven” in the past are fully active currently trying to slow down, hinder, or even end human spiritual development. These beings combine into what is called the “Luciferic Hosts”, who are distinctly different from the Luciferic beings who act solely in the astral body of the human being as fallen angels or the incarnation of the individual known as Lucifer in ancient China. These different beings in the Eighth Sphere are powerful forces of gravity that work through the subterranean, sub-natural forces of the earth.

This legion of beings wish to turn humans into sub-humans “falling” out of progressive spiritual development into the Eighth Sphere. The Eighth Sphere is a sort of hell realm for fallen humans populated by beings who fall out of normal space into a non-space that is primarily below the earth but also permeates our own material world. These forces of evil must be named to gain control over their incessant temptation of vices, sins, and selfishness.

We have put together a short chart mapping out what Dr. Steiner tells us in this lecture below. It is not only a unique lecture but also a complicated one that takes study to understand. As an aid to help in this direction we offer a summary chart of some of the principal ideas being presented. This lecture requires serious reflection to begin to understand its many insights.

Lucifer Battles with Ahriman

Lucifer Ahriman

Fire-Air beings Water-Earth beings

Make humans moral automatons Make humans into sub-humans

False heaven in the clouds Subterranean Eighth Sphere

Ungrounded dreamer Selfish egotist

Habitual liar Possessed by cleverness

Inflammatory diseases/insanity Tumors, carcinomas, diabetes

Fallen beings from Saturn/Jupiter/Mars Fallen beings from Moon/Venus/Mercury

Warmth & Light Ether – Forces of Levity Sound and Life Ether – Forces of Gravity

Lucifer battles with mature, moral beings from Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and works on the exterior or sense organs of the human being.

Ahriman battles with mature, moral beings from Moon, Venus, Mercury through the interior organs of flesh and blood (metabolism) in the human body.

From: Man’s Life on Earth and in the Spiritual Worlds, Rudolf Steiner, Lecture V, Luciferic and Ahrimanic Powers Wrestling for Man, London, November 16, 1922, GA 218, Also known as: Spirit as Sculptor of the Human Organism, The Battle for Human Nature Between Luciferic and Ahrimanic Beings

“Behind Nature lies a kind of second Nature, – a spiritual, super-sensible Nature. Nature to which we are accustomed, man perceives with his senses. The super-sensible Nature that is behind, he does not perceive. It has, nevertheless, a great influence upon him.

This physical Nature that we have within us and that we perceive in our instincts and urges and passions has beneath it a kingdom of beings, who are intimately connected with man, but are really sub-human.

Thus, looking around us with the help of our senses, we behold the surface of Nature, her external appearance; and behind it we have to divine the presence of a super-sensible nature. When on the other hand we look within and perceive ourselves in our instincts and passions, then we have to divine beneath these the presence of a subsensible Nature.

The super-sensible Nature that is around us can be understood and appreciated only by one who is equipped with spiritual insight, and who is not always focusing attention, as Natural Science does to-day, on the strict laws of Nature and on what takes place within their framework.

As a matter of fact, beings live in all the various manifestations of wind and weather, – beings who are only not seen because they lack a body that is visible to the senses. The beings who live in wind and weather have a body that consists of air and warmth, a body that has in it no water – no fluidity, that is, of any kind – and no solid earth; it consists of nothing but air and warmth. These are Luciferic beings. These beings attach great value to the moral element in the human social order. So highly do they prize it, that in their opinion it would be best for man not to have a physical body at all – not, at any rate, a body that partakes of the watery or earthly elements. If they could have formed man in their own way, they would have made of him a moral being, pure and simple. Man would not of course in that case have had freedom, he would have been moral without being inwardly free. As it is these beings wage a fearful battle in the course of the year, struggling to wrest man away from the Earth and draw him into their own sphere. They would like him to be cut off from the Earth, – a complete stranger to it. On this account they are particularly dangerous for people who are inclined to any kind of visionary idealism or vague mysticism. Such persons readily fall a prey to these beings who seek to entice man away from the Earth and endow him with a kind of angel nature, so that under no circumstances shall he find himself tempted to be otherwise than purely moral.

Inhabiting the forces that pulsate through the encircling air in all the vagaries of wind and weather, are beings who, abhorring human freedom and desiring nothing better than its complete annihilation, want to make man a moral automaton, want to make of him indeed a kind of good angel. And they fight hard to attain their end.

There are also beings of a contrary nature and this latter class of beings has to do with all that comes to expression in man’s instinctive urges and impulses, in his desires and passions. You must not however think of them as belonging first and foremost to man. In man we can see the results of their activity. But they have their home, so to speak, right on the Earth. Only we cannot see them, for these beings too have not a body that is formed in such a way as to be visible to us. They have, in fact, a body that lives entirely in the elements of earth and water. And their deeds are to be seen in the ebb and flow of the tides, in volcanic eruptions and in earthquakes. One who has keen spiritual perception can however see behind them a world of sub-human beings, who are under the control of the powers to which I have always given the name of the Ahrimanic powers.

If one considers these Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings by themselves, just as they are, one cannot, you know, be angry with them. Why be angry with the Luciferic beings, for instance? They want to make man into a being who is moral entirely as a matter of course. What could be better? Man would, it is true, never under their influence be free, he would be an automaton; but what they seek and desire for him can nevertheless be truthfully described as good.

Now let us see what is the aim of these other [Ahrimanic] beings, who build their strongholds immediately below the surface of the Earth, and whose activities rise up into man’s metabolism, – for the phenomena we observe in the tides and less frequently in volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are always present also in the ebb and flow in man’s metabolism. The Ahrimanic beings struggle to harden man; they want to make him like themselves. Were they to be successful, man would become extremely clever in the material realm – incredibly clever and intelligent. They cannot achieve their end directly, but they aim at doing so indirectly. And their efforts, which have actually been going on for thousands of years, have in fact succeeded in producing a whole race of sub-human beings.

When a man has become a prey, during his earthly life, to the Ahrimanic powers, then these powers will be able to hold on to his instinctive nature and tear it out of him after death. There exists already on the Earth a whole population of beings who have arisen in this way. They are there, in the elements of earth and water, a sub-human race. These earth-water beings inhabit the strata immediately below the surface of the Earth. They are beings that have been snatched out of man in the moment of death. The Ahrimanic powers are waiting for the time when men will descend to incarnation and, on account of a karma that their instincts and passions have prepared for them, feel particularly drawn to certain of these beings and say to themselves: “I will not go back to the spiritual world; when I have left my physical body” – out of which, as you know, man generally goes forth to a super-sensible life – “I will incorporate myself in a subsensible being of this kind. And that will mean, I shall be able to stay on the Earth. I shall not die any more but be permanently united with the Earth. Yes, I will choose to be a sub-sensible being.”

The Ahrimanic beings persist in believing they will ultimately be able in this way to entice such a vast number of human beings into their own race that the Earth will one day be peopled entirely with such Ahrimanic sub-human beings. By this means they hope to make the Earth itself immortal, so that the hour may never come for it to perish and be dispersed in cosmic space.

We have thus around us in our earthly environment two hosts of beings; one in the air, that wants to make man moral but to lift him away from the Earth, and then we have also, immediately below the surface of the Earth, the Ahrimanic beings who want to draw man down and fasten him permanently to the Earth.

A fearful war is waged all the time between the fire-air beings and the water-earth beings; they fight to get possession of man. And it is important that man should be aware of this war that is perpetually being waged for him; he must not be blind to it.

When man is descending from the divine spiritual world in order that he may clothe himself in a body, then it is Jahve who leads him down to Earth. The Jahve Being, who has his seat in the Moon and who leads man down to Earth, claims control in man over all that has to do with the instincts and impulses of generation. He needs helpers who will in fact see to the ordering of the whole instinctive life of man. And Jahve finds such helpers in Mercury and Venus. And it is the will and concern of the beings who have joined together in this way, to control, from Moon, Mercury and Venus, the whole flesh-and-blood nature of man. Man is by no means merely an earthly being; influences play into him from the whole great Universe.

Ahrimanic beings are doomed to look for a dwelling place just below the surface of the Earth. It is not with the fire-air beings [Luciferic] alone that these water-earth beings [Ahrimanic] feel themselves in opposition, but particularly also with Jahve and with the powers of Venus and Mercury. And this, notwithstanding the fact that they are themselves devoid of morality. The Ahrimanic beings wage war continually on Jahve and on the Venus and Mercury powers, and are determined to usurp from Jahve his rightful sovereignty. For it is owing to the rightful sovereignty of Jahve that the human race as we know it has come into existence on the Earth.

Man therefore finds himself placed right in the very midst of a conflict. On one side are ranged Jahve and his hosts, who are fighting for righteousness; on the other side the hosts of Ahriman, who, in respect of cleverness, far outstrip man, and whose concern it is utterly to repudiate man’s moral nature and make him into a sheer automaton of cleverness.

In the other direction are the [Luciferic] beings who incorporate themselves in air and warmth. These also, like the enemies of Jahve, are immature. And the corresponding mature beings are in their case beings who dwell on Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. And so we find these fire-air [Luciferic] beings making sallies from their strongholds not only upon the Ahrimanic powers, but upon the influences that should be continually reaching man from Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Now, the influences of these more distant planets, – or rather, of their spiritual beings – are to be found particularly in the eyes, in the ears, – in short, in the sense organs of man. So that, whilst Moon and Venus exercise their influence in the interior organs of man’s body, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars work on man’s exterior, work in his sense organs. These beings, – Saturn beings, Jupiter beings and Mars beings – have it as their special concern to make man a real Earth man; that is to say, they want first to give him senses that are properly inserted into the human organism and that remain at its surface, and then to supply him with nerves that run from the senses and extend inwards into the organism. Saturn gives the senses, Jupiter gives their continuation in the nerves, and Mars exerts the kind of control that endows man, for example, with the faculty of speech. The whole aim and purpose of these beings is to furnish man with all that is on the surface of his body. For the senses, and the nerves too, have come about through a ‘turning outside in’ of the human skin.

Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars are however resisted in their activities by the [immature] fire-air beings of whom we were speaking. Here again, a furious fight goes on all the time. The fire-air beings sit fast, so to speak, in their airy strongholds and display their power and might in the fiery flashes of the lightning. They would like to make the whole of man what he should properly be on the surface only, so that the entire physical being of man should partake of the nature that is actually assigned only to eye and ear and nose. They would like to pour the surface of man’s organism right through him, to make him all surface, so that he would do nothing but see and hear, – never eat nor drink, but only see and hear, be in fact a kind of angel being.

The [mature] Mars, Jupiter and Saturn beings permeate what to our eyes appears mere Nature, with morality. In this manner they bring morality to man; for it is actually so, morality enters into us through the senses. When therefore the [immature] fire-air beings seek to permeate man through and through with his sense nature, it is with the intention that man, seeing nothing but what is moral, may become a moral automaton.

If we look out on the world of Nature, we can know that whatever manifests as forces in that world comes from the Mars beings, whatever manifests as natural law from the Jupiter beings, and whatever manifests as color and sound from the Saturn beings. And the fire-air beings would have man become nothing but force, law (thought), color and sound. They want man not to have a physical body at all, but to be insubstantial, rarefied; they would like him to be, as we said, an angel being.

And so you see, whilst in external nature Moon, Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn live at peace with one another and are held in balance by the Sun, they wage a double fight for the possession of man. First of all, there is the conflict that goes on between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic beings; and then secondly, the fight that is put up by the Luciferic beings against the planetary forces beyond the Sun, – the Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn influences – whilst on the other hand the Ahrimanic forces are waging war on the influences that proceed from Moon, Venus and Mercury.

Let us suppose for a moment that the Ahrimanic powers were victorious in the physical body of some person, victorious, that is, over the Luciferic powers who try to permeate man throughout with what should by rights be only on the surface, only in the senses. The result would be that the person would succumb to illnesses producing tumors or carcinoma, or else to illnesses of the metabolism, such as diabetes. Illness is in very many cases the sole means left to the good Powers to rescue man from the fangs of Ahriman.

If on the other hand Lucifer gains a victory in a man’s physical nature over the Ahrimanic powers then the person concerned succumbs to illnesses of an inflammatory nature, or else to insanity.

The Ahrimanic and Luciferic powers, who work unceasingly with all their might for the attainment of their ends, are thus compelled to turn away sad and disappointed from beds of sickness, from hospitals and from mental asylums. These show them all too clearly that though they may continue to carry on their fight, they cannot ever be really victorious.

For when the Luciferic powers are victorious over the Ahrimanic in the ether-body, then the person becomes a liar, he becomes a habitual liar. In that case he is obviously not moral; and so he falls out of the world within which Lucifer would like to secure him. Instead of making him a moral automaton, Lucifer has turned him into a liar. If, on the other hand, Ahriman were to conquer, or come near to conquering the ether body, then the person would become possessed – possessed by his own cleverness.

Let us now see what can happen with the astral body. Suppose the Ahrimanic powers come near to being victorious in the astral body. The person in question will in this case tend to become an out-and-out egoist. But that will mean that he, as an egoist, keeps fast hold of his instincts, and there will be no chance for Ahriman to snatch them away. So once more, Ahriman’s prize escapes him. Suppose on the other hand. Lucifer nearly gains a victory. Then the person is liable to turn into a dreamer in the astral body, to become an ego-less dreamer, who is, as one says, “not in his right mind.” Such things happen; it can well be that people succumb, if only for a time, to such a condition. The Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers are thus subject to disillusionment on earth in many directions.

At the present time, when you cross the Threshold, you find yourself only in the midst of the terrific conflict of which we have spoken, between beings of the upper planets who have remained behind in their evolution, – immature Mars, Jupiter and Saturn beings – and beings of the lower planets who have remained behind, – immature Moon, Mercury and Venus beings. Like two armed encampments they stand facing one another; on one side, the fire-air beings, – Saturn, Jupiter and Mars beings that have failed and fallen out of their true evolution; and on the other side, facing them, the water-earth beings, – Moon, Mercury and Venus beings who have also failed and fallen behind.

But as for man, if he can find the right relation to the Christ, then it will be given him not to despair, even in face of the despair of higher beings than himself, – beings however whose will it is to go another way than the way of the Gods to whom man belongs and to whom he should remain true throughout the further course of the Earth. At the center of these sublime God Beings is the Christ Being, who spoke to the initiates of old through the Sun disk and who speaks also to us – but now from the Earth with the help of the Sun.

When therefore we speak of Christ today, we are speaking of One who can be at our side here on Earth as our Leader, guiding us out of the terrible conflict that the Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers are waging with one another and with the worlds of the Upper and Lower Gods.

For further information:

The Incarnations of Lucifer and Ahriman

The Incarnations of Ahriman and Lucifer