This Ahrimanic type don’t let feelings stand in his way,
he even don’t know what it is, but he is not without egoism,
it’s masked as altruism – Hanging on the Left Cross.
There is a lot of talk about the incarnation of Ahriman, and not much knowledge. It’s in art we have to look to find real seership, as in the Film “The Matrix”. Michael Hallam has written an article about The Matrix and Ahriman, taking other Archetypal stories into account too.
The Difference between Lucifer and Ahriman
I had earlier in my life difficulties seeing what was Luciferic and what was Ahrimanic, and it seems to be a problem for many. In connection with the Gilgamesh epic I had an inspiration for a rule of thumb:
Lucifer has to do with the Sentient soul, the personal, and it’s negative sides as egoism or arrogance, where Ahriman has to do with the Intellectual soul, the impersonal, where unemotional thinking is the sign of Ahriman, that could be a social worker who just don’t care, or it could be a political leader where the ideals comes before anything else, where empathy is a foreign word, which is a Sentient soul thing, and Compassion, which is a Consciousness soul thing.
Christ is of course connected to the Consciousness soul.
Outside of man, Ahriman works through the Law’s and Rules which inhibits mans conscious thinking and behavior. And with laws we should both understand man-made and god-made, as for example gravity. The higher our weight the more we fight with gravity, the more docile we become in both thinking and actions; the distance from thought to action becomes longer with the number of pounds/kilo we have to move, even if the action is non-physical.
Lucifer works actively through persons, like a leader in a big organization who don’t delegate responsibility, but controls everything through rules, and the rules are Ahrimanic, and they may even be scientifically justified, they just don’t work as intended, as they haven’t taken into consideration that the workers are humans and not robots.
Materialism
In The Trap of Materialism I describe what Ahriman means for man today.
The Ahrimanian is the opposite of the Beautiful (Truth, Beauty, and Goodness):
A genuine feeling for beauty forges a link that binds us here, in earthly life itself, once again with pre-earthly existence. We ought never to undervalue the significance of beauty in education and in outer culture. A civilization that is filled with ugly machines, with chimneys and smoke, and dispenses with beauty, is a world that makes no efforts to forge a link between man and pre-earthly existence; indeed, it tears him asunder. Not by way of analogy, but in very truth we may say: A purely industrial city is a fitting abode for the demonic beings who would like to make man forget his pre-earthly existence in the realm of spirit.
Jahve and Ahriman
Where Steiner uses Ahriman the Theosophists and the Rosicrucian Fellowship uses the name Jahve. In the start Steiner used Jahve, as in Foundations of Esotericism:
Thus there exists in the world a Jehovah Principle and a Lucifer Principle. If the Jehovah Principle alone were to be taught, man would succumb to the Earth. If the teaching of reincarnation and karma were allowed to disappear entirely from the Earth we should win back for Jehovah all the Monads and physical man would be given over to the Earth, to a petrified planet. If however one teaches reincarnation and karma, man is led upwards to spiritualisation.
Later Steiner uses Jahve when talking about the power in the spiritual world and Ahriman when talking about it in the physical world or more concrete the Ahrimanic Spirits.
Ahriman and the Aurvedian Tamas
The Aurvedian Three Gunas, Tamas, Rajas, and Sattva, corresponds to the trinity of Ahriman, Lucifer, and Christ. Ahriman:
We have then the third group of people who are dominated by tamas. It is said Tamas, because it veils the intellect, makes such people short sighted. Their happiness lies in sensual gratification. Tasty food, frequent tactile stimulus, attractive visual objects and captivating sounds dominate their life. When the senses over a period of time lose their acuity, they have less room to be happy and fall into a state of depression as they get older.
Srivatsa Ramaswami
Chthonic Demons
Ahrimanic beings are Chthonic elementals known all over the world, see Chakana – The Incan Cross.
From my Serpents of the Kundalini Fire:
In the Anthroposophy Rudolf Steiner describesthe two sides of man as being a kind of fight between Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers, where Lucifer is the masculine power and Ahriman is the feminine power. Both described in the literature as Serpents or Dragons. Lucifer represents The Right Pillar and Ahriman The Left Pillar. They are on Earth seen as Evil powers, but they are necessary factors in our development, as we both need the Feminine and Masculine influence, but we need to find the balance between them.
Man in relation to the Tree of Life
From The Balance in the World and Man, Lucifer and Ahriman:
The left part of you — your left man, as it were — is the fortification set up by Lucifer, and your right man is the fortification set up by Ahriman. And the art of life consists in finding the true balance between them.
Literature
See a Collection of Steiner texts about Lucifer and Ahriman(pdf) .
Inkarnation Ahrimans by Rudolf Steiner in German/Deutsch
The Matrix by Michael Hallam.
Relating to Rudolf Steiner by Sergei O. Prokofieff, where he comments on the Internet.
#1 by Jeremy Ross on January 20, 2010 - 8:44 pm
Hello,
In the second to last quotation in this article Lucifer is referred to as masculine and existing in the ‘right human’ while Ahriman is described as feminine and pervading the ‘left human.’ However in the last quotation Lucifer is equated with the left side and Ahriman with the right. Is there something I am overlooking in terms of the word ‘fortification’ or is there a contradiction?
Also, are Javeh and Ahriman in fact the same spiritual being or ‘influence’?
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#2 by Kim Graae Munch on January 20, 2010 - 11:00 pm
Hello Jeremy,
I cannot find where I state that Lucifer is the right human, I state that Lucifer is the Right Pillar and Ahriman the Left Pillar, and when you see it as a picture of God or man looking toward you, Lucifer becomes the left side of man and Ahriman the right side.
It’s more detailed here:
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#3 by Rowan on December 1, 2010 - 11:50 am
Lucifer is Red, Ahriman is Blue, though.
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#4 by Kim Graae Munch on December 1, 2010 - 12:02 pm
Right, Rowan. If you look at the diagram you will see that the pillar at mans right side is blue for Ahriman and the pillar at his left side is red for Lucifer.
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#5 by yong on April 10, 2013 - 4:03 am
but the human face looking image of Ahriman is in red, while the Lucifer image is in blue, which is very confusing.
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#6 by Kim Graae Munch on May 10, 2013 - 6:35 pm
Right, but the dead eyes of Ahriman is more significant. The artist didn’t think on the colors, it was more the types.
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#7 by Jandy on May 25, 2011 - 8:30 pm
“Where Steiner uses Ahriman the Theosophists and the Rosicrucian Fellowship uses the name Jahve. In the start Steiner used Jahve”
So far I have read Steiners work (maybe4-5 books) I have came across that he uses Jahve for Christ itself after he had descended into elemental sphere of the earth.
Could you please make it more clear for me?
Many thanks 🙂
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#8 by Kim Graae Munch on May 25, 2011 - 9:27 pm
Hi Jandy,
Christ is connected to the Sun, where Jahve, at that time, was connected to the Moon Foundations of Esotericism: Lecture XXX:
Ahriman is connected to the physical world as Jahve is, where his opposite, Lucifer, is connected to the spiritual world. In the following, Gnostic Doctrines and Supersensible Influences in Europe – The Æons, and Jesus is the equilibrium between those two, spirit incarnated into the physical.
That Christ is a different being than Jahve is also shown here:
We see Jahve and Lucifer as the opponents here, Foundations of Esotericism, LECTURE XXIII, with Lucifer representing the spiritual world and Jahve the physical world, ie. Ahriman:
Regards, Kim
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#9 by Ahasverus on August 21, 2013 - 5:20 pm
Ahriman and Jahveh are not the same, and Steiner speaks about them both as distinct, separate entities with very different characteristics. So I don’t think the Theosophists or the Rosicrucians mean Ahriman (or Satan) when they speak about Jehovah.
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#10 by Kim Graae Munch on November 17, 2013 - 5:54 pm
Steiner starts using Ahriman after he starts the Anthroposophical Society, he used Jehovah before, the usage of Blavatsky, and Max Heindel use also Jehovah, as he was educated by Steiner before Anthroposophy was started. Blavatsky have not much posotive to say about Jahve.
The following lecture shows the interplay between the Jehova and Lucifer powers at the creation of man in the start of Earth, not the least mention of Ahriman, curious, nicht wahr?-)
Steiner in Foundation of Esotericism Lecture XXIII
The leader of this whole progression is the God who in the Hebraic tradition is called Jahve; Jehovah. He was a Moon-God. He possessed in the highest sense of the word, the power that had developed on the Moon and accordingly he endeavoured to develop mankind further in this direction. In the earthly world Jahve represents that God who endows beings with the possibility of physical reproduction. Everything else (intellect) did not lie in the Jahve-Intention. If Jahve’s intention alone had continued to develop, the human being would eventually have ceased to be able to reproduce himself, for the power of reproduction would have become exhausted. He would then only have been concerned with the creation of beautiful forms, for he was indifferent to what is inward, intellectual. Jehovah wished to produce beautifully formed human beings, like beautiful statues.
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#11 by sean on November 28, 2011 - 6:54 pm
Maybe this website is of interest to you;
http://www.gatsbyanddemian.com
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#12 by Kim Graae Munch on December 7, 2011 - 8:17 pm
Not really, Sean, it’s pure fiction without any real usable occult knowledge.
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#13 by Ahasverus on August 21, 2013 - 5:16 pm
It’s a very interesting article and I like your earnestness in coming to grips with these matters.
But what makes you say the figure on the picture is an “Ahrimanic type” ?
I would be interested to know that. His hair, its color, his moustache, his unfocused eyes ?
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#14 by Kim Graae Munch on November 17, 2013 - 5:57 pm
He is an impersonal type, he makes decisions without feelings, he sees man as machines, not as individualities.
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