BAD, BADDER, BADDEST
Authors of Evil
Did you ever wonder why things go so wrong so often? This wasn't the gods' intention. In fact, it violates the divine cosmic plan. [1] But as things turn out, there are some real S.O.B.s out there. Lucifer, for one. Don't meet him in a dark alley. And there are other spiritual troublemakers to worry about. According to Rudolf Steiner, Lucifer is equaled by a little-known Zoroastrian thug called Ahriman.
I'll confine myself to a handful of illustrative quotes. For the first, I'll turn to a much-used all-American reference work. For the others, I'll hand the mike to R. Steiner.
“Aha Mazda is the chief god in a religion of ancient Persia called Zoroastrianism. The deity is also called Ohrmazd. The god is the creator of all things and the judge of all peoples. Zoroastrians believe that Aha Mazda is in continuous conflict with the evil spirit Ahriman. At the end of time, Aha Mazda will triumph and Ahriman will be destroyed. All people must decide whether they will follow Aha Mazda or Ahriman. They will be rewarded or punished after their death, depending on their choice.” [2]
What can we learn from this? a) Drive a Mazda. b) Attend to the brilliant insights of Rudolf Steiner. c) Do neither.
Consider the following: Here’s what the great man said: “[I]t was planned that human beings would complete the necessary schooling [to attain] the perfection of the human type ... However, Lucifer and Ahriman interfered ... Lucifer and Ahriman preserved older racial forms ... so that there was a coexistence of races rather than a succession.” [3]
A few explanations, then we'll move on. Steiner was a racist. He taught that some races are higher or more evolved than others. The quotation you've just read is his explanation for racial differences. Demons did it — they interfered with the gods' plan, which was for one race to follow another, each one being more perfect than the previous one. The demons created a situation in which low, old races coexistent with newer, higher races. (The “coexistence,” by the way, is not comfortable or peaceful.) The races that are old and inferior are, as you may have guessed, colored; the one that is newest and superior is white, according to Steiner.
Suppressing the revulsion we should properly feel, let's hear from R.S. again. The following statement refers to the German author, Goethe, and his play about Faust, a man who seeks total knowledge of everything (what Steiner effectively claimed to possess). Steiner considered Goethe a sort of pre-Steiner, a seer who could penetrate cosmic mysteries — although not as well as Steiner said he himself could. One error Goethe made, according to Steiner, is failing to see that two devils caused Faust's troubles: “If Goethe in his day had thoroughly understood how things stand ... he would never have represented the Mephistophelean power [i.e., Ahriman] as Faust's only enemy and seducer ... rather, he would have shown Lucifer as complementing and opposing this Mephistophelean power whom we recognize as identical with Ahriman....” [4] Somewhat like crime bosses, Lucifer and Ahriman work together, sometimes, and they oppose each other, sometimes. It's a dangerous universe.
A complication: Steiner sometimes denied that either Lucifer or Ahriman is evil, when judged in the largest context. “Most people picture Ahriman and Lucifer as evil beings ... But this is not true ... [W]e cannot say that there are good gods and the evil gods Ahriman and Lucifer.” [5] Steiner meant that, in the spirit realm, our earthly concepts of good and bad, true and false, lose their meaning. Take comfort in that, if you can. And try to overlook Steiner's self-contradictions, as when he denied that there are good gods and evil gods, but then asserted that there are good gods and evil gods. “[W]e are watching the battle waged by the good gods against the evil gods — in two directions evil.” [6] The two directions are faulty spiritualism and excessive materialism — Lucifer and Ahriman.
We can have hope for the future only if the iniquity of Lucifer and Ahriman is redeemed by the good gods. Here is Steiner's optimistic forecast: “The unrighteousness originating from the activities of Lucifer and Ahriman behind the scenes of existence is led by the good gods into the path of righteousness again....” [7] Let's hope so. But there are no guarantees; the forces of evil are strong. “Cosmic error is certainly not impossible.” [8] The key to our salvation is — surprise — to follow Steiner. If we lack the proper concepts, which he offers, we can run afoul of all sorts of gods. Our emotions, unschooled by Anthroposophy, will lead us astray in the spirit realm. “Feeling really has a connection with all the spiritual beings who must be considered real. So that if a person with inadequate concepts sinks into his or her feeling life, he or she comes in collision with the gods — if you like to put it that way — but also with evil gods. And all these collisions occur because the person entered this realm without any reliable means of knowledge.” [9] Reliable knowledge, according to Steiner, comes from his brand of clairvoyance or "occult science." [10] Take what comfort you can from that.
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Lucifer and Ahriman sometimes cooperate in order to foil the good gods. One example: At night our astral bodies fly to the spirit realm and return the next morning with influences that should penetrate our etheric and physical bodies. But the demons prevent this. The image on the left shows how things should be; the one on the right shows demonic interference. The blue area in each image is the physical body; ochre is the etheric body; yellow is astral influences. “Let me try to draw this, to depict the original intentions of the Yahweh [Jehovah] divinities ... What I have drawn here represents the inhalation, as it were, by our etheric and physical bodies at the moment of waking of all the experiences of our astral body ... [But the] luciferic temptation prevented this ... The result is that at the moment of waking, Lucifer passes to Ahriman all that ought to penetrate the physical body.” [Rudolf Steiner, EVIL (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1997), pp. 116-117.] (The drawings are my renditions of the b & w images in the book; Steiner specified the colors.)
Ahriman, perhaps:
[Image attributed to R. Steiner.]
Ahriman in his cave; colored sketch based on b&W sketch on p. 145, Rudolf Steiner, ART (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2003). [R.R., 2009.]
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For more about Lucifer and his saving graces,
For more on both Lucifer and Ahriman,
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By the bye: I realize that the excisions I make in Steiner's statements may seem fishy. You can either take my word that I am just cutting out verbiage (Steiner was long-winded, and he tended to ramble — I'm doing him a favor, editing him down to more reasonable length without altering his meaning) or you can check up on me by consulting the books I cite. All of my work is verifiable in this way: I tell you what Steiner said, and I tell you in which book he said it. So, please, take nothing on faith. Check. Taking things on faith is, in fact, one of the targets of my essays. Anthroposophists take some amazingly odd doctrines on faith. Let's not follow their example. The basic reason Ahriman is so evil, according to Steiner, is that he is “the supreme intellectual power: Ahriman.” [11] Steiner sometimes pretended that he admired intellect, but in fact real thinking was his enemy. Instead, he emphasized subjectivity, emotion, schooled "feeling" — schooled by Steiner's doctrines. — Roger Rawlings
Christ between Lucifer and Ahriman. [Sculpture by Steiner; sketch by R. R. 2009, showing true colors.]
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ENDNOTES
[1] Rudolf Steiner, FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, Foundations of Waldorf Education (Anthroposophic Press, 1998), p. 55.
[2] The World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia, Mac OS X Edition, Version. 6.0.2.
[3] Rudolf Steiner, THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN: The Evolution of Individuality (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), p. 75.
[4] Rudolf Steiner, THE INCARNATION OF AHRIMAN: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2006), p.1.
[5] THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN, p. 84.
[6] Rudolf Steiner, KARMIC RELATIONSHIPS, Vol. 2 (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1956), p. 251.
[7] Ibid., p. 251.
[8] FACULTY MEETINGS WITH RUDOLF STEINER, p. 649.
[9] Rudolf Steiner, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1990), p. 70.
Interestingly, feelings or emotions do not come from the higher centers in our brains — they arise from the intermediate brain level, the paleomammalian brain, which we share with all other mammals. [See, e.g., Temple Grandin, ANIMALS IN TRANSLATION (Scribner, 2005), p. 54.] Steiner's emphasis on subjective feeling does not elevate us as he intended.
[10] See, e.g., Rudolf Steiner, OCCULT SCIENCE - An Outline (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1969) or INVESTIGATIONS INTO OCCULTISM SHOWING ITS PRACTICAL VALUE IN DAILY LIFE (Kessinger Publishing - reproduction of 1929 text).
[11] Rudolf Steiner, NATURE SPIRITS (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1995), p. 167.
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