The Mystery of Evil: Doubt, Hate and Fear. Double and Superdouble …
From Adriana Koulias, Shared by Rebecca Terniak
Spiritual Science teaches us that the task of Evil is to promote the elevation of man.
Evil, we are told, resides both within us and in the external world and is a force necessary for the perfection and liberation of the human being who must overcome hindrance and temptation.
This may seem a little strange at first, but just as we know that something is sweet because it is not bitter, and cold because we know it is hot, the freedom to deploy new forces and superior abilities would not have been possible if humanity had remained subject to higher spiritual powers that can only know good.
The experience of evil has given humanity a look at both sides and in this experience lies the secret of freedom and independence.
That is to say, by turning its gaze from the worlds of the spirit to the world of physical matter, humanity would one day be able to discern freely by itself the difference between good and evil.
So we can ask the question: what do we do when we discover the difference?
Do we eradicate all evil – as we are called to do by many of today’s political figures?
Believing that we should eradicate evil is much the same as saying that we should remove gravity and have only levitation.
This way of thinking is based solely on dualism and creates even more evil.
But can we ignore it?
What is the answer?
Rudolf Steiner tells us that the answer lies in balance, since opposing forces are necessary for our evolution, for without them, as we have seen above, we would not have been able to progress.
So how do we find a balance?
Rudolf Steiner tells us that balance exists in the Being of Christ and that it is through Him, and by following the middle way, that we can begin to redeem evil.
In the past man has been guided to know evil by external sources, that is, by the church, the priests, and the law, but in our Soul Consciousness epoch we are called to acquire a free, inner knowledge and conviction concerning primarily evil, so that we can prepare ourselves for the coming sixth epoch.We will explore the mysteries of evil as they were known to the mystery schools of ancient times, appropriately revealed to humanity today by Rudolf Steiner.
We will explore evil on a macrocosmic and microcosmic level, that is, we will investigate the cosmic origins and existence of
1. Luciferian beings – Lucifer – Devil
2. Ahrimanian beings – Ahriman – Satan
3. Asuric beings – Asuras
Also, we will learn how they manifest within the microcosm of man with special attention to their influence on the development of Fear, Hatred and Doubt, in preparation for the incarnation of Ahriman in our present Post-Atlantean era.
This incarnation will pave the way for another being,
4. the Antichrist – Sorath – The Beast
who will try to replace the most important supersensible event of our time – the manifestation of Christ – by his own manifestation on earth.
Thereafter we shall have to look at how we are to deal with redeeming evil through the impulse of the Christ acting through the Anthropo-Sophia being and its physical manifestation on earth, the Anthroposophical society.
What is evil?
Rudolf Steiner tells us that evil comes from the fact that forces appear in the wrong place and/or at the wrong time.
What does this mean?
In order to answer this question a study of the cosmic evolution of the Earth according to Rudolf Steiner is necessary.
Rudolf Steiner calls the first rudimentary earth eon ‘Ancient Saturn’, in which the physical body of human beings was first developed.
The second aeon is called ‘Ancient Sun’ where the human etheric body was elaborated.
In the third eon, “Ancient Moon” the human body acquired its astral body.
On Earth humanity received its individual “I” and became “Human”.
Human Beings:
Ancient Saturn – Physical body (of mineral-like nature)
Ancient Sun – Etheric body (similar to the Plant)
Ancient Moon – Astral Body – (Animal-like)
Earth – Self – Spirit
As humanity passed through the conditions of the minerals, plants and animals other beings followed their own evolution and their own “human” stage:
On the “Ancient Saturn” beings three degrees higher than man – the Archai (Archaea) – were passing through their ‘human’ stage.
On the ‘Ancient Sun’ beings two degrees higher than man, of the rank of beings known as Archangels, were in their ‘human’ stage,
and on the ‘Ancient Moon’; Rudolf Steiner tells us that Angels, only one degree higher than man, were in their human stage.
Ancient Saturn – Archaea – Human stage
Ancient Sun – Archangels – Human stage
Ancient Moon – Angels – Human stage
Earth – Man – Human stage
This evolution was only effective for those beings who were able to reach the goals set before them.
Those who did not live up to the expectation or could not live up to their task were left behind and had to compensate for what they could not accomplish ‘normally’ in their own time, in a future eon.
These beings suffer greatly when they try to continue their evolution at a time when the conditions are not right for them because it means they have to work within incredible restrictions.
The only way for these beings to relieve their suffering is to go beyond their limits, to go beyond the limits created by their delay.
This “overstepping” can be seen as a hindrance of the human being because it happens in the earthly world where humans are now developing their Self, on Earth.
This hindrance is what Rudolf Steiner refers to as “evil”.
We will set aside for the moment the fact that these beings sacrificed themselves in this way so that human beings could develop by overcoming the hindrances they cause, as this would take us too far from our present subject.
We will go on, however, to say that there are three kinds of Opposition Spirits who have fallen and these are named after their respective leaders:
Asuric Beings – fallen on Saturn – Fallen Spirits of Form acting as Archaea
Ahrimanian Beings – fallen on the Sun – Fallen Archaea acting as Archangels
Luciferian beings – fallen on the Moon – fallen Archangels acting as Angels
The Asuric beings are particularly concerned with penetrating the physical body of man as this sphere relates to the sphere that was developed on Ancient Saturn, where these beings fell as they were developing their “human stage.
Ahrimanian beings desire to act in the etheric body of human beings because it is in this sphere that was elaborated on the Ancient Sun, where these beings were developing their “human stage”.
Luciferian beings feel most at home in the astral body of human beings because it relates to what was elaborated on the Old Moon, where these beings fell.
In these respective bodies these spirits find an opportunity for their own development.
In the soul of human beings these “tempters” or hindering spirits can be found:
In the three parts of the body:
1. Astral body – Lucifer – Lemuria
2. Ethereal body – Ahriman – Atlantis
3. Physical Body – Assuras – Current Post-Atlantean Era
In the parts of the Soul :
1. Sensitive Soul – Lucifer – Egypt
2. Soul of understanding (intellectual) – Ahriman – Greco-Roman
3. Soul of consciousness – Asuras – Anglo-Germanic
In the Self:
1. Sorat – in future times.
Lucifer began to approach the human astral body in the Lemurian Earth evolutionary epoch through the nerves and senses and slipped into the unconscious elaboration of the Ego on the astral body, which produced the sentient soul or feeling soul.
Ahriman made his foray into the human being during the Atlantean Earth evolutionary epoch and found a suitable influence on the etheric body through the Intellectual soul which is the unconscious elaboration by the Ego on the etheric body.
The Asuras began to approach mankind only since our time in the faculty of the soul that results from our unconscious elaboration of the physical body, the soul of consciousness.
But there is another being.
This being, “the beast of the abyss” as the Apocalypse calls it, fell in an earlier epoch than Old Saturn and does not belong to the Earth evolution.
Nevertheless he inhabits the sun and is known to the Greeks as the Solar Demon – Sorat.
He acts contrary to the “Intelligence” of the Sun as a fallen Elohim and thus acts contrary to the Sun being the Christ deity.
His number is 666 (six being the number denoting imperfection) and will enter directly into human evolution only through the three categories of beings, which is three times six.
Spiritual Science recognizes the task of this Sorat being in our 5th Post-Atlantean age as that of coordinating the three currents of evil against the healthy development of humanity, in preparation for the incarnation of Ahriman who will attempt to distort the second coming of Christ in the etheric clothed astral world.
This second coming began in the middle of the last century and will continue until the 6th epoch.
It is imperative that a clear and awakened consciousness concerning the doings of evil in the world be developed.
It is the first and foremost task of Anthroposophy today to guide humanity in this task in the 5th epoch in preparation for the future.
Sorat’s attack on humanity:
Sorat can be seen acting in human evolution since the seventh century.
The first attack on humanity occurred in 666 A.D., three hundred and thirty-three years after the middle of the Greco-Roman era (333) with the establishment of the Gondhishapur Academy.
Created through the cooperation of Luciferian and Ahrimanian spirits, this Academy sought to bring about an impulse of the soul consciousness before time with the aim of Ahrimanizing the Soul of Consciousness
– a part of the soul that we develop only in our present time.
This would have prevented the proper development of the Spirit-Self and consequently affected the development of the other two higher parts:
Spirit-Life (Buddhi) and Man-Mind (Atma).
Jesus was born 333 years before the middle of the Greco-Roman era – his sacrifice as Christ Jesus in 33 CE counteracted what was to happen in 666 CE.
Another attack came in the form of the complete and utter destruction of the Templar order.
The Cathars, whose Manichean knowledge of good and evil stood in opposition to Sorat’s goals, were also hunted down, tortured and burned.
Their spiritual cousins, the Knights Templar, whose task of inaugurating a “Christianized” social order was in preparation for the 6th era, were imprisoned, tortured, forced to confess heinous crimes and murdered.
The Order was abolished with the cooperation of Pope Clement (possessed by a Luciferian spirit) and Philip the Fair, King of France (possessed by an Ahrimanian spirit).
Nowadays, the above-mentioned attacks, the establishment of the Gondishapur Academy and the destruction of the Cathar and Templar orders, have been strongly reinforced by the entry of a new being in the service of the Solar Demon, the Asuras, who wish to destroy humanity’s connection with the Self through the Consciousness or Spiritual soul.
This is the action of all these three categories of beings: Luciferians, Ahrimanians and Asurians in the service of Sorat in the two aforementioned attacks that was reflected in the twentieth century in the form of Bolshevism (Gondishapur) and Nazism (Destruction of the Templar Order) – National Socialism.
The development of secret lodges deviating from or opposing pure Rosicrucianism and the rise of Jesuitism in opposition to the Grail impulse were further incursions of evil forces into the development of the human spirit.
A third manifestation of Sorat through the three currents of evil has already begun (1998) and will culminate in the near future, seeking to materialize the human self.
It is important today in the 21st century to know how these three currents of evil, guided by a fourth, present themselves in the human being, the external world and the cosmos.
The three currents of evil in the human being.
The human being is not as isolated as we imagine.
In every breath, in every perception, in every intake of food, in every sensation, thought and act of will human beings are accompanied by beings of a spiritual nature.
We have seen how Luciferian and Ahrimanian beings have entered the human soul during evolution, and it is a fact that they live side by side with elemental beings (detachments of higher beings) and higher beings who regulate our physical, etheric and astral bodies.
The Three Currents of Evil and Good and how they appear in man:
Physical — Will — Archaea — Asuras
Ethereal — Soul — Feeling — Archangels – Ahriman
Astral — Thought — Angels — Lucifer
3rd celestial hierarchy:
Archaea,
Archangels,
Angels
2nd celestial hierarchy :
Kyriotetes* – Powers** – (Spirits of Wisdom),
Dynamis* – Virtues** – (Spirits of Movement),
Exusiai* – Powers** – (Spirits of Form)
* Greek terminology
** Latin terminology (Cf Denis the Areopagite)
1st celestial hierarchy :
Seraphim (Spirits of Love),
Cherubim (Spirits of Harmony),
Thrones (Spirits of Will)
The divine powers of the first hierarchy are connected to our physical bodies and the forces of will in our souls;
The solar hierarchy or the second hierarchy has more to do with our etheric bodies and our feeling forces in the soul;
and the third hierarchy is more connected to the Astral body and the forces of thought in the soul.
Thus, the Angels as representatives of the 3rd hierarchy in the soul have to do with thought.
The Archangels as representatives of the 2nd hierarchy in the soul have to do with feeling.
The Archaea as representatives of the 1 st hierarchy in the soul have more to do with the will.
Apart from higher and lower spiritual beings who have access to the human body and soul there are also the offspring of higher hierarchies (detachments), these are the elemental beings who sneak in and out of our physical bodies, into all our physical and soul processes.
We will not go into this too deeply, suffice it to say that the moral disposition of a human being is of the greatest importance to the above-mentioned beings, since their own evolution is dependent upon it.
An individual who lives in a truly moral way can liberate these beings so that they can progress to higher stages of existence.
If a human being is not moral then he traps good elementals in his different bodies (physical, etheric, astral) and these beings become the prey (because they have no oi) of oppositional beings.
Under the yoke of oppositional beings these elemental spirits become Ahrimanian, Luciferian or Asuric according to their disposition and where they have their place of action, and become detached from the human being as demons, ghosts and spectres.
Rudolf Steiner tells us that we create three beings that become a part of us throughout our lives.
The Luciferic elements, which have the possibility to take root in the mind insofar as it is connected to the Astral body and the Astral world of the angels, create a beast or double of “Doubt”.
Doubt about spiritual things prevents humanity from working creatively in knowledge and leads to fantasy and illusion.
The Ahrimanian element, which has the ability to take root in feeling insofar as it is connected to the Ethereal body and the lower Devachanic world of the Archangels, creates a “beast” or double of hatred, which prevents human beings from working in love towards spiritual ends, it leaves the soul hollow.
The Asuric element in our will, insofar as it is connected to the physical body and thus to the higher Devachanic world of the Archaea, leads to the creation of a beast or double of Fear or cowardice with regard to creative spiritual ‘being’, which leaves human beings vulnerable to attacks from earthly forces.
Earth ethers and the double
The effect of these oppositional beings on the astral, etheric and physical bodies weakens them, leaving the human being vulnerable to negative earth forces.
Just as retarded beings influence the creation of retarded soul forces, negative etheric energies that exist in the world influence the creation of retarded etheric forces in the human being.
A combination of retarded forces created by the influence of retarded beings in the astral, etheric and physical bodies and the retarded or degenerated etheric energies that create retarded etheric forces in the human being, one can say that these different doubles or shadow forces collectively form a being that Spiritual Science calls the personal “Double” or doppelganger.
It forms, according to Rudolf Steiner, a part of the “Little Guardian of the Threshold” whose existence in us from birth to death blocks our spiritual progress:
“…There arises the phenomenon known as the Guardian of the Threshold – the appearance of man’s lower double.
Man’s spiritual being, consisting of his will impulses, desires and thoughts, appears to the Initiate in a visible form.
It is a form which is sometimes repulsive and terrible, for it is the offspring of his good and evil desires and karma – it is their personification in the astral world…”
Put another way, it can be said that the influence of Ahriman, Lucifer and the Asuras on the being increases tenfold the appearance of beings of doubt, hatred and fear of the spiritual in the Astral body, etheric body and physical body, and that this attracts forces which help to create and sustain both a personal and a collective double, identical to that being which Rudolf Steiner calls the Little Guardian of the Threshold, which becomes apparent to us as soon as we enter the spiritual world, as a separate entity which is both composed of and separate from the three beasts of our creation.
See the image above, called “The Doppelganger,” which comes from a design by Rudolf Steiner for a stained glass window in the Goetheanum. This one depicts the serpentine nature of the double showing the 7 chakras.
It comes from a crack in the earth, highlighting its connection to degenerate earth forces.
The human being sitting “on top of the mountain of objectivity” must send forth beneficial spiritual forces to heal and transform the double.
Rudolf Steiner describes how these beasts or doubles appear to the imaginative consciousness:
The double or beast of doubt is red and has glassy eyes.
The double or beast of hate has yellow spots and shows its teeth.
The double or beast of fear is blue and has a bony, ossified mind.
It is this third being that rests in our will and therefore our physical bodies, which makes us particularly vulnerable to earthly forces and allows them to enter the human being.
The Three Currents of Evil in the Macrocosmic World
Rudolf Steiner tells us that what forms part of the inner man during life becomes the outer world after death. We can call this a “law of inversion”:
“First of all, man has within him what he then sees around him….
Everything that lives today in man’s inner being, his thoughts, his feelings, will find its expression in the outer world and will become his outer environment.
The future lies within man.
So we can say that human beings are instrumental in the creation of the outer world or cosmos, both through actual inner work and through the lack or absence of inner work.
With this in mind, we will proceed in our exploration of the link between the double of man and the fallen ethers.
What are the fallen ethers?
After the ‘fall’ when Adam ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and became a conscious being, through Lucifer’s entry into his Astral body, it was deemed that mankind should retain only the ethers of Heat and Light; the other two, the ethers of Sound and Life, were protected and kept in spiritual worlds (Tree of Life) otherwise they would fall prey to retarded forces.
Rudolf Steiner tells us that we have the Physical world, the Astral world, the Lower Spiritual (Devachan) and the Upper Spiritual (Devachan).
There is also what Rudolf Steiner calls the sub-physical world;
Upper Devachan – Domain of the Archaea
Lower Devachan – Domain of the Archangels
Astral World – Domain of the Angels
Super-Earth
Terrestrial/Physical World – Domain of Man
Infra Terrestrial
The Lower Astral World – Domain of Lucifer
Evil Lower Devachan – domain of Ahriman
The evil Upper Devachan – domain of the Asuras
When the ether of light breaks down and is pushed back into the sub-material world, one floor lower than the material world – electricity appears.
The light thus finds its reflection in the earth’s substrate in electricity.
In man this has its counterpart in Thought.
When the chemical ether decomposes and is brought down below the physical plane in the evil Devachanic world – magnetism is born.
Sound finds its reflection in the substratum of the earth as magnetism.
In man this has its counterpart in Feeling.
If that which lives in the higher Devachan as the ether of Life decays and is pushed further down into the realm of the Asuras, that which is born in this way is characterized by Rudolf Steiner as ‘an even more terrible force – one which it will not be possible to keep hidden any longer’: the world of the Atom.
He goes on to say:
One can only hope that when this force comes to be known – a force which we must conceive to be much, much stronger than the most violent electric shock – one can only hope that before some discoverer puts this force into the hands of mankind, man will have nothing immoral left in him.
The ether of Life has its counterpart, its reflection, in the substratum of the earth, in a kind of radioactivity.
In man it has its counterpart in the human will.
Aether of Heat – Physical World – Elemental World
Aether of Light – Faith/Spiritual Thoughts – Astral
Chemical or Sound Aether – Love – Lower Devachan
Life Aether – Hope/Will to do good/Karma – Upper Devachan
Fallen Life Aether – Upper Devachan sub-physical – Atomic energy
Fallen Chemical Aether – Lower Subphysical Devachan – Magnetism
Fallen Aether of Light – sub-physical Astral world – electricity
Fallen materialized thoughts – Doubt in the mind
Fallen feelings materialized – Hate of the mind
Materialized Fallen Will – Fear of the mind
The above fallen thoughts, feelings and will use and intensify the fallen ethers in the same way that spiritualized thoughts, feelings and will use and add to the ‘higher ethers’.
Thus we may say that the fallen forces in man (the double) are especially strengthened by coming in contact with their counterparts in the outer world, and that the degenerate etheric forces in the world are greatly strengthened by coming in contact with their counterparts in man.
Why has this degeneration occurred?
As we have seen, what was at one time in the cosmos can at another time be found in the microcosm and vice versa.
This relates directly to what we find on earth as a remnant of what was present in the earth’s surroundings during the various evolutionary stages of the earth.
What remains of the forces of Ancient Saturn – Life Aether – is now found in the core of the Earth in a degenerated form as the power of the Atom (more powerful than the nuclear force).
What remains of the forces of the Old Sun – Sound or Chemical Aether – is found at another inner level of the Earth in a degenerate form as the power of magnetism.
What remains of the forces of the Old Moon – Light Aether – is found at an even higher level and is closest to the surface of the Earth in a degenerate form as the power of electricity.
Rudolf Steiner tells us that every era of the Earth has two phases of physical development, the generative and the degenerative.
In the first half of Earth’s evolution – Polar, Hyperborean, and Lemurian eras – the physical substances of the Earth were in a generative phase or a generative process very similar to the human being until his thirty-fifth year.
After that in our present Post-Atlantean and the two following epochs a degeneration begins.
Image
In Atlantean times there was a balance of generative and degenerative forces, in Lemurian times the forces that would become electricity and were present in the earth from the times of the Old Moon were going through a generative phase, in Hyperborean times the forces of magnetism of the Old Sun were undergoing a generation, and in Polar times the Saturnian forces that would one day surface as the power of the Atom were in their generative phase.
In the present Post-Atlantean epoch (a reflection of Lemurian times) electricity has emerged as a decaying form of the lunar forces of Light and in future times, though already begun in our own; that is to say: the Hyperborean epoch is reflected in the 6th Post-Atlantean epoch and so the old Solar forces of the decaying chemical or sound ethers will emerge more and more as the power of Magnetism;
In the Polar epoch the degeneration or decay of the Life ether will emerge more intensely than ever as the power of the Atom (all that causes separation, destruction of the ‘whole’) which in the 7th Post-Atlantean epoch will finally destroy the Earth.
However, as this physical aspect is generating and degenerating, so the spiritual aspects are descending and ascending.
So much so that in the fifth, sixth and seventh epochs the opposing forces to these fallen ethers will have to be cultivated in order to raise humanity collectively, beginning in its 35th year, in an ascent to spirit.
The extent to which humanity has accomplished this task will determine the conditions that will be made possible for the physical manifestation of the Antichrist on the one hand and the spiritual incarnation of the Christ being on the other.
How does this relate to the Ahrimanian Sub-Superhuman double?
In our own 5th era of Post-Atlantean culture, a similar curve is observed at a microcosmic level.
At the beginning of this Post-Atlantean era, in the Indian era, there was a reflection of the physical generation of the ether forces, all the way back to the Greco-Roman era – the mystery of Golgotha.
Had it not been for the mystery of Golgotha, mankind would not have been able to rise to the spirit due to the growing influence on man of the degenerative forces of electricity, magnetism and the power of the Atom.
These would have won hands down.
Christ, however, descended into the Plutonian depths (Hades) on Easter Saturday, i.e., into the sub-nature of the earth, and there enchained Ahriman and the Asuras for a time (a European aspect of this is the ancient rite of the Sacrificial King as practiced in the cultures of the Celts) and thus, Sorat.
This made it possible for man to overcome the forces of physical death with spiritual life.
For if Ahriman had not been bound, then materialism would not be just an attitude of life but a serious disease.
From the moment of the Mystery of Golgotha, man was given a choice by which he can begin to prepare himself for his future task of ennobling the evil degenerative forces of death and decay by working with the ether forces of light (Faith), chemical or sound (Love), and life (Hope).
He can instead freely reject this possibility and sink to the bottom of the abyss.
If man rejects this possibility (taking into account that every human individual creates for himself the double as an aggregate of materialistic thoughts, feelings and acts of will which attract and add to the negative etheric forces in his being), it arises to reason that the creation and education/enlightenment of this double will not only have an effect on the individual human being but also on the world around him – in the surrounding ether – in the creation of a super or sub-human double – the great double which will provide a suitable vehicle for the incarnation of Ahriman.
How will this serve the incarnation of Ahriman, the emissary of the Solar Demon?
-The Materialistic Thoughts or dead thoughts that become corpses in the human brain feed the degenerate Light Ether – electricity or darkness – into the evil or sub-physical astral world, from which the Astral body will be created into which Ahriman’s demonic self can emerge.
– Hatred of the spirit and lack of love for the spiritual, including the work of others, hollows out, empties and kills the human soul, intensifying the ether of its or chemical – magnetism – in the evil or sub-physical Lower Devachan, with which opposing forces will weave the etheric body of Ahriman.
– Fear paralyzes the human moral will and this will further intensify the degenerate life ether power – Atom power – in the Upper Evil or sub-physical Devachan. From this will come the knowledge necessary to create the physical body of Ahriman.
The three bodies of Ahriman will be formed by: the Astral corpses of human thoughts, the vibrations from the hearts and larynxes of human beings filled with hatred and immoral feelings, and the dissociation of human beings from moral acts, higher hierarchies and their Karma through fear.
Ahriman is destined to incarnate about three thousand years after the birth of Christ in a physical body, as a counterbalance to the incarnation of Lucifer, which occurred three thousand years before the incarnation of Christ in China.
His birth has been in preparation since 1998.
He will not be an ordinary man, he will be a super or sub-super human.
This means that he will not only have a physical body, but also a sub-supra-physical body, a body of elementals and Luciferian, Ahrimanian and Asuric beings at his disposal who possess superior limbs (Self-Spirit, Life Spirit and Man-Spirit).
If this incarnation follows those laws which guide the incarnation of higher beings (Bodhisattva), then Ahriman will incorporate himself into the three bodies created for him by a human vehicle.
This time, however, the human vehicle will not have an “I”.
This physical ‘being’ will allow Ahriman’s Self to enter around his twenty-ninth or thirtieth year and Ahriman will begin the work of elaborating these three bodies into a delayed Ahrimanized form of the Spirit-Self, the Life Spirit and the Microcosmic Spirit-Man.
Through him will act the intentions of the being of Sorat, the Beast of the Apocalypse. Sorat, a being that is fallen and retarded since before the Ancient Saturn, does not belong to our Earth evolution and will enter the Earth evolution only in the Apocalyptic future.
He will need all the hosts of Lucifer, Ahriman and the Asuras and the subterrestrial ethers which have been intensified by the Ahrimanian sub-superhuman double and the individual human beings who have taken his impulses into their different bodies.
These will be his limbs, his sense organs, his internal organs, and they will bring his thoughts and intentions, his hatred and his unyielding will to incarnation.
This may well happen sooner than expected, depending on the strength of the Ahrimanian double.
For it may be possible for Sorat to enter the physically incarnated Ahriman even in our own time and inspire him in his bodies – a pseudo-incarnation for Sorat.
The totality of beings working for Sorat/Ahriman in opposition to the Christ impulse is what John describes as the “Antichrist”.
However, it should be noted that the strength of such an attack on the Christ impulse will depend on whether or not humanity is able to ascend to spirit.
What will Ahriman look like?
-He will be extremely intelligent.
Possessed by a great and powerful genius and a cold intellect that will ensure the faith of the dupes.
He will set up a great school of Occultism (Lodges) where black magic will be taught.
Those who follow him will take the “materialism” that exists in the mind (astral body) and bring it down to their etheric bodies and will harden them so that these etheric bodies remain intact after death (Ahrimanian immortality).
These hardened etheric bodies will distort the image of the etheric Christ in the Astral world surrounding and surrounding the Earth.
-He will exude a powerful magnetism that will attract human beings with his power – his “voice” will have the ability to hypnotize those who listen indiscriminately and will make the immoral “seem” honorable, just and good (The Saruman of JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings comes to mind).
Hate will guide his every action, but from him will come the teachings concerning the nature of the lower passions and their connection with clairvoyance – Kundalini Tantra which leads to ceremonial sexual rites accessing the lower Ethereal forces is an example.
Also, consensual ritual murder and cannibalism, which is of a sexual nature, is yet another step.
It will be responsible for promoting only the biblical version of Christ’s life as a literal, material account of a man’s life, rejecting His divinity and resurrection
(Cf: the movie “The Passion of the Christ” and its obsession with death and the failure to pursue an understanding of resurrection and becoming).
Ahriman will be more charismatic than the impotent human Jesus who will be portrayed everywhere.
– His will will not be constrained and he will reap the power of the (superhuman) limbs of his being with a violent and concentrated force that will encourage the weak-minded to follow him.
Those who do not follow him will suffer incredible persecution.
This will be made possible first by destroying the will, by hindering the will and thus the development of the soul-consciousness, which finally leads either to a fusion of the Ego with the physical body, or to the pure and simple expulsion of the Ego.
A pale example of this destruction of the “will” of a people occurred in Eastern Europe during the reign of the Bolsheviks when sixty million people were murdered and many more were sent to labor camps in Siberia.
Today we see a very subliminal form of this in the new anti-terrorism laws that give the state unprecedented powers over suspects.
The detention without trial of suspects at the military institute at Guantanamo Bay is an example, on a small scale, of the beginnings of the assault on human rights and civil liberties, which will spread across the world like wildfire through Fear.
From there, it is only a step to the complete domination of the human will and its subsequent subjugation to the powers that wish to destroy the Ego.
In 1780 Galvani began experiments leading to the discovery of electricity.
In 1845 Faraday concluded that all matter must contain magnetism and in 1932 the artificial division of the lithium nucleus by neutron bombardment led to the discovery of atomic energy.
The degeneration of the ethers had begun in our Post-Atlantean Era and will culminate in the Seventh Era of Earth Evolution.
Today we see the signs of preparation for the arrival of Ahriman.
We see the signs of his coming.
Materialism reached its zenith in the middle of the last century. The materialistic thoughts, feelings and will of human beings entering the world between death and rebirth then spread a thick fog of darkness over the spiritual world, creating a darkening in the world of the First Hierarchy, leading to a certain intensification of the fallen ethers in the Subphysical world, which resulted in a manifestation of the power of the Beast in Nazism, Bolshevism and the discovery of the power of the Atom.
This caused a sacrifice of Christ consciousness in the Astral world.
In the Rosicrucian mysteries the initiates have always known about the cross on which Christ is and will continue to be sacrificed in the Spiritual world.
If human beings do not open their eyes and acquire concrete occult knowledge as a counterbalance (counterforce) to evil, then humanity will be helpless and powerless in the face of the future incarnation of Ahriman and the physical manifestation through Ahriman of his master Sorat.
Already, in our 5th Cultural Era we are witnessing the incarnation of Ahriman, a worldwide web of electromagnetic currents is crisscrossing the surface of the earth.
Microwave towers and skyscrapers vibrating with electrical impulses are replacing the ancient pyramids and obelisks on the horizon of human cities.
Satellites have taken the place of the divine worship of the Stars that guided our ancestors on their journeys.
We seek to explore the planets (corpses of the past) rather than learn in a meditative way to enter into communion with the living spiritual counterparts of these corpses.
Vibration wave generators, lasers and nuclear medicine have taken the place of healing with the hands and heart.
Digital processors pump out digital formulas that drown out the harmony of the spheres.
The premature destruction of the physical envelope through drug addiction, the building of the animal nature through sports, vitamin and mineral supplements, steroid use and through sexual rituals, heavy metal music, television, etc.
The destruction of the earth’s physical envelope through air and soil pollution, cutting down of rain forests, unsustainable agricultural practices, plundering of the earth’s seas and minerals.
All this can be seen without the eye being focused on the spiritual. Everywhere the human being is surrounded by fallen ethers which have been allowed to overflow their respective domains.
Everywhere elemental beings enter humans from the realm of the spirits of nature to be enchanted and liberated according to the moral disposition of their host.
Everywhere the spiritual seeker can see the created ghosts (Asuras), phantoms/spectres (Ahriman) and demons (Lucifer) that have detached themselves from human beings as a result of prejudices (the forces of Fear in the life of Will), of the absence of love (forces of Hate in the life of Feeling), of lying and hypocrisy (forces of Doubt in the life of Thinking).
All of the above has its place in human evolution as the earth is destined to die and become a corpse, however human beings are not destined to follow the earth into the abyss, they are destined to rise in consciousness and spiritually, taking with them what they can redeem (as seed) from the Luciferian, Ahrimanian and Asuric elements to a future evolutionary stage when the earth is reborn again.
How can this task be accomplished?
The answer to this question lies in what we can do as individuals who come together in the name of Anthroposophy through the work of the four mystery streams renewed by Rudolf Steiner at the Christmas Conference in 1924.
Learning to recognize and overcome Doubt, Fear and Hate of the spirit in our own souls, replacing them with Faith, Love and Hope must become our standard and must begin in our own time if we hope to weaken the power of Ahriman and subsequently the Antichrist in future times.
Otherwise we will be incarnated in the sixth cultural epoch and realize that we are like the farmer who has not sown any seeds and complains that he has not reaped anything.
We will not have prevented the great calamities that will come, and the inevitable human suffering that will result.
The best counterforce is to work in knowledge. Knowledge (Michaelic intelligence), is the first step in recognizing and redeeming these forces.
Ahriman himself tells us in Goethe’s Faust:
“I congratulate you before we part
And see that you know the devil now.
We will be able to approach the renewed current of mystery which acts through the being of Anthroposophy to lead the human race to the four paths of knowledge:
1. Awakening spirituality in human beings – Rosicrucian current
2. To announce the Cosmic Christ – Grail stream
(https://www.facebook.com/juan.berthot/posts/10209586256505490)
3. Unmasking and redeeming evil – Manichean Current
4. Creating the conditions for the future – Templar Current
