Who is Lucifer and who is Ahriman?
Firstly, they are actual spiritual beings who have influenced humanity throughout history and, importantly, in daily life. In yours and mine. No amount of spiritual development or even just ignoring them will make them go away.
Even in spiritual practice, their impulses are there, and walking the line in balance between them is pretty hard. But possible. Always possible.
So what are they called? Well, i’ll preface this by saying that these are old, meaningful names, you might have seen them before, but the words are used here are probably not referring to what you are thinking of. And also; these could be called literally anything, as long as the speaker and the listener understand, it could be anything. Words represent cosmic forces, but they are not the cosmic forces themselves. These just happen to be the ones people use.
The cold, materialistic being is called Ahriman, and the escapist over-spiritual one is called Lucifer. Their impulses are often called the Ahrimanic and Luciferic impulses respectively.
ALSO! Don’t take this as a dogmatic word-for-word thing by the way, these are descriptions of impulses you probably have seen and no doubt will see in life, i’m trying to describe them as best as i can, but don’t let the specific wording of this influence the way you think about them, it’s often not as simple as “okay so this looks materialistic so it’s ahrimanic and i should stay away”, follow your instinct rather than definitions which are too general to be applicable in every case. Often both of these impulses, in their own little ways, present in ways that you don’t immmediately notice, being what they are, they will catch you off guard.
To some degree, both of them are "right"; yes the spiritual heights are the heights, and yes the material world exists, but becoming unhealthily obsessed with either is, as it says on the tin, unhealthy. Their impulses are both needed. Ahriman and Lucifer can be conceptualised as a line, they are both polar opposites of one-another. But the actual concept is a triangle, where we want to be is in the middle, in conscious balance of both, farthest away from both, but not rejecting either; this would usually be called the christ impulse.
But i do understand that many people today (and in many cases rightfully so) can be uncomfortable with christian themes, so it's important to note that again, these things could be called anything, their nature doesn't really care what noises we decide to make when we talk about them. Generally in anthroposophy when ideas of christ are brought up, just know that they are probably not what you would usually be thinking of when someone starts talking about christ all of a sudden. But that's a whole different rabbit hole.
Below is a little explainer of both forces, and a link to a more detailed article on them in, also on the Epoch.
Who is Ahriman?
Ahriman is the force that moves us towards coldness; scientism, materialism, dead logic, systems, cynicism, nihilism, the over-systemisation of life, doomscrolling, control. How can anyone make some of those things look appealing? It’s different for every person, but look around the world today, Ahriman obviously knows.
Q. G. Wingfield
Who is Lucifer?
Lucifer is the force that moves us towards “light”; spiritual pride, fantasy, exaltation, escapism, pleasure without any discipline, illusion. Stereotypical cult-leader energy.
Q. G. Wingfield
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