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.

Who is Lucifer and what does he do?

Lucifer is the force that moves us towards “light”; spiritual pride, fantasy, exaltation, escapism, pleasure without any discipline, illusion. Stereotypical cult-leader energy. 

Most of the time today, if someone has managed to notice and rid themselves (mostly) of the influence of Ahriman, oftentimes they can go straight to Lucifer. This is the classic stereotype of “sold everything to go live in a temple” or even in worse cases withdrawing from outer social life entirely to focus on inner development 24/7. This usually happens because, aided by the luciferic impulse, people realise how messed up the world is, and instead of trying to help or even taking small steps to reduce its hold, they decide to completely reject the world (which requires gigantic inflated self-importance), and to some degree, sometimes, reality.

Luciferic impulses are also alot harder to notice, not always immediately clear, both in others and in yourself.

I should hope i already made this clear before but i’ll say it again; These concepts are probably not the first things that come to mind; Lucifer is not a cartoon devil. Lucifer and Ahriman are not demons or whatever in the Christian fundamentalist sense. They are firstly very hard to explain and secondly not as straightforward as what you see on TV. Through just knowing what they are, next time you see them, you’ll know what they are. 

Lucifer says “I AM EVERYTHING!”, Ahriman says “You are nothing”,  and the human (should) say “I Am”. Your freedom, your “I”, is always there, and can easily outshine those who would want to bring it down. Both Ahriman and Lucifer want something; for the human “I” to be extinguished, for us to be robbed of our freedom.

You feel Lucifer when you want to float away.

You feel Ahriman when you want to shut down.

You know you’re on the human path when you’re fully here, fully thinking, fully feeling, and moving forward anyway.

Here’s something important though; neither Lucifer nor Ahriman are “bad” or “evil”, they are actually needed, required; get rid of the spiritual and humans would be uninspired meat-machines, get rid of the material and we’re all spirits floating around. Without one, we would be naturally unfree. Their impulses test the human “I”, basically, so we can be free. Freedom is good, but it is also dangerous. If it wasn’t dangerous, it wouldn’t be freedom!

So our job here, the point of anthroposophy (basically) is this; to walk the line between Lucifer’s fantasy and Ahriman’s control, bringing spirit into matter, becoming human.

(and yes, becoming human. we are not finished. we still need a bit more time in the oven. or something like that. in this incarnation, and in the next, and so on, we are becoming human. also “bringing spirit into matter” basically means taking your inner life, your ideals, your soul, your individuality, and expressing it into the outer world.)

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