Ahrimanic Deception

[06iiris]

Zarathustra and Ahriman

The great ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra first perceived the second face of Evil.

This great teacher gave to his followers and pupils the first description of Ahriman, who he called Angra Mainyu, and his dark plan to obscure mankind's vision of the other side of divine existence.

The Mission of Zarathustra was to help guard humanity's vulnerable position against the onslaught from the Ahrimanic Impulse.

The ancient Persians by nature did not yearn perpetually for the spiritual world. Zarathustra's aim was to impart to his people a culture directed to the physical world of sense, and the aiming at mastery of the material world through means dependent upon the efforts and labours of physical man.

The ancient Persian civilisation was less subject to the influence of the Dark God, Lucifer, but was victim of the Dark God, Ahriman.

This resulted in many of the Initiates at that time lapsing into the practice of a form of Black Magic. Ahrimanic influence caused many to misuse for the purposes of the physical-material world what was accessible to them from the spiritual world.

These misuses of the physical forces of Creation by the Black Initiates ultimately lead to the destruction of Atlantis. The forces of Black Magic had their origin in the temptations of that Being whom Zarathustra taught his people to know as Angra Mainyu (later called Ahriman).

The Evil Being opposed the God of Light who Zarathustra proclaimed was Ahura Mazdao, the "Great Aura."

It is important that these two Evil Principalities are understood to be separate and distinct.

The two personifications of Evil, the Dark Gods, Lucifer and Ahriman must be clearly distinguished from each other. Whilst Lucifer is a Being who detached himself from the spiritual Hosts of Heaven; Ahriman had already broken away before Lucifer's separation, and is the embodiment of very different powers.

We will not enter too deeply into the esoteric explanation of the destruction of Atlantis, for, it does not serve our purpose at this time. However, a summary can be given.

Man in the Atlantean epoch could manipulate the Forces of Air and Water, although this had been severely diminished due to the corruption of the faculty by Lucifer's influence in the Lemurian epoch.

In Atlantean times the seminal forces in plant and animal were still at man's command and could be extracted, if the correct method was employed, just as the latent forces within mineral coal, oil and uranium can be extracted today.

These forces are mysterious connected with the nature-forces in wind, weather, and the like. When they are extracted, and applied by man for purposes running counter to the Divine purposes, these nature-forces are called into action against him.

The Divine reaction against the misuse of the Forces of Air and Water resulted in the Powers of Nature being directed onto Atlantis causing the Great Flood, and the disappearance of the whole continent of Atlantis.

Even before that cataclysmic time, the Forces of Fire, and the power to ally them with certain mysterious Forces of the Earth had already been withdrawn from man by Divine command.

The Ahrimanic Impulse acted on the souls of the Atlanteans, and the Black Initiates eventually acquired a certain mastery over the forces of Fire and Earth, but with dire consequences. The search for the Power of Fire is intimately connected with the use of fire in ancient Persia, and the fire-cult religions.

Many forces connected with the Black Arts are associated with fire; these are forces that are of an entirely different nature, which gains an influence over Fire and Earth, with terrible and devastating results. Zarathustra was incarnated into this precarious time on Earth.

The descendants of the Atlanteans in ancient Persia had retained knowledge of the dark secrets of Creation. The practice of Black Magic in ancient Persia by the descendants of the Atlanteans was a great threat that needed to be opposed.

That is why the great prophet Zarathustra was incarnated on earth.

If he had not, the Black Arts would still have been effective and brought yet more retribution from the Divine Powers.

However, the teachings of Zarathustra revealed for the first time how Ahriman, as an opposing power, ensnares man and clouds his vision of the spiritual reality behind the World of Sense.

The wise teaching of Zarathustra and his followers influenced a large part of Post-Atlantean civilisation.

On the one hand, men were taught of the workings of the sublime God of Light, Ahura Mazdao, to whom they may turn, and, on the other, of the malefic power of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) and his hosts.

They were taught how Ahriman works upon man in subtle and infinitely diverse ways.

The Crucifixion of Christ on the Cross at Calvary was an event of staggering proportions that exoteric Christianity poorly comprehends.

To the most devout Christians the event is understood to be when Jesus Christ, Son of God, died for the world's sins, and thereby giving the world the Redemptive Power of Grace.

This is the readily understood interpretation.

Esoteric interpretation reveals the critical nature of the event. That the Mystery of Golgotha was a moment of supreme importance for the evolution of the world.

It was truly a Cosmic Event.

By incarnating as man, Christ lived as man and died, as would any mortal.

Following His death on the Cross, Christ passed into the realm, into which man enters after death, and where Ahriman's influence was even more complete than in the physical world between birth and death.

In the realm of existence between death and rebirth, were souls sojourn between incarnations, Ahriman's influences worked upon man with terrible, overwhelming power.

Ahriman's evil was enveloping men's souls in a dense nebula that, if allowed to continue, would have resulted in an utter darkness closing in on man.

The ancient Greeks correctly designated this parlous condition the "realm of Shades."

The consequence of this complete isolation would be the intensification of egoism between death and rebirth, causing man to be born into his new life as a gross and overweening egotist.

The esoteric interpretation of the Event of Golgotha is that at the moment when the Blood flowed from the wounds, Christ, among other momentous things, appeared in the "realm of the Shades," and cast Ahriman into fetters.

Although Ahriman's influence still remains, and is the true origin of all human materialistic thinking, men receiving into themselves the Christ Impulse released from the Cross at Calvary can paralyse his influence.

This is the true interpretation of the Crucifixion: Christ's death allowed men to receive into themselves the power emanating from the Mystery of Golgotha, which enables them to find their way once again into the Divine-Spiritual world.

The Ahriman Principality, as opposed to the Luciferic Principality, was the one that the faculty of human cognition was primarily directed. It was Ahriman, and not Lucifer, who ceaselessly presented himself to the human intellectual consciousness throughout history.

Ahriman was the great spiritual Being whose existence was divined by men, a Being of whom they had some knowledge through the teachings of Zarathustra.

The knowledge of Ahriman spread among the other peoples and cultures and into their world of ideas. Ahriman, together with his hosts, appears as a figure with the most diverse names among the civilised peoples.

As for example, "Mephistopheles" among the Hebrew people, an epithet later used by Goethe for his "great tempter" in Faust.

He appeared to the folk souls of Western Europe as a figure of dread, and although countless names were used to describe him, the figure of Ahriman became the Christian conception of the "Devil" in his various forms.

Ahrimanic Impulse

Although the  Luciferic Impulse has waned and sank deep into the soul of men, another impulse has been germinating in modern times: this is the Ahrimanic Impulse.

The spiritual impulse has become increasingly more powerful and will carry on increasing its influence in the affairs of men.

The Ahrimanic Being is different from the Being of Christ or of Lucifer: whereas these two Beings derive from the higher realms, Ahriman comes out of the depths, FROM THE BOWLS OF THIS EARTH ………… 

The Ahrimanic Influence has become very dominant in the present epoch, which is typified by confusion in human affairs that has arisen by the activity of the Ahrimanic powers.

The Ahrimanic Power is the polar opposite of the Luciferic Power. Lucifer is the power that boils the blood by rousing passions. It stirs up within the soul of man all fanatical, all falsely mystical forces, all that physiologically tends to bring the blood into disorder and so lift man above and outside himself.

Ahriman is the power that makes man dry, prosaic, philistine, that ossifies him and brings him to the superstition of Materialism.

Human nature is a battlefield for these two opposing forces, and the true purpose of Man is to somehow achieve a balance between the powers of Lucifer and Ahriman.

The Impulse that stands in the centre of these two poles, and helps present humanity to establish this equilibrium. A historical perspective may help in understanding this reality.

At the beginning of the third pre-Christian millennium, there was the incarnation of Lucifer into human form, just as at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha there was the Christ Incarnation.

In the very near future, there will be a Western incarnation of the Ahriman Being. Thus, the historical evolution of mankind during approximately 5000 years can be seen as the incarnation of Lucifer (c. 3000 BC), the Incarnation of Christ (c.30 AD), and the Ahrimanic incarnation (c.2000 AD).

The two poles of Evil are balanced around the fulcrum of Christ.

The two impulses, the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic, the two poles of consciousness, are continuously present in man.

The Luciferic spirit prevailed in the souls of men from very ancient times until the first centuries of our era. The Ahrimanic influence began its assault in the middle of the fifteenth century that precipitated the crises of consciousness in European man.

Its influence and power will grow until an actual incarnation of Ahriman takes place in the body of a human born in the West. The incarnation of Ahriman has been well anticipated by those who ceaselessly work to bring it to fruition in its fullest sense and effects, the Black Adepts in the Cult of Evil, as well as those who work to militate its terrible effects.

The Mephistophelean-Ahriman legend is well represented in ancient literature but its true nature is often obscured either out of ignorance or design.

People who out of poor understanding of the phenomenon merely confuse rather than explain; wicked and evil people who out of a thorough understanding of it, intentionally confuse and thereby confound proper understanding of the grave danger facing mankind.

Although the Old and New Testaments use the terms "Lucifer," "Satan" and the "Devil," interchangeably as Evil personified, in many of its passages, confusion between these different aspects of Evil prevails, especially since there is no full account given in any one place.

Scripture teaching on this important subject can only be established by combining a number of scattered statements from Genesis to Revelation, and reading them in the light of patristic and theological tradition.

Even the wise John the Divine at first described Evil as a single entity, the "dragon," at the beginning of the Apocalypse. However, the prophet in later verses separated this entity into its two contrasting aspects.

When the dragon is cast into the abyss it arises anew, separated into Two Beasts: the Beast that arises from the sea and the Beast that comes out of the dry land.

The two faces of Evil are represented in the Bible as the two entities that appear in the New Testament, "Diabolos" and "the Beast." 

Diabolos is the entity that comes out of the sea and tempts Christ by offering him dominion of the world.

"Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou will fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. 4:5-9).

The other names give to this spiritual entity that arises from the sea is Leviathan, the Devil and Lucifer. The Evil dominion this entity represents is called the Luciferic Principality.    

In The Revelation of John the Divine, the Mephistopheles-Ahriman is the other aspect of the dragon, the composite figure of Evil that is cast into the abyss but arises anew, and separated into two beasts: the beast that arises from the sea and the beast that comes out of the dry land.

In the Bible, Mephistopheles-Ahriman appears as the Beast described as the cold calculating Evil spirit that a rises from dry land who challenges Christ to turn stones into bread:

 "Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God" (Matt. 4:1-4).

The other names give to this entity rising from dry land is Behemoth, Satan, and Ahriman. The Evil dominion this entity represents is called the Ahrimanic Principality.

The Beast is the Evil spirit that the Bible often calls Satan and who was known to the Ancient Iranians as Angra Mainyu, the Evil Spirit or the Evil One of the Avestic or Zoroastrian religion.

The Evil being is the eternal foe of Ahura Mazda, the Good Spirit. His modern appellation is Ahriman who is verily the two-horned Beast of the Apocalypse.

The incarnation of Ahriman has been well anticipated by the Black Adepts in the Cult of Evil, who have worked ceaselessly for centuries to bring about conditions on Earth propitious for the incarnation of the Dark God, Ahriman, the two-horned Beast of the Apocalypse, in flesh and blood.

Momentous events such as this cast long shadows and much preparation is carried out long in advance. Just as the ground must be prepared for the seed to germinate and grow to produce a good harvest, then the evolution of mankind has been prepared by the Ahrimanic powers.

They have worked upon the souls of men in such a way that mankind will easily succumb to the blandishments of Ahriman when he appears in human form within West.

Such cultivation of the souls of men, although by very different ways, occurred when Lucifer appeared in human form in China, as when Christ appeared in human form in Asia Minor.

Gentle reader, Ahriman will appear very soon in human form and the only question is, how prepared he finds humanity.

The centuries-old seduction of mankind will then be tested for its efficacy. When the great Antichrist incarnates into human form, he will find out whether his stratagems have worked, and mankind in its entirety becomes his follower, or whether he finds a humanity that offers him resistance.

The sad truth of this reality is that the majority of humanity refuses to countenance such possibilities, and scoff and jeer at those who do believe in this happening.

The fact that people are blinded to the spiritual development involved in this event is a manifestation of the Ahrimanic influence in humanity. The rejection of the spirit world is just one of the means which the Ahrimanic powers use and which will give the incarnated Ahriman the greatest possible following.

The denial of the spirit realm, the denial of the possibility of spirit beings, and the utter rejection of the idea of spirits incarnating into human form is the most powerful Ahrimanic subterfuge.  

Ahriman is fated to alter human evolution by manipulating certain forces in creation and engendering their growth in the soul of men.

Ahriman influences humanity by certain forces, and conversely there are certain forces through which mankind can arm itself against being deceived and corrupted.

The most seductive entrapment is the illusory power of science. Ahriman is the prince of the mechanical sciences. He is the great architect of the mechanical illusion that deludes humanity into perceiving the universe is a mechanical contrivance.

Men of science imbued with this Ahrimanic inspired spirit deluded themselves that in their calculations and formulae they had found the ultimate truth. Wonderful and productive these theories are, some supported by subtle and skilful disputations; they are paraded by their adherents as evidence of man's final grasp of reality.

The flaunting of science is to the embarrassment of organised religion that secretly feels discredited by science's success. Today mankind gazes up to the heavens and sees nothing more that moving planets, fixed stars, exploding novae and streams of high-energy particles and electromagnetic radiation and so on.

He gazes at them all with the eyes of a dogmatist, analyses them with mathematics, and produces grand theories of increasing artifice in order to explain the sublime manifestation of Creation ...  mechanically.

The mechanised conception of the universe is the antithesis of the ancient world's imagining of the Cosmos. The people of antiquity knew that the forces, which he saw in the heavens, worked into his being as man, and because of this knowledge, he felt himself a part of the whole Cosmos.

This knowledge of the macrocosm, the universe, working in the microcosm, mankind, is contained in the hermetic formula, "As above, so below."

There is a fundamental difference in the psyche of the savant of antiquity, such as Plato, and that of the Renaissance genius, such as Galileo. The difference is due to a spirit that penetrates human understanding and consciousness and concentrates the intellect into considering the universe as nothing more than a great mechanism.

In short, there is a great difference in the perception of cosmos between the man of antiquity, and the man at the close of the Middle Ages.

The former perceived with the eyes of one whom understood himself to be a part of the seamless whole, the latter with the eyes of the mechanic that merely saw well-oiled moving parts.

The waking consciousness of modern man can readily understand the physical forces of Creation, which are easily apprehended by mathematical formulae.

In sleep, it is a very different matter. The unconscious depths which man "does not reach with his waking consciousness but which yet belong to his existence and in which he lives between going to sleep and waking, something quite different concerning the universe flows into his soul." 

Residing in the soul is knowledge unknown to the waking consciousness, but is present in the depths and moulds the soul; this knowledge is of the spirit, of the life of the soul, of the life of the Cosmos.

The waking consciousness is unaware of this faculty. It is also ignorant of the communion with the spirit, soul and life of the universe while he sleeps.

These things are in the soul and they live within it. It is this disharmony between what the soul experiences and what the waking consciousness acknowledges as its world-conception, which creates the discord felt by modern man.

The fruits of this mechanistic thinking are great and bountiful, it has heaped great benefits upon society, but it is does not provide an Absolute Truth.

It gives merely one aspect of the universe, one side from a certain perspective. Because of the apparent benefits garnered from this science, and the perceived naivety of antiquarian science, modern man arrogantly asserts that his science is "proper science."

The world views of antiquity, no matter what they imparted, were deemed the works of immature intellects, childish even, but no cause for serious study. Science has made great strides since these times, so great that it now provides absolutes not impressions. However, this is not the case.

Modern science is as little an absolute as was the Ptolemaic system: modern science, as was Ptolemaic science, is simply one aspect of the many.

In a purely spiritual perspective, modern science predicated upon mathematics does not furnish man with Absolute Truth about the universe, but with illusions.

These illusions are a prerequisite of the evolutionary process affecting humanity. Illusions are necessary because humanity goes through varied forms of instruction in its different stages of evolution.

In the present times, humanity needs these mechanical-world illusions about the universe, however, it must also realise that they are illusions: unfortunately, something it does not. In short, modern scientific knowledge is wonderfully utilitarian and materially productive, but it is none the less, illusion.    

Ahriman is the spirit of materialism and the great prophet of mechanical thinking. He greatly desires to impart this knowledge to humanity as a means of demonic instruction. He desires greatly to bring men mathematics, chemistry, physics, biology and so on, together with their wonderful effects.

He is also interested in making men believe that these sciences are Absolute Truths.

He does not wish mankind to know that they are only points of view of one argument, of one reality, of one perspective. This is of uttermost importance: Ahriman wants this deception to work.

He wants to "conceal from mankind that in modern intellectual, rationalistic science with its supplement of a superstitious empiricism, one is dealing with a great illusion, a deception."

The great deception is one of the master stratagems of Ahriman. The master strategist has foisted on humanity this materialistic worldview, underpinned by modern intellectual, rationalistic science, which ultimately veils the reality of the spiritual realms from humanity.

Ahriman desires to blind humanity to the reality of the higher worlds by ensnaring it in the heavy, dense veil of materialism.

Ahrimanic Evil is to cut-off humanity from its spiritual inheritance by immersing the souls of men in a potent superstition called science. Ahriman would be guaranteed a very receptive audience if this massive subterfuge succeeds in its aim. 

The spirit of Ahriman appeared to the fore in the seventeenth century when the first modern materialist, Thomas Hobbes, wrote these words.

"The universe that is the whole mass of things that are, is corporeal, that is to say body; and hath the dimensions of magnitude, namely length, breadth, and depth. Also every part of body, and hath the like dimensions. And, consequently, every part of the universe is body and that which is not body is no part of the universe. And because universe is all, that which is no part of it is nothing, and, consequently nowhere."

 

Hobbes also described theology and philosophies that made room for God as "incorporeal substance," and that they were self-contradictory, and nonsense.

Here the true nature of the Ahrimanic influence has found its voice and first true prophet. Hobbes also articulated a thoroughly materialistic moral and political philosophy founded on a basic view of human psychology that is predicated on the most powerful of motivations: the fear of death.

Death, argued Hobbes, is something that most of us will do more or less anything to avoid: a depressingly accurate assessment. Hobbes had an anxious personality that was evident to all whom met with him, but through this timorous soul, Ahriman found a trenchant and aggressive advocate.

Modern science is not false, but rather, it is merely a component of the whole. The task of humanity is not to reject it but to absorb an exact knowledge of all that arises from it.

The assimilation must be done in full awareness that what is received by such means are an illusory aspect, but an illusion necessary for our education as men at this stage of our evolution. This does not mean that science must be avoided to obviate against Ahrimanic influence.

On the contrary, mankind must get to know the nature of this impulse, for it provides an external illusion of the universe, which we need, for the future development of mankind. This knowledge of the physical world is to compliment knowledge of the spiritual worlds.

It is only by understanding the nature of the physical realm, and of the forces therein, in full knowledge of their illusory qualities, that humanity can arrive at reality.

This is one of the means whereby Ahriman attempts to ensnare mankind: to addict humanity to the drug of materialism: to trap it in the lie of the scientific superstition.

The man of modern times, in his own opinion knows everything so well. He has absolute confidence in his intellectual powers to solve all problems in the universe. He observes the material world, uses his intellect to establish the interconnections between its phenomena and believes that all its riddles are solved in this way.

What he never comprehends is that his investigations are simply gropings in a phantasmagoria. All the prejudices and limitations of materialism foster a false perception of reality and cause the capacity to perceive the spiritual to become coarsened and withered.

The increasingly deeper penetration into matter will result in man chaining a spiritual Being to his heels: Ahriman.

The increased immersion in materialism strengthens the Ahrimanic Principality.

The human being that has been parched by materialism will provide an auspicious environment for the Ahrimanic spirits to indwell. The ultimate result of this is that the Ahrimanic powers, like a second nature, have secured a foothold in man's being that will be increased in times to come.

In the future everyone will be born with a second Being by his side, a Being who whispers to him of the folly of those who confirm the reality of the spiritual world.

In this altered consciousness, the parasitic second Being, will urge him to think materialistic thoughts, but to think, not through his own being, but through the second Being who is his spiritual consort.

This manifests today, for instance, as neo-Darwinian theorists that ridicule Creationism, the Humanists that sneer at religion and the individual who professes Marxism and spits in the face of ancient morality.

Second Master Statagem

The second master stratagem of Ahriman is to create discord and confusion between different social groups in society. Ahriman strives to promote distrust, envy, and hatred between men and split them into mutually hostile interests.

Ahriman stirs up all the emotions that divide men into competing interests. Any impartial analysis of world affairs will confirm this fact of human disharmony.

Rationalists will argue that it arises out of human nature per se, yet they are unable to find in physical humanity the actual causes.

Ahrimanic powers work wherever discord arises between groups of men.

Adherents of the theory advocating elimination of private property promote its ideological exegesis, the wicked and evil theory called Marxism, as an exact science.

The ideology has been widely spread throughout the world to a breathtaking degree, in all classes and in all nations. Marxist literature contains all the methods of our present-day science, and triumphantly proclaims itself the science of the human condition.

The promoters of this great lie produce complex theories in support of this assertion, in which the central argument is that everything has been strictly proved. So strictly proved, that many people, of whom one would never have supposed it, have fallen victim to the great lie of Marxism.

Initially, the specious arguments of Marx were vehemently rejected by university science. Nevertheless, their influence has worked inexorably and insidiously on the sensibilities of the intelligentsia that now it is promoted in the universities as the "science of humanity" it most definitely is not. It is a complex explanation why this is the case, but one of the reasons is that Marxism appeared to offer solutions that accorded excellently from the viewpoint of modern science.

Yet, if a scientific prophet of the bourgeoisie were to undertake a rationalist's approach to justify its position, the exact opposite of Marxism can be proved to the same satisfaction.

Just as the ideological character of morality, ethics and the theory of surplus value and materialistic historical research can be proved from the Marxist standpoint, so is it possible to prove their exact opposite using the same strict methods.

A bourgeois-Marx would counter-argue the proletariat-Marx using the very same logic. How can this be true?

The reason for such contradictions is that:

"present human thinking, the present intellect, lies in a stratum of being where it does not reach down to realities. One can therefore prove something quite strictly, and prove its opposite. It is possible today to prove spiritualism on the one hand and materialism on the other. And people may fight against each other from equally good standpoints because present-day intellectualism is in an upper layer of reality and does not go down into the depths of being."

This is the reality behind personal opinion and prejudice: a superficial understanding of realities. A person may join an ideologically motivated party, accept its tenets wholeheartedly, and vehemently attack others with opposing views with the conviction that truth is on his side.

This polarises opinion and the separation of peoples, resulting in chaos and confusion over mankind that will gradually increase to alarming proportions unless men see through it.

Ahriman exploits this confusion to create the most propitious as possible condition for the incarnation he has planned for himself.

The promotion of the shallow rationalistic thinking that produces wholly contrary arguments that are fully supported by faultless logic. Rudolf Steiner described it thus:

"Ahriman makes use of this confusion in order to prepare the triumph of his incarnation and to drive men with increasing force into what they find so difficult to realise — namely, that by intellectual or modern scientific reasoning today, one can prove anything and equally well prove its opposite. The point is for us to recognise that everything can be proved and for that reason to examine the proofs put forward in science today."

The primacy of the "fact" or intellectual proofs above all other considerations occurs in natural science, yet this is not the case in other spheres.

The Ahrimanic Deception relies heavily on this condition, and seeks to drive men even deeper into this mechanistic worldview, although it is an intrinsically shallow view of creation.

One of the greatest weapons used by Ahriman to promote discord is the old conditions of heredity, or race differences. Ahrimanic powers endeavour to increase disharmony between races by exploiting the old circumstances of heredity of family, tribe, and race.

Slogans such as "Freedom for every nation, even the smallest . . ." and "Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity" are lofty and noble sentiments, but are a cruel fallacy. None is free: none are equal; and mankind is forever at war.

Fine-sounding words are used by the powers hostile to man in order to cause crises, chaos and confusion and bring about the things that Ahriman wishes to attain for his near-future incarnation.

The Ahrimanic Deception works its insidious way into all relations between nations and peoples.

It stirs up hatreds between nations and directs the forces of chaos to ends that suit its purpose. Mankind is easily deceived. It refuses to look for the reality underlying Creation in which Truth not opinion is found.

The Ahrimanic Deception has been subtly prepared.

Ever since the Reformation and the Renaissance, the economist has been emerging in modern civilisation as the representative of the ruling elite. This obviously was not so in the past.

The ruling elite of antiquity were the initiates of the Schools of Mystery, they were the priest-kings such as the Egyptian Pharaohs, the Babylonian rulers, the Asiatic rulers: in short, they were all High Initiates.

Then came the priest-type ruler that existed up until the time of the Reformation and the Renaissance. Since this time the economist has gained the ascendancy over the priest-type ruler and is now in command.

Modern rulers are in the thrall of the economists and now merely their subordinates. All laws and systems of justice are a consequent of what economically oriented men have thought. The economics of the Enlightenment was replaced in the nineteenth century by the vast organisation of finance, which transcends all other relationships.

A partial truth is more pernicious than a total error. The latter are easily discerned as false, whereas half-truths and quarter-truths cause confusion and mislead people. Half-truths are assimilated into the consciousness of people and cause great confusion.

For instance, the half-truth of science, the one-sidedness of the Galileo-Newtonian world-conception, is wholehearted accepted by people who are too apathetic to query it. In contrast to this are those who conceive reality through the Gospel: this also is a half-truth!

Although it is a significant half-truth, nonetheless it is a half-truth. These people consider it not just right, but ordained by God, to purview the world solely through the Gospel. This is a gross error indeed.

It is as one-sided to view the world solely through the Gospel and reject any other search into true reality, as it is to view the world from the perspective of the Galileo-Newtonian world-conception.

The Gospel was given to those who lived in the first centuries of Christianity for very specific reasons. To believe that today the Gospel can communicate the whole of Christianity is simply a half-truth, which confuses people and thereby "furnishes Ahriman with the best means of attaining the goal and the triumph of his incarnation."

The fundamentalist Christian is just as bad as the Darwinian scientists in their ignorance and arrogance.

How numerous are those who think they are speaking out of Christian humility, but in reality out of grim arrogance, when they say. "We need no other instruction than that that given in the Gospels, for they provide everything that men need of the eternal!"

By such apparently humble words is a frightful arrogance expressed: and Ahriman can use this apparent humility to his great advantage. It should be remembered that the classical world at the time of the Gospels was immersed in the Luciferic Impulse that imbued humanity with a particular consciousness.

The early Christians could understand the Gospel by a certain Luciferic Gnosis. The ancient grasp of the Gospel is not possible today. A corollary of this is that a proper understanding of the Christ can not be gained by reliance merely on the Gospel: especially in the form in which it has been handed down.

A true understanding of Christ will not be found in the disparate faiths and confessions existing today. Acceptance of the Gospel is not a path to Christ; it is a path away from Christ. Especially as it is taught today by preaches unaware of the real content of the Gospel.

Contemporary creeds and confessions are becoming increasingly separated from the Christ Impulse. The person journeying along the path to ultimate truth by way of a wholly Gospel perspective arrives at a sort of Christ-conception, but it is not a reality of the Christ.

The Gospel leads one to a hallucination of the Christ, admittedly an inner picture or vision, but still only a semblance of the truth.  

The increasing distance from the events described in the Gospel has aroused a deep scepticism within those who are professed believers and expounders of the Gospel.

A gross materialism has pervaded the souls of men since the time of the Renaissance, which has also infected modern theology.

When pondering the Gospel these materialistic theologians conclude that however fantastical events are recorded therein, there is a simple plausible logical explanation. Take the case of Paul's conversion by a vision on the road to Damascus.

These theologians, who are supposed to confirm Christianity but who really undermine it, interpreted this miraculous event as a matter of nervous exhaustion. In their rational opinion, Paul was simply ill, suffering from nerves, which then induced in him a vision before Damascus.

The Gospel itself gives only hallucinations, visions, but not to realities. Moreover, the Gospel does not give us the real Christ, but only a hallucination of  Christ. The fundamentalist Christian, "the very people who swear by the Gospel alone and reject every kind of real spiritual knowledge, form the beginning of a flock for Ahriman when he appears in human shape in modern civilisation."

Ahriman will find willing servants and misguided adherents to his cause from this company of myopic fundamentalists who reject the concrete knowledge brought by spiritual endeavour. The Ahrimanic cohorts are already forming.

Hostile powers are working upon humanity and men are their poor misguided victims. In short, secular science by itself leads to illusion, and the Gospel by itself leads to hallucination, while the middle way between illusion and hallucination is found only by grasping reality through the Spirit.

If one examines the four separate Gospels with detachment one would conclude that their real content is at variance with each other. This is so for a very definite reason.

The outward contrariness of the Gospels is a subtle way to avoid the great harm engendered by partiality. The inclination to favour one version of the Christ mystery, and thereby incline the reader to all sorts of hallucinations regarding Christ, is a great flaw in the human psyche.

By favouring one Gospel above all others is the great error of sects and creeds that plough the single furrow to enlightenment. Great wisdom lies in the fact that there are Four Gospels that have come down to the civilised world.

By presenting people with Four Gospels containing alternate versions of the Christ Mystery, obviates against people going too far in the direction of the one, but have the others as counterbalances.

One Gospel is read aloud on one Sunday and another on another Sunday and so one counterbalances the illusory power of the other. A great subtly protects men from falling into partisanship. The stratagem stops men from being trapped in one stream, which will take possession of him, as in the case of so many members of sects, if one Gospel alone influences him.

The pernicious influences sects, creeds, and cults have over their members is clear evidence how this spiritual myopia leads at last to hallucination. The error mankind must avoid if it is to survive the Ahrimanic assault.

It is essential that subjective inclination, and much of what is considered pious or clever, be abandoned. Mankind must above all seek universality and the courage to look at things from all sides.

From the Mystery of the Christ Impulse and from the best of the Luciferic influence, and from the standpoint of the Ahrimanic inspired rationalist.

 
Christ's Relationship to Lucifer and Ahriman

Christ is the most sublime human principle ever to unfold on Earth.

He is the representation of the highest human principle in the evolution of the Earth, which in the course of this evolution lived three years in the body of Jesus of Nazareth.

A "magnificent degree of spiritual refinement, which descended with the Christ from cosmic and spiritual heights into this body in its thirtieth year."

Lucifer is the fallen angel cast down from heaven because of his rebellion against God. Lucifer is a winged angelic being, but his wings are broken, and who for this reason has fallen into the abyss. "When this being comes into proximity with the Christ being, he feels something that may be expressed in the words: "I cannot bear the radiation of such purity upon me"."

In contrast to this fallen celestial being is the subterranean entity, which, working in shackles, is ever busy undermining the earthly realm.

The wings of Lucifer resemble those of an eagle, whereas the figure in the abyss has bat-like wings: this figure is Ahriman.

As with Lucifer, so too with Ahriman: Christ has infinite compassion for this being. Just as Lucifer cannot bear this compassion, Ahriman too cannot endure it, and he writhes with pain from what exudes from the Christ Impulse.

The error of mankind concerning the spiritual battle taking place is its ignorance of the relationship between Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman; and how the three spiritual forces of Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman are related in this physical world.

Humanity has been blinded to the exact relations between these three spiritual impulses. There are three great confusions in this regard.

• First, there is the confusion over the exact nature of Evil, that it has a twofold countenance not one, which are personified by the Dark Gods,  Lucifer and Ahriman
• Second, there is still confusion over the purpose of the Incarnation on Earth as the result of the Mystery of Golgotha
• Third, is the belief that because Lucifer and Ahriman are Evil, mankind must shun all contact with them. However, it is crucial to the unfolding of Creation to understand that such a reaction will not produce a better existence. This may shock the devout Christian, but it is a fact of Creation, that if the divine-spiritual forces also rejected Lucifer and Ahriman the world could not exist. A metaphor may help understanding this reality. The human predicament is not best served by escapism. A proper relationship to Lucifer and Ahriman cannot be achieved by running away from them: "Rather, everything that man has to strive for as a result of the Christ Impulse must be seen as similar to the equipoise of a pendulum. In the centre, the pendulum is in perfect balance, but it must oscillate to one side or the other. The same applies to man's development here on earth. Man must oscillate to the one side according to the Luciferic principle and to the other according to the principle of Ahriman, but he must maintain his equilibrium through the cultivation of Paul's declaration, "Not I, but Christ in me"."

 

 

Proper understanding of the quintessential activity of Christ, one must perforce understand that he is a reality, a force, and an active agent in the evolution of mankind.

The great secret of the Mystery of Golgotha.

The Christ Impulse wove itself into the evolution of mankind and the Earth itself when the blood of Jesus Christ was spilled on to the Earth from the Cross at Calvary.

Although this esoteric secret has been poorly understood by Christians it is a reality, which has been influencing human development on Earth.

This is the reality of the Incarnation of Christ: that the Christ Impulse come from spiritual heights and has ever since influenced man's development on earth through the Mystery of Golgotha.

Two historic events illustrate the active influence of the reality of Christ-on-Earth. These two events greatly influenced the development of Western Europe.

If they had not occurred all conditions and relationships would have become different, and the future of the world would have been wholly different. They are:

• the adoption of Christianity as the state religion by Imperial Rome.
• the expulsion of the English from northern France under the inspired leadership of the young peasant girl, Jeanne d'Arc.

The decision by Constantine the Great (c. AD 285–337), son of Constantius Chlorus, to adopt the Christian religion as his personal, and his empire's religion, did not arise by accident.

The Christ Impulse released from the Cross at Calvary subtly influenced events. Neither military skill nor the intellectual prowess available to people in those days won this battle for Constantine. It was won for him by the interpolation of Christ.

Constantine's father died in York in 306 and he was acclaimed by the troops there as joint emperor in his father's place. A few years later, Maxentius, son of Eastern Roman emperor Maximinus Daia, the joint emperor in Rome (whose sister had married Constantine), challenged his authority and mobilised his armies to invade Gaul.

It is fact of history that Constantine had to defeated Maxentius in 312 and thereby introduce Christianity externally into the mainstream of Western Civilisation. It was imperative that Constantine had to fight this important battle against Maxentius so that he could establish Christianity in his Western Empire as the official religion.

The map of Europe and subsequent history would have been entirely different if this battle had not taken place.

Put differently. there would have been no Western Christian Civilisation.

As the two armies confronted each other, the two opposing commanders pondered strategy.

Maxentius consulted the so-called Sibylline Books, the prophetic oracles of Rome, which guided him into leading his army out of the assured safety of Rome's walls into the open field, in order to confront Constantine's army.

As Maxentius prepared to leave the safety of the city, Constantine had a dream before the battle in which he was told, "If you approach Maxentius under the banner of the Mystery of Golgotha you will reach a great objective!"

As the two armies approached each other, Constantine carried the symbol of the Mystery of Golgotha, the Cross.

As battle commenced, he had seen a vision of the Cross of Jesus Christ superimposed upon the sun, accompanied by the words: "In this sign, conquer."

Although his army was three-fourths smaller than that of Maxentius, he and his army were enthused by the power emanating from the Mystery of Golgotha, and won a crushing victory outside the city walls of Rome.

Gentle reader. the point to understand is this: the Christ Impulse was actively present and, just as it misguided Maxentius into leaving the safety of Rome, it positively guided Constantine through his dream to bring about what had to happen.

Consequently, by the Edict of Milan in 313 Constantine formally recognised Christianity as one of the religions legally permitted within the Roman Empire.

The other historic phenomenon that shaped modern Europe to a high degree is the struggle between France and England. The victory of France over England in the 15th century was a crucial event that was required to happen if future realities were to occur according to Divine Will.

The instrument of this portentous change was the young peasant girl called Jeanne d'Arc, or Joan of Arc.

A femme fragile who was the wrong age, class, and gender to engage in warfare, yet her "heavenly voices" instructed her to expel the occupying English from northern France and secure the coronation of Charles VII of France.

This occurred in such a manner because the Christ Impulse seeks to work itself into the subconscious of the individual soul, and its effects have increased up to the present time, when it is increasingly becoming a conscious force.

The history of the evolution of the Western spirit is littered with the souls of people that become imbued with the Christ Impulse, and are then inspired to do extraordinary deeds. This can be achieved by active participation by the individual, who undergoes an initiation process, or it can happen by a natural initiation.

This is when the Christ Impulse enters the soul without the active, conscious knowledge of the individual. This is what took place when the Christ Impulse worked itself into the soul of the simple country girl, The Maid of Orleans.

It was this waif of a girl that inspired the French army to victory over the English. Just as was the case at Rome in 312, so too in France in the 15th century: neither human mind nor the talents of military leaders were decisive factors in changing the map of Europe.

It was the sublime influence of the Christ Impulse working itself into the subconscious of the Maid of Orleans and inspiring her to radiate its presence throughout history. The spiritual force acted so completely through the Maid of Orleans that she could write to the commanders of the English forces besieging Orleans on March 1429 with utter conviction:

"King of England, and you Duke of Bedford ... give up to the Maid sent here by the King of Heaven the key of all the noble cities of France you have taken and ravaged .... I have come here ... to drive you man for man from France."

What should be understood from this is that European history has been guided by the Christ Impulse since the Mystery of Golgotha. Other parts of the world have not experienced this impulse to such a degree.

Asia, for instance, has retained a worldview that is not yet fully receptive to the Christ Impulse. The preoccupation of some with the oriental religions has blinded many to this verity. Europeans have been seduced by the exotica of the Asiatic religions, causing them to assert that these are somehow more profound than Christianity.

Although these religions offer a more exotic perspective of Creation, their religious perception is focused on to the time preceding the appearance of the Christ Impulse.

The condition of the religious perception of these faiths is preserved as it was in the days in which they were born into Creation. It is a characteristic of the Luciferic impulse to impede Evolution.

Something that remains behind in the evolutionary process can be construe to have absorbed something Luciferic. The atrophy of the Asian religious is evidence that they are carriers of a Luciferic element.

Insightful and impartial study of the religious development of Asia will elicit a compelling truth: it contains much of what mankind as a whole once possessed but was later forced to abandon.

Even the Russian Orthodox Church has atrophied and refused to develop, remaining at an earlier stage of Christian development, and thereby keeping something of the Luciferic element.

Briefly, a Luciferic remnant can be discerned in the East, which a wise guiding force left behind for the critical evolution of mankind in general.

The task of modern Western culture is to purge the Luciferic remnants from its religious impulse, but also we must elevate them in such a way that the Christ Impulse can enter and redeem them. The great mystery of Creation, which is contained, in the religious tenets of Manichaean Christianity.

That is the state in the East, now we will look at the West, and especially to American culture. Here a very different quality prevails. The main characteristic of American culture is to explain everything from external appearance. This perspective yields wonderful benefits, but it cannot provide the answers to all questions.

The spirit abroad in North America is one that thirsts for everything and anything tangible, that can quantified, that can be proved, especially by statistics.

In this fashion, an "exact science of the soul" can be given founded on "scientific data"; collected by savants that desire to quantify the spiritual conversion of people who had once led an external existence. The findings are then compiled in books called "soul science."

The innate desire for something concrete, something tangible has moved these savants to prodigious efforts of investigation and exegesis. All other experiences are unsound, or as they claim, resting on subjective notions.

This is an example of the externalisation of the innermost phenomena of spiritual evolution, a shallow, superficial response to the profoundest of mysteries. This gross Materialism pervades all aspects of American culture.

The ascendancy of matter over the spirit in the culture of the West is palpable evidence of the influence of the Ahrimanic principle in the souls of western mankind.

In the East mankind is confronted by the Luciferic Principle and in the West mankind is confronted by the Ahrimanic Principle.

The task of modern humanity is to find the equilibrate relationship between Lucifer and Ahriman.

This is the profound truth in the evolutionary process allotted to mankind. The equilibrate relationship must be brought about by the mediating influence of the Christ Impulse:

"Only then will it be recognised how the Christ Impulse was meant to influence evolution on earth, when the Christ is not simply brought to pre-eminence, but is known in the proper way as the exemplary force in balance with Lucifer and Ahriman."

Unfortunately, this understanding is lacking in most treatments of the problem of evil and the ultimate purpose of evolution. The consciousness of mankind was not ready for this compassionate treatment of evil in the first two millennia of Christ.

Evil was perceived as the dire enemy of Christ and creation and Christians were taught to flee from its influence. That is why in the literature and arts of the West, Christ was invariably depicted as the wrathful vanquisher of Satan.

For instance, Michelangelo's painting The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Christ depicted in this superlative painting is one familiar to the Christians of that time.

It is a triumphant Christ who uses His very power to direct the good people to heaven and the wicked to Hell. It will appal fundamentalist Christians today to read this, but this figure is inappropriate, it is not the genuine Christ, but rather as a Christ having Luciferic qualities.

This is because Michelangelo was not yet capable of painting the genuine Christ because evolution of humanity had not yet advanced to such a point when this could be done.

Humanity must understand that now its attention cannot focus on Christ alone, but must apprehend the threefold configuration: Christ, Lucifer, and Ahriman.

 

This is the great mystery of the immediate future: unveiling of the full content of the mystery -Christ in relation to Lucifer and Ahriman.

The gist of this mystery is that Lucifer is not destroyed by the power of Christ, but is plunged down by his own power because he is unable to bear the radiance of the Christ. Similarly, Ahriman is not crushed by any hatred from Christ, but because he too feels, he cannot endure the forces emanating from Christ.

Between these cowed figures, towers the magnificent figure of Christ, who is carrying the Parzival Principle into the new age: "who, not through His power but through His very Being, induces others to overcome themselves, rather than being overcome by Him."

The Deed of Christ

It is a fact of creation that mankind has attained the present stage of evolution because of the activity of higher spiritual Beings in the cosmos that have also been at work in earth-existence.

These Beings are variously described as the "Thrones" the "Spirits of Wisdom," the "Spirits of Movement," the "Spirits of Form," the "Spirits of Personality," and so forth.

These spirit beings are the great builders and architects of existence who have guided the human race by subtle means to its present stage.

Other Spirits and Beings oppose these great teachers, the progressive Powers of evolution. These opponents operated at various stages of human evolution and attempted to hinder the onward progress of creation.

These opponents of creation are often simply called the powers Evil.

The Luciferic Beings were the first principality of evil to intervene in man's evolution, many centuries before the coming of Christ, in what is called in the Secret Doctrine, the Lemurian epoch.

The influence of the Luciferian spirits declined, only to be replaced by the second principality of evil, the Spirit of Ahriman.

The ascendancy of Ahriman occurred in what is called in the Secret Doctrine the Atlantean epoch.

The Ahrimanic influence was known to the medieval mind as the powers of Satan.The Evil that Goethe described in Faust, personified by the character called by the mystic-poet, "Mephistopheles."

These powers are different from the Luciferic Principality: Ahriman is not the same power as Lucifer. But together thet both represent the Two Faces of Evil.