The Battlefield of Human Souls: Lucifer, Ahriman, and Christ

GA 266II — 19 February 1911, Strasburg

Esoteric Lesson

If the leaders of today's esoteric Rosicrucian movement were asked why people today willingly devote themselves to the esoteric life and whether it would not be better to say: If a divine spiritual will wants to let me enter higher worlds, then it will do so of its own accord, so I will wait — these leaders would have to answer: You are forgetting that as a human being on earth you are placed on a battlefield, namely in the battle between the good spiritual powers and Ahriman and Lucifer. Both are striving to gather soldiers for their armies in the souls of human beings.

Lucifer, what does he want to make of human beings? Viewed one-sidedly, he has a lofty goal.

We know that the previous embodiment of our Earth was the old Moon, the cosmos of wisdom, that it was completely permeated and imbued with wisdom. But there was one force that is now incorporated into the Earth that was missing from it: love. And so Lucifer is also completely permeated with wisdom, but he does not know love at all. He has devoted himself entirely to wisdom, he has become intoxicated with it, and therefore he wants to fill all beings, the children of the earth, with wisdom.

And therein lies the great temptation for human beings time and again. Lucifer, whose powers live within us, says something like this: You will see into all circumstances, you will know everything, everything will be clear to you if you take me completely into yourself. He wants to give people wisdom without love; it leads to selfish knowledge. Lucifer still believes that he will win people over to become soldiers in his armies, and he is working hard to achieve this.

Lucifer is present in all knowledge and recognition, in all perception. There is only one thing he cannot touch us with, namely when we are completely devoted to our meditation in wisdom, without any external impressions, then we escape Lucifer.

And Ahriman, what does Ahriman want? He wants to give power to human beings. Ahriman is the spirit that fell earlier. On the old sun, the archangels were human beings, but very different from us today. At that time, thoughts were immediately put into action. The people of that time were powerful beings. Thoughts became reality immediately. Wisdom was not yet as it was on the old moon, but power alone, without wisdom, leads to black magic, to darkness.

We defeat Ahriman through our attitude: through devotion to the world spirit, to be only his instrument, to let him work only in us. If we meditate with this attitude, we can defeat Ahriman.

We defeat Lucifer by filling our ego completely with the content of our meditation. Lucifer cannot enter the ego, only the astral body.

The Christ impulse is love.

Love without wisdom would be very bad. An example of this is told of a mother who loved her daughter idolatrously, could not refuse her anything, could not deny her anything.

As a result of this misguided upbringing, the daughter became a famous poisoner in the early 19th century. This same individuality of the daughter is now incarnated again as a black magician. She was reincarnated so quickly because such beings are rejected by the spiritual world.

Lucifer is redeemed by Christ.

People who accept Lucifer on Jupiter will then be powerful beings; but it will be like burning these egos in wisdom without love.

On Venus, it will then be black magic, and the state will be like spiritual drowning. In order for pure love to shine on Venus, people must already be willing to embrace esotericism.