2. Goethe's Standard of the Soul, as Illustrated in Faust

Let us imagine that instead of one Mephistopheles, a Luciferic and an Ahrimanic spirit oppose the “Lord” in the fight for Faust. An Ahrimanic spirit must feel unrest before a “corpse,” for Ahriman is the spirit of illusion. If we go to the sources of illusion we find them to be connected with the mortal, material element working in human life. The forces of knowledge, of cognition, which become active to the degree in which the impulses appear in them which finally bring about death, underlie the Ahrimanic illusion. The impulses of Will and of reeling work in opposition to these forces. They are connected with budding, growing life; they are most powerful in childhood and youth. The more a man preserves the impulses of youth, the more vitally do these forces emerge in his old age. In these forces lie the Luciferic temptation. Lucifer can say: “I love the cheeks where ruddy blood is leaping”; Ahriman cannot “close his house” to a corpse. And the “Lord” can say to Ahriman: