IX. World-Thoughts in Michael, and World-Thoughts in Ahriman

With Ahriman it is very different. This being has long since detached himself from the evolutionary stream to which those divine spiritual powers belong, of whom we are speaking. Already, in a remote past, he had set himself up beside them as an independent cosmic power. And now, at the present time, he stands spatially in the same world to which Man belongs, but enters into no combination of forces with the beings who belong by rights to this world. Only, when the intellectual force becomes detached from the divine spiritual beings and passes over to the world of Man, Ahriman finds such an affinity to this intellectual force, that he is able, through it, to unite himself after his own fashion with mankind. For what Man receives at the present time as a gift from the Cosmos, Ahriman united with himself long ago, in remote ages. Ahriman, were he to succeed in his intentions, would make the intellect that mankind has received similar to his own.