Leaps of Consciousness

Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) was a mystic who founded Biodynamic farming, Steiner (Waldorf) Schools and Anthroposophy.

He lectured on Lucifer and Ahriman in November 1919 and on the Ahrimanic deception in Zurich on 27th October 1919.

"Briefly, our consciousness has evolved over time. Lucifer incarnated in the third millennium BCE, from which flowed not only the wisdom of paganism but also the intellectual consciousness we enjoy today. Ahriman is shown to be approaching humanity through phenomena such as materialism, nationalism, and literalism in preparation for his incarnation in the millennium now opening. It must not be thought, however, that these two powers work apart: on the contrary, they work more and more together. Our task is to hold them in balance, continually permeating the one with the other."

“Lucifer and Ahriman must be regarded as two scales of a balance, and it is we who must hold the beam in equipoise. How can we train ourselves to do this? By permeating what takes Ahrimanic form within us with a strongly Luciferic element.”

"Doing this requires a new form of conscious spirituality.”

War

"If we inquire: Who stirs up nations against each other? Who raises the questions that are directing humanity today?—the answer is: the Ahrimanic deception which plays into human life."

Science

"Ahriman has the greatest possible interest in instructing men in mathematics, but not in instructing them that mathematical-mechanistic concepts of the universe are merely illusions. He is intensely interested in bringing men chemistry, physics, biology and so on, as they are presented today in all their remarkable effects, but he is interested in making men believe that these are absolute truths, not that they are only points of view, like photographs from one side."

"If you photograph a tree from one side, it can be a correct photograph, yet it does not give a picture of the whole tree. If you photograph it from four sides, you can in any case get an idea of it. 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—that men should not recognise this is of the greatest possible interest to Ahriman."

"We do not safeguard ourselves against Ahriman by avoiding modern science, but by learning to know its character. For modern science gives us an external illusion of the universe, and we need this illusion. Do not imagine that we do not need it. We must only fill it in from quite another side with actual reality gained through spiritual research, we must rise from the illusory character to the true reality."