The Incarnation of Ahriman: The Embodiment of Evil on Earth: Seven Lectures Given Between October and December 1919

by Rudolf Steiner, Matthew Barton (Translator), Sevak Gulbekian (Introduction)

7 selected lectures, various cities, October 27 – December 28, 1919 Ahriman is a significant figure of Persian mythology. Rudolf Steiner, however, spoke of Ahriman as an actual, living spiritual entity. This being, he said, works to embed human beings firmly into their physicality, thus encouraging dull, materialistic attitudes and a coarse, dry intellect. In these extraordinary lectures, Steiner assumes a rare prophetic mode. He talks about an actual incarnation of Ahriman on Earth and the potential consequences of this event. Just as Christ incarnated in a physical body, so would Ahriman incarnate in the Western world―before “a part” of the third millennium has passed. Steiner places this incarnation in the context of a “cosmic triad” that includes Ahriman, Lucifer, and Christ. Ahriman will incarnate as a counterpoint to the physical incarnation of Lucifer, which took place in the East during the third millennium BC. The incarnation of Jesus Christ took place in Palestine as the point of balance between the two. During the period when Steiner developed Anthroposophy―a teaching career of more than twenty years that included over than six thousand lectures―he spoke of Ahriman’s incarnation only six times. For the first time, these six lectures (plus a supporting excerpt) are reproduced in their entirety in a single volume.

Genres: Philosophy

128 pages, Paperback

First published May 30, 2006

About the author

Author also wrote under the name Rudolph Steiner.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...


Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted to find a synthesis between science and spirituality. His philosophical work of these years, which he termed "spiritual science", sought to apply what he saw as the clarity of thinking characteristic of Western philosophy to spiritual questions,  differentiating this approach from what he considered to be vaguer approaches to mysticism. In a second phase, beginning around 1907, he began working collaboratively in a variety of artistic media, including drama, dance and architecture, culminating in the building of the Goetheanum, a cultural centre to house all the arts. In the third phase of his work, beginning after World War I, Steiner worked on various ostensibly applied projects, including Waldorf education, biodynamic agriculture, and anthroposophical medicine.
Steiner advocated a form of ethical individualism, to which he later brought a more explicitly spiritual approach. He based his epistemology on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's world view in which "thinking…is no more and no less an organ of perception than the eye or ear. Just as the eye perceives colours and the ear sounds, so thinking perceives ideas." A consistent thread that runs through his work is the goal of demonstrating that there are no limits to human knowledge.

Reviews

[Anthony Zappia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The lectures that make up this book were given almost a hundred years ago. Steiner was counselling, advising and warning humanity of the developments to come. Christ wasn't the only spiritual being to incarnate on the Earth...and certainly not the last. Ahriman, the spirit of materialism, was to incarnate sometime at turn of the millennium. Steiner gives the signs to look for in our times and how humanity should prepare for this event.

Sadly, having read his book (lectures) it's apparent to me that his warnings have gone unheeded. Take this for example: "It is not our task as human beings to hinder in any way the incarnation of Ahriman, but it is our task to prepare humanity in advance so that Ahriman can be weighed up in the right way. Humanity will only be able to do this if it is able to adjust in the right way now to what Ahriman is already sending to the earth from supersensible worlds in order to control financial affairs upon earth without being noticed. This must not happen. Ahriman must not control financial affairs and economics on the earth without being noticed."

These are thought provoking lectures.

[Catarina PBatista · Rating 4 out of 5]

The events that "were" to come when this book was written, seem to have already arrived. I still cannot believe some of the descriptions in this book and how well it fits the narrative today and what is happening. It seems surreal reading it and looking around me, at social media, at the economic state of the world, at geopolitical affairs, and seeing that it was all written 100 years or so ago and we simply were too blind to pay mind to it.

[Gabriele De Benedittis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Need significant effort to contextualize. Entertaining...

[Crazy 'CocoPuff' Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Occultist viewpoint of modern happenings. Explains different life forces represented in religious figures at work through time, how they've evolved, and how they are manifesting now. Interesting spiritual perspective and very applicable in the day-to-day. Life changing if you let it be.