The Drives of the Soul: The Ahrimanic and Luciferic Impulses

The Drives of the Soul: The Ahrimanic and Luciferic Impulses

As humans, we exist as spirit, soul, mind, and body. The spirit, being the breath of God—the divine or transcendental aspect of man, dictates the right to and the will to be. It is the natural fact of existence, represented and lying within the transcendental and more objective realm. In this realm lies the will, the first cause of man: the “I will,” the “I am,” the will-to-be, and the will-to-existence.

Our souls are more so the hues of our being, the colors, sound, and vibrations that creation emits. In this realm, we appreciate beauty and matters that burden the self. This is where individuality resides. The plane of the conscience, imaginary and the aesthetic qualia of creation.

The body is the corporeal, where the manifest and profane lie. It is the sand and clay from which you are fashioned, born of the earth. The fleeting and the temporal, it must one day die and return to its source. It’s the realm of flesh, sweat, the blood and all its heats, the libido, and the causes of appetite and hunger. The climate and temperature of things, seasons, abundance and famine. The body serves as the base vessel that allows you to move through the lower, basic and primal kingdoms.

Lastly, the mind is the instrument of accumulation and memory, where the data on all of this is kept and secured. It is the mode of interaction between the other three forms, where thoughts is formed. In Mind lies contemplation and argumentation. The mark of civilization and therefore gives a coherent system of communication. Mind is all, and all is mind. It is perception and lucidity.

 

The soul accounts for the differentiation of persons. To be born with a soul is to be born with prime individuality, an alienation, and discord towards the world. Because of this alienation, we might seek to reconcile and integrate ourselves into the world. However, the world itself is dangerous and unforgiving. Nature herself is considered to be evil and indifferent to the plight and cries of her creation. Because of this, we have a need to fend off or dominate the world, lest we are drawn in and swallowed up by this black grim hole of mawkishness and malice.

This need to protect the self from the world while reconciling with it gives birth to intrapsychical impulses: The Ahrimanic and The Luciferic.

The Ahrimanic impulse, named after a being known as Angra Mainyu, seeks the total subjugation of the world through materialism and purely somatic or corporeal elements. For example, the expansion of territories, the implementation of cold and rigid systems and structures; it is a drive towards excessive rationality and mechanizations and is driven by a need for self-preservation, expansion, and domination. Thus, the rise and conquests of empires and structures. The Ahrimanic impulse is seen as a cold calculating force that leads to ethical degradation and decline, described as a virus in a body that spreads and devours the host it depends on for sustenance.

The Luciferic impulse, on the other hand, meets this sense of discord towards the world with self-deification. There is a need to deny the world by transcending it and going beyond the manifest. To escape reality and its antagonizing stare and grimaces, indulgence in fantastical ideations and false divinity. If Ahrimanic deals with this by protection manifest and the cold facts, the Luciferic deals with this by searching for gnosis and the spiritus. Icarus’s delusions to soar far and high and eventually into the sun: An irreligious posthuman ideation. Dreams of escaping into a world of phantasia, away from the grime and the dirty. To be expelled from Saturnalian structures and systems or rather to have them annihilated and to remake man and the world in his image and likeness. A perversion of the natural order nature has presented to us.

 

These impulses and drives chase each other in a cyclical manner, justifying one another. For example, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire can be exemplified through these impulses. The Republic started out by seeking territorial expansion, conquering lands, and establishing an imperial structure. Their focus on military prowess, engineering, and the appropriation of different cultures into the Roman way of life is indicative of the Ahrimanic impulse. Then, at the peak of their reign, they experienced a moral decline of corruption and depravity. The once Saturnalian structure built began to crumble and face instability. This, in turn, led to the rise of Christianity criticizing the fixation on material propriety and preaching of spiritual salvation: offering an escape from the decadent material world rotting and killing Rome.

 

These two impulses, according to anthroposophy, are considered evil. The Luciferic force represents light and the aether, while the Ahrimanic force embodies darkness and the Profane. They are in constant war against each other for our world.

The Luciferic beings strive to make the human world unfaithful to the true creators of humanity, aiming to free the world from its true source and creator. On the other hand, the Ahrimanic force seeks to make the world chained to it and controlled, essentially striving for world domination. These two drives are in constant war within us and the cosmos.
Its interesting to note that the number 2 represents polarity and tension, and the 3rd releases the tension to make it whole and complete.

While I do believe Isaiah is talking about the king of Babylon, I think it’s also associated with the morning star. He is cast down to earth, and it’s stated that he roams the earth looking for whom to devour. So, the devil isn’t in hell; he’s on earth. Now, the split that’s interesting is when the Bible talks about demons and principalities, powers of the air, and in the sky.

The devil cannot be whole as he seeks to fracture humanity and cause division between God and man. The devil is two: The Ahriman and The Lucifer, causing a separation from the divine source and an attachment and domination over the world. He meets with Jesus on earth and takes him to the sky, offering him the earth as though he owns it.

Consider these two impulses as the opposite ends of a beam; in between that beam, there is now a third drive. In physics, when two forces are displaced in different directions, they give birth to a resultant force as well. The third impulse here is called "The Christ Impulse," and it is represented by the cosmic force of love and wisdom that entered the Earth during the Crucifixion of Christ—an event called "the Mystery of Golgotha." This force acts as a counterbalance to the other two that are born from alienation towards the world, providing us with the potential for spiritual awakening, as well as reconciliation with nature.

The Christ impulse is associated with the sun being, as the sun is a source of renewal and rejuvenation—a new day. If the Ahrimanic forces are found in the earth and the Luciferic in the sky, then The Christ is of the Sun. 

 

Exploring the cyclical nature of these impulses, we gain insights into the complex interplay between the human experience and the forces that shape our spiritual, soulful, intellectual, and physical realities. Our alienation and individuation from the world cause an effect on the world, and the instincts and structures in our mind are projected into the world, shaping them and vice versa.