The Lucifer Principle

Author: Werner Huemer

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Lucifer, Diablo, Satan, the Adversary, the Serpent, the Devil – what is it that all these concepts represent?

Anyone with an interest in the history of religion will have come across the concept of a wicked and destructive “power of evil”, a malevolent force that is contrary to the Will of God, and which drives human beings into sin. Medieval Christianity embraced belief in the realm of darkness, in hell and damnation, in the concept of a great, world-encompassing struggle between Light and Darkness, Right and Wrong.

But even before the Christian religion, the biblical story of Creation describes the “serpent with the forked tongue” that persuades Adam and Eve to do wrong. Job speaks in the Old Testament for the first time of “Satan”, and the picture of an evil power, standing in opposition to the “Spirit of Good”, is found not only in the Jewish faith but also in the teachings of Zoroaster – around 2,600 years ago.

Decades before Christ, the Jewish religious sect of the Essenes was well known for nurturing this image of a personified adversary. Islam speaks of “Iblis”, and even Buddhism knows “Mara” as representing an ominous life-force.

The devil imagery of the Christian religion, however, came from New Testament texts after the time of Christ. Pictures of human beings burning in hell on account of their sins, of the fiery, horned and animallike figure of the devil, have depressed minds for generations and driven many into the “safe bosom of the Church”. Today, such images of Satan and hell have lost much of their appeal, even if here and there exorcisms are still performed, and the concept of “Lucifer” causes disquiet and uncertainty. Why is that?

One thing is certain: evil exists in the world. It is characterised by a tendency to destroy, control and suppress other people. It shows no respect, no love, but only hates; is interested not in caring or supporting, but in hindering and inhibiting. If Creation emanates from the Will of God, is it logically possible that alongside the loving Godhead a power for evil can also influence events in the world? Does Lucifer really exist?

Sober sceptics contend that the so-called “evil principle” is in the end only a figment of human imagination. Hatred, envy, calumny, injustice, death and destruction in this world are motivations that we choose to carry within our own will and decision-making process.

This point of view has much to recommend it. It is we humans who make this so-called evil a reality. But why does such a “principle” exist at all? Why is everything not simply good?

Many conclude that evil simply belongs to good like night does to day, rain to sunshine, cold to heat. As part of an all-embracing principle of “polarity” in Creation.

At first glance this thought seems persuasive. For instance, life on earth shows a complementary interplay of polarity – sunshine and rain, seed and harvest, evolution and dissolution. On a larger scale: expansion and contraction, male and female, active and passive, positive and negative or “yin” and “yang”, the terms for complementary “poles of energy” in Oriental philosophy.

Is evil also a necessary complement of good? Does evil form part of the polarity principle?

To be sure, what we call “good” and “bad” in everyday language – for instance in speaking of “good” or not so good weather – has absolutely nothing to do with the moral principle of good or evil. Anyone who has left his raincoat at home to go hiking and had to tramp back hours later in sodden clothing will be more likely to regard the drenching as “bad”, while the local farmers may welcome the same rain as an absolute blessing. This type of good and bad, which mirrors only a personal judgment, is of no concern here. Rain and sunshine are necessary in life – like any interplay of complementing polarities.

In contrast, the “evil principle”, in its connotation with Lucifer, is not helpful in life. It unnecessarily hinders and destroys, saddens and burdens. Whoever seeks actual examples of this only needs to follow the daily news. Time and again, he will be confronted with human decision-making which even with the best will he cannot call “good” and which will intuitively strike him as unjust, unreasonable and malicious. Deception, murder, wars, all the misery perpetrated by us human beings, is harmful to the development of life. These inhuman activities are no necessary complement to what is furthering and constructive, to good. For that reason the “evil principle” – wherever its origin – stands in reality outside the principle of polarity, which serves the development of Creation.

The concept of “development” introduces an important keyword that sets us on the trail of the meaning of life. Let us examine, for instance, the history of the development of our own planet, letting millions of years of continuous evolution and disintegration pass before our inner gaze. We see that the outcome of this development process is ever higher forms of life.

But not only the external world, our spiritual inner life, too, goes through an obvious process of development: All our life-experiences, pleasant and unpleasant, stimulate us to more intense, conscious existence, to be more awake, to delve ever more deeply into the diversity of experiences that is inherent in Creation.

The opportunity for us human beings to wander this path of unfolding to an increasingly conscious existence, an ever greater depth and joy of experiencing, is an immeasurable and indescribable gift. Usually we just take this as self-evident – without even considering that this blessed possibility of developing our consciousness comes with an obligation to make grateful use of the opportunity to work in a life-affirming, furthering and constructive manner. Only with such a mind-set or basic attitude do we human beings prove ourselves worthy of being permitted to live and to attain consciousness.

The obligation laid on our human existence to do good, so as to do justice to the meaning and the development of life, needs no elaborate interpretation or description here. With a little intuitive perception we sense this down to our very fingertips anyway, and the voice of our conscience constantly bears witness to this task.

Yet that only thrusts more into the foreground the question: Why is there the evil, troublesome, life-estranged, seemingly ill-disposed attitude towards God at all? Where does what runs counter to a meaningful development and works contrary to helpful love have its origin? On what foundation could it have arisen, when the entire Creation of God wishes only to serve the development?

To answer this question, we must first of all see our life in a larger overall picture: From our spiritual predisposition, we human beings are comparable to seed-germ. We carry within us everything that distinguishes human consciousness, but this first has to ripen, has to be brought to unfolding. And it is precisely for the purpose of this development that we spiritual beings – for we are nothing else at our innermost core – immerse in this material world.

We move out of the spiritual realm of our origin, initially in a not-yetawakened state, down to the earthly world and cloak ourselves with “earthly material”, very similar to the way a plant seed is planted into the soil, when its latent qualities are to come to blossom.

The “friction” with the material world can bring our consciousness to unfolding, the intensive currents of the material realm can awaken our “appetite for life”. They invite us to react to them, to strive willingly towards an experience of our choice and then “by the sweat of our brow” to struggle to translate this volition into deed, to reach our goals despite possible resistance.

We wish, we desire, we strive…. these processes have been part of our conscious lives from the very outset. But with these things that we take for granted, what is happening is also decisive. Because every decision of our will involves spiritual activity – and thereby begins the development of our consciousness. Slowly, stretching over generations, we can inwardly become what we appear to be from our outward bodily form: human beings.

In summary, this means: Creation offers us spiritual “seed-germs” a multitude of possible experiences, from which we choose and on which we can decide. We can – because we human beings have been given the free will to decide. With this we choose which actualities we want to favour. Without this will, our ego-consciousness could never develop. We would never be that subject who takes a position towards “the rest of the world” that defines his own self, who in consequence of his own decision treads a unique path!

When we human spirits thus have free will, but initially are inexperienced and do not yet stand fully conscious in this Creation, then the possibility exists for us to cause harm through our decisions. (“Possibility” naturally means that this need not necessarily be so).

In the great School of Life of this material world we are quickly shown what is wrong – through our own experiencing. Because with each of our decisions we are simultaneously weaving the carpet of our fate for ourselves. In the all-embracing cosmic law of reciprocal action, everything that once emanated from us streams back to us eventually – thoughts, words, actions, of exactly the same kind as were once willed by us. That is how we are prompted to correct our decisions, not to do to others what we ourselves would find unpleasant.

Do these inter-connections already answer the pressing question of the origin of evil? Does what is unjust, hindering, destructive, simply result from the free will of man, which can have this effect just because it is free?

Yes and no. Yes, because in the end everything we do, whether good or evil, is dependent upon our will. But if this earth life is a school for us human beings, where at times mistakes can be made, then if somebody does the wrong thing and causes harm thereby, naturally one cannot speak of “evil” in every such case. The wrongdoer may even have “intervened” with good intentions. Thus what is decisive is not only the action itself but, above all, the intention behind it.

And here we now hit upon the central question: How can a human being, thus a spiritual creature, to whom has been allotted the great gift of being allowed to become conscious, develop evil intentions? What drives him to act contrary to the voice of his conscience and against the invariably constructive “Way of the Divine Will” in a despicable and malicious manner? What induces him knowingly to do injustice, to make decisions that are directed against life? Under what conditions can such a volition even develop?

This mystery is easily solved with one glance at our present day society. Because time and again it turns out that the more strikingly egotistical is the person and the less he feels himself at one with the entire Creation, the greater is the danger of overlooking his responsibility towards all his fellow creatures. Whoever is concerned only with self and has only his own personal advantage in mind must become stunted in his consciousness for values, morals or neighbourly love.

This mental self-concern is usually also linked with a narrowing of the comprehension. Only what is earthlymaterial then counts as valuable and desirable, whereas intuitive perceptions and the pangs of conscience are hardly valued, are suppressed. For those so minded, any turning to the Creator in humility and gratitude is then out of the question; the human being then sees himself as the measure of all things. He is the arbiter of good and evil, based exclusively and unscrupulously, of course, on what is “good” for him, therefore what is pleasant, comfortable, enjoyable or whatever.

The conditions inciting us human beings to a bad desire or, in other words, providing the basis for evil in the world, are therefore very transparent. And it is from precisely these conditions having arisen – seeing oneself as “God” and knowingly deciding good or evil – that the Bible tells of the "Fall of Man" in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. There it portrays how “the serpent” seduced Adam and Eve into breaking God’s Law by turning a deaf ear to the Lightconnected inner voice of their heart and instead elevating themselves to be the measure of all things, in this connection also relying completely on the knowledge of the intellect (which on account of its purely physical nature produces only thoughts centred on one’s own person).

The Bible therefore speaks of a seductive power which mankind encountered already early on, and which tempted them to taste of the “Tree of Knowledge”, thus to surrender themselves to the pleasures of intellectual knowledge; which promised that with the help of the intellect they would become “like God”. And we human beings wanted to elevate ourselves to be masters of the world, very soon we were seeking everywhere only our own advantage – without ever considering that it was a spiritual commandment for us to serve Creation, to nurture and to ennoble it.

With this every door was opened wide to evil on our further path. But is there really such an influential power, tempting from the outside, misleading us human beings and initiating those erroneous paths? One that put the free will of mankind to the test and subsequently made them stumble? Who could bring such thoughts, which are an obstacle in the way of the Creator’s Will and which smooth the path of everything truly evil, into the world? And with what intention? Are we really on the trail of the figure of Lucifer here?

Anyone conversant with metaphysical realities, or simply concerned for his own inner life, will know that we are very much open to influence within the realm of our thoughts. We can feel ourselves inspired for instance, can pick up something that is “in the air”, or can be swept along by the enthusiasm of others. The inner voice of conscience can also mediate impulses, which do not originate within ourselves, but rather stem from a spiritual helper. To that extent it is thus something quite natural, even commonplace, for us to react to manysided mental influences – even more so when these are strong impulses reaching us by way of the ethereal world. The possibility of influencing our thoughts and actions by this means does therefore exist quite naturally, and it can be made use of by a powerful spirit in a quite disastrous way.

But if one interprets the Bible tradition, then Lucifer was not just anybody, also no “dark anti-God”, but originally an Angel who was meant to assist mankind. The name “Lucifer” mirrors a very special capability. It comes from the Latin and means “light-bringer” or “lightcarrier” or in Greek “morning star”, and we can safely assume that this “bringing of light” was meant to take place by way of ethereally mediating this power and in accordance with a given spiritual direction.

Abd-ru-shin confirms in his Grail Message that Lucifer originates from the Divine Sphere, therefore a location outside, meaning far above, this Creation, and that he was an Archangel, equipped with high powers. He was once sent into the world to support the spiritual – thus us human beings – meaning to further our development.

It was and is the Will of the Creator that every creature that is permitted to awaken to consciousness, and that at the outset naturally is weak and in need of help, should be fostered in love and kindness. Especially the wavering ones, who are not yet inwardly firm, shall have support, shall receive impetus and strength. The task of Lucifer, the God-sent lightbearer, would therefore have been to be a loving “gardener”, who with prudence and kindness protects and nurtures the plants entrusted to him, who accompanies their gradual ripening and strengthening in serving love, until the God-willed path of development of the (spirit-) seed-germ in the material world is completed.

But Lucifer failed in this task. Not however, that he suddenly brought into this world thoughts that anticipated all the varieties of evil, all the baseness and humanly unworthy nastiness, arrogance and vanity – no, that was not even necessary. His influence upon the spiritual was far less spectacular in form – but in its endeffect was that much more far-reaching: Lucifer simply discarded the principle of supportive, furthering love that is inherent in the Will of God, and instead challenged the human spirit, laying deliberate snares for it. Whoever resists the temptation becomes stronger through the inner struggle; but whoever succumbs is no longer worthy of being further supported.

The Lucifer principle should accordingly, seen objectively, be designated not as evil but simply as wrong. What really must be called evil is only all that we human beings, in our would-be-God obstinacy, have created through our own free will as soon as we gave in to this temptation.

Seen in this way, the working of Lucifer was extremely dangerous for our spiritual development. Inasmuch as we, as expressed in the biblical parable, succumbed to his enticement, surrendering ourselves to the joys of “knowledge”, in that we no longer followed the light-connected intuitive perception, the voice of conscience, but rather totally relied on the cleverness of the bodily intellect, our developing of consciousness began to falter.

On the physical level the frontal brain, which produces the intellect, started to proliferate disproportionately, because every organ develops in accordance with its activity. Through this, already from the earliest days of mankind, the tendency towards a mainly intellectual, egocentric thinking became hereditary, being passed on from generation to generation. It is therefore quite right to speak of hereditary sin. This concept does not in any way express something incomprehensible or indistinct, as one might be led to believe by various theological interpretations, but for us human beings this is a biological reality. Arthur Koestler called the frontal brain the “excessive organ” that has turned man into “The Ghost in the Machine” and which now through his self-destructiveness is driving him to ruin.

It is no wonder then, with the present world shaped by technological and social developments, based in the main on intellectual activity, that our customs appear likewise to be increasingly remote from life and estranged from spirit: the turning towards artificial worlds (virtual reality), the increasing atheism, the marginalising of the old and infirm, the destruction of life’s natural foundations, materialism and the profit motive, are a few of the well-known signs of the times.

Is an unhealthy way of thinking, then, reaching its inevitable climax in our time? Could it be that this demonic self-centeredness, which once began with the Fall of Man, will terminate in spiritual death? The Bible story of the temptation by the serpent warns of this second, actual, inner death.

But today such images can make little impression on us. They seem to us just as incomprehensible, artificial and timeworn as all the devil mythology with its grim and grinning horned red figure.

But this is exactly where in my opinion the tragedy sets in: Without noticing or even suspecting that we are following a fundamentally wrong pattern, unworthy of our spiritual core of being, we have in our social intercourse elevated all this competitiveness and fighting, the powerstruggle, the cheating, and so on, to be our ideal. The principle of neighbourly love hardly counts at all. We have forgotten God and our spiritual homestead, we call into question everything non-material, and we have long since had hardly an inkling of the meaning of life.

The human being of the 21st century, having become “knowing”, smiles at the old but timeless parables without grasping their true message: that our psychic inner world – together with the entire modern world view – has been formed by this fixation with everything intellectual following the Luciferian influence.

It is at best in the form of fairy tales that we still accept the deep truth, that any deviation from the “right way”, allowing oneself to be tempted, leads to disaster, namely to (spiritual) death. But who still believes Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother? Who looks for the allusion to reality in the many traditional folk-tales picturesquely describing the wanderings of man through the gross material plane and how, time and again, he is touched by the “Lucifer principle” in the process?

To see temptation as somehow disadvantageous would long since have been regarded as untimely, when we all nowadays in our pleasure-seeking are striving for the “great freedom”!

And also the natural consequence of the principle of temptation, namely the principle of enjoying life to the full (if need be at a cost to others), is highly welcome to us. Strategies for “self-discovery”, for instance, work with this, and psychoanalysis has also recognised living-out one’s inclinations to be a “royal” remedy. And not least in the area of sexuality, irresponsible businesses make plenty of money from pleasure-increasing products. Hidden inclinations want to be lived-out, inhibitions to be put aside, shame to be overcome.

In all this, the human being remains bound to the earthly. The thoughts constantly circle around new wishes and longings and focus on old impressions, hoping for a better inner well-being or attainment – through a targeted heightening of the sex drive – to achieve the ultimate enjoyment of feelings of lust. The human being binds himself to the intensely coarse, to what is close to the body and materialistic; what is delicately sensitive and contributes to inner purity, what is inherently human, is gradually faded out.

Seen spiritually, women should guide mankind, ennobling it through their finer being. And since this contains a vital key to the development of our consciousness, it is not surprising that also the principle of temptation has since time immemorial been closely tied up with femininity – one might for instance think of the Bible picture of Eve handing the apple to Adam!

Temptation – the living-out of weaknesses – the destruction of all that is finer, connected with woman’s devaluation to mere “motheranimal” or object of desire: These are the cornerstones of the Lucifer principle. For us human beings they mark the way leading to a bitter end.

Naturally there now still remains the question of whether we human beings are more or less defenceless at the mercy of this principle. And whether the responsibility for all the evil in this world does not finally rest with Lucifer.

The answer is NO in both cases! Nothing that has been said about the Lucifer principle in this essay should give the impression that we human beings are somehow dependent upon any particular trend of thought which may be influencing us! That is not how it is. We have free will – the free will, and thereby absolute personal responsibility for our path.

It is therefore for us ourselves only a matter of recognising the Lucifer principle and its consequences, in order to overcome it. In the meantime nobody need be afraid of being helplessly at the mercy of this principle. Lucifer is no “omnipotent counter-God” from out of evil, and his field of activity is limited to the material world.

In addition there is nowadays an important factual situation for us: The “Chaining of Lucifer”. In the biblical Revelation of John, mention is already made of a space of time during which the “old serpent” will have no influence upon mankind. But when may we expect the chaining of Lucifer?

According to the “Grail Message” this has already happened in the working of the Light for the gross material Creation. This means that we human beings are now living in the timespan of the “1000 years” (Revelation), in which no power can flow from the origin of the wrong principle. But this does not mean – as one glance at our present situation shows – that therewith all evil has automatically ceased to exist. Because it is we human beings who have always brought it about within our personal responsibility.

The world could indeed flourish if we could now succeed in recognising the Lucifer principle in its fullest extent and entirely free our thoughts and actions from it.