Spirits of Darkness

Rudolf Steiner mostly refers to Ahriman as the Spirit of Darkness and the hordes following him are the Spirits of Darkness. Ahriman spreads the dark veil of matter over the supersensible worlds and thus denies us insight into the spiritual background of existence, so that we only experience the Luciferian reflection of the sensory world on the impenetrable world of matter.

As Spirits of Night (Hebrew: לילה Laj'lah "night") Rudolf Steiner has also called in particular the Primeval Angels (Spirits of Personality) who have remained behind in their development and who were of service to the Elohim in their work of creation. They have to a certain extent remained behind on that evolutionary stage of Old Saturn on which there was not yet any light. At that time the physical body of man was predisposed as a pure heat body. To the present day they are necessary and effective as building forces which work on the physical and etheric body during sleep and thereby repair the damage done by our daytime consciousness. In Genesis, they are opposed by the Spirits of Light called Jom (Hebrew יום "day"), which are the properly developed Spirits of Time.

Archai who have remained behind are also the Asuras. They act as dangerous adversaries whose obscuring power far surpasses that of Ahriman.