Steiner placed Ahriman within a "cosmic triad" of forces that shape human history:
The concept of the comes primarily from the prophetic lectures of Rudolf Steiner , given in 1919. According to Steiner, Ahriman is a real spiritual entity—the embodiment of materialism, cold intellect, and technological enslavement—who is destined to incarnate in human form in the West during the third millennium.
The Incarnation of Ahriman: The Embodiment of Materialism in a Digital Age