I've been reading lately how the reincarnation cycle was begun by Archons who feed on our loosh and thus force us to reincarnate over and over again to the physical Earth plane so they can satisfy their thirst for our pain and suffering.
Does RS address this theory or concept? I have been on a spiritual path for 40 years and have thoughts that repeating earth lives over and over to "work out" Karma just doesn't seem what God/Jesus wants for us.
Short answer: Rudolf Steiner did not address this theory or concept of Archons the way you describe it, and how it appears on internet forums these days. That being said, Archons are a concept of Gnostic teachings which are, in general, difficult to 'place' or interpret for our contemporary minds, and hence various versions exist, they can be described as fallen angels or indeed also sometimes as a category of beings at the basis of a creation of a cosmos which enslaves humanity.
Rather than map the term Archon or address the theory you mention in your question, below I will give you the spiritual scientific description and then come full circle to your question, so you see how that concept relates. My advice is that if you follow any links, best to right click to open in new tab.
1/ First, let's take a step back on all ideas and stories one can find in the world. With the internet bringing free flow of information, we are overwhelmed today with huge amounts of information. In this infoglut a lot of stuff is pure non sense and hotchpotch. There are so many more Man-made thought forms, than there is truth or objective reality .. so one needs to be conscious that so much exists that is purely made up and has no basis in reality. The challenge is how to assess and filter.
We try to process what we encounter, we are led by interests, coincidence, intuition, by who we are (and the laws of karma) .. different things resonate with different people. This can only be a very personal process and journey, and we have no choice but to try to find our way in all this, trying to sort the valuable from the mumbo jumbo. It is it is up to everyone individually to sharpen one's virtue of discernment and work and practice the study process to construct meaning for ourselves.
And, as it is such a personal process, there is no sense to try and convince someone else. We make our own way. But importantly, like the Parsifal figure we have to ask questions as a way to grow our soul faculties.
So now moving to your question, below I will offer some answers and links to topic pages and schemas on this wiki, in case you would care to study, then it is up to you what to do with this. The below can be a map and guide to such study, but it does not provide any spoon-fed answers, as insight can only come from own soul work.
2/ In ancient times in the Lemurian epoch, we can consider the beginning of mankind on Earth at the time there was the descent of different cohorts of spirits into bodies on Earth, taking hold of physical bodies. Up to that point, the spiritual entity of the human being was not physical, or individual. Humanity is in a process of individuation, of developing the human 'I' from the original group souls of humanity. This is a complex matter, and the site covers it extensively from different perspectives, see eg Schema FMC00.472 and Schema FMC00.472A on Development of the I, or Schema FMC00.370 and Schema FMC00.377A.
Now as part of this 'start of humanity as we know it', there was a category of angelic spiritual beings which we call Luciferic beings, who didn't attain their developmental goal in the previous planetary stage of evolution Old Moon, and that therefore continued their development on Earth, and: they do this in and as part of Man.
The above idea should not shock us, as after all the human being and nature kingdoms are all made up of spiritual beings, see Cosmic Fractal. However, granted, this not the contemporary dominant worldview of materialistic 'mineral science', but it is the basis of the worldview of spiritual science.
This above event is called the 'fall', or also the luciferic infection, because it brought Mankind sin and death, but also freedom. So it's not just or only bad, this freedom is a big thing as it represents a step change for the divine creation, it's the basis for pure love and for selfless giving, which can only follow out of free choice. But this freedom (and the possibility to err) came at a big price, called 'evil' .. or let's say counterforces that were created (and allowed by divine providence) in order to strengthen the development of humanity. Humanity now has to overcome error, sin, and all that follows from this. In the future, Mankind will redeem these luciferic beings as part of its development. Another way of putting it: in a sense humanity can help and allow these other beings to get 'back on track'. This does not happen all by itself, it is part of our active mission.
This monumental event described above (see also FMC00.480) is referenced in some of the oldest books of wisdom of mankind, such as the Book of Genesis and the Book of Dzyan. However mind boggling it may come across if one is new to all this, nevertheless it describes the truth, as presented consistently in wisdom teachings and religions across cultures and ages. These are not just Man made thought forms (as millions of thoughts can be found on the web), but rather what actually happened as per clairvoyant research of the akashic records. It has been part of human wisdom forever, all we are doing here is trying to describe, study, discuss it in a language and knowledge framework, adapted to our age and contemporary consciousness.
Now if one is new to spiritual science the above may be a bit 'too much', it comes across as overwhelming, because one requires a knowledge framework of spiritual science, which one has to develop for one self. And true, intellectual study is not everyone's cup of tea. On the side: one advantage of being on this wiki is that, in answering your question, I can insert weblinks to the topic pages and schemas that enable anyone to self-study in a more effective way. And as this is published and available from across the world, it is available for anyone who would be looking and care to investigate further, alone or together with others.
3/ Now, unfortunately, the above (Luciferic infection) is not the end of the story.
Because the human being is really a complex structure made up of different 'limbs', so to speak, Man's bodily principles, that are all under development ... this makes it possible for different categories of beings to 'sneak in'. Whereas Man's ideal balanced make-up is made up of the 'regular' spiritual hierarchies, all those hierarchies individually are also under development, and some of the entities are ahead of the curve whereas others lag behind. This is where these 'adverse' influences or counterforces comes from, it is said evil is just good in the wrong place.
So, besides Luciferic beings there are also what we call Ahrimanic beings and their influences that are sneaking into Man, and hence Man is really a battlefield for the soul, this is a key point covered on o.a. Sixteen paths of perdition and Christ Module 14 – the counterforces: Lucifer, Ahriman and Sorat. This is known for ages, can be found in art & religion, see for example the artwork on the last two pages, such as Schema FMC00.499A.
Hence, Man is placed with free choice in the world, with the mission to - from the inside out - develop a balanced pathway through this minefield of challenges, distractions, addictions, attacks. The compass or gyroscope is spiritual, and the future goal of humanity is represented by the Christ (Schema FMC00.481), moral ideals, love as selflessness and sacrifice. And that is what this site is all about, to teach about the cohesion of those things, of how these matters hang together.
4/ Coming full circle. So you see, in a way, back to the Archons story in your question now, there is a bit of truth in it, in that there are beings part of Man, and some of them do kind of 'vegetate' on the elementals we create through our functioning. It also true that this is linked to the start of reincarnation, but as is explained elsewhere on this site reincarnation is a temporary phenomenon that started in the Lemurian epoch and will end also (in the future Sixth epoch). Hence, this is only one aspect of a much broader picture, and it is surely not the essence of development, or the goal for the future of humanity and creation. Even though it is part of our great challenge and mission, it's not correct to sketch it the way it is done in the Archons story that is spread on the web today.
It appears that people often jump on Man-made fictional stories and theories that are launched and spread, because of their sensational content. Some of these stories are inspired on or may contain snippets or elements that are part of the truth. But partial truths and untruths are worse than ignorance. That is a technique on its own: to confuse and distract the hell out of everyone, something nicely commented on in this note. As a result, search engines can not be used any more because keyword terms will lead you to materialistic stuff and untruths instead of the original meaning of concepts. It becomes ever harder in today's world to still find some stable ground and true north. People that are confronted with enough of such stories (as the world is flooded with them) will get lost in the storm or in the forest if they don't sharpen their soul faculties by actively using their threefold soul. As Krishnamurti put it half a century ago, before web, smartphones and social media: "the entertainment industry is taking over your brain". That is why I started this answer with the paragraph on discernment, the most spiritual of virtues. It's normal that people are dragged along in everything we are exposed to, because they have no frame of reference, no knowledge whatsoever to be able to assess or place these kinds of things (or think or say much sensible about this).
The importance of this frame of reference is why this site tries to provide 'maps', such as Schema FMC00.486, or the PDF file The great journey of humanity, that can be used along one's journey of building such comprehension.
5/ Then to your point on the fact "suffering and karma is not what God wants for us". The existence of suffering and evil is a common and predominant argument of atheists, and the above was introducing, just telling you about a frame of reference to help understand this. Without this, many very intelligent people and thinkers just block on this point due to the limitations of their worldview. It's not for nothing this is called the Mystery of Evil, it's not something you 'get' in a few sentences.
It is surely true also that humanity has some huge challenges ahead, that we cannot even imagine today. Whereas today good and bad flow into one another, in the future they will be separated like water and oil, and there will be complete opposition with evil forces more fierce then we can today imagine. Fortunately the good part will also evolve accordingly in order to face these conditions.
Imagine a lab experiment with a multi-stage distillation column, with always an extract before the next stage, the rest discarded (re parable of the sower), or like chemotherapy, killing the bad cancer cells just barely keeping the patient alive. If there would be no resistance of the road to your car tires, your car would not advance.
So if you look around you in the world, and your intuition or gut says this bell does not sound like how you would expect the divine plan to sound, you are of course right. It's clear that adverse forces are there around us in the world, and as said, things will still get a lot tougher before part of humanity will have reached a first major intermediate goal at the end of the Sixth epoch, which is what the Book of Revelation talks about. Things like alcohol and drugs, violence and sexual additions, the rise of egotism and black magic, are all forces that sidetrack souls that are not having the intrinsic strength at this time, and we can only be compassionate for our fellow human beings. With consciousness and freedom comes responsibility. You will find more about these themes on Meaning of Free Man Creator, Seeds for future worlds, and Contemporary worldview war. We can go into those things if you want.
To conclude: I hope you appreciate the nuance I've tried to convey with the more extensive answer. And bottom line: no it's not evil at the steering wheel of creation.
