That's partially correct. Zoro'ism is the first religion to introduce the concept of duality. It was meant to explain opposites in the universe. Like light and darkness, noise and silence, hot and cold, summer and winter, wisdom and stupidity. When you literally translate the Avestean word "Ahura Mazda" (the Zoroastrian equivalent to God or Allah), it means highest form of wisdom and Angre Mainyu (the Zoroastrian equivalent of Satan) means bad mentality. All boiling down to your mindset. The founder of this religion was believed to be a persian mage. But like all religions get corrupted, so did Zoroastrianism. To control people the clergy began attributing Ahura Mazda to God and Angre Mainyu to his opposite.
If you study Zoroastrian demons and angels, you will discover that they were originally meant to describe various forces that run the universe.
I think it was simultaneous. Persians had issues with the devas, while the Hindus had issues with the Ahuras who they called asuras. For the sake of information, the avestean sound "h" is pronounced as the "s" sound in sanskrit.
So while iranian-aryans believed that devas were demonic and ahuras were Gods, the indo-aryans believed that ahuras/asuras were demonic and devas were Gods. Early Zoroastrianism was polytheistic so there were many ahuras, who I think eventually became the amesha spentas (origin of the 7 archangels in Christianity).
I wish people in general were a bit smarter. Because the war between ahuras and devas (perhaps the first angel/demon war) was just politics. Lol!
That's because most of the Christian demonology has its roots in Persian demonology. There's really no evidence to this, but I suspect that the three kings that visited Christ(believed to be magi priests)came along with a lot more than just frankincense, gold and myrrh...lol
Wouldn't surprise me. The entire Hebrew culture was deeply influenced by Persian mysticism, as was only natural given that they were conquered and whatnot. There's recent debate that the Hebrew culture too was polytheistic, adapting to monotheism with the rule of King David, or around that era, perhaps again with the influence of Persian mysticism.
The star of David, which ofcourse was adapted by every second culture to represent various things, is a dead give away. The persian magi were astrologers. Perhaps even the founders of astrology as we know it today.
As to my original point, which was apparently overridden by claims that I was wrong: Yes, the word demon is older than Christianity (though not older than Judaism, which no one seemed to register). However, many of the spells that exist to summon them are based around the demons of Christian or Hebrew tradition, which could well be dangerous. I am not here to convert anyone, but I will laugh at those who believe that those kind of demons at least are not dangerous. And, if you mean deity, say deity. If you mean daimon or daemon, say that. Don't call it a demon if you are going to attack anyone who assumes that a demon is what you mean.
I sincerely hope this doesn't come across as rude, but: how do you know? Are there any sources that show demons as even simply morally ambivalent, let alone good?
