Persian thought influences Jewish thought and then apocalyptic literature after 200 BCE and Christianity and then Islam. Its ideas include the following:
--Hell. The Hebrew concept is of Sheol, translated as "Hell" by the King James scholars
is the common abode of the dead. There is no suffering, torture, punishment, hope, or significant consciousness there, no separation of believers and unbelievers, the "good" from the "bad." All go to a common underground pit, dark, damp, and quite unlike the later concept of Hell as a place of torture. The Persian Hell which influences Christianity is of a river or lake of fire. --Heaven (absent from the Old Testament as a place for the elect or "saved" of believers in general)
--A Satanic figure who is the enemy of God (absent from the Old Testament). Ahriman, called also Angra Mainyu, is the "Evil Spirit" in Zoroastrianism, at war with God, Abura Mazda. Ahriman is a model for the inter-testament and New Testament writers in depicting Satan. In Persian Zoroastrianism, Ahriman is the Great Serpent, who is cast out of heaven. The image of Satan's falling into Hell also has its roots in the Babylonian fall of the angels concept
The story of Lucifer is partly a story about misunderstandings of Hebrew references to the morning star in Isaiah (14:12-15). The early Christians and Jesus in Luke identify the image of Shaher in Isaiah (14:12-15) with a new view of Satan, borrowed largely from Persia, of Satan as the enemy of God. This fusion and confusion contributes to the process of myth syncretism in forming the myth of Satan.
The story is more interesting than this, however, for apparently the writer of Isaiah borrowed his language and images from a previous source written several hundred years earlier.The Canaanite source for Isaiah, Albright suggests (Albright 232. Qtd. from Albright by Walker 551)), reads,
"How has thou fallen from heaven, Helel's son Shaher! Thou didst say in thy heart, I will ascend to heaven, about the circumpolar stars will raise my throne, and I will dwell on the Mount of council in the back of the north; I will mount on the back of a cloud, I will be like unto Elyon."
It's a highly individual path, as anything on the Left Hand Path is, but Luciferians in general tend to agree with the principles laid out there. You could say that I'm a Satanist, too, but I prefer not to call myself that at this point because it's too restrictive a term. Also, Satanism tends to attract certain types of people that I don't want to be associated with.
LOL
