Zoroaster prophecy that saw a return of Sassanid emperor Bahram: Shoghi Effendi also stated that Zoroaster lived roughly 1000 years before Jesus. The Greeks—in the Hellenistic sense of the term—had an understanding of Zoroaster as expressed by Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Agathias that saw him, at the core, to be the "prophet and founder of the religion of the Iranian peoples," Beck notes that "the rest was mostly fantasy". Zoroaster was set in the ancient past, six to seven millennia before the Common Era, and was described as a king of Bactria or a Babylonian (or teacher of Babylonians), and with
Hermetism and other religions its indoctrination process. Zoroastrianism plays a large role in influencing Hermeticism. In 525 BCE, Egypt was conquered by the Persian Empire, bringing Zoroastrian ideas along with it. In obscure texts, Hermes claims to look to Zoroaster as a spiritual father, having learned much of the zodiac from him. It is further said that Zoroaster had penetrated the mystery of the zodiac more than any other. Alternatively, it has been suggested that Zoroaster (like so many others) and Hermes are one and the same. However, it is possible that this was from a faked Zoroastrian text. Theurgy is often called Zoroastrian