Number Of the Beast
... Christ. In Greek, Christ is spelled Χριστός (often abbreviated χς in the texts), and 666 is written as χξϛ'. The letter ξ looks a lot like a spike or a bolt in handwriting, so the number can be interpreted as a stab against Christ. The same interpretation can be given for the number 616 (χιϛ'). In fact, a transcription error of ξ instead of ι (or v.v.) is the most likely cause of confusion between these two numbers, as the two look very much alike in handwriting, and both spellings would fit this symbolism. Another possible symbolism for ξ is that of a serpent, the form the Devil allegedly took in the Garden of Eden. Another interpretation is that 666 is actually some kind of code based on the letters of someone's name. This sparks great public interest since it seems to provide some way to identify the Antichrist. Numerologists like to devise clever ways of assigning numbers to letters so that the letters of a name will add up to this symbolic number. Probably the best-known scheme has A=100, B=101, and so on. With this code, the name "HITLER" adds up to 666. Another commonly cited example is President Ronald Wilson Reagan, where counting the letters of his first, middle, and last name lead to 666. While these ideas are intriguing, they usually require many specific preconditions, like having to start with 100, numbering the surname only, etc. (even though in the former case, you can also number a=1, b=2, and so on and decode his initials 'A' and 'H' as 18, which of course equals 6+6+6.) By adapting the rules however, it is possible to connect most if not all names to the evil number. See also Vicarius Filii Dei. More convincing interpretations invoke more than mathematics to prove their point. For example, scholars who believe the Book of Revelation refers to real people and events argue that the number represents the value of Nero or Neron Caesar (נרון קסר, Nrwn Qsr*) in Hebrew letters, which also have numerical values (note that Hebrew is written from right to left): r S q n w r n 666 = 200 + 60 + 100 + 50 + 6 + 200 + 50 As noted above, some early texts of the Book of Revelation use 616 instead, which would represent the alternative Hebrew spelling נרו קסר, Nrw Qsr (based on the Latin form "Nero Caesar"): r S q w r n 616 = 200 + 60 + 100 + 6 + 200 + 50 In Roman numerals 666 represents all the numbers from 1 to 500 in descending order, namely D (500) + C (100) + L (50) + X (10) + V (5) + I (1), or DCLXVI. Robert Graves suggests in his study of pagan symbolism The White Goddess that this is an acronym for the Latin sentence Domitianus Caesar Legatos Xti Violenter Interfecit, or "The Emperor Domitian violently killed the envoys of Christ". Another reading in Roman numerals regards DCLXVI as an anagram of DIC LVX, which is then supposed to be an abbreviation of dicit lux, "the light speaks." In an alternate style of Greek notation for numerals, 6 + 60 + 600 can be expressed as digamma koppa kappa which when superposed into a monogram, form the graffiti form of the labrys very common on roman walls of the time, which is interesting considering what some characterise as misogynist tendencies in the book. [edit] Culture and psychology [edit] Avoiding the number The number 666 retains a peculiar significance in the culture and psychology of Western societies. Just as many people try to avoid the "unlucky" number 13 (sometimes going to the extent of having a floor 12A in multi-story buildings, or even to skip the 13th floor entirely so that the floor above the twelfth floor is actually called the fourteenth floor.) (See also floor numbering), so people find ways to avoid the "Devil's number", even in contexts that would seem on first sight to be far removed from superstition. For example, when the giant CPU manufacturer Intel introduced the 666 MHz Pentium III in 1999, they chose to market it as the Pentium III 667 on the pretext that, since the actual clock speed was 666.666 MHz, 667 was the more accurate approximation—conveniently ignoring their own usual rounding practice: as examples, consider the earlier 66.666 MHz 486-66, the 466.666 MHz Celeron 466, or the later 866.666 MHz Pentium III 866. In another instance, U.S. Highway 666, "the Highway of the Beast," was renumbered in 2003 after controversy over the supposed reference to the Biblical beast. See [1]. [edit] In popular culture The Left Behind series uses the various equation of 666 to identify people who have pledged alligence to the Antichrist Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange visually represented Alex (Malcolm McDowell) as the Beast during a scene where he is accosted by two police officers who are identified as 665 and 667. SLC Punk contains a scene in which the main character reveals the number "666" tattooed on his butt to a pair of fundamentalist Christians conversing about the end of times. End of Days, directed by Peter Hyams, supposes as a plot point that the number represented in Revelation was actually seen upside down in a dream and should have actually been 999. This ignores the reality that Arabic numerals were probably not invented until ca. 400 AD, and only reached the Middle East by 670 AD, whereas Revelation is considered to have been written in the first century AD. The Omen and its sequels (a series of horror films about the Antichrist) have the Mark Of The Beast found under the hair as an apparent birthmark on the scalp of the character Damien Thorn. The movie was released on 6 June 1976 - the sixth day of the sixth month, that is. The Exorcism of Emily Rose, directed by Scott Derrickson, has many references to the number "666". Emily, who is supposedly possessed by demons, counts to six several times, "One, Two, Three, Four, Five, SIX!!!!". The demons inside her claim that they dwelled also within "Nero" who is presumed to be Nero Caesar. Pi, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is about a character who is faced with a choice to sell his mathematical mind to Wall Street or to a group of Hasidic Jews, illustrating themes of materialism, numerology, and mysticism. With his elaborate home computer setup and complex algorithm the protagonist decipers a predictable pattern in the stock market, and the computer spits out a 216 digit number each time before the system crashes, in recurring epiphanic moments of Icarus-like masochism. As the character falls into madness and before he gives himself a lobotomy, he says again and again "it's not the number; it's what's inside the number." 216 is the cube of 6, or 216 = 6*6*6. The golden ratio is discussed in the movie. The golden ratio's graphical representation is a spiral spun over time with a growing radius, similar to the appearance of the number 6, if the ratio's curve is represented in a single segmented curl. Heretic Anthem, by heavy metal band, Slipknot, features the lyric "If you are 555, then I am 666." In this case, 555 refers to man as 777 refers to God. It is not meant to be satanic but a denial of being a part of mankind. While the association is not clearly Satanic in nature, and usually is not construed to promote Satanism, a reference to the number "666" may be the cause for the controversial assignment of the "Parental Advisory" designation to the HIM album Razorblade Romance, generally considered innocuous as it contains no profanity or sexually explicit language. In Robert A. Heinlein's book, Number of the Beast, "666" is actually six to the sixth to the sixth power, which in the novel is the number of all possible dimensions/universes. The British heavy metal band Iron Maiden have made an album titled The Number of the Beast. The title track quotes from the Bible and the lyrics refer to "six six six - the number of the beast". Flotsam and Jetsam made a song called "6 Six VI". There exists an Australian band called Deströyer 666. Entombed have made an album called DCLXVI - To ride straight and speak the Truth (DCLXVI is the roman number for 666). The Greek progressive rock band Aphrodite's Child made a concept album "666" based on the Book of Revelations. The gothic metal band Saviour Machine created the Legend album series about the end of times, of which the fifth track of Legend part II is called 'The Mark of the Beast'. ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and Yahoo! give the Slovakian-born ice hockey player Miroslav Šatan the ID number of 666 in their databases, likely as a joke about his last name, which is similar to Satan. The relatively popular, and controversial Xenosaga video game series thus far features three characters named Albedo, Rubedo (Jr.), and Nigredo (Gaignun), and as U.R.T.V. are the 667th, 666th, and 669th clones of Dmitri Yuriev respectively. It is often quipped that 667 is "the Neighbour of the Beast" although this is possibly country-dependent as 668 (and 664) would be next property on the same side of the street in most, but not all, countries (assuming that the neighbours referred to are next-door neighbours). There are also at least two filk songs on this topic. Additional quips suggest that 1-888-666-6666 is "the Toll-Free Number of the Beast", $665.99 is "the Retail Price of the Beast", 00666 is "the ZIP Code of the Beast", 0.666 is "the Number of the Millibeast", Route 666 is "the highway of the Beast", 6.5013 is "the natural logarithm of the Beast", 333 is a devil doing a half-assed job, the root of all evil being √666 = 25.8068, etc 6.66, One Hundredth of the Number of the Beast is the name of the only song by the fictional Australian rock band Salmon Hater. Adam Spencer and Wil Anderson, then hosts of the Triple J [2] radio breakfast show, invented the band as a joke one morning. A fan of the show soon composed this song for the pretend band, and a video clip was also made later. Now with the speculation that the number 616 is the real number of the beast, it has come to light that 616 used to be the country number and area code of Canberra, the Capital of Australia, and home to the nation's Government. However the area code was changed from 6 to 2 in 1997. The final book and third book in the Before They Were Left Behind series of is scheduled to be released on June 6, 2006, or the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year. -2·Sin(666°) evaluates to (√5 + 1)/2 which is the Golden Ratio. [edit] Speculation and trivia Former U.S. president Ronald Wilson Reagan had six letters in his first, middle, and last name. He also lived in Bel-Air California, in house number 666 on his block, until wife Nancy Reagan had it changed to 668. Another interesting numerological oddity regarding Reagan, is that the sum of the enumerated phrase "Ronald Reagan President and Chief Executive of the United States of America" equals 666. Some Rastafarians and others believed he was the Beast. Other Christian groups led by Herb Peters and Constance E. Cumbey point the finger at Javier Solana. Coincidentally, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran referred to Reagan, and the U.S. in general, as "the Great Satan." Nelson Mandela's Robben Island prisoner number was 46664. The first Apple Computer, the Appl...