October 2005 FATE - 666: What’s in a Number? by Lon Milo DuQuette
This an interesting article from fate magazine on the origins of the devils number 666.
Are you afraid of the number 666? If you were issued an automobile license plate or a telephone number that included a string of three sixes would you ask for a different number? Do you think the number 666 is inherently evil? Do you believe any number can in and of itself be evil?
There is a name for your condition - “Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia” - the fear of the number 666.
The dreaded number makes its first and only appearance in the last book of the New Testament, the Revelation of Saint John the Divine (often mistakenly called Revelations) - a book that for centuries has been interpreted by theologians as a document prophesying the terrible events that will take place at the end of the world.
Early Church fathers decided that John, the author of the Revelation, was the same John who wrote the Gospel According to John (the last of the Four Gospels). Modern experts from a wide range of religious and non-religious persuasions agree this is probably not the case. The style of the Greek writing and other obvious differences suggest the two books were penned by different individuals
After the crucifixion John was arrested and banished to the tiny isle of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, a place renowned in the ancient world for two things: its barren isolation and the fact that the powerful hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria grew there in abundance. We will never know for certain whether or not John (knowingly or unknowingly) was influenced by the magic mushroom.
since the apocalypse didn’t happen in the first century (at least not in the way predicted in the Revelation), people have been eagerly looking forward to the end of the world, seeking out individuals they don’t like and trying to make their names add up to 666. Likely candidates have been Martin Luther, Henry VIII, Robespierre, Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington (and his alleged Illuminati double, Adam Weishaupt), Lenin, Adolf Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, Prince Charles, King Juan Carlos of Spain, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bill Clinton, Osama Bin Laden, and both George Bushes - and, oh, I almost forgot, all the Popes.
There was, however, one man in the not-too-distant past who proudly claimed the title. His name was Aleister Crowley, and during his lifetime the newspapers called him “the Wickedest Man in the World.”
Crowley tried to explain this in court when he testified in a 1934 lawsuit. He was asked, “Did you take to yourself the designation of ‘the Beast 666′?”
“Yes.”
“Do you call yourself the ‘Master Therion’?”
“Yes.”
“What does ‘Therion’ mean?”
“Great wild beast.”
“Do these titles convey a fair impression of your practice and outlook on life?”
“It depends on what they mean.”
“The Great Wild Beast and the Beast 666 are out of the Apocalypse?”
“It only means sunlight; 666 is the number of the sun. You can call me ‘Little Sunshine.’”
This was a very interesting article and what was the conclusion?
the number 666 is strange and wonderful. But what would happen if we were to discover that there had been some kind of mistake and that 666 was not the number Saint John referred to in the 17th verse of the 13th chapter of his book? Would the nature of evil change? Would satanic rock bands have to change their tattoos?
Maybe they’ll have to. Recently a 1,500-year-old papyrus manuscript was examined, using new technologies to “read” the heretofore illegible script. The document is written in Greek and is the oldest known version of the Book of the Revelation. The tiny fragment confirms what many scholars and churchmen have long suspected. The text actually reads:
“Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man: and his number is 616.”
