Hey, and gulp, this is officially the 666th post written since the Needlefish came on line, way back on May 15, 2017! Over 750,000 words to date, can you believe it? Now, 666 is such a hugely portentous number in our culture, being as it’s the Book of Revelation’s Number of the Beast and all, that I thought I’d defuse the tension by copying in a short chapter of the tome I once wrote about that very strange, terribly misunderstood final book of the New Testament, discussing what I found out in researching the ancient roots and lost significance of the magic number 666. It turns out that it has a long history outside of the Bible, and relates to astrology as it was practised in deepest antiquity – and there was once nothing sinister about it. Re the numerology of so-called Magic Squares, discussed below, nobody really knows where it all started, but some feel it can be traced back to China. These squares were all over the Middle East in Biblical times, and remain a big deal in certain sub-cultures today, but again, it’s nothing evil. Full of crap, you might say, but demonic? Nah. Strange to think, but Western society’s most feared number is actually completely innocuous, and would have remained so if the unknown author of Revelation hadn’t incorporated it as a clue that nobody since has properly understood (except me!) (and maybe a few others).
The rest of the book can be found here:
the needlefish 