666: the day of the Devil
By COLIN WILSON, Daily Mail
According to legend, tomorrow is the day of the Devil — and will trigger the end of the world. Superstitious hokum? Hollywood hype? Or should we really prepare for the worst...
Across the world, millions of women are due to give birth tomorrow. Apart from the usual understandable concerns about whether their baby will be born many will also be feeling nervous about the date itself.
According to folklore, June 6, 2006 — or 6/6/06 — signifies the Number of the Beast. In the Book of Revelation, this date heralds the birth of the Antichrist (whose number is 666) and the beginning of the end of the world.
Throughout history, many have predicted Armageddon. But it was Jesus's favourite disciple, John the Evangelist, who, while held as a prisoner on the Aegean island of Patmos around AD96, wrote of the Apocalypse — a vision of the end of the world so terrible it has haunted Man's imagination ever since.
Now, with typical Hollywood hype, 20th Century Fox has cynically decided to take advantage of tomorrow's sinister date to launch its remake of the Seventies horror film The Omen.
The original featured the satanic boy Damien. The new version relates how the child of the American ambassador to Britain is the Antichrist, who is set to become the ruler of civilisation and precipitate Man's final battle.
Now you might feel that since the Bible predicts the Antichrist will lose that final struggle, the rest of us — even those mothers of children born tomorrow — have nothing to worry about. But the Bible also tells us that most of us will perish in the coming disaster.
St John's Book of Revelation was intended to assure Christians that Jesus would return and triumph over the Antichrist. These events, he said, would happen in a precise sequence.
First, there would be mighty earthquakes and natural catastrophes that would continue for seven years. Some people believe the earthquake that triggered the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, the Pakistani earthquake in 2005 and last month's Indonesian earthquake ominously fit this pattern.
Another sign would be a great disaster that would descend from the heavens — that sounds alarmingly like an asteroid strike.
The earth has about ten near-misses a year, and the last one, in June 2002, passed us by a mere 75,000 miles. If it had struck, it would have devastated 120,000 square miles — comparable to the asteroid that exploded over Siberia in 1908.
St John predicts the Earth will then be blighted by wars, famine and pestilence — caused by the opening of the Book of Seven Seals, an act representing God's final judgment on mankind.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
When God opens the Book of Seven Seals, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would suddenly be released.
While all this has been going on, the human race will have failed to observe the arrival of the Antichrist.
No one will notice, for the simple reason that, far from seeming menacing, he will be charming and charismatic, and will be immensely popular. In fact, he is the Devil in disguise, and his purpose is to turn us into his slaves.
Like Adolf Hitler, he will be hailed as a saviour, and vast armies will march at his command. It is this world dictator who will initiate the battle of Armageddon. He is, says the Book of Revelation, the Beast, and his number is 666. Hence the symbolism of tomorrow's date — the first time it has occurred in its simplest form since before the Norman Conquest.
In Hebrew, each of the 22 letters in its alphabet is associated with a number, and words can be interpreted according to their number code.
Therefore, the letters of the unknown Beast's name will add up to 666. And, of course, June 6, 2006, would seem to be the obvious date for the birth of the Devil child.
However, according to the story, just as the Beast is about to win the battle, the heavens will open, fire will devour his army, and he will be hurled back into the pit, where he belongs.
But by then, most of us will have perished.
And when is all this due to happen? The answer, you will be relieved to hear, is that the time is long past.
John had been present when Jesus told his disciples: "There are some standing here today who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom" (Matthew 16: 28). Which meant, of course, within their lifetime — so in the first century AD.
When John wrote the Book of Revelation, he was expecting the end of the world any day.
After the year 100 came and went, Christian theologians quickly re-calculated and said the end of the world would take place in the year 1000. And again, it did not happen.
The number 666
So who was the 'original' Beast 666? Almost certainly it was Nero, the emperor who tortured and killed so many Christians. The Hebrew letters of Caesar Nero add up to 666.
According to one recent theory, St John had a more important reason for choosing the number 666.
In 1989, the scientist Maurice Cotterell fed into the giant computer at Cranfield University some long numbers he had found in the ancient religious calendar of the Maya of Mexico, and realised these early people understood the complex sun cycles that govern life on Earth.
All life is carbon-based, and the carbon atom contains six electrons, six protons and six neutrons. He went on to discover that several other ancient religions, including those of Egypt, China and Peru, also knew about this science of the sun, in which 666 plays a central role. Cotterell found the same numbers, looking like the sixes on a digital clock, engraved in a maze pattern on the Ardagh Chalice, Ireland's foremost treasure, which was found by two men digging for potatoes.
In his book The Celtic Chronicles, he explains why he believes the chalice is the Holy Grail, from which Christ drank at the Last Supper.
He says it was brought to England in AD60 by Joseph of Arimathea, and was engraved with the number 666 and other symbols by King Arthur in the fifth century.
It was taken to the monastery at Lindisfarne in the seventh century, and was hidden by the monks, to save it from Viking raiders. Somehow, it then made its way to Ireland.
Cotterell's decoding shows the chalice contains the same basic knowledge he uncovered during his research into the culture of the Mayans, China, Egypt and Peru.
So though the Book of Revelation may seem to the modern mind to be a bewildering farrago of strange and violent images, Cotterell believes its central puzzle, 666, refers to the carbon atom, which St John intended to symbolise our material world.
Since Jesus refers to himself in the Book of Revelation as 'the bright morning star' — Venus, which symbolises light — our world of matter is symbolised by the number of the Devil, 666.
The makers of the new Omen movie hope to add an extra dimension to all this history of dread and foreboding.
Indeed, they have been helped by the Dean of Guildford Cathedral, where the original 1976 movie was set.
He has issued a scathing attack on the movie and said the cathedral suffered a fall in visitor numbers after a wedding — when Damien flew into a rage — was portrayed there.
Mankind has always been haunted by the concept of the Apocalypse. But for any mother giving birth tomorrow and fearing the worst, I suggest she should help ward off potential evil by following the traditional custom of devouring a charcoal biscuit.
