Satan's Sixes Sunday

I think this is the end.

Where did this fear of "666" begin? This article from the Los Angeles Times asserts that it was the 1976 movie "The Omen" that started the craze.

Thanks for the clipping, Karen.

I can't find a lot of material on the Internet that backs up this claim but I believe it is because of "The Omen." I don't have the energy or know-how to prove it.

I'm surprised that 12 years after the L.A. Times article was written that Silver Lake still uses the 666 prefix.

The people of Wagon Mound, New Mexico, didn't seem to care about that prefix to their phone numbers until 1996 (part 1, part 2). I think artist Barbara Quimby probably had no fear of 666 before "The Omen" came out so I think her saying (at the end of part 2) "I think it's insane that they had the 666 in the first place" is nuts. It wasn't an issue until 1976. At least the change was an option and there are still 666 phone numbers there. Not everybody is crazy.

Until this millennium, Tijuana was content with their 666 area code. No more.

I'll bet that nobody referred to U. S. Highway 666 as "The Devil's Highway" before "The Omen." But that designation had to change. Your tax dollars at work.

Nobody thought anything was odd when they found out that somebody lived at 666 Elm Street. Now they do and they are not happy.

A tool I've only recently learned of, the Google Ngram Viewer, gives me a little confidence that the Omen connection is real.

I did a search for the phrase "mark of the beast" to see how often it occurred in books written in English from 1800 to 2000. The results stunned me a bit.

English occurrences of "mark of the beast" 1800-2000

There was a huge jump in the percentage of books containing the phrase from 1800 to 1811, from 0.00000400% to 0.00002400%. A sixfold increase! That devil got folks' knickers in knots back then. But as Martin Miller suggests in his L.A. Times article the interest was limited to biblical scholars. The rest of us never cared.

Occurrences of the phrase dropped off till about 1976(!) to a smaller percentage of books than back in 1800.

In 1976 interest in the phrase started making a comeback.

English occurrences of "mark of the beast" 1970-2000

Coincidence? I think not.

What has my collection of 666 items proven? Probably nothing. I don't think that there was anything to prove. It shows that this number shows up just about anywhere you want to look for it. I'd say that that should prove the number can't have any special significance. I think if anybody who wants to use any of these items as proof that evil is among us, they will have to use them all (you can't go cherry picking for your evidence, can you?). And if they use them all to prove that evil is everywhere and we're doomed, I have to ask why now? This number has always been here.

People who worry about 666 are certainly odd.

I'm sorry that I couldn't drag this out until Sunday, October 21, 2011, when Harold Camping tells us we "will be annihilated together with the whole physical world." This time for sure. Really. His prediction of the end on May 21 inspired this sharing of my apocalyptic collection.

I haven't been adding much to my collection lately. I'm not sure why. I'm glad Mr. Camping gave me the kick in the butt to finally share it.

As Peggy summed it up, it was an odd hobby.