Whither Nine?

Of interest primarily to eschatologists & the author of this "Self Help Radio" blog is this notice: this is post number 666.

This is peripherally related to this week's "Self Help Radio" insofar as this week's theme is the number nine (9) & the number 666 can be perceived by even slightly self-aware numerologists as 999 upside down. Please rotate your computer clockwise to confirm.

The number 666 should have simply enjoyed the same associations its brethren 111, 222, 333, 444, 555, 777, 888, & 999 have enjoyed since humans began to count &/or play with pocket calculators. However, the pranksters who wrote the last chapter of the Bible, called "Revelation," asserted mischievously that 666 will be the "number of the beast," to further freak out anyone who might, years after it was drunkenly written & read out loud to much mirth, take seriously something written by people who still believed the sun rotated around the earth & were centuries away from the germ theory of disease.

In modern times, the number of the beast has enjoyed popularity mainly with heavy metal bands, as it is easy to write & can be shouted even when devastatingly inebriated. When the writers of "Revelation" rejected 777 as the "number of the beast," they did the genre of heavy metal a great favor. Imagine what screaming that number would have been like - perhaps an awkward abbreviation, like that of the "www" in URLs as "dub dub dub"? It would have seriously impeded most drunken louts' ability to rock.

Some poor souls are so terrified of the number 666 that they have coined a phobia term for it: hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. It is said that even telling someone that they are hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic will trigger an attack. However, since the word is longer than most words a person will hear in his or her life (unless they are German), some specialists believe it is the length of the word & not the word's meaning that terrifies the afflicted. Most studies are of course planned to settle the issue.

This particular "Self Help Radio" blog entry, numbered 666, has nothing whatsoever to do with Christian end-time prophecy. While it is rumored that Satan himself enjoys "Self Help Radio," gullible souls who fear the power of this impotent number might well be advised that even Satan himself doesn't think that Satan exists. Therefore, a single blog entry, which will most probably not even be read by anyone outside the post's writer, has little or no power to adversely affect any reader. & certainly writing six hundred & sixty-six entries about what has been described as a wholly unremarkable radio show can be said to be a minor achievement!

Please enjoy the rest of your day free from Biblical doom-predictions & any other numerological noodling.