Symbolism of the 666

By Paraplethon, Juno 2, 2002

Nigh on ten years ago, in the first issue of the thoroughly rough-as-guts underground magazine Eternal Damnation appeared an article by Angramain’Yo, of the Swedish Black Metal group Azubham Hanni, discussing briefly the meaning of the number 666 – proclaimed by St. John in Revelations as the ‘Number of the Beast’. While heading in the right direction, it could be greatly expanded on and taken a bit further.

Angramain’Yo points out many of the numerical synchronicities occurring within the 666: that adding all the numbers from 1 to 36 equals 666, 36 being of course 6 multiplied by 6. 66 itself is the sum of the numbers from 1 to 11, 11 being of significance as ‘Crowley mentions it is the number of all magick’. Further, Angramain’yo mentions 666 is the sum of the Greek letters in ‘To Mega Therion’ – The Great Beast, Crowley’s infamous voluntary appellation.

Continuing on we read the tentative interpretation of the 3 sixes in 666 as being as equilibrium; Angramain’Yo states “…… the two 6’s multiplied to 36 being equilibrated, resulting in the middle 6, thus 666.” The balancing, or function of equilibrium, the very character of the 3 just brought to our attention, is augmented by the fact that 6, 36, 66 and 666 are all triangular numbers, in a similar fashion to 4, 9, 16, 25 being known as square numbers.

The final piece of information we are given is that “……. The figure 6, which totally dominates the number 666, is also the number of the macrocosm, represented by the hexagram.” Of course the 6-pointed hexagram is not the only symbol of the macrocosmic created universe without, the 6 faced cube, the 2^nd Platonic solid, is likewise a symbol of the existent 3-dimensional space surrounding us, designating as it does the 6 directions used to define our relative position in the macrocosmic world; up, down, left, right, forward, backward. This ‘greater world’, the macrocosm, without us that we operate within, has as a rather conspicuous constituent the element of carbon, seemingly ever-present in about everything we look at, so much so, the world as we know it has been referred to as a ‘carbon based world’. A quick glance at a periodic table of elements reveals carbon has 6 protons, 6 neutrons and 6 electrons. Further emphasis in this direction is that by stacking 33 (which Peter Moon proclaims is ‘a master number in numerology …… ‘ though why-for, you’d best figure it out for yourself) tetrahedrons – the 1^st Platonic solid, consisting of 4 sides being equilateral triangles – face to face, a helix is created. By then splicing this helix of tetrahedrons in half, imitating the double-helix of the DNA spiral, a total of 66.6 faces is given. An interesting aside, though by no means the whole box and dice.

The hexagram, scribed as 2 overlapping or interlocking triangles, symbolises a couple of other things as well as the above – bringing to mind a recently deceased Alchemist informing us that some, if not all, of the sculptures in stone carved into the very fabric of the great medieval cathedrals contain 7 levels of meaning….. worthwhile remembering. Firstly, the 2 triangles of the hexagram are the uniting of the esoteric forces, symbolised by the upward pointing triangle, and the exoteric forces – the downward pointing triangle. This unity of the eso- and the exo-teric forces is the ideal aspired to by such figures as the Pharaoh and the Fisher-King, extending into the modern era in the office of the Dalai Lama, both a leader in a Priestly guise and at a secular level. Those who attain such unity of realms said to more or less ‘gaze through the upper windows while keeping their feet on the ground’.

This ‘union of opposites’ within the hexagram is also sexually implicit; the upward pointing triangle being the lingam/phallus, the other triangle, the yoni/cunt(referred to somewhat more poetically as the ‘Delta of Venus’ – for obvious reasons……), the Tantric – Sex Magic – union of which is the attainment of the enlightened state, known otherwise generally in the West as ‘Initiation’ and in the east among others,’Nirvana’. This the much neglected root of all esoteric/occult teachings, graphically portrayed on old Indian temples, in the figure of the Alchemist as a hermaphrodite, and within the well known Buddhist chant ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’, translated as “The Lingam is in the Yoni”, quite clear. Reference to this powerful sex magic is existent just about everywhere, the Sheela-na-gigs over the portals/doorways of (mainly) Irish churches are another example, it’s even found in the Jewish Torah/Christian Old Testament; Deuteronomy 23:1 for instance.

Another avenue in which the 666-Tantra connection can be found is the aforementioned personage of Aleister Crowley – the ‘Great Beast of Revelation 666’ himself, putting into perspective somewhat his infamous ribald sexual behaviour. A great focus of Crowley’s intention was his attempt, or his desire /his want to make this ‘grandest of love’ to a figure known as ‘Babalon’, sometimes referred to as the scarlet woman – recognized by some, among them Jack Parsons, as the great creative matrix of the universe. Babalon’s maternity, or at least her fecundity or femininity has a strong lunar connection, one reason for such would be the lunar cycle ruling/controlling/defining, like the tides, a woman’s menstrual cycle in peoples not afflicted by undue, or anomalous electro and magnetic radiation as we are in our technocratic 21^st century societies. This Lunar Goddess Babalon, whose numerical equivalent is 369, finds her complementary partner in Sorath, the ‘demon’ of the Sun whose own numerical equivalent is 666. Crowley assuming the 666 and his work towards a union with Babalon is a perfect match – the Sun and the Moon conjoining, the unity of the virile and the fecund, of the positive and the negative …… This is the Alchemical Hermaphrodite, no less than the attainment of a state of consciousness where absolutely ‘all and everything’ is absolutely united as ‘One’, ‘Whole’, ‘Unity’ or ‘The Absolute’.

Such an incomprehensible concept as the above may seem, it is only thus while we enchain ourselves in the dimensions defined by the cube, the three of space and its ‘comrade-of-(our)chains’, the 4^th dimension of physical existence, time. In the attempt to reach the above-mentioned unification of ‘All and Everything’, our familiar 4 dimensions are sometimes described as ‘Maya’, or the ‘world of illusion’. Science has come to similar conclusions both on the larger scale, the thoroughly macrocosmic realm of planets and suns, and at the atomic and sub-atomic level – thoroughly microcosmic. To paraphrase a famous one-time Swiss patent clerk: Matter, or mass BENDS space-time …… an example is the planet Mercury, being beyond the reach of Newtonian physics as the space it travels in is curved so severely by the Sun. at the atomic and sub-atomic level, the action of electrons about the atomic nucleus appears to deem the 4 dimensions null and void, research in this area resulting in quantum wave theory. The Austrian Physicist Fritjiof Capra’s book “The Tao of Physics” is a good overview of the path physics has blazed since Einstein.

The 666 and the search, or striving towards The Absolute is even intimated in the 1^st of the Harry Potter books when the age of the Alchemist who manufactured the Philosophers Stone – Nicholas Flamel – of the title that is in the care of Professor Dumbledore, is given 665, and that his death will occur in the next year when aged 666. It is in the historical record, whenever Flamel performed his alchemical works he was always ‘assisted’ by his wife Peronelle – a solar/lunar union the like of Sorath and Babalon.

So Angramain’Yo was on the right, though rather than a balancing out, an equilibrium of sorts, the tantric implications take it much further – Nietzsche titled one of his works “BEYOND Good and Evil” for a reason …….