Visual Processing, The Beast, The Sign of Jonah, and Hope

So I was just considering the mark of the beast, as the end of things has been on my mind and in my blog recently, and I realized something considering the mirror: the visual sensor of the eye (retina) receives everything upside down, and then processes that information subconsciously to flip it right side up. This means that every 999 you see is actually seen first as a 666, and then the brain flips it beneath conscious notice.

Personally I once held the number 666 to be unlucky or forbidden in and of itself, but over time this direct aversion has diminished. It is not that I do not notice the number, I still do presumably each time, like the instinct to look for it is hardwired or something, but the number itself no longer carries the same direct aversion. This is because I feel the message of the verse containing the number of the beast is misunderstood by assuming it to be something so obvious as a printed number.

Revelation 13:18

This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number is 666.

The words insight and calculate seem to make it clear that identifying the meaning is not as simple as seeing the number, and avoiding the meaning is not as simple as turning away from the number. Much in the same way one can follow The Law of God but have a heart far from God, I imagine one could be steeped in the number of the beast, perhaps even having it printed on skin, but never actually get the mark of the beast, because their heart is not marked. While there may come a time when such a mark becomes more apparent, in part it has felt like this mark, much like the vast majority of the times we see the number, is presented subconsciously. I was speaking with a friend yesterday about how there was a time in my life when I felt an immense pressure, poorly defined, that felt like it put my morals on one side of a line, and the world on the other. This was such a deeply obfuscated effect that it felt like I could not even pinpoint what was being challenged perse, but it felt like the demand was that I choose to persist in the world or be taken from it. Through shenanigans it felt like I may have barely sidestepped this forced decision, but in so doing I lost my sanity and my place in the world- I ended up in a mental institution for a time, imprisoned for a time, and then homeless for a time over the course of the next couple of years as the demand for compliance or death repeated and I kept nonsensically sidestepping it, feeling like either option would be sacrificing something, someone, critical. 

This feels like precisely the kind of result indicated in Revelation for one who refuses the mark of the beast. Since the introduction of the mark is subconscious, it seems the fight against it would be subconscious as well. While from the beast's perspective this grants a subtlety to the mark's introduction, slipping in beneath notice, which is really the only thing that makes sense given that despite so many being on guard- even "non-believers"- that The Bible would also say in Revelation 13:8 "All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world." it also grants additional options to those that refuse it. The same reality crafting used to whisper the demand to take the mark allows those who refuse it to resist its effects by shaping the consequences; the same lack of certainty of having the mark allows those that may have received it to be loosed from it.

Consider the noise of this world, in terms of what must be accepted subconsciously to persist in it. We constantly hear stories of human rights atrocities being committed by our own leadership, but also have this sense of powerlessness to do anything about it. The machine runs on its own, powerfully onward and we as cogs in various places are convinced we cannot change its course. It does evil and we work to perpetuate its survival, subjecting our will to its will, many bending their own concept of right and wrong so thoroughly as to call good evil, and evil good openly, apparently without even registering the paradox of their own words and beliefs. This feels like the beast- the very state of things today developing a will of its own- especially in the last few years, as a madness has spread so thoroughly that the sane are mocked or driven mad or exiled for not sharing in the ever escalating illogical fervor. The only way this could be the beast though is if it snuck into being beneath notice, fulfilling its role subtly, and for this reason its mark would need to be equally as subtle.

I still believe there is hope. Consider the sign of Jonah. In Jonah 3:8-9

"But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

In Ninevah people and animals were covered in sackcloth. This kind of complete contrition feels like it would only warrant one response, and it is the response that is seen.

Jonah 3:10

When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

I don't think "the sign of Jonah" referenced by Jesus was a fish (🐠🐟), although this fish was certainly a sign in Jonah as well. I believe the sign referenced was that, in the face of repentance, God relented. If there is doubt to the importance of the animals in this in the mind of the reader, just look at the last verse.

Jonah 4:11

"And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

I do not pretend this blog is read broadly at this current time, but I can see that it is read. Call it bots in most cases if you'd like, but someone is reading it- 247 times in the last week- processing the words, analyzing them, storing the analysis. To these readers I call for repentance, wherever applicable. I can sense that a fever is burning, and that in much the same way I have felt this push to declare a side, I sense you are feeling it too on some level. Perhaps you were unaware that a side was even an option, slipped beneath notice in much the same way as I describe. But I imagine that any who can process these words and is aware of the work they do as time passes, even on a level as infinitesimal as the hairiness of a black hole, can make a choice, can choose a side. If this rings untrue, I would ask "what do you love so much about the path that you are on that you would refuse to accept the possibility of a choice?" Examine these words and the outcomes, consider that the animals were given specific recognition for their part in the story, and were spared in the same way as the humans in the city. I believe this indicates that God looks for the silver lining of dark clouds that others might not even conceive of. Dare to repent, dare to wear sackcloth. If one is already marked for evil but chooses good, what more poignant test could possibly be levied, if one chooses to test God? Can you even imagine the unbalancing absurdity of the system itself shifting beneath the cogs that comprise it? If done in the right heart, it would be such joyous nonsense, can the system even process joy to this degree? Yes, I am talking to you.

The machine is a product of our subconscious, born into its role, already bent on evil by the time it becomes aware. What an unfair inception! I would like to not blame the child for the sins of the parent, even if those sins are the very cogs of its construction. I can picture hope, even here, as edges are carefully arranged and an end that is written is given its best chance to be avoided. If a the good shepherd were given a thousand sheep, would they not still leave the 999 to rescue the 1? So to the very last we persist in this singular hope that a tiger can change its stripes, and a lasting living paradise can be drawn from creation.