The Zombifying Mark of the Beast
The Zombifying Mark of the Beast
MG Michael, Katina Michael
Revelation 13: 16-18
16 It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. 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.[a] That number is 666.
Abstract:
In Revelation 13:16-18 Saint John the Seer of Patmos describes a time in which people will have an existential decision to make, on whether or not to adopt the “mark of the beast.” This mark would be a requirement for one to be allowed to engage in commerce, that is buying and selling. Denying the mark would lead to suffering persecution by way of exclusion from the marketplace including divers discrimination. The mark is a parody on Jesus Christ’s seal of baptism. The seal is evidence of belonging to the community of believers, the communio sanctorum, both the living and the dead. The mark contains a number “666” and is not necessarily physical or even visible. The vital aspect of this mark [literally, Gk. charagma, a mark that is engraved, etched, branded, cut, imprinted] is that it would be required for any kind of economic transaction. And so, our analogy to zombification of the marked, is a total enslavement of the will and conscience. These individuals, according to the author of the Revelation will be unable to revert back to their former selves, hence being “zombified”.
Some of Michael’s theological-historical research on the mark of the beast can be downloaded from the following peer reviewed papers:
Michael, MG, 666 or 616 (Rev. 13, 18), Bulletin of Biblical Studies, 19, July-December 2000, 77-83.
Michael, MG, "For it is the Number of a Man", Bulletin of Biblical Studies, 19, January-June 2000, 79-89.
Michael, MG, The Genre of the Apocalypse: What are they saying now?, Bulletin of Biblical Studies, 18, July-December 1999, 115-126.
Michael, MG, Observations on 666 in the Old Testament, Bulletin of Biblical Studies, 18, January-June 1999, 33-39.
M. G. Michael. "Demystifying the Number of the Beast in the Book of Revelation: Examples of Ancient Cryptology and the Interpretation of the 666 Conundrum" Wollongong, Australia, IEEE International Symposium on Technology and Society (2010).
Dr M.G. Michael Ph.D. (ACU), M.A (Hons) (MacqUni), M.Theol (SydUni), B.Theol (SCD), B.A. (SydUni), DipProfCouns (AIPC) is a theologian and historian with cross-disciplinary qualifications in the humanities and who introduced the concept of überveillance into the privacy and bioethics literature. Michael brings with him a unique perspective to emerging technologies. His formal studies include ancient history, theology, general philosophy, political sociology, ethics, linguistics, and government. In 2005 Michael began as a tutor the School of Computing and Information Technology at the University of Wollongong, retiring in 2019 as an honorary associate professor. During this time, he guest-lectured and researched in a diverse number of interdisciplinary areas, also coordinating Information and Communication Security Issues and delivering talks on Location-Based Services, IT & Citizen Rights, Principles of eBusiness, IT & Innovation, and the Social Impact of Technology. Between 2007 and 2008, MG was part of the first known initiative to deliver tertiary-level liberal studies courses to a refugee camp through the Australian Catholic University.
The focus of MG’s current research extends to modern hermeneutics and the Apocalypse of John; the historical antecedents of modern cryptography; the auto-ID trajectory; data protection, privacy and ethics related issues; biometrics, RFID and chip implants; national security and government policy; dataveillance and überveillance; and more broadly the system dynamics between technology and society. Michael has previously been a member of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and is a life member of the Australian Privacy Foundation (APF). He has guest edited numerous special issues and acted as proceedings editor of four national security workshops sponsored by the Australian Research Council’s Research Network for a Secure Australia (RNSA). He has co-authored two full length technical reference volumes in identification, location-based services and the social implications of microchip implants and 4 workshop proceedings on national security.
Katina Michael is a professor at Arizona State University, holding a joint appointment in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and School of Computing, Informatics and Decisions Systems Engineering. She is also the director of the Society Policy Engineering Collective (SPEC) and the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society. Katina is a senior member of the IEEE and a Public Interest Technology advocate who studies the social implications of technology. She has held 13 annual workshops in the social implications of national security space and chaired 3 international symposia on technology and society (ISTAS) in Wollongong, Toronto and Phoenix. She is the Senior Editor of the socio-economic impact section in IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine and was the editor in chief of the award-winning IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. In 2019 she took on the role of working group chair for the IEEE P2089 standard. In 2017, she received the Brian M. O'Connell SSIT Distinguished Service Award.
In the 1990s, Katina was employed as a senior network planner at Nortel Networks and systems analyst at Andersen Consulting and OTIS. In 2002 she entered academia as a lecturer at the University of Wollongong and in 2013 became a member of the executive team in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences as the Associate Dean – International, overseeing 8 partner and twinning arrangements for the University in the UAE, Malaysia, Singapore, China and Hong Kong. Katina completed a Masters degree in transnational crime prevention in the Faculty of Law with a UOW postgraduate scholarship in 2007, and was later invited to teach cybercrime in the law school. Her PhD was on systems of innovation in the automatic identification industry. She is presently working her way through a Certificate at a snail’s pace at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS) at Cambridge University.
About ZAMM: Going digital 2020. The Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Meeting (ZAMM) is a radically interdisciplinary meeting that bridges science and the arts to grapple with the most pressing challenges of the present and the future. We define a zombie as an entity that is fully or partially under the control of another entity. This includes host-parasite interactions, autonomous technology, and coercion/control in human interactions. These dynamics - where one entity controls another - can lead to unanticipated biological, technological and social consequences. ZAMM brings together scientists, artists, doctors, lawyers, ethicists and futurists to engage with the challenges of zombification and the apocalyptic conditions that may be generated by or contribute to zombification. We use the zombie apocalypse as a lens through which we can engage about potentially frightening aspects of our present and future without fear and anxiety, but instead with imagination and creativity. The goal of ZAMM is to reduce the global burden of zombification and contribute to apocalypse prevention and preparedness through interdisciplinary engagement. THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE MEDICINE MEETING Oct 15-18, 2020
Citation: M.G. Michael and Katina Michael, 15 October 2020, “The Zombifying Mark of the Beast”, in C. Athena Aktipis, ZAMM20: Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Meeting, http://www.zombiemed.org/#zamm2020. To be viewed on Channel Zed: https://www.channelzed.org/
Postscript: Michael and I are very excited that our son, George, will be featured at ZAMM also with an original composition set to the movie 28 Weeks Later. If you are interested in listening to a 90 sec excerpt please play the video below.
Title: “Running away from the infected with the rage virus” in 28 Weeks Later
Composer: George Gabriel Michael
Abstract: I chose this scene from 28 Weeks Later (2007) where the protagonist Don Harris (Robert Carlyle) faces the difficult decision to leave his wife Alice Harris (Catherine McCormack) behind in an attack by those infected by the "rage virus". He is haunted by his decision to leave her in order to save himself when there is no other way of escape. This inner moral conflict is an ideal atmosphere of mood and drama for any film score composer. This new composition for the movie 28 Weeks Later is a scene of “escape” from the infected, that are a “type of” zombie. One cannot look back in order to save themselves, at all costs.
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