Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (pronounced hex-ax-oh-gee-oh-e-eye-hex-en-gen-too-hex-a-pho-be-ah)

Fear of the number 666.

The number 666 is best known from the New Testament’s Book of Revelation (13:15–18) and is a symbol both of the Antichrist and the Devil and is applied to the second of two beasts mentioned in the Book of Revelation.  The construct was the Ancient Greek ἑξακόσιοι (hexakósioi) (six hundred) + ἑξήκοντα (hexḗkonta) (sixty) + ἕξ (héx) (six) +‎ -phobia.  The suffix -phobia (fear of a specific thing; hate, dislike, or repression of a specific thing) was from the New Latin, from the Classical Latin, from the Ancient Greek -φοβία (-phobía) and was used to form nouns meaning fear of a specific thing (the idea of a hatred came later).  For biblical scholars for whom 616 is as suspect as 666 the companion phobia is hexakosioihekkaidekaphobia.  Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia & hexakosioihexekontahexaphobe are nouns and hexakosioihexekontahexaphobic is an adjective; the noun plural is hexakosioihexekontahexaphobes.  For help when practicing pronunciation, go to How to Pronounce.

The number of the beast

The origin is murky and there are other biblical references but not always as 666; 666 is the number of talents of gold Solomon collected each year and is the number of Adonikam's descendants who return to Jerusalem and Judah from the Babylonian exile and scholars suggest there are latent references in transliteration.   Nebuchadnezzar, the sixth-century BC king of Babylon, appears both as Nebuchadrezzar and Nebuchadrezzur and the number of each name can be calculated because in the Hebrew, letters double as numbers.  Nebuchadrezzar is 663, and Nebuchadrezzur, 669; midway between the two lies 666 and it was Nebuchadrezzar, who came (bidden by God) to crush God's people so may thus prefigure the end of times beast, the antagonistic creature which appears briefly about two-thirds into Revelation’s apocalyptic vision. Some manuscripts of the original Greek use the symbols χξϛ or χξϝ while other manuscripts spell out the number in words.  Using gematria (the method of calculating numbers from names), Nero Caesar transliterated from Greek into Hebrew produces the number 666 whereas the Latin spelling renders 616.  Thus, 666 may be a coded reference to Nero, although that notion does depend on the accepted Hebrew spelling of Caesar, a thing about which there’s some doubt.  In 1997, in Australia, the media published a photograph of a car belonging to a suspect in the murder of a one-year-old child.  The car (a Ford XC Fairmont (1976-1979)) had the license plate XC 666; in subsequent uses of the image, “XC 666” was pixelated.  Subsequently charged with the crime, at trial, the accused was acquitted.

For two millennia there’s never been ecclesiastical or scholarly consensus about 666.  Although the second century Greek cleric Irenaeus affirmed 666, theologians then and since have expressed doubts because of the appearance of 616 in the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, one of the four great uncial codices, as well as in the Latin version of Tyconius and an ancient Armenian version.  Irenaeus knew about 616 but choose, for whatever reason, to correct the Vetus Latina, the existing Latin version of the New Testament.  The oldest known manuscript of Revelation, from Papyrus 115 in the Oxyrhynchus series, uses 616, as does the later Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, even having 616 written in full: ἑξακόσιοι δέκα ἕξ, hexakosioi deka hex (six hundred and sixteen).  These documents are cited by some scholars who suggest 616 was the original, 666 substituted by analogy with 888, the Greek number for Jesus.  More fun, and just as speculative, is the idea the writers of the time just liked numbers, 666 being more interesting than 616 because:

(1) 666 is a triangular number, the sum of the first 36 natural numbers (ie 1+2+3+4+5+6+...+36=666).  That of course makes 666 the sum total of the numbers on a roulette wheel.  Zero, so often of such significance, here has no effect. 

(2) 666 is the sum of squares of the first seven prime numbers.

(3) In Roman numerals 666 is DCLXVI which has exactly one occurrence of all symbols whose value is less than 1000 in decreasing order (D=500, C=100, L=50, X=10, V=5, I=1).

(4) In base 10, 666 is a repdigit (and therefore a palindromic number) and a Smith number.  A prime reciprocal magic square based on 1/149 in base 10 has a magic total of 666.

The Number of the Beast is 666 (circa 1805), pen and watercolor, by William Blake (1757-1827).

Blake’s works were so confronting that in his lifetime there was something of a minor industry in literary and artistic circles discussing his sanity though viewed from afar, latter day critics have tended to be pragmatic, the English musicologist and critic Gerald Abraham (1904–1988) in 1937 writing: “Sanity (in the everyday sense of the word) is not an essential quality of great art.  Indeed, William Blake’s insanity was worth more than the sanity of any number of artistic mediocrities.”  A century earlier, writing in 1828 to the poet Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855; sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850)), the scholar Henry Crabb Robinson 1775–1867) observed: “His paintings are copies of what he saw in his visions.  His books are dictations from the spirits.  He told me yesterday that when he writes it is for the spirits only; he sees the words fly about the room the moment he has put them to paper, and his book is then published. A man so favoured, of course, has sources of wisdom peculiar to himself.”  Robinson in his diary (published posthumously in 1869 as Reminiscences and Correspondence) quoted Wordsworth as saying of Blake: “There is no doubt that this poor man was mad, but there is something in the madness of this man which interests me more than the sanity of Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron 1788–1824) or Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832).”  Clearly, not all agreed with Lady Caroline Lamb (1785-1828) who, after an intense, doomed affair with Byron, memorably damned him as “mad, bad and dangerous to know”.  Lady Caroline, estranged wife of Lord Melbourne (1779–1848) who after her death would become prime minister (1834 & 1835-1841) was herself unstable and at 42 would die what would now be called a “messy, drug-related death”.

The Lovers Whirlwind (circa 1826), pen, ink and watercolor by William Blake.  The work is an illustration of Hell in Canto V of the Inferno in Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy (circa 1310-1321)) by Dante (Dante Alighieri (circa 1265–1321)).

Modern medical science would now have a diagnosis to explain Blake’s symptoms, described by A.C. Ward (1891-1973) in the Illustrated History of English Literature (1955) as: “Almost from infancy Blake was beset by visions; when he was four he spoke of God looking at him through a window; and at the age of eight he declared he saw ‘a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars’.”  Armed with such anecdotal evidence, it is of course tempting to turn to the APA’s (American Psychiatric Association's) DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and retrospectively find a diagnosis, the most obvious place to start the section on psychotic-spectrum disorders, specifically schizophrenia.  In the DSM-5-TR (2022), included in the criteria are hallucinations (perception without external stimulus) but for a diagnosis to be accepted additional features need to be present (delusions, disorganized thought, functional impairment) and there is also a duration threshold.  Importantly, childhood imaginative or visionary experiences alone are insufficient for a diagnosis of schizophrenia because vivid imagery, imaginary companions or quasi-hallucinatory experiences not infrequently occur in normal development, particularly in highly imaginative or cognitively precocious children.  Without distress, impairment, or persistence into later pathology, “childhood visions” alone would not satisfy the DSM’s diagnostic threshold.

God judging Adam (1795), by William Blake.

This is a work of some technical interest because the method uniquely was Blake's.  A plate etched in relief was used to print the design, after which colors were painted onto millboard or a similar surface, then printed onto the sheet like a monotype. Finally, Blake enhanced the print by hand with watercolor and ink.  The process can be imagined as something like the “layers” principle used by image editors such as Photoshop.

The related category is Schizotypal Personality Disorder, which includes “unusual perceptual experiences” and what is popularly called “magical thinking” but again, what’s required is a broader, persistent pattern of social or cognitive traits.  What of course can’t be known are any neurological factors and the DSM-5 explicitly cautions against pathologizing experiences that may be thought culturally sanctioned (visions of angels, divine presence etc); while Blake was famously antipathetic towards the priesthood and organized religion, he certainly thought much about God and the Devil and, on the basis of his work, he was much influenced by the traditions of Western sacred art.  Unfortunately, a clinician likely would conclude a few anecdotal asides from contemporaries who may well have had some interest in adding to the “Blake mythology” are insufficient for even an indicative diagnosis.  It can be summed up: Insufficient data.

Thanks to popular culture, even beyond Christendom, the number 666 and its relationship with the Devil and the Antichrist is well known and it clearly affects a few.  When in 1989 Ronald Reagan (1911-2004 US president 1981-1989) retired to leafy rich Bel-Air in Los Angeles (a locality which maintained its prestige despite the indignity of the Chevrolet Bel Air between 1950-1972 being reduced from a premium to a basic model), although happing with the house at 666 St Cloud Road, they soon had the address changed to 668.  Whether this was on advice from Nancy Reagan’s (1921-2016) clairvoyant isn’t recorded but some organs of the US state also chose not to take chances.  US Route 666 (dating from 1926), upon statistical analysis, proved unusually dangerous and after this became public knowledge it picked up the nickname the Devil’s Highway.  In 2003 it was renamed US Highway 491 and the accident rate has lowered although its thought this is due to improvements to the road and a reduction in the number of people stopping to steal road signs, Route 666 a popular destination for stoners to pose for photographs, a thing even in the pre-selfie era.  In more secular Finland, there was apparently little concern, Finair flight AY666 plying the CPH-HEL (Copenhagen-Helsinki) route between 2006-2017, AY666 retired and replaced by AY954 as part of a general restructuring.  AY666’s last flight was on a Friday the 13^th (for the 21^st time) and it landed safely, eight minutes ahead of schedule.

Names for many phobias have been coined and while some (relating to injections, spiders, heights etc) are of clinical significance in mental health, many have been created just for linguistic fun.  A surprising number relate to numbers, many of which reference popular culture (TV, video games etc) and a site exists which provides a précis of many.  The overarching condition is arithmophobia (also known as numerophobia), which is a fear of numbers or mathematics but among the specifics there are:

Oudenophobia (0)
Henophobia (1)
Dyophobia (2)
Triskaphobia (3)
Tetraphobia (4)
Pentaphobia (5)
Hexaphobia (6)
Heptaphobia (7)
Octophobia (8)
Enneaphobia (9)
Decaphobia (10)
Hendecaphobia (11)
Dodecaphobia (12)
Triskaidekaphobia (13)
Dekapentophobia (15)
Hexadecaphobia (16)
Heptadecaphobia (17)
Octodecaphobia (18)
Enneadecaphobia (19)
Eikositriophobia (23)
Eikosihexaphobia (26)
eikosiheptaphobia (27)
Triakontenneaphobia (39)
Tessarakontadyophobia (42)
Tessarakontaheptaphobia (47)
Pentekontoctophobia (58)
Hexekontadyophobia (62)
Hexekontenneaphobia (69)
Hebdomekontahenophobia (71)
Ogdokontaheptaphobia (87)
Enenekontenneaphobia (99)
Hekatophobia (100)
Hekatohendecaphobia (111)
Hekatenenekontahenophobia (191)
Diakosioihekkaidekaphobia (216)
Diakosioipentekontaphobia (250)
Triakosioitriakontatriophobia (333)
Tetrakosioeikosiphobia (420)
Pentakosioipentekontahenophobia (551)
Hexakosioihekkaidekaphobia (616)
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia (666)
Heftakosioitessarakontaheptaphobia (747)
Enniakosioihendecaphobia (911)
Enniakosioenenekontenneaphobia (999)
Quattuormiliasescentoruphobia (4600)
Tessarakontadyochilahexekontenneaphobia (42069)
Compustitusnumerophobia (composite numbers)
Meganumerophobia (large numbers)
Imparnumerophobia (odd numbers)
Omalonumerophobia (even numbers)
Piphobia (pi)
Phiphobia (the golden ratio)
Primonumerophobia (prime numbers)
Paranumerophobia (irrational numbers)
Neganumerophobia (negative numbers)
Decadisophobia (decimals)

Just because a "phobia" appears in a list doesn't mean it "exists" in a clinical sense; there are doubtless many listed "phobias" which have never afflicted a single individual, their coining simply because someone decided to prove it was possible and an AI bot presumably could create many more.  Indeed, because of the infinite number of numbers, the number of potential "number phobias" is similarly infinite.  Some though may be real henophobia (fear of 1) is said to compels sufferer to avoid being associated with “doing something once”, being the “first in the group” etc) while eikosiheptaphobia (fear of 27) is a pop-culture thing which arose in the early 1970s when a number of rock stars died messy, drug-related deaths at 27).  Presentations of patients with tessarakontadyophobia (fear of 42) may have spiked in patients after the publication of Douglas Adams’ (1952–2001) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979-1992) but enenekontenneaphobia (fear of 99) is thought unrelated to the Get Smart TV series of the 1960s.  Tetrakosioeikosiphobia (fear of 420) is a syndrome restricted presumably to weed-smokers in the US although it could also be a thing among those with a morbid dread of 4 February or 20 April (depending on where one lives) and although heftakosioitessarakontaheptaphobia (fear of 747) may have had something to do with the Jumbo Jet, with the withdrawal from passenger service of the tough, reliable (four engines and made of metal) Boeing 747 and its replacement by twin-engined machines made increasingly of composites and packed with lithium-ion batteries, a more common fear may be “not flying on a 747”).  Closer to earth, enniakosioihendecaphobia (fear of 911), in the US may be a co-morbidity with tetrakosioeikosiphobia or suffered by those with a bad experience with a pre-modern Porsche 911 which, in inexpert hands, could behave as one would expect of a very powerful Volkswagen Beetle.  The rare condition nongentiseptuagintatrestrillionsescentiquinquagintanovemmiliacentumtredecimdeciesoctingentivigintiquattuormiliatrecentiphobia (fear of 973,659,113,824,315) was almost certainly one of those coined as a linguistic exercise.  The marvellous Wiki Fandom site and The Phobia List are among the internet’s best curated collection of phobias.

Anatidaephobia.

Anatidaephobia (the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you) is a classic example of a phobia which was “invented” despite there being no recorded cases of patients reporting the condition.  The creator was the US cartoonist Gary Larson (b 1950) who coined Anatidaephobia so it could be used as the caption for one of his “The Far Side” syndicated cartoons.  Conventionally analysed, the word would mean “fear of ducks” but as defined by the author, it’s much funnier. Anatidaephobia is of course not mentioned in the DSM but it is intriguing to speculate whether someone especially impressionable and with frail mental health, even if they’d never in their life given a thought to any of the many species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae, might develop the condition upon learning of the world.

That’s not impossible and in psychiatry there are several overlapping terms which describe the phenomenon, use depending on context: (1) Medical students’ syndrome describes those studying medicine coming to believe they are experiencing the symptoms of illnesses they are observing or being taught. (2) Mass psychogenic illness (also as mass hysteria) describes a group which, upon learning about a condition is triggered to suffer the real or perceived symptoms; (3) The Nocebo effect which is the negative counterpart of the Placebo effect in that symptoms or side effects appear because someone expects them to after hearing about them; Hypochondriasis (also as Illness Anxiety Disorder) is when individuals people misinterpret normal bodily sensations as signs of a disease after learning about it (sometimes, in the modern age, having a diagnosis “confirmed” by “Dr Google”).

Phobias can be coined ad-hoc.  In 2008, Time magazine pondered lindsayphobia.  

The only one which debatably can’t exist is neonumerophobia (fear of new numbers) because, given the nature of infinity, there can be no “new numbers” although, subjectively, a number could be “new” to an individual so there may be a need.  Sceptical though mathematicians are likely to be, the notion of the “new number” has (in various ways) been explored in fiction including by science fiction (SF or SciFi) author & engineer Robert A Heinlein (1907–1988) in The Number of the Beast (1980), written during his “later period”.  More challenging was Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by English schoolmaster & Anglican priest Edwin Abbott (1838–1926), published under the pseudonym “A Square”, the layer of irony in that choice revealed as the protagonist begins to explore dimensions beyond his two-dimensional world (in Victorian England).  Feminists note also Ursula K Le Guin’s (1929–2018) The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) in which was created an entirely new numerical system of “genderless" numbers”.  That would induce fear in many.

The latest edition of the DSM (DSM-5-TR, March 2022) made few changes to the classification anxiety disorders and phobias which had been revised in DSM-5 (2013).  Phobias are categorized as anxiety disorders, with specific phobia (fear of something that poses little or no actual danger) being the most common anxiety disorder.  A specific phobia is said to manifest when a person experiences extreme anxiety when they anticipate exposure or are exposed to a feared stimulus and there are five general categories: (1) animal type (spiders, snakes, dogs etc), (2) the natural environment (tornadoes, heights, water, fire etc), (3) injections and related procedures (needles, medical procedures), (4) situational events (flying, enclosed spaces etc ) & (5) other types (ie phobias that do not fit into the previous four categories).  The fifth category interacts with the introduction of GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) which is diagnosed when an individual experiences persistent worry about everyday challenges out of proportion to the perceived threat.  GAD extends to those aware their reaction is one of excessive fear about what can be a non-existent threat and no more than worrying about worrying too much.  Superstitions related to particular numbers are common in many cultures but of themselves these do not constitute a phobia which technically is a diagnosis of reaction to the point where the affect on a patient’s life is clinically significant.  Accordingly, while noting just about anything which has been styled a phobia could induce a case of GAD, few actually satisfy the APA’s diagnostic criteria and the DSM mentions just the handful which constitute the overwhelming majority of cases.