The use and misuse of numerology

The BBC ran a story today examining how entrepreneurs are using numerology to launch new businesses and further their careers:

When Samantha Roddick, the daughter of Bodyshop founder Anita Roddick, launched her business, she crunched numbers with her bank manager, her accountant - and her numerologist.

"When I pulled the whole team together, I just got everybody's numerology done," she says, describing how she used numbers to organize her new staff into efficient working groups.

"And then you just look at the overall numbers and how they interact. Ones are very ambitious, hard-working, career-centric, money-driven, Threes are very creative, as are Sixes. Fives, they're very apt to a lot of change."

But what about all those Six-Six-Sixes? That's something the article didn't discuss. A closer looks reveals the sad underbelly of this marriage of business and mysticism.

Face it, in most offices you'll find some employees whose names add up to 666, the dreaded Number of the Beast. In an office environment in which numerology reigns, these employees are shunted off to dark cubicles, given make-work tasks and kept off the upward career ladder. No one sits with them in the corporate cafeteria. Often they're even denied coffee privileges.

As a longtime leader in rooting out possible candidates for The Beast, I'd like to take a stand today for the little guy, the employee who is being discriminated against just because his or her numerological equivalent just doesn't pass muster according to some self-appointed, mystical number-crunching numerologist.

Numerology is a delicate affair. Circumstances, mood, current events, LDL cholesterol levels, all must coalesce in a carefully choreographed pattern, a dance enlivened by the music of the spheres. Employing this hidden power as a blunt instrument for financial gain is not only a travesty, but grounds for a lawsuit under the Equal Employment Opportunity laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. (Numerological evaluation is implied).

And just who or what is this "BBC " anyway? I decided to turn the tables to test my hunch that this is just a "front" organization masking a ploy to bring in the worldwide reign of the Antichrist.

Flipping on the Beastie Machine, I entered the broadcaster's well known moniker, "BBC." It totaled only 104, nowhere near 666, the Number of the Beast. I admit, I was disappointed.

Then I tried the BBC's full name, "British Broadcasting Corporation." That was way too high at 1,863.

Next I pulled random associations out of the air: BBC News:, 460; BBC World Service, 960; the BBC's weird, foreign-looking domain url, bbc.co.uk, 230. And the BBC's dangerously one-worldy slogan, "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation," 1,248.

This was going nowhere. But nothing worth doing is easy.

After a sleepless night of continuous nose-to-the-grindstone sleuthing, I paused. Was I ready to accept that my powers of interpretation were finally in decline? Could I confront retirement, rocking on the front porch with a cup of tea, watching helplessly as a world disintegrated before my eyes?

I went back to work with a new resolve.

"Heinous BBC Trust" produced an interesting twist-- 999, (i.e. 666, but flipped, perhaps indicative of a world turned upside down under the onslaught of the Beast).

Several hours later, I felt I was seriously closing in on my goal.

"Fiendish, unholy BBC" produced a total of 664-- tantalizingly close.

"Ghastly, bad, unholy and vile BBC" was a tad too much at 668.

Finally, I typed in "Spitefully bad BBC" and the Beastie Machine, almost exhausted, produced a sluggish whirring sound. The numbers popped up: 6-6-5.

Consulting my logarithmic tables, old sea charts and time-zone maps, I hoped that with a little tweaking, the numbers would actually add up to 666. And I was right!

Brilliant! as they say in old country. I've whacked off another sleazy noggin of the multi-headed Beast of Revelation.

But we should have known, really. What kind of TV network charges you a license fee just to own a television set?

A Communist one, that's what.


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