THE NUMBER OF SATAN

When you ask people, to choose between 100 million dollars in one year or 102 million dollars in one year and one day; all choose the 102 million dollars. “I can wait one more day.” When the same people were asked to choose between 100 dollars now or 102 dollars tomorrow, they all choose the 100 dollars. In a laboratory situation people had to bid on a 20 dollar bill, the final bid was $28! In another experiment the group had to bid on a bottle of wine. But before they wrote down their bid, they were asked to write down the last two digests of their social security number. People with a high number, bid significant more. They were influenced by something, a seemingly irrelevant input.

This what happens in the news, when a disaster happens. In the first reports the number of victims will be kept low. This is what sticks to our mind, even if the number of victims rises. In advertising and public relations these human biases are exploited.

Numbers have not only a numeric value. They have all kinds of symbolic meanings, which trigger 'arche-types” in your brain. The number 7 is a magical number and it brings you luck. The number 7 is found in children's songs or fairy tales, in the bible and in our day to day life (7 days of the week). You can be in the 7^th heaven, but there are also 7 levels in hell. 7 is also a number of doom. 7 Angels will sound 7 trumpets, that each announces a period of peril, destruction, war and doom. It takes 7 steps to Armageddon.

The number 9, is the number of Lucifer, the Fallen Angel, and it means evil. Satan, another one of the names of this dark entity, is deceiving us and tries to lead us from the path of the righteous. There are 7 deadly sins, that will lead you straight to hell. One of these deadly sins is greed. It shows in the accumulation of wealth and living a life of luxury. The rich don't mind what it costs, if the price contains the number 9, preferably more. Free will?