Technology threads turned the Antichrist into a system-of-control concept

Evidence

An important result of these developments was an increasing tendency among fundamentalist millenarians to view the Antichrist as part of a system of control rather than simply an evil and deceitful individual. The fi gure of the Antichrist became enmeshed in a complex of related ideas: the mark of the beast as a satanic device to control economic activity; the universal bar code and implanted microchips as precursors of the literal mark; credit and debit cards as ways of habituating people to an economy without tangible money; and vast computer systems tracking the details of daily life. Although these were real and in some cases disturbing developments, the manner in which Antichrist writers treated them carried the seeds of a conspiracist view of the world. They saw in them an insidious plan for satanic control. — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 261

Categorization

• XREF: Links to general theories that surveillance/contactless-payment tech gets sacralized as prophetic — echoes the rubric’s trees-as-infrastructure worldbuilding and the notion of mundane infrastructure carrying secret meaning. — connects to: Millennialists projected the Antichrist’s apparatus onto the League of Nations in the 1920s — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 251; Modern technology links mind-control fear to the Antichrist’s Mark of the Beast; Television and computers gave Antichrist writers new control-capacity themes — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic…, 258 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Antichrist theorizing has converged with mind-control conspiracy via the Mark of the Beast. #expands (0.95) — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 395
• Modern technology links mind-control fear to the Antichrist’s Mark of the Beast #exemplifies (0.92)
• Modern conspiracy theorists mapped biblical end-time prophecy onto barcode and microchip technology #exemplifies (0.88) — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 396
• Television and computers gave Antichrist writers new control-capacity themes #exemplifies (0.85) — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 258