#1059: Mary Stewart Relfe

Mary Stewart Relfe is the author of When Your Money Fails (1981) and The New Money System (1982), in which she tries to argue that the number 666 is beginning to appear everywhere, which again is, of course, a sign that Satan and/or Satanists are taking over the world economic system. The books are illustrated with numerous reproductions of things that happen to have 666 on them (license plates, account numbers and so on), and arguments that e.g. the logo of the Trilateral Commission looks like a stylized 666. Other evidence provided in her well-researched books is the Sex Pistols’ (which she calls “Sex Pistol”) “Anarchy in the UK”, which she misquotes. In her first book, she even named the Antichrist as Anwar Sadat, who unfortunately for her argument was assassinated later the same year. Apparently she got most of her information from private conversations with God.

Her second book, The New Money System, was arguably even less well-hinged, though it is the source of the widespread belief that the then-new Universal Product Codes contain a hidden 666 encoded in them. It also claimed that cable TV lines were being outfitted with death rays built into the cables that would make stray dogs disappear by melting them.

Her subsequent books went in a different direction (presumably in the absence of the anti-Christ predicted by her first two books) until the Y2K and 9/11 panic allowed her to return to hysterical impending-Antichrist rants. Her books owe a great deal to the writings of Jack Van Impe (though Relfe has some trouble spelling his name right) as well as Colin Deal’s Will Christ Return by 1988? 100 Reasons Why and the obscure rants of conspiracy theorist William Cantelon on the New World Money System (I have no idea whether Deal or Cantelon are still around).

Diagnosis: Hysterically unhinged, but probably rather harmless.

Ed. note: We admit to borrowing most of the info in this entry from this article.