New Age Palm technology and microchipped hands are the growing wave of the future but so are age-old Biblical prophecies of “The Mark of the Beast.”
Burgundy Waller, recently known as “the Chip Girl” in her TikTok videos, has created a social media stir of 3 million followers by demonstrating how a microchip about the size of a grain of rice implanted in her hand serves as a key to unlocking doors, closets and storage areas in her Las Vegas mansion.
While chipped hands might sound new, between 50,000 to 100,000 people globally are using implanted microchips as credit cards, or to store their medical and health information, gain access to gyms and use public transportation, says the Journal of Hand Surgery. Furthermore in 1998, British scientist Kevin Warwick (Captain Cyborg) made headlines using a hand-implanted microchip to operate doors, lights and heaters around his office at the University of Reading.
For consumers looking for a nonsurgical way to free themselves of the hardship of reaching in their wallets for plastic or tapping their phones on scanners, Amazon is also rolling out a plan which allows customers to simply hover their palms over an Amazon One device to pay their bills. On May 24, 2024, Amazon and its company-owned Whole Foods introduced palm technology that can be used for payments in over 500 stores.
Amazon uses consumers’ palms and their underlying vein structure to create a palm signature, which is produced with the help of generative AI and verified by Amazon One scanners for things like retail purchases and age verification. Amazon One scanners, once limited to Amazon stores, can now also be found in third-party locations including stadiums, airports and fitness centers. The new app lets users sign up for Amazon One through their phones instead of having to visit a physical location to take photos of their palms for enrollment.
Along with the excitement over the new hand developments, however, are the age-old prophecies about a controversial “Mark of the Beast.” The Mark of the Beast refers to Biblical references that during the last days of history a mysterious autocratic and diabolical Anti-Christ leader would rise to rule over an evil empire where Christians who do not bear his mark on their hands would perish because they would be denied life-sustaining goods such as food or medicines. Although mostly ignored by mainstream news, social media are roaring aloud that in the future the hands of Christians whether chipped or scanned could play a role somewhat like the Star of David was used by the Nazis to identify Jews for death during the Holocaust.
The specific reference of the Mark is found in Revelation 13:16-17: “He caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the 666 number of his name.”
The story of the Mark and its role in today’s technology was featured in my recently published book entitled “The Rise and the Fall of the Techno-Messiah: Artificial Intelligence and the End Times.” This writer described how some respected theologians give credence to the Mark of the Beast prophecy as part of their eschatological doctrines dealing with the Second Coming of Christ in the Last Days of history.
Consider the warning of J.F. Walvoord, the late president of the Dallas Theological Seminary: “There is no doubt that with today’s technology a world leader in total control could keep a continually updated census of all persons and know precisely which people had pledged their allegiance to him and who has not. It is highly likely that chip implants, scan technology and biometrics will be used as tools to enforce restrictions on buying and selling without the Mark.”
Too often when the End Times and the Mark are discussed it is usually contained in only conservative white institutions. Black churches and seminaries, however, also teach and preach the End Times prophecies resulting in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The recent pandemics, the possibility of nuclear wars, cataclysmic weather events, such as the frequency of hurricanes and flooding all fit in this apocalypse scenario.
In fact, this writer, an African American woman, is among those who have taught on the End Times, including the Mark of the Beast at Calvary Bible Institute in Washington, D.C. Although it is surprising to some, there are 1,845 prophetic references to the Second Coming of Jesus, a factor of eight to one over references of His First Coming. In fact, Scriptures show Jesus speaking of His return 21 times.
The Mark of the Beast and the spirituality around it have also made their way into political circles. Mark Cole, a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, once introduced a proposal to prevent corporations from forcing employees to submit to implants. He also said his concerns were based on the Book of Revelation which deals with the Mark of the Beast. Referring to the microchips, he argued, “they just might be that mark.”
Aside from the spiritual considerations, today, since the FDA approved an implantable chip last year, the chips are gaining respectability and will one day be as commonplace as using Siri to order dinner.
The most popular microchips use radio-frequency identification technology which for decades was used for tracking animals. It works like a barcode label to identify vehicles, animals and luggage tags. This technology can be used to monitor patient health, locate missing people, track people under house arrest and trace valuable items. As people become more comfortable with internal devices such as pacemakers, birth control rods and nerve stimulators implanted in their bodies, the fear factor is diminishing.
In fact, microchipped hands could easily become an obsession, especially among those who see tattoos as fashion statements. On the plus side, the happily chipped person could glide through customs and waiting lines with a flip of the hand, have instant medical and education information in hand and abolish the need to carry keys, remember passwords or even carry a wallet.
Microchips could speed the screening of passengers for air travel, subways could use them to collect fares. Bars could use microchips to “card” underage drinkers without concerns about fake IDs. An implanted microchip could also be used to ward off voter fraud or increase it by denying those without the chip the right to vote.
While the future for chipped or scanned hands seems dazzling, there are other considerations, such as how long it would take for criminal enterprises to learn how to gain access to personal information by hacking off chipped hands of victims or hacking into their programs which continues to beguile users.
The peer-reviewed Journal of Hand Surgery also recently warned that current implantation is typically not performed in a medical environment. “Implantation of these devices in humans can result in complications, such as infection and tendon attrition, and the relevant safety implications have not been extensively studied.”
It looks like speed, convenience of microchips and palm technology, along with more safety guardrails could one day overrule fears of invasion of privacy and health concerns. As for the speculation of Bible believers about the eventual rise of an evil empire and the Mark of the Beast this is also a story that will be continued.
This post was originally published on here
