There appears to be a coded message that spans the entire length of the Declaration of Independence, but I have not managed to decode it yet. My current theory suggests that it might be an interwoven code working from both the beginning and end of the document.While the two letters, ‘W’ and ‘M’, selected after “DEO 666 CALL ARK” are important confirmations, they are also the next step in decoding the Declaration of Independence. Because the mistake line drawn on the Declaration passes directly through the letter ‘W’, it makes sense to check the text from the beginning of the Declaration to ‘W’ for any numerical clues. It turns out that the gematria value of the beginning text through ‘W’ has a value of 666, using a total of 58 letters.

“THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA W” = 666

Since the letter ‘W’ conveys the number 666 from the beginning and 666 is the number of Jesus, it makes sense to look for the letter ‘M’ from the end of the document because Jesus is also the beginning and the end. Starting with the letter ‘M’ in ‘mutually’ and including the signature of John Hancock, the text at the end of the Declaration has the value of 880 with 72 letters.

“MUTUALLY PLEDGE TO EACH OTHER OUR LIVES
OUR FORTUNES AND OUR SACRED HONOUR JOHN HANCOCK” = 880

880 is close to 888, the number of Jesus in the Greek language, but not close enough. Something is missing. There is an interesting feature of the John Hancock signature that will give the all-important number 888 and will offer another clue for use in the remaining steps. The letter ‘H’ can clearly be seen in the flourish below John Hancock’s signature.

Figure 1 – The hidden ‘H’ in John Hancock’s signatu

Adding the hidden letter ‘H’ to the ending text of the Declaration produces the value 888 with 73 letters from the ‘M’ in ‘mutually’.

“MUTUALLY PLEDGE TO EACH OTHER OUR LIVES
OUR FORTUNES AND OUR SACRED HONOUR JOHN HANCOCK H” = 888

So far, we have 666 to ‘W’ with 58 letters from the beginning, and 888 to ‘M’ with 73 letters from the end. So, the two letters decoded after ‘DEO 666 CALL ARK’ have led us to find the numbers 666 and 888, but for what purpose? The first clue about what to do next might be the total number of letters used to get 666 and 888. Adding 58 and 73 gives a total value of 131. This number contains 13 from both the beginning and end, which could be a clue to do something at both ends of the text. In this process, we have used JESUS and the concept of first and last. If the letter counts that produced 666 and 888 are reversed, an interesting feature emerges. Counting 73 letter from the beginning and 58 letters from the end selects the same latter, ‘O’. The difference between the two letter counts, 73 – 58, is 15, and the letter ‘O’ is the 15th letter of the alphabet.

73 letters from the beginning

“THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WHEN IN THE COURSE O” = 845

58 letters from the end

“O EACH OTHER OUR LIVES OUR FORTUNES AND OUR SACRED HONOUR JOHN HANCOCK H” = 694

While this may seem to be leading nowhere, it is important to persist and follow every possible clue to its logical conclusion. When the letter counts at the beginning and end that produced the values 666 and 888 are reversed, the letter ‘O’ is selected in both cases. ‘O’ is the 15th letter of the alphabet and the difference between the letter counts, 73 and 58, was also 15, which could serve as a confirmation of finding the letter ‘O’. There are several more clues that point to the letter ‘O’ and 15.

• 666 + 888 = 1554
• 845 + 694 = 1539
• 1554 – 1539 = 15 = O
• 845 – 694 = 151 = 15 from beginning and end.
  

The difference between the first and second groups of letters from the beginning and end is 15, possibly confirming the letter ‘O’. The difference between the 73 letters from the beginning and the 58 letters from the end is 151, which is a possible indication of 15 from both the beginning and end. The multiple repetitions of the letter ‘O’ and the number 15 from both the beginning and end of the text might indicate the presence of a possible skip code using the number 15. As was previously mentioned, an equally spaced skip code is very easy to find by chance. It is unlikely that a simple equally spaced skip code would be used in the Declaration. Because the clues appear to be indicating that the code could function from both the beginning and end of the document, an interwoven skip code might be in use. The shape of the caduceus serpents and central staff could be a clue to the functioning of the code, but it is not yet clear.

Selecting letters at equal spacing from the beginning and the end, and interweaving the result could hide a detailed message in the Declaration that would be virtually impossible to find without knowing how to look for it. While simply using the letters of the text for the count in both directions is possible, it would probably prove difficult to encode. One way that the writers could have made this process easier is to include some, or all, of the punctuation in the count from either the beginning or end. The punctuation would allow the writers to make small adjustments in one direction without affecting the cover text or the count in the opposite direction. If punctuation is included, the second ‘O’ in ‘Honor’ is 15 characters from the end and ‘O’ has a value of 15. This could be a clue to include the punctuation in the count from the end of the document.

Figure 2 – 15th character from the end

Note that there are 13 letters after the ‘O’ at the end if the period is not counted. 13 is the value of the letter ‘M’, which was used at the end to get the value 888. To get 666 at the beginning of the document the letter W was used. The letter ‘O’, in ‘of’, follows the first 23 letters of the text from the beginning.

Figure 3 – 24th character from the beginning

Another possible confirmation for using the letter ‘O’ in some way can be found by combining the 23 letters before ‘O’ at the beginning, the 13 letters after ‘O’ at the end, and the text versions of the numbers in July 4, 1776. The Declaration begins with ‘In Congress, July’, which is 15 characters, providing one more confirmation of the number 15. After the first 15 characters, the numbers ‘4, 1776’, in word form, are part of a gematria code that gives the number 666 in relation to the letter ‘O’, in Figure 4.

Figure 4 – 666 confirms the beginning and end

The two starting letters appear to be ‘N’ and ‘R’, at 23 from the beginning and 13 from the end. Subtracting, R – N = 18 – 14 = 4. Adding, N + R = 32. Taken together, the 4 and 32 values become the number 432. Using the concept of first and last, 432 + 234 = 666, a possible confirmation of ‘N’ and ‘R’ as the starting letters and an indication that the letters need to be used in pairs.

At this point, the required elements of a bi-directional skip code appear to be emerging, but a logical starting point is necessary at each end of the text. Because 666 is the guide to follow, the best choices to use for the starting letters are the 23rd letter from the beginning and the 13th letter from the end. A check of the potential message length might offer a degree of confidence in these starting letters. There are 6,583 letters from the beginning ‘N’ to the end. Including punctuation, there are 6,752 characters from the ending ‘R’ to the beginning. To estimate the message length in each direction, divide the total characters by 15 and drop the fractional portion of the result. The total number of characters selected in this manner is 888, the number of Jesus in Greek.

A potential message length of 888 characters provides a high degree of confidence in this part of the solution. However, it may not be the end. If the authors wanted to increase the difficulty of the encryption, the selected letters might not make any sense in the raw form and could require additional processing. There are a potentially endless number of ways to convert one set of letters into another, so additional information is required to determine the nest step in the process. One possible method would be to use two of the selected letters to obtain a third letter by either adding or subtracting the numerical values of the two selected letters. A process that combines two letters together makes the task of encoding the message into the cover text a little more flexible and, at the same time, makes the code more difficult to break. This was done previously with the name of John Hancock in Chapter ~XIV~. In this case, the last letter of John and the first letter of Hancock were added together to get the value 22, which is the letter ‘V’.

The final message length might also be 432 letters. 438 letters are selected from the beginning and 450 from the end. A message that is 432 letters long would not use 6 of the letters selected from the beginning and 18 of those from the end. Viewing the caduceus as the key to the code, the two serpents would represent the two string of letters selected from the beginning and end. The central staff would represent the decoded message and where the serpents cross at the staff represents the two letters used to decode one. The head and tail of the serpents will then represent the letters not used from each of the strings.