Don't worry about the zaps - we've both exchanged real value, so the numerical representation is superfluous.
I wouldn't say exactly that the mark *is* the ego - only that each term refers to the same thing. They didn't have a word for ego thousands of years ago. And ego, as currently used, is usually an oversimplification, usually conflated with self importance, which certainly comes from ego, but isn't the whole ego. Ego is self identification, which makes it error, but the purpose of ego is actually to reduce error and be an interface (like the controls in helicopter cockpit) between our real selves and the material world. In Jungian psychology, ego is differentiated from Shadow because if you're identifying with anything as yourself (I am nice, I am patient, I am studious, etc) then you're excluding those opposites and you get a huge category of 'other' which gets assigned an emotional response - but I think that's all still part of ego. In the Bible, the "deceiver" is Satan, and if you look at Satan's conversation with Jesus, where Satan says he'll give Jesus the world, you can very easily substitute Satan with ego and it still works. I'm not saying Satan is the ego, though - which side is real? Which flows from which? Identification with substantive "is" and "aren't" is the error - on this side of the veil, you can't know and language can never encapsulate the true is's and am's.
Remember when Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees and he said their father is the deceiver and he was a liar and murderer from the beginning? And Jesus' father is God, or the most high - I kinda forgot how it goes. The Pharisees were very concerned with the "right" way of doing things. A concern like that comes from ego, which is the story teller and deceiver. The ego is a murderer from the beginning because it kills truth - it also kills virtue, by way of inserting "should" into things, and virtues flow from God and are intrinsic to human nature. When Jesus said that you can't serve two masters, because you will love one and hate the other - that second part clarifies who the masters are. Love and hate come from identification, and in Jungian terms, love is from ego and hate from shadow - which is really all just ego. Ego is from the body, so its the lower master ; God is eternal and creative, so God is the higher master, which I k kW is obvious.
It takes a lot of words to nail down precision. Sorry about that....
