America is the horny beast

"I was hoping you could help me solve the mystery of the horny beast."

Without doubt, Fox Mulder gets some classic lines. Not that Scully doesn't; one of my favourites being, "Only five?" in 'The List'.
According to the scheme I presented earlier, 'Syzygy' is the episode in which the developing rift in their relationship manifests blatantly. They are at odds throughout the episode, even until the very end:.

MULDER: You just…. ran a stop sign back there, Scully.

SCULLY: Shut up, Mulder.

MULDER: Sure, fine, whatever.

The horny beast is definitely raising his fully engorged head, if you'll pardon my crude allusion.
The pun, Mulder's, not mine, works because the agents are called in to help with the unfortunate death of Ryan Reynolds - or, at least, his character, Jay de Boom.
Boom, as he's known, is wearing his team's jacket when he dies - that American thing you see in so many movies and TV episodes. And, wouldn't you know it? The school emblem, of all things, is a goat - with horns! This being the X Files, we just accept that the emblem, after the coffin spontaneously combusts at the funeral service, becomes emblazoned on Boom's chest.
There is already building the idea that the deaths - there was one pre-credits - are being assigned to Satan. American logic: two young men die, must be Satan! God alone knows where John Dewey and his pragmatism is hiding in modern America; certainly isn't within the X Files!
Scully, just because, refuses to see the hornéd beast burnt into Boom's chest. Hence, it is to Detective White that Mulder turns to for help solving the mystery.
Apart from all the shenanigans of the plot and the heightened sexual tension between Scully and Mulder, that image of the two-horned beast brings to mind, as, I suppose, is its intention, certain other images. One would be Eliphas Levi's 'Baphomet' which, in turn, became the misinterpreted inspiration for A.E. Waite's image of The Devil on card XV of his Major Arcanum. The other would be the two-horned beast which emerges from the ground in Relations 13:11.
Levi's 'Baphomet' stands as a warning against rash interpretations. Waite, who translated Levi's 'Transcendental Magic' into English, like Scully, simply refused to accept what he found there. Levi's purpose was to wrest away from the limited reading of card XV and produce an image which evoked its full meaning, that of a "god of the old religions and schools of thought that were active before the full advent of Christianity”. (cf. Hermetic Library) For Levi, "[Baphomet] is a knowledge rising in opposition to idolatry, protesting though the very monstrosity of the idol." Waite took Levi and conformed him. (Ibid)
Eliphas Levi published his 'Transcendental Magic' in 1856 and he himself died in 1875. Waite published his Tarot in 1910. Both these men were occultists, and yet one very deliberately twisted the meaning of the other to suit his own ends, only fifty-four years later.
So, imagine the fun you can have with the horny beast of Revelations!
And, sure enough, in 1857 - literally within months of Levi's 'Transcendental Magic' - we have J.N. Loughborough's, "The Two-Horned Beast of Rev. XIII, a Symbol of the United States".
Loughborough's essay is something I would recommend only to insomniacs or my worst enemy, but it has its own form of genius. Basically, it states that the existence of the United States was predicted in the New Testament, which makes sense, for how could God not know of the emergence of the greatest of nations?
In fact, not only did He know but, of course, it was always His intention that the United States should exist. But only in the sense that Adam and Eve exist.
As our original parents were born in Paradise only to prove themselves fully human by not conforming to God's will, so the United States was to be a second Paradise which eventually would prove itself fully human by not conforming to God's will.
Loughborough's argument is intricate and takes some concentration but America's fall involves the country becoming subservient to the Vatican and all not willing to comply being put to death. Ouch!
Maybe Loughborough's is one of those predictions which, while not being precise, shouldn't be ignored. Who knows? Maybe Trump will rename the White House.
In the context of the show, how does all of this play out?
Syzygy is a word that, as is made explicit, means the alignment of planets - and nothing good ever happens when planets align! I've always wondered about this. If 'alignment' is everything in its proper place, all neatly ordered and straight, why does it always foretell doom for human beings? It's almost as if we have this belief that the universe doesn't like us. That it arrays its forces against us.
This is certainly what happens in this episode. If the truth is out there, the only people likely to find it, because they're the only ones willing to sacrifice everything to the search, are Mulder and Scully. If a rift can be driven between them then those who would keep the truth from the rest of us can rest easy in their Gentlemen's Club in New York.
Scully and Mulder - and by extension, those of us who are willing to fight the future - are what stands between A.E. Waite twisting meaning to his own personal satisfaction.
If, as Loughborough claims, the United States came to be because God willed it so, it is the people of the United States that will decide whether it becomes what God intended or what the Devil craves.