23 - cultural meme or independent weirdness?

I just asked someone why they chose the number as their suffix.

It provoked a discussion that I didn't want to intrude on their thread.

I chose my suffix because of a long-term fascination with the number that began from reading Illuminatus! years ago.

Since then, I've noticed it come up a lot, in two kinds of circumstances. Firstly, there's ones that I think are synchronistic occurrences that are kind of "for my benefit".

Secondly, I have noticed the prevalence of the number in films and television programmes. I've collected LOADS.

Anyone got any examples or experiences they want to post?

I thought I'd give a few examples of those I have noticed.

Firstly, Star Trek, from TNG through to Voyager (I kind of lost track with Enterprise) is positively littered with them. Things are always happening to Starbase 23 or whatever... series finales usually feature them. I think in the Voyager finale, they have to exit the Borg network of hyperdimensional portals at node 23 or something.

In Toy Story 2, when the toys go to rescue Woody, he's being held on the 23rd floor.

In Serenity, an experimental drug that has hideous side-effects that become a plot driver is named G-23 something or other.

I shall have to go away and find my notes, which are on another (rather temperamental) computer. I have, literally, dozens of examples.

Simple Numberology = (1=a, 2=B) BC - Before Christ

23rd letter of the alphabet = W (and oh, boy - where we could go from there...)

Chicago Bulls - cultural icon in the late eighties, early nineties - Michael Jordan.
Jersey 23.

Max Headroom - counterculture film in the 80's - Edison Carters TV Station = Channel 23.

(oddly enough when I was 13, I tried to get the TransAtlantic Building - this huge, black obilisk of an office building downtown to light up it's windows to show "23" for a photoshot....good gracious. Knowing what I do know in regards to Illuminatus, that would have been...actually - QUITE FUNNY. Bet they would have done it.)

Just a few that stand out from memory.

*edit for content


[edit on 27-5-2006 by Pyrotechnocracy23]

W - apart from the obvious Idiot in the W(hite) house, where could we go from there?

Aha. Illuminatus. That I suppose explains something... and that's a really funny story about the TransAtlantic building. Would have been a great shot.

I've just remembered that one of the cons in ConAir was called Johnny 23, probably after a Burroughs character of that name.

[edit on 27-5-2006 by rich23]

[edit on 27-5-2006 by rich23]

I've read theories of numberologist who state that the "W" is significant of two crossed "V" - adding up the number of V's suppossedly translates into 666 or something like that...also the numberical value of V being akin to six in some studies.

I know that's not a very good answer - I try to shy away from such associations in my mind therefore not pay much attention to the detail, but I found this link:23

Originally posted by rich23
I just asked someone why they chose the number as their suffix.

It provoked a discussion that I didn't want to intrude on their thread.

First off, I'd just like to thank you for starting this thread.

Originally posted by rich23
I chose my suffix because of a long-term fascination with the number that began from reading Illuminatus! years ago.

I am astonished at what you just said. I finished reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy about two years ago. Ever since I have been noticing the number pretty much everywhere I go. It was the number of the Bus I took too and from School as an adolescent. It was the door number of my first house. I constantly see it on price tags, advertisements, films, and other places. I often look at the time and it's either 23 minutes too, or 23 minutes past the hour. It's my current age, and I see it everywhere. About two weeks or so ago, a friend of mine kindly uploaded a mixset of mine to a free file hosting server. When I checked the link, I noticed this guy had typed '23' in the file description. I had never spoken to this person about anything of this sort of nature, ever. I became upset and demanded of him an answer as to why he had typed that number in the description, and he replied that he honestly had no explanation as to why he typed it. Unfortunately the link he uploaded it too is not still active, and does not display the description or the file name anymore (I think sendspace delete files after a certain period of inactivity), but here is the thread he posted with it a few weeks ago:

www.dnbarena.ru...
(His was the sendspace link at the bottom)

I have no explanation for any of this.

The unexplained events of that day and other like it caused me to see what else I could find on Google. I found this Wikipedia numerology page about the number 23. It seems other people are experiencing strange things with this number also. I also found this. That page has been updated since a last saw it a few weeks ago, it was scheduled for a 2006 release at that time, and it says 2007 now. This film title, and the plotline of the film at this stage appear to be very relevant to my life in ways I am not comfortable discussing on a Public forum.

All of this is probably nothing, but i just don't know.

The Law of Fives exists to teach a lesson about numerology-- that the harder one looks for something, the more and more manifest one will find it to be.

Hagbard explained that toward the end, I think. It's a fun little trick.

Uh this is wierd. . . I had a dream last night about the number 23. Why I "liked it" and how it was a very "stable and usable" number. I cited the Jordan number 23 jersey in my dream.

Wierd this is, I didn't read any of this or even see this topic until this morning.

Personally, the 2-3 are in order on my keyboard and it makes it easy to rapid-type those in a screen name...I have "34" in one of my alter-ego's...it's the same with 34 as 23...

Communication Monster -

I have been where you are now. If you want this phenomenon to back off, it will. It is eerie, I know. I used to hear 23s on TV or radio at very particular points in my life, with great regularity... generally after I'd done something I shouldn't have. However, when I decided it was all getting a bit much and I was going to do something else, it slacked off.

Coincidentally (ha!) immediately after posting this thread I heard a news story on Radio 4 of a murderer who was 23 years old. And following a link of Pyrotechnician23's, I found it led to a therapist who lived very close to me and there was something on the site that had to do with the number.

The nature of coincidence... it's just life tapping you on the shoulder. Except it's more complex than that. I may have to think about this and come back to it.

Thanks for posting. I will think about this and try to formulate my thoughts more precisely.

666=WWW in hebrew.

Ghost in the machine theory of end times etc etc.
In pi when "X" formula reaches 216 seeing it self for what it is or awakened it self destructs. 216 a number related to god's name and also a root of 666. Go figure.
I guess we come with a self destruct button so to speak.

2+3=5
5 somehow relating to chaos a mash of good and evil or everything awakening in the godhead I assume. Which I would assume whatever is stated in the bible about a problem in heaven before the end times?

Originally posted by Pyrotechnocracy23
I've read theories of numberologist who state that the "W" is significant of two crossed "V" - adding up the number of V's suppossedly translates into 666 or something like that...also the numberical value of V being akin to six in some studies.

I know that's not a very good answer - I try to shy away from such associations in my mind therefore not pay much attention to the detail, but I found this link:23

Originally posted by rich23
The nature of coincidence... it's just life tapping you on the shoulder. Except it's more complex than that.

Indeed. Thank you for your insightful reply. Do you mean what I think you mean by 'generally after I'd done something I shouldn't have'?

Well, I'm not sure what you think I mean... but something that caused guilt feelings, let's say.

Haha, sorry. I should have been more clear. I wasn't sure whether if by that you were referring to smoking something, or just doing something you shouldn't in general.

I'm going to try to put my thoughts in order on this in order to be able to communicate them... but the problem is that these thoughts are somewhat inchoate.

There have been times in my life when I've been making very deliberate changes and things have become very intense. Other times of heightened intensity/awareness have been to do with beginning new sexual relationships. Not all relationships, I realise as I write this, but those with people who have a spiritual bent or with whom I resonate particularly strongly.

At these times of heightened intensity, "coincidences" and psychic phenomena manifest. These phenomena can be striking - knowing who's on the end of the 'phone before you pick it up, for example, or matters of insanely perfect timing - or they can be almost, but not quite ordinary. One of my t'ai chi teachers is good at saying EXACTLY the right thing at EXACTLY the right time. I don't particularly want to go into detail, but he has been talking to me and given an example that to other listeners might mean nothing, but which was so specific to me that it struck home with considerable force. I have had similar experiences, and in fact I don't even consider it a matter of conscious ESP: I have said things to people and they have been left breathless, and I didn't know why, yet when the reason was revealed... without going into specific examples, which I don't want to do for reasons entirely of my own privacy, it's hard to communicate. But it feels as if, when one is in the zone, so to speak, one does not know why one says certain things, only that they are the right things to say at that moment.

So I think that we as human beings have an interactive effect on the universe around us and that coincidences are a product of that effect.

I also think that there is something about the number 23 that highlights this. Whether it's purely cultural or something intrinsic to the number itself, I don't know. I really am not keen on numerology. Human beings seek patterns, and due to the aforementioned "interactive effect" can impose patterns not merely on our own internal perceptions but also externally. If we are in a heightened state of intensity, and have some personal power, we can manifest these patterns in such a way that others can see them.

But I am not drawn to numerology because I think it's an example of the pattern-making habit run absolutely amok. People get fixated on these things and interpret the universe solely in those terms, and I think it's the hugest mistake. That way lies Bible Code Madness. (I was fairly open to all that, but then, when it was pointed out to me, it made perfect sense to me that you could find a War And Peace Code or a Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire Code.)

So, back to 23s. In my experience, they are of two types. One type is of the coincidence/synchronicity sort where the number appears in the real world in a genuinely odd way. Examples abound, but I think the classic is the Burroughs/Captain Clark one mentioned in Illuminatus!

The other is as a burgeoning cultural signifier. I'm really interested in the film link you posted. If there's intrinsically anything wrong about the number, the film and its participants might run into trouble. One really wonders what the writers have been reading.

But certainly, there are just SO many 23s in films these days, it's absurd. When I come across one in a film, I no longer think it's odd. I think that either people have been reading Illuminatus! or they are subject to the "hundredth-monkey effect".

I've remembered another one, this time from Monsters Inc (love Pixar's stuff, except for Nemo, which I thought was a bit substandard)... the code for human intrusion into the Monsters' world, if I remember correctly, is "23-17! 23-17!"

I liked the site that Pyrotechnician23 posted, and I'm glad to see that they noticed that Star Trek is LITTERED with them... but I thought that the film links, as with the film examples in Wikipedia, were scratching the tip of the iceberg.

Oh yeah. "23 positions in a one-night stand". There's one. I really ought to dig out (and, indeed, update) my collection.

[edit on 28-5-2006 by rich23]

The Wheelbarrow Under The Straw

None of this explains why the posts in this thread are so loaded with fnords.

Ive got three (lol) numbers that pop on my radar alot, 11, 33 and 23, in that order of frequency too. I can have periods of intense number appearances and times when it has lulled. However for the past couple of years its been a steady stream, so steady in fact it feels normal, that the numbers 11, 33 and 23 seem to be over-represented.

The best moment I can think of was telling a good friend about the frequency of certain numbers, for me it was 11. We were travelling to Stonehenge that day and at one of the train stations (Paddington maybe, cant remember) I look up and see a HUGE clock, its one of those that uses numbers that flip over (gads I cant describe it) anyway, the point is it was huge and said 11.11. Was a classic moment

Ive stopped watching TV and reading newspapers/magazines for like four years now, part of purging my mind of that crapola, so last year when I was in London (on the way to Stonehenge) I was quite startled to see billboards saying 12 was the new 11. I was totally like 'wtf' and trying to raise one eyebrow. I just asked boyfriend what that was about and he tells me it was about some film, Ocean 12, the first being 11 (he thinks). At the time though, I had no idea and it tickled me pink!

I'm going to keep this post updated with the cultural examples I find.

For example, tonight I watched a great movie - "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". Now I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, so I shall be deliberately vague... but there is a person in this movie who meets a pretty unpleasant end, and it's revealed that she's 23. I might be wrong, but I suspect that this is the only time in the movie anyone's age is mentioned.

I'll add more as and when I see 'em.

Originally posted by rich23
I'll add more as and when I see 'em.

Oh God, please don't I'm trying to quit. Seriously though, they're everywhere, EVERYWHERE!. More often than not in association with high weirdness. One example, as I noticed it earlier on in this thread:



Spot the 23.



More 23:

Hexagram 23 in the 'I Ching' oracle means "break apart." 23 in telegrapher's code means "break the line." Aleister Crowley defined number 23 as "parting, removal, separation, joy, a thread, and life . . ."

Parents each donate 23 chromosomes to the fertilized egg . . .the human biorhythm cycle is generally 23 days, and it takes 23 seconds for blood to circulate through the human body.
Source.

23 is the first prime number in which both digits are prime numbers and add up to another prime number.

Square root(s) of 2,3, and 5 are used in respect to tetrahedral hyperdimensional physics and perfect form in design. Square root(s)of 2, 3, and 5 supposedly relative to D&M Pyramid on Mars and other similar relationships. Also these square roots were quite common in early architecture and considered the most aesthetically pleasing in design.

Pentagram: the angle between the rays of a symmetrical-pointed star is 72 degrees. Also, the angle between legs of a pentagon is 108 degrees (the complementary angle of 108 is 72(108+72=180)). (2^3)*(3^2)=2*3*2*3*2=72. (Note that 5 (2^2)*(3^3)=3*2*3*2*3=58. Numbers are 2*3*2*3*5=180 multiplied in each equation.)

Two-thirds of numbers which are divisible by 2 are not multiples of 3.
Source.

E is the fifth letter of the alphabet, and also the most commonly used in the English language. W is the 23rd letter of the alphabet. Half of W is V, which is the roman numeral for 5. Once again, therefore, the inherent connection between 5 and 23 is proven. Relent ye skeptics!
Source.

^Hail Eris!

The earth's axis sweeps out a cone of 23.5 degrees half angle in 26,000 years.
Source.

Hale-Bopp was discovered on 23 July 1995
Source.

On April 26, 1986 at 1:23 am technicians at the Chernobyl Power Plant in the Ukraine (former Soviet Union) allowed the power in the fourth reactor to fall to low levels as part of a controlled experiment which went wrong. The reactor overheated causing a meltdown of the core. Two explosions blew the top off the reactor building releasing clouds of deadly radioactive material in the atmosphere for over 10 days. The people of Chernobyl were exposed to radioactivity 100 times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. The people of the world and Northern Europe were greeted with clouds of radioactive material being blown northward through the sky. Seventy percent of the radiation is estimated to have fallen on Belarus and 10 years later babies are sill being born with no arms, no eyes, or only stumps for limbs. It is estimated that over 15 million people have been victimized by the disaster in some way and that it will cost over 60 Billion dollars to make these people healthy. More than 600,000 people were involved with the cleanup many who are now dead or sick.

On May 23, 1939, the newly built submarine USS Squalus sank off the eastern seaboard. A sister ship, the USS Sculpin, sped to the rescue, and saved more than half of the fifty-six-man crew. The Squalus was salvaged and renamed the Sailfish. In 1943 the Sculpin was sunk by the Japanese who took forty-two crew members prisoner, and placed half of them on board the aircraft carrier Cuyo. As it approached Japan, the Cuyo was torpedoed by the Sailfish and went down with all hands. The crew of the Sailfish rejoiced at their victory - unaware that they had just killed half the survivors of the sub that had come to their rescue four years earlier.

The Flatiron building, located on 23rd Street in New York, was the tallest in the world when it was completed in 1902. In the building's early days, the winds around it drew crowds of men hoping to get a peek at women's ankles as their long skirts got blown about (how quaint). Police officers had to keep people moving along, and their call, "23 Skidoo", became slang for "scram."

XXIII

And on, and on, and on it goes.....

[edit on 13/6/06 by Implosion]

Hi Implosion - sorry to drag you off the wagon! I like the examples, though... I knew some, some are new to me. Good post.

a couple more for the pervasion-of-culture records:

in Broken Lizard's seminal comedy Super Troopers, the main characters' patrol car is Car 23.

the series of numbers central to the plot of the TV series Lost includes 23 as its fifth digit.

the episode of the TV series The Venture Brothers entitled "Past Tense" features a college student wearing a basketball jersey (?) emblazoned with a large 23, and nothing else. no other number has appeared on a character's clothing in the series.