William S(eward) Burroughs 1914 - 1997

#23 has been associated with strange and uncanny coincidences (synchronicities) in the minds of certain folks for years, long before Carrey's movie. My first reaction to news of the movie, was pretty much negative. I was thinking I liked it better when #23 was slightly underground, known only to those who had read certain writers, or to those who may have stumbled upon it on their own!

..> ..> (Supplie

HOLLYWOOD -- We suppose it's natural for someone who became famous for talking of his anus to question his place in the cosmos. Why was it that he became so famous, and not the guy with the stuttering penis shtick?

But you may wonder about Carrey's sure-footedness on terra firma when, asked about the shaman-like mane he has been sporting lately, the Newmarket, Ont.-born actor/comedian answers simply: "I have this hair because I am."

Or consider that, for him, the number 23 is much more than merely the title of his latest film. It represents a very real obsession with the "23 enigma," a belief that everything in life is connected to the numeral, whether directly or by some permutation.

Examples frequently cited include that each parent contributes 23 chromosomes to the DNA of a child, as well as that the Mayans believed the world will end on Dec. 23, 2012 -- 20 plus one, plus two, is 23.

In fact, the 23 phenomenon is so all-consuming, it has inspired no shortage of conspiracy theorists and quasi-religious believers who subscribe to its mystical power, seeing it in the most fantastic, as well as the most mundane, corners of life.

It turns out, Carrey was already among the faithful -- having rebranded his production company from Pitbull Productions to JC23 -- well before the script ever came to his attention.

FASCINATION

"It started out for me with a friend of mine in Canada, who handed it down to me," Carrey says in explaining his fascination with 23. "He was seeing it everywhere, adding up licence plates and other things. He had a book of 23 (phenomena) ... I said he was crazy, and then I started seeing it everywhere. Then one day, a few years later, after it had kind of entered my life in a big way and I was driving my friends crazy, somebody handed me a book on the 23rd Psalm ... which is living without fear and knowing you're taken care of.

"I thought it was a great progression from Pitbull Productions, which is (kind of like going from) grabbing hold of life and not letting go, to not sweating it."

Nevertheless, he admits when he first encountered Fernley Phillips' screenplay, "I was freaked out."

Not merely because it concerned the numeral, but because portions of it seemed tailored to Carrey. The original opening scene, he recalls, involved his character, a dog catcher named Walter, capturing -- wait for it -- a pitbull. The metaphor was not lost on Carrey. Nor was his character's occupation.

"The fact he was a dog catcher was a nice wink toward my other work," Carrey says, referring to his breakthrough role in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. "This is the way my life and the universe works. It's very mysterious. Movies find me and I allow them to find me, and when it becomes a really good fit I do them."

What was his hope for the film, directed by his Batman Forever collaborator Joel Schumacher? That some of that paranoia -- seeing 23s wherever you go -- rubs off on audience members as much as it has on his co-stars.

Virginia Madsen, who plays Carrey's wife in The Number 23, recalls on her first day of filming that Carrey sent her roses -- along with a book stuffed with facts about the numeral "just in case you're a doubter," she says.

In the movie, opening this week, Carrey's Walter discovers a book that appears to weirdly parallel people, places and occurrances in his own life. The novel's protagonist, a hard-boiled gumshoe named Fingerling, becomes the victim of 23, eventually being driven so insane as to commit murder. Will the same fate befall Walter? And what is with the 23s everywhere he turns?

The project marks yet another dramatic role for the rubber-jowled Carrey, whose desire to be more than a blockbuster clown is as well-documented as his search for inner peace.
He has spoken in interviews about his bouts of depression and many romantic implosions (he is now happily involved with actress Jenny McCarthy). On-screen, he has juggled the likes of Bruce Almighty with such challenging, quirky fare as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The latter earned Carrey some of the strongest reviews of his career, but he has to join those performers -- notably Tom Hanks -- who can draw a crowd regardless of the genre they're working in.

Carrey, however, sounds undeterred.

"I really have always thought of myself as somebody who lives in the middle of the wheel and is able to go to the extreme, to the outside of the wheel, in any direction. That's the best-case scenario for me ... to be able to be centred and then go out and be zany and funny, or do something that has some depth to it."

"There are many different colours to paint with and I'd hate to get trapped in one little thing. I feel like funny is an appendage, but it's not my whole body."

Not that comedy is necessarily a slam dunk for Carrey, either.

In the past year, he has seen two high-profile projects, Used Guys with Ben Stiller and Ripley's Believe It or Not directed by Tim Burton, collapse because of budget and script concerns. (Ripley's has since been resurrected for a 2009 release.) What's more, a romantic drama in which he was to be reunited with his Mask co-star, Cameron Diaz, also fell apart prior to shooting. The sudden string of false starts -- which led Carrey to fire his agent -- sparked speculation his career was beginning to flounder. Never mind all the 23 talk, or the star's admitted interest in cosmic riddles.

"I've always been introspective -- since I was a little kid ... sitting in a closet, trying to write out the meaning of the universe."

Says Schumacher: "I've never worked with anyone who was a comic genius who doesn't have a private, introspective side. I could name all of them for you. If anybody thinks comics are happy, believe me, the degree of their comic brilliance is based on being so sensitive and seeing everything in life, and dealing with the dark side of life with humour."

As for whether Carrey can ever completely escape being pigeon-holed as a comedic force, the director continues, "I think that's an old-fashioned concept. In old Hollywood, they'd stick people in a compartment and that was all you did ... But Woody Allen, Eddie Murphy, Steve Martin and Robin Williams, certainly, have managed to show many sides of their art. Audiences have not just embraced it, but encouraged it."

INCREDIBLE

In addition to prepping Ripley's Believe It or Not -- "It's an incredible world to open up," Carrey says -- he is voicing the title character in an animated adaptation of Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears A Who.

"I always loved Dr. Seuss and I was lucky enough to be the Grinch ... I love that a person's a person no matter how small, and the idea of worlds within worlds within worlds. Sometimes I sit in my backyard and a hummingbird will come flying past my head and threaten me, and I realize there's no respect for my deed to the land. That's his property as far as he's concerned. We just think we're the ones in control. Everybody does

THE NUMBER 23

Starring Jim Carrey, Virginia Madsen, Danny Huston

Directed by Joel Schumacher

Opens Friday

number23movie.com

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[Mar. 2/07 - I found another 2 articles  with some great quotes from Carrey on his beliefs about #23!]:
1)
Magic or coincidence?
There is a superstitious side to Carrey. His production company is called JC23, and it was named that long before he saw the script for "The Number 23."
The so-called "23 enigma" is a sort of urban legend concerning how often the digits turn up in science and history. Conspiracy figures like to ascribe something magical to it, while skeptics say it's just a coincidence that has been exaggerated in fiction.
"It could be just our minds, wanting to see patterns to believe in miraculous things," says Carrey, who says he began noticing the number turn up in his life after a friend pointed out the mythos to him.
Then friend Brad Silberling, who directed Carrey in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events," showed him the script to "The Number 23." It was a thriller, which Carrey hadn't done.
It seemed like a sign.
He sees the number's appearance in his life as more than coincidence.
"There are no mistakes in the world," he says. "I believe everything means something. To me, (the number) is just the universe tapping me on the shoulder every time I see it, going . . . "There's some kind of intelligence behind everything.' "  http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070228/ENT01/702280363/1031/BUSINESS

[And this is from an in-depth 5-page Carrey  interview/article]:
 2)    Jim Carrey: No. 23 is magic  
By Fabian W. Waintal 2007-27-02

In a break from his usual comic roles, Jim Carrey's new movie is a thriller in which the number 23 plays an important role. After reading this article or seeing the movie, many people will find themselves as obsessed with the number 23 as his character, Walter Sparrow.
It was no coincidence that Jim Carrey chose February 23 as the date for the movie's premiere. His production notes take up 23 pages, and he hosted this interview at the Four Seasons Hotel (a name with 23 letters) on January 31 (in British English, 31/1, or 3+1+1 or 3+2 or 32, which is 23 backwards) at 3:20pm (23 backwards).

Q: Was your salary for this film US$23 million?

A: (He laughs.) Not on this one, but we're hoping it will make more than that.

I see 23 everywhere I go. It's been that way for years. On the way here I asked my assistant to start taking pictures. (He shows pictures.) This is a tow truck that drove up beside us. It has the number 23 painted on the side. This is the car in front of us - its license plate started with 23. My hotel room was 1223. The address adjacent to the hotel was is 323.

Q: What does the repeated appearance of 23 mean?

A: I don't see it as a dark thing. It's a kind of tap on the shoulder, saying "There's something magical going on." There is an intelligence here, somehow. But it's fun.

Q: How did your fascination with the number 23 begin?

A: It's always been a fun thing, a little spooky, but fun spooky. Many years ago a friend of mine in Canada pointed out 23s everywhere. Like the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup 23 times.

He'd be adding things up like a savant. He could work 23 out of anything. I thought he was crazy, then it started showing up everywhere in my life.

One day I was telling a friend about the enigma and he said he had read a script about it.
I knew I had to read that script. As soon as I read it, on the first page the main character was a dog catcher who wrestled with a pitbull. And I changed the name of my company, which originally was Pitbull Productions, to JC23 because of my 23 zen. It started out on the first page like that.

And it just kept working that way, page by page by page. After you see this movie, when you think of the number 23, you'll think of it differently. Like seeing Hitchcock's "The Birds" - you think of birds differently.

I want people to go out of a movie thinking about something, not just going out of it with a box of popcorn. I want them to chew on it, have fun with it. It's pretty interesting. We have a lot of hidden 23s, so people can have some fun finding them on the DVD.
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/sp/article/2007/200702/20070227/article_307158.htm
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[Mar. 2/07: I came across an article about The Number 23. The movie's screenwriter  first learned about The 23 Enigma via RAW, and himself  began seeing 23s everywhere!]:
  ...If there's an unofficial patron saint of the 23 set, it's novelist Robert Anton Wilson, whose 1977 book Cosmic Trigger explored the number in Burroughs' works as an attempt to connect the digits to the universe on a larger scale.
    It was Wilson, who died in January, who inspired screenwriter Fernley Phillips to pen The Number 23 script.  "I'd always been interested in numbers and math, and how they work together,'' Phillips says on the phone from L.A. ''We all know about (the significance) of seven and 13 - but we don't know about 23 and how it blends the weird with the scientific.''
    That's when 23 started popping up all over Phillips' world.
    ''I'd see it in newspaper headlines, clocks, license plates and street addresses,'' he says.
    But while it sometimes feels like 23 turns up everywhere, Price adds, ''if you think about any number a lot, then you'll see it anywhere...'
<font size="2">http://www.sltrib.com/entertainment/ci_5311008
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[Mar. 6/07: Here are links to more interviews with Jim Carrey/Virginia Madsen about The Number 23, including more on Carrey's spiritual/supernatural beliefs. In one, Carrey puts to rest rumours that he's involved in Scientology (he's not. He's doubtful about all organized religions, including Scientology), despite his friendship with TomKat]:
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070228/ENT01/702280363/1031/BUSINESS
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/ent/stories/DN-peolede_0226gl.ART.State.Edition1.20a0165.html
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/16760953.htm
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/culture/story.html?id=4796eec1-1922-4285-af33-81b2b4d4ccb4&k=3344
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1590112,00.html
http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/interviews/article.html?in_article_id=38032&in_page_id=11
http://www.timesleader.com/mld/timesleader/entertainment/16746160.htm
http://movies.about.com/od/thenumber23/a/number021407.htm
http://www.joblo.com/index.php?id=14642
http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/pearlman/261694,SHO-Sunday-movies18.article
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/entertainment/movies/featuresandcolumns/article_1588148.php
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[I inserted this Feb 23/07, a most interesting  23 article from the U.K.'s The Independent, published Feb. 23]:
   23 fascinating facts about the number twenty-three
To most, it's just what comes between 22 and 24. Yet to surprisingly many - including the makers of a new film - it means much more. Cahal Milmo and Tom Willetts explore a bizarre obsession
Published: 23 February 2007

1 23 is one of the most commonly cited prime numbers - a number that can only be divided by itself and one. Twenty three is the lowest prime that consists of consecutive digits. Primes have been described as the "atoms" of mathematics - the building blocks of the world of numbers. An American businessman has put up a US$1m (£500,000) prize for the first mathematician to find a pattern in primes - a problem known as the Riemann hypothesis.

 2 The number has been the subject of not one but two films: the 1998 German movie, 23, and The Number 23, starring Jim Carrey, released (naturally) today. Each has a main character obsessed with the number.

3 John Forbes Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who was the subject of the film, A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe, was obsessed with 23. It featured prominently in his battle with mental illness. His breakdown began when he claimed that a photograph of Pope John XXIII on the cover of Life magazine was in fact him, the proof being that 23 was his favourite number. Nash published 23 scientific articles.

4 More freaky numerical coincidences: Charles Darwin's Origin of Species was published in 1859 - 1+8+5+9 = 23. Two divided by three makes 0.666 recurring (allegedly - actually it makes 0.6666666667). The Hiroshima bomb was dropped at 8.15am - 8+15= 23.

5 23rdians are a group of people who subscribe to the mystical power of 23 and see it in multiple combinations throughout daily life.

6 The Ancient Chinese believed numbers conveyed sexuality - evens for feminine and odds for masculine. They considered prime numbers to be the most masculine, conferring special status on 23 which is made up of two consecutive prime numbers and the only even prime number - two.

7 In the disaster movie, Airport, the bomber has seat 23. The number of crosses on Calvary at the end of the Monty Python film, The Life of Brian, is 23. In Die Hard With A Vengeance, a train derails in subway station 23. The lead characters in the Coen brothers' film The Big Lebowski always used Lane 23 at the bowling alley. In the television series Lost, one of the combination of six numbers that haunt the characters and they have to input to a computer to avoid an unknown fate is 23.

8 The terrorist attacks on America on 11 September 2001 have been held up as one of the most portentous examples of the disturbing power of 23. The figures in the date (9+11+2+0+0+1) add up to 23. The independent US commission which investigated the attacks found the date had been chosen randomly by the hijackers and had originally been planned for later in the year. Alternative explanations for the date included the taking over of Palestine by Britain in 1922 and the fact that 911 is the US emergency code.

9 Few hold 23 in more esteem than the followers of Discordianism, a self-declared religion based on the premise that discord and chaos are the building blocks of life. For Discordianists, 23 is the Holy Number and a tribute to the goddess Eris, who surveys a world of chaos. The mantra invoked by Discordianists for the Holy Number is "Invert The Pyramid". If you invert the sentence one letter at a time - eg "dinvert the pyramid", "id invert the pyram" etc - it takes 22 chants, finished by the line "The Pyramid Inverts" to make 23. The last line is called "the final energy releaser". Discordianism is described by some followers as "a joke disguised as a religion disguised as a joke".

10 Sport stars have developed a particular affinity (and aversion) to 23. Michael Jordan, the American basketball player, wore the number throughout his career and inspired many copy cat fans of wardrobe vigintitriplicity. Best known is former England captain David Beckham, who swapped his number seven Manchester United jersey for number 23 when he joined Real Madrid. Beckham, who said it was in deference to Jordan, is expected to continue wearing 23 when he joins LA Galaxy this summer. But the number is not always a harbinger of sporting good fortune. Manchester City have not assigned the squad number 23 to any player since 2003 after the last incumbent, Marc Vivien Foe, collapsed and died while playing for the Cameroon on 26 June 2003. Marcus Trescothick, the England cricket players, wears number 23 and was Australian bowler Shane Warne's 600th test wicket. Warne also wears 23.

11 The Bible does not let 23 pass without conferring upon it some significance, at least to students of the Book. Although the Old Testament is unspecific, it is widely held that Adam and Eve had 23 daughters. The 23rd verse of the first chapter of Genesis brings the act of creation to a close while the 23rd chapter of the book of Genesis deals entirely with death, namely that of Abraham's wife, Sarah. The most famous and most quoted of the Psalms is number 23: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters."

12 Each parent contributes 23 chromosomes to the start of human life. The nuclei of cells in human bodies have 46 chromosomes made out of 23 pairs. Egg and sperm cells in humans have 23 chromosomes which fuse and divide to create an embryo.

13 The most detailed account of the assassination of Julius Caesar, written by Nicolaus of Damascus, claims numerous enemies stabbed the Roman emperor 23 times. The wounds ranged from superficial to mortal.
<font size="2">
14 William Shakespeare was born in Stratford Upon Avon on 23 April 1564. He died 52 years later on his birthday, 23 April 1616. Kurt Cobain, the god of grunge, was born in 1967 and died in 1994 - 1+9+6+7= 23, 1+9+9+4 = 23

16 The Knights Templar, the order of soldier monks who eventually fell foul of the Vatican and have been the subject of conspiracy theories about the Holy Grail, had 23 Grand Masters.

17 The first morse code transmission - "What hath God wrought?" - was from the Bible passage Numbers 23:23. In telegraphers code 23 means "break the line".

18 The Birthday Paradox states that a group of 23 randomly-selected people is the smallest number where there will be a probability higher than 50 per cent that two people will share the same birthday.

19 The author William Burroughs was obsessed with 23. While living in Tangiers, he met a Captain Clark who ran a ferry between Spain and Morocco. One day, Clark told Burroughs that he had been doing the route for 23 years without incident. Later that day, the ferry sank, killing the captain. While Burroughs was thinking about the incident, a radio bulletin announced the crash of a Flight 23 on the New York-Miami route. The pilot was another Captain Clark. The events prompted an obsession which saw Burroughs record every occurrence of the number 23 for the rest of his life.

20 The disbanded pop act KLF are one of several musical sources of 23-related lore. The two men behind KLF - Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty - were once known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, which has 23 letters and comes from the novels of Robert Anton Wilson, another 23 obsessive. A police car used for the video of the KLF's number one, "Doctorin' The Tardis", had 23 painted on the roof, their final performance lasted 23 minutes and they incinerated £1m on a remote Scottish island on 23 August 1994. Psychic TV, another cult act, released 23 live albums on the 23rd day of 23 consecutive months.       
                                                                                                                                                            21"W" is the 23rd letter of the Latin alphabet. It has two points down and three points up. White supremacists use 23 to represent "W" as a mark of racial superiority.

22 "23 skidoo" is an American catchphrase from the early 20th century meaning to make a sharp exit. It was used as the title of a poem by the occultist Aleister Crowley, another 23 aficionado [To my knowledge this is incorrect. A.C. was a numerologist of the Kabbalistic school, and many, many numbers were significant in his mind. But 23 was not one of his most important #s]. But some believe its origins lie in Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, where the old woman counting the daily victims of the guillotine calls "23" as the hero is beheaded in the last chapter.

23 The average human physical biorhythm is 23 days.
 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2296846.ece
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WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS , ROBERT ANTON WILSON and #23   
Many people were first introduced  to #23 via William Burroughs, starting with his  '60s  novels, in which #23 figures in ways connected to danger  and death.  WSB referred to #23 as DEMOLITION #23 !Then more readers encountered #23 via Wilson's early '70s Illuminatus (fiction), and his '77  autobiographical Cosmic Trigger.
 
 In '65, RA Wilson met Burroughs, who first told RAW  about the strange and mysterious #23! Wilson, in his book "Cosmic Trigger", recounted what WSB had told him:

" In the early '60s in Tangier, Burroughs knew a certain Captain Clark who ran a ferry from Tangier to Spain. One day, Clark said to Burroughs that he'd been running the ferry for 23 years without an accident. That very day, the ferry sank , killing Clark and everybody aboard.
        In the evening, Burroughs was thinking about this when he  turned on the radio. The first newscast told about the crash of an Eastern Airlines plane on the New York-Miami route. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was listed as Flight 23 .
(Aha! Now you understand the line 'Captain Clark welcomes you aboard', which appears, always with sinister overtones, in various of Burroughs' surrealistic novels.)
         Burroughs began keeping keeping records of odd coincidences. To his astonishment, 23s occurred in a lot of them. When he told me about this , I began keeping records - and 23s appeared in many of them. (Readers of Koestler's Challenge of Chance will find that there are a great many 23s in that encyclopedia of odd coincidences also). "(-from Cosmic Trigger)

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WILLIAM BURROUGHS wrote the following, in 1966, for the introduction to a book  called With Revolvers Aimed...Finger Bowls, by Claude Pelieu. In it
BURROUGHS GIVES HIS DARKLY ENTERTAINING TAKE ON #23 :

" some notes on demolition 23 revolvers aimed by claude pelieu...eureka calif.: deaths now total 23...common law wife he slew by stabbing her 23 times...23 die in montreal apartment blast...23 skidoo to the empty playground...23 die as bomb shatters embassy...bloody footprints back to your own people demolition 23..23..23...the more often your number comes up the more likely it is to come up again by simple association 23 die and millions read about it and associate it with death in their decorticated nervous sytems and walk around muttering 23 die 23 die 23 die with all that pressure on 23 do die bus in ecuador stadium collapsed at a public hanging in Malawai or was it basutoland now you will notice maybe later it turns out there were 24 died mostly children when a bus turned over and caught fire pick a place put the banner headline was 23 die in holiday bus horror that is the set up men will favour 23 by association maybe they collect 23s like I do and keep them in a scrap book so the number sort of lights up for me off the page you know and I feel good when I see 23 familiar as your own death which was always with you remember Johnny 23 so lets start a 23 club and pool all our little 23s into one big demolition 23 you mean to say you can make things happen kill decent folk by just juggling numbers on a page? well that's about the size of it just like uncle Albert we call him juggled a few signs around the blackboard made us all disappear 23 skidoo but we may get the drop on him cancel the bomb one hole was all it took...demolition 23...and in case you fellow members of the 23 club my fat french char calls me le cadavre semi vivant now isn't that cute? yes sir boys that's what marks a real 23 it's the smell of death bulldozing through it day after day and still it piles up all those millions of people was walking around rotten but had embalmed themselves in old film and when D.23 cut the film the stink would have knocked you to Uranus they was dead and rotten in there fell apart when the film drained off them it happened slow then get up to shave and dress hurts see? "
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For Burroughs, #23  was "Demolition#23",  associated with death and disaster. For Wilson, #23 became  a mostly positive signal in his own life's journey, although he acknowledged that 23 had a dark side too!
RAW  postulated that the uncanny coincidences involving #23, suggested a mystical quality of an interconnectedness in the Universe, the Tao,
Jungian synchronicity (meaningful coincidence), Quantum  Inseparability theory and Quantum Non-Locality.
More from RAW's Cosmic Trigger,
ROBERT ANTON WILSON'S TAKE ON  #23:

" Non-local theories, like Jung's synchronicity, take us out of the Newtonian action-reaction machine and bring us eerily close to the logic of The I Ching and Taoism, in which the seemingly random toss of 3 coins may reveal an archetypal pattern  of both personal and cosmological significance. With that kind of rational (or rationalization) I accepted the 23 enigma  as a signal that I should attempt to decipher.
        After a while my passion for jotting down every significant 23 that came my way began to annoy my beautiful wife Arlen. 'It's all in your mind', she told me on several occasions. 'You're just noticing the 23s and ignoring the other numbers.'
        Of course, But she was annoyed by being implicated in the 23 mystery even before she met me. Our two oldest daughters (by her previous marriage) were born on Feb. 23 and August 23 respectively. The numerologist  went to  see  the academy award film  Charly,
with a friend who was particularly dubious about  this 23 obsession. The story of the film concerns a low-grade moron (IQ around 70) who is transformed by neuro-surgery into a superhuman genius (IQ 200+). In the crucial operation scene, the number on the operating room is visible, and it is, of course, 23. The friend sat bolt upright. 'Jesus H. Particular Christ', the friend said hollowly, 'How do you do it?'
...Most of the 23 data were incorporated into Illuminatus...here are a few [historical-factual] examples: Mad Dog Coll was shot on 23rd Street when he was 23 years old; a year later, Dutch Schultz (who paid for the Coll assassination) was himself fatally shot on October 23, 1935.  Marty Krompier, king of the Harlem numbers racket , was non-fatally shot on the same October 23, 1935 ('It's got to be one of them coincidences,' he told police.) Shultz's killer, Charlie Workman, served 23 years of a life sentence and was then paroled.
        When the donkey metaprogrammer has noticed a few oddities of this sort , the key signal becomes prominent everywhere. I soon noticed the 23 axioms that open Euclid's Geometry; the fact that the mad bomber in the film Airport has seat 23; that in the old stage productions of A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton, is the 23rd man guillotined in the gory climax (some lexicographers believe this is the origin of the slang expression '23 Skiddoo!); 23 in telegrapher's code means 'bust', or 'break a line' , while Hexagram 23 in The I Ching means 'Break Apart'. I was even thrilled by noting that in conception Mom and Dad each contribute 23 chromosomes to the fertilized egg, while within the DNA coil of genetic programming instructions there are unexplained bonding irregularities every 23rd angstrom. . Aleister Crowley's Cabalistic Dictionary later excited weird speculations about 23 perhaps being somehow involved with reproduction by defining 23 as the number of 'parting', 'removal', 'separation'. 'joy', 'a thread', and 'life'.
        Run the following, from Professor Hans Seisel of the U. of Chicago, through the most skeptical filter:
        'My grandparents on my mother's side lived in Gablonz, Mozartstrasse 23; we lived in Vienna at Rossaureleende 23; our law office at Gonzagagasse 23; my mother at Alserstrasse 23, tuer (apartment) 23, and so it went...'
        Prof. Seisel's mother, while visiting Monte Carlo, purchased a book, Ilya Ehrenburg's Die Liebe der Jeannie Ney in which the heroine wins a great bet betting  on number 23 in roulette. She decided to experiment; 23 came up on the second try.
        This is archetypal. We shall see, as we advance , that the peculiar entities in charge of Dr. John Lilly's hypothetical Cosmic Coincidence Control Center pay special attention to those who pay attention to them..
        Meanwhile the Numerologist had a new rationalization for his obsession: the famous story about how Dr. James Watson, coming down a spiral staircase at Oxford, suddenly flashed intuitively on the spiral shape of DNA. All the micro-photographic evidence at the time seemed to contradict his theory, but he irrationally trusted his intuition and kept working on that model. Eventually he won the Nobel Prize for proving that the DNA is a double helix (two spirals interwoven). 23 was my spiral staircase, my intuitive signal." (from Cosmic Trigger)


DISCORDIANISM, GREEK GODDESS ERIS & #23:
RAW co-created a satirical religion, Discordianism, presided over by Greek goddess of chaos, discord, and confusion Eris (pronounced as "Air-EES"). Her name in Latin is "Discordia". (RAW also practised some more serious forms of paganism, and was a member of several Wiccan and Magic practising groups).
Originally, the creators of Discordianism invented the "law of fives", making 5 the mysterious and significant number for it. RAW added the Law of 23s, on the gounds that 2+3 = 5!
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23 and Me, in Four Parts  (I'm posting the parts in reverse chronological order, from pt. IV to pt. I) 

23 and ME  , pt. IV :  FEB. '07,  #23, STARRING RAW & SIOUXSIE SIOUX!

Around Feb. 17/07 I was listening ,for the first time, to a recording of disc 2 of  "The Best of Siouxsie and the Banshees", which contains alternate versions of familiar songs, as extended dance mixes.
On hearing the 8+min. mix of "Kiss Them For Me" (recorded in '91), I was  surprised indeed, to hear the track begin with a voice over of a familiar voice speaking to an audience about a certain Greek goddess, a goddess of discord - Eris! Siouxsie & Co. had inserted  (sampled) 23 seconds precisely, of Robert Anton Wilson giving a talk on Eris, goddess of his satirical religion, Dicordianism! In it, he mentions that Eris is goddess of chaos, discord, and confusion, and mentions her sacred number is NUMBER 5, which, if you'll  recall WAY back earlier in this 23 post, you'll know that Discordians' #5 contains within it #23 (2+3=5!).

When RAW came on my speakers  that day out of the blue , I was just about to start at that moment , a passage in an email I was writing to someone, on the topic of her current unhappy discordant life condition due largely to the experience of suffering recent difficult circumstances, and a disaster of sorts ...That damned Eris, again!

For the rest of that day , after discovering RAW with 23 references on Siouxsie's song, I kept noticing lots of 23s (ages, polling #s, dates, etc.) in news articles, fairly mundane ones, not overly remarkable ones, though mildly entertaining.
But one coincidence did give me particular pause. On a financial site, I visited a discussion board for a specific stock I own. The most recent  post there was by  a
"Littleguy 123 " . He ended his post with the words  "LIVE LONG AND PROSPER", THE VERY WORDS ROBERT ANTON WILSON HAD INSCRIBED IN MY PERSONAL COPY OF  COSMIC TRIGGER WHEN I MET HIM AT A BOOK SIGNING IN VANCOUVER, B.C., IN THE MID '80s!
For "one o' dem coincidences", I thought that was a pretty darned good one.

 RAW may have left his physical form last month (Jan./07), but it seems almost as if  his mischievous spirit is still here, playing pranks!
And it was just the day after (on Feb. 18)  the above, that I saw on Yahoo News the headline;
"AT LEAST 23 BOMBS EXPLODE IN THAILAND KILLING 3".

...While I'm on the subject of Siouxsie, #23 appeared way back on the Banshees' very  first single, Hong Kong Garden, from '78. It's a happy, upbeat sounding song on the face of it, until one listens closely to the lyrics, which reveal a dark side!

"Harmful elements in the air...
Junk floats on polluted water
An old custom to sell your daughter
WOULD YOU LIKE NUMBER 23?"
[from Hong Kong Garden]  
                                                                

Budgie, Siouxsie Sioux, Severin
 of SATB
In some early interviews, Siouxsie talked about William Burroughs' ideas.
So, I put 2 and 2 together and thought maybe she's gotten D23 directly from WSB. But now that I've heard RAW on a Sioux song, I'm thinking maybe she got it first from RAW, just as I did!
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23 and ME, pt. III:  2006, THE RETURN OF DEMOLITION #23!!!!!

Last July 26/06, an alternative news site I read  had an atypical article by
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, the British biologist who is now one of the foremost scientific investigators and theorists  of paranormal phenomena, and alternate theories of evolution.
 He's not a skeptic. He's conducted many scientific studies proving various paranormal abilities and phenomena. RAW was an admirer of Sheldrake, including Sheldrake's "morphic fields" theories, which may help  explain telepathy, and much else too.
http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/07/26/Sheldrake/
The discussion thread following the article was lively and inspiring, and even  conjured up some black cat synchronicities! I began posting information about #23 there. I was also noticing quite a few D23s in the news at that time, over some days in early Aug./06, and I posted some on the Sheldrake thread  such as:

 AT LEAST 23 KILLED IN AMBUSH NEAR BAGHDAD- a Wa. Post headline; BAGHDAD (AFP) - INSURGENT FIGHTERS HAVE KILLED AT LEAST 23 IRAQIS;  BEIRUT -  ISRAELI WARPLANES INTENSIFIED AIR STRIKES AND LAUNCHED A NEW COMMANDO RAID IN SOUTH LEBANON, KILLING AT LEAST 23 PEOPLE;  ANTHRAX SPREADS TO 123 SASKATCHEWAN FARMS;
LEBANON: THE TOWN OF GHAZIYEH HAS BEEN TARGETED SEVERAL TIMES...THE TOWN WAS OVERFLOWING WITH DISPLACED PEOPLE  WHO HAVE SWELLED ITS POPULATION TO 23,000;  JACK HEINTZ RECRUITED 23 EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS TO JOIN A JULY TELEPHONE FUNDRAISING EVENT FOR ISRAEL."THERE'S GOING TO BE A TOTAL BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON, AND I BELIEVE THAT'S VERY CLOSE TO HAPPENING", SAID HEINTZ.

The above early Aug/06 D23s seemed to come fast and furious,and all within a small window of time, of some days. (As RAW noted, the more you pay attention to the phenomena, the more attention it pays to you!)
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 23 and Me, part II:  DEMOLITION #23!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That same week in early Feb. '82  (the week I  began delving into WSB's 23-writings and started seeing lots of 23 coincidences), besides the Crowleyan-occult 23 connections     (see "23 and Me", part I),  I quickly got my first Demolition#23 disaster news headline, just the kind William S. Burroughs coveted!

 -Feb. 8/82 newspaper headline "INDIAN PLANE HITS MOUNTAIN, 23 SOLDIERS DIE "- an Indian Air Force transport plane crashed in the foothills of the Himalayas.
 ..For me, that was just the start of an endless stream of D23s I  noticed
and continue to notice to this day. I started collecting news clippings and noting down the 23s that came my way. My experience of 23s soon became, and remained, pretty much Burroughs-esque, with associations with death and disaster predominating.
These D23s are all from the early- mid '80s

...CRASH KILLS 23- a Turkish Cargo Truck crashes into a border post at the Turkey-Iraq border; 23 MINUTES OF MURDER-cassette tape recording of a murder;      US TO RE-OPEN PROBE OF CRASH THAT KILLED ACTOR-Vic Morrow, killed on the Twilight Zone movie set on july 23/82; STAN ROGERS, FOLKSINGER AMONG 23 KILLED IN CRASH-Air Canada  jet crash and fire in Cincinnati; FAST ACTING CAPTAIN, CREW SAVE 23- the same Cincinnati crash. 23 saved as well as 23 killed!; 23 DIE, 65 HURT AS MILITIAS SHELL AIRPORT, CAMPS - in Lebanon; ALONG CAME HURRICANE IWA ON NOV. 23/82 - worst hurricane to hit Hawaii in 25 years; 1 DEAD, 23 HURT AS TANKER EXPLODES BESIDE HIGHWAY - near Salmon Arm, B.C.; RESTAURANT BOMB KILLS 23 IN MADRID- near a US embassy. Basque separatists claim responsibility; LAST MINUTES OF JAL 123-japan jet slams into mountain, killing 520; EXECUTION GONE WRONG? - executed prisoner Gray's movements had not stopped for 23 minutes; 230 KLLED AS INDIAN MOBS SCORN CURFEW- mob violence in Northern India sparked by P.M. Indira Ghandi's assassination; MUMMIFIED BODIES EMERGING FROM MUD - Colombia , mud avalanche caused by volcanic eruption buries 23,000 ; ON 23RD APRIL AGAIN WHEN EMERGING FROM TRANCE, SPIRIT MEDIUM MRS. PIPER SPOKE THE WORD THANATOS, WHICH IS THE GREEK WORD FOR DEATH...
-And on and on.......................

After a few years, I stopped collecting them. After a while, It began to feel like a rather morbid pastime! I couldn't help but continue to notice them though.
If anything, there seem to be even more D23s these days, with the Iraq war, and so much other discord in the world . Two days ago-Feb. 18/07-I saw this headline: "AT LEAST 23 BOMBS EXPLODE IN THAILAND, KILLING 3". I kept on noticing D23s all these years, but my reaction turned into something like  "Please, not that Damned Death Number again!" *********************************************************************
23 and ME, part I : RAW, WSB, and ALEISTER CROWLEY
I first encountered the Great 23 Enigma in Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger, around '79. His references to William Burroughs and 23 eventually  pointed me toward Burroughs' writings in the first week of Feb. 1982.

Upon finding Burroughs' 23 piece (posted above - the intro. to the Claude Pelieu book ), and some other Burroughs 23 references, I immediately started  seeing 23s , and connections they led to, in news items and various books. Initially, many of these seemed to relate to  Aleister Crowley's ideas, which, at the time, I was interested in. And Crowley has been a big influence on RAW, as Cosmic Trigger elucidates.

Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947) looking almost Asian (instead of English),
like a Taoist sage, perhaps! (I believe his hand sign is actually Buddhist
and meaning "fear not").

For example, the local paper was running a natural history series.
The latest instalment was on The Yukon Wild Ass, a prehistoric species of small horse. It was presented as 23rd in the series.  The Wild Ass is an animal associated with Egyptian god Set who had some  importance to Crowley's cult (along with others, such as the goddess Nuit and the hawk headed god Horus). Crowley even wrote a poem dedicated to Set called The Wild Ass. Another article from a fews days earlier, in Feb. '82, announced that a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena had been studying pictures from the Voyager 7 spacecraft, and, from the new photos,  new moons had been discovered orbiting Saturn,  bringing "the number of known satellites to between 21 and 23."  It so happens that one of Crowley's most prominent American disciples in the '40s and early '50s, who headed a branch of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis occult order, was Jack Parson's, a prominent JPL scientist who made advances in jet engines.
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