Synchronicities and the Number 23
You have probably heard the song - ‘Synchronicity’ by The Police that was inspired by Sting’s reading of Jung’s writings on Synchronicity or have heard or used the words, ‘What a weird coincidence’ but have you ever encountered a Synchronicity Stream. By Synchronicity Stream I mean encountering a theme, or piece of culture or even a symbol at frighteningly regular intervals? Well it has happened to me quite a few times and to a friend who was also introduced to the concept of ‘The No.23 Enigma’. Robert Anton Wilson in COSMIC TRIGGER introduces us to the phenomenon of The No.23, an enigma introduced to Wilson by William Burroughs, as Wilson himself put it on page 44 of COSMIC TRIGGER, “Burroughs began keeping records of odd coincidences. To his astonishment, 23s - appeared in a lot of them. When he told me about this, I began keeping my own records-and 23s appeared in many of them. (Readers of Koestler’s ‘Challenge of Chance’ will find that there a great many 23s in that encyclopaedia of odd coincidences also.)”
Now that you have been introduced to The No.23 it will - at least for a while constantly reappear in your life. I know I have been there and the following are examples of what has happened to me: I found a queue ticket left on the floor of the lift I was in when going up to the old office, clocking into the old office clocking in computer at a certain hour and the minutes and seconds both being 23, and this happening quite often, and the most eyebrow-raising incident being ‘followed’ around the city centre by a girl in a noticeble red t-shirt with the number 23 on there , which was made all the more obvious as the ‘twenty something’ year old's breasts were not small. If your surname is Hilbert - just try and type ‘23’ and ‘Hilbert’ into a internet search engine - the search engine may just come up with an article named, ‘Hilbert’s 23 problems.’ - this I consider the biggest piss-take ever by the Universal Joker, those cheeky Sirius residents or whoever you decide to believe is pulling those damn universal strings.
While it is undeniable that 'The No.23 Enigma' is utterly compelling and one of the most used devices that higher consciousness uses to communicate with us - whether that is from Sirius as Wilson theorised in COSMIC TRIGGER or a Universal Joker as I like to think, there are also many other methods by which that higher Intelligence likes to let us know it exists. Two pieces of culture have reared their playful heads with me recently at various points, these being the films - ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ and ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’. Having first happened with Chitty Chitty, then more recently with Willy Wonka - before the Willy Wonka incidents I was thinking’ “Oh that Joker is doing it again.”, then an appearance on ‘Neighbours’ by the Willy Wonka DVD box being wafted at the camera by a major character sealed the thought that , “Shit it is happening again with another children’s film.” and, “So The Synchronicity Stream Phenomena travels through time too as Neighbours is on British television a year and a half after being on Australian Television.”
And if you were thinking, ‘hey all this is just synchronicity and no big deal’, check this out - while on the phone to that excellent DJ - John Peel recently, you know as you do - I was telling him about the Led Zeppelin Article in this magazine, at which point he exclaimed, “Hey when you said Led Zeppelin - the cover of one of their albums appeared on the television, you know the one with the children on it (Houses of the Holy).”, and then I could hear him telling his wife about the incident in the background. Now even that may sound like no big deal unless you are let into another secret - that just before he said that - I was planning on telling him about this article that I was in the middle of working on about synchronicites but that piece of conversation got lost in the excitement of the Led Zeppelin moment. This is even more startling when you consider that this article goes on about the No.23 Enigma.
Whatever your theories on this synchronicities stuff, there are very strange events happening on this planet and in this universe on a daily basis and we can only guess the answers, answers that may never come; although that of course is part of the beauty of it all.