The Number 23

I just finished watching a movie called ‘The Number 23’ by Joel Schumacher. The movie is about a man who becomes obsessed with the23 enigmaonce he reads about it in a strange book that seemingly mirrors his own life.

He starts to relate the number to his everyday life and figures that the book resembled a lot of his life. He started to see it everywhere. His car license plate number and social security number adds up to 23. Not just that, his birthday is on February 3^rd. Get it? 2/3? Spooky if you ask me.

These things mess up my mind quite easily. So I went on the internet to see if the 23 enigma was a real thing. And what do you know, it is! Apparently William Burroughs (author of The Naked Lunch) was one of the first people to have come across the 23 Enigma. In 1960, he heard a sailor called Captain Clark talk about having successfully sailed for 23 years without incident. Later the same day, Clark’s ship sank, killing him and everyone else aboard. Also that day Burroughs listened to a radio broadcast, which reported on an airliner crash in Florida. It was flight 23 and the pilot was another Captain Clark. Coincidence? Maybe not. Here are some other examples of the power of 23--

1. In humans, each cell normally contains 23 pairs of chromosones. 22 of these pairs look the same in both men and women, the 23rd pair is the sex chromosone and that is different for men and women. Women have two X chromosones while men have one X and one Y chromosone.

2. Julius Caesar was stabbed to death by numerous enemies in the Roman Senate. His stab wounds were said to number 23

3. William Shakespeare is believed to have been born on 23^rd April 1564 and he died on 23^rd April in 1616, aged 52. The number 23 was the constant in these two dates.

4. Psalm 23 (The Lord is my shepherd…) is the most famous and quoted of the Psalms.
5. The first Morse code transmission was ‘What has God wrought?’ This is a passage from the Bible, Numbers 23:23.

6. One of many conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks known as 9/11 is that the numbers involved in the date (9+11+2+0+0+1) add up to the number 23. Is it possible as some do to believe in the power of a number?

Of course these are all coincidences grouped together. And anyone with brains won’t fall for this right?

But then, my friend sent me a link of a Quora confession. A 20 year old guy wrote about how the number 43 appeared everywhere. Apparently the first time he saw a comet was at 12:43. From there on, anytime he looked at the time, he’d always somehow end up at a 43. At first it seemed like a coincidence, of course, but later on he found the number 43 everywhere. In street numbers, phone’s battery percent, license number- it was everywhere.

Although it might be a coincidence, I’d really like to believe that there’s something more to it. So here I am, digging my nose everywhere. Apparently there is a set of numbers called the ‘Angel Numbers’.

Angel numbers are sequences of numbers that carry divine guidance by referring to specific numerological meanings.

So when the Angelic Number 43 keeps appearing, it means that our guardian angels are sending us messages of love, peace and encouragement. Nice right? Nothing spooky.

But obviously these are myths and nothing is proven. So here’s hoping somebody,somewhere works on this or comes up with a conspiracy theory or something. And for the reader- what did you learn from this? Absolutely nothing. I just wasted a minute of your life with a freaking number that may or maynot have a meaning behind it. sorry. :)