14/03/28 00:17:41.49 WvQQ6n/P.net
The Principia Discordia states that "All things happen in fives, or are
divisible by or are multiples of five, or are somehow directly or indirectly
appropriate to 5"[4]
―this is referred to as the Law of Fives. The 23 Enigma is regarded
as a corollary of this law, since 2 + 3 = 5. It can be seen in
Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's The Illuminatus! Trilogy
(therein called the "23/17 phenomenon"), Wilson's Cosmic Trigger I:
The Final Secret of the Illuminati (therein called
"The Law of fives" and "The 23 Enigma"), Arthur Koestler'
s Challenge of Chance, as well as the Principia Discordia. In
these works, 23 is considered lucky, unlucky, sinister, strange,
or sacred to the goddess Eris or to the unholy gods of
the Cthulhu Mythos.
As with most numerological claims, the enigma can be
viewed as an example of apophenia, selection bias, and
confirmation bias. In interviews, Wilson acknowledged
the self-fulfilling nature of the enigma, implying that
the real value of the Laws of Fives and Twenty-threes lies
in their demonstration of the mind's power to perceive
"truth" in nearly anything.
When you start looking for something you tend to find it.
This wouldn't be like Simon Newcomb, the great astronomer,
who wrote a mathematical proof that heavier than air flight was
impossible and published it a day before the Wright brothers
took off. I'm talking about people who found a pattern in nature and
wrote several scientific articles and got it accepted by
a large part of the scientific community before it was generally
agreed that there was no such pattern, it was all just selective
perception."[5]
In the Illuminatus! Trilogy, he expresses the same view: that one can find a numerological significance to anything, provided "sufficient cleverness."[6]