23 Enigma

Referenced in 1 episode

Definition

The belief that the number 23 shows up in unusual coincidences. It was popularized by William S. Burroughs and Wilson, who saw it as a sign of synchronicity.

Related episodes

Robert Anton Wilson’s The Cosmic Trigger with Gabriel Kennedy

New Thinking AllowedSep 28, 2026

Jeffrey Mishlove and biographer Gabriel Kennedy revisit Robert Anton Wilson's 1977 classic Cosmic Trigger, Volume 1: The Final Secret of the Illuminati, and the psychedelic, occult and quantum-physics scene of mid-1970s Berkeley that produced it. They trace how Wilson's LSD-fueled Crowley rituals led him to believe he was receiving telepathic messages from beings near the star Sirius, tied to synchronicities around the number 23, until a meeting with Jacques Vallée changed his interpretation. The conversation also covers Wilson's collaboration with the imprisoned Timothy Leary, his model agnosticism, and the family tragedies that shaped the book.

FS 6