SimonIff.com © 2001 SimonIff.com : all rights reserved : not for reproduction without the permission of SimonIff.com Vigintitresology: The Web of 23 The principle of the Number 23, or Vigintitriplicity, to coin a term — a corollary to C.G. Jung's Principle of Syncronicity — has an uncanny tendency to cluster seeingly unrelated "facts:" into strangely beautiful and meaningful patterns.  For some reson, as yet undetermined, there operates in the human unconscious an ordering principle which manifests itself through the number 23.  As proof of this assertion is offered a vigintitresological analysis of the life of Aleister Crowley.  But to properly set the stage for the daemonic set of "coincedences" uncovered, we must go back to the year 1666 and briefly consider Sir Isaac Newton's interest in Alchemy. 1666 was Newton's 23rd year and historians of science have designated it as hs annus mirabilis.  This was the year in which his genius as a physical scientist first flowered.  But Isaac Newton was a many-sided genius, and not the least of his interests was numerology.  For him the number 23 took on an unusual significance. In Newton's private library was found a heavily annotated copy of Introitus Apertus, or The Open Entrance by Eirenaeus Philalethes; the marginalia are in Sir Isaac's own hand.  But what seems to have fascinated Newton about this work, to the point of fanaticism, was Philalethes' claim or boast that he had attained to the Philosopher's Stone at the age of 23! Newton was not a little vain about his own achievements and was obviously irked that he could not make the same claim. But he was somewhat placated by the fact that 23 had been his annus mirabilis and drew a parallel between his and Philalethes' attainments.  So, in Sir Isaac's honor is proposed The Law of Alchemical Initiation.  Such a law would recognize the importance of the 23rd year in the alchemical adept's quest for the Philosopher's Stone — the age of Initiation in any adept's life. If anyone's life should be the example which proves the "law", certainly it should be Aleister Crowley's, one of the most advanced adepts of the occult sciences in the twentieth century.  It was not with a little excitement that all the basic evidence needed was furnished in Chapter 6 of Kennth Grant's "Cults of the Shadow". Crowley was born in October, 1875; his 23rd birthday was in October of 1898; on November 18, 1898, Crowley was Initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn! In his Magickal Record, however, Crowley reveals that he took the Oath of Ipsissimus on May 23, 1921 and that this Great Initiation ran its course for the following three years.  — Here we hava a clear case of 23 to the third power: May is the 5th month (2 + 3), the 23rd day of the month, and a series of three years which includes 1923. The question now remaining was whether the entire life of Crowley could be viewed sub specie XXIII.  Here is what was discovered: Home  |  2 0 3  ||  Continue