Editing 23 enigma (section)

==In literature==
The 23 enigma can be seen in:

* [[Robert Anton Wilson]] and [[Robert Shea]]'s 1975 book ''[[The Illuminatus! Trilogy]]'' (therein called the "23/17 Phenomenon")
* Wilson's 1977 book ''[[Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret of the Illuminati]]'' (therein called "the Law of Fives" or "the 23 Enigma")
* [[Arthur Koestler#Writings as a contributor|Arthur Koestler]]'s contribution to ''The Challenge of Chance: A Mass Experiment in Telepathy and Its Unexpected Outcome'' (1973)
* ''[[Principia Discordia]]''

The text titled ''Principia Discordia'' claims that  "All things happen in fives, or are divisible by or are multiples of five, or are somehow directly or indirectly appropriate to 5"<ref>''[[Principia Discordia]]'', pg. 23</ref>&mdash;this is referred to as the Law of Fives. The 23 enigma is regarded as a [[corollary]] of the Law of Fives because 2 + 3 = 5.

In these works, 23 is considered lucky, unlucky, sinister, strange, sacred to the goddess [[Eris (mythology)|Eris]], or sacred to the unholy gods of the [[Cthulhu Mythos]].

The 23 enigma can be viewed as an example of [[apophenia]], [[selection bias]] and [[confirmation bias]]. In interviews, Wilson acknowledged the self-fulfilling nature of the 23 enigma, implying that the real value of the Law of Fives and the 23 enigma is in their demonstration of the mind's ability to perceive "truth" in nearly anything.

{{Quotation|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."<ref>Robert Anton Wilson sees the [[clustering illusion]] everywhere, not just 23, ''Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything'' (audiobook), December 2001.</ref>}}

In the ''Illuminatus! Trilogy'', Wilson expresses the same view, saying that one can find numerological significance in anything, provided that one has "sufficient cleverness".