Holistic Silk is 23 years old this year. Our creator Joanna was inspired to create the company twenty three years ago. Weirdly she was also born on the 23rd, was married on 23rd, and moved house on 23rd. So it all feels a bit magical. To celebrate our first 23 years and mark the start of our voyage into the next 23, we thought it’d be fun to explore the number, what some people believe it means, and a few truly fascinating facts about it.
The number 23 in Numerology
First let’s take a look at numerology, the belief there’s a mystical or divine relationship between numbers and events. It’s a fun idea revealing all sorts of theories around what the number 23 signifies in a person. 23 defines an adventurous type who is diplomatic and creative. It speaks to freedom, sensuality, and a keen intellectual interest in a wide range of subjects.
It’s about good communication, revealing a personality who is curious, quick-thinking, a tiny bit judgmental, and determined to self-express. 23 inspires others to be creative, and the optimism suggested by the number helps them motivate others. On the downside, a number 23 can struggle with taking time alone to develop projects, and can find it hard to keep their feet on the ground.
Curious facts about the number 23
We humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes in our DNA. Our eggs and sperm have 23 chromosomes each, which join together to make embryo. Our biorhythm lasts an average of 23 days. And our blood circulates the body every 23 seconds or so.
The strange mathematical phenomenon, the ‘Birthday Paradox’, shows there’s more than a 50% chance that a random two out of twenty three people will have the same birthday. A group of people called the 23rdians, who think the building blocks of life are ‘discord and chaos’, believe the number is mystical, and there were 23 Grand Masters in the Knights Templar. In Kabbalism and Hurufism there are many holy numbers, 23 being one of them.
The band KLF was mad-keen on 23. The previous band Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty belonged to was called the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu, a name with 23 letters, a name inspired by another 23-obsessive, the author Robert Anton Wilson. The band carried the number through their career, painting it on the roof of a car in the video of one of their hits. The last performance KLF ever made lasted exactly 23 minutes. And on 23rd August 1994 the band famously burned £1 million in cash on the Scottish island of Jura. As Drummond said to the BBC years later in 2004, “Of course I regret it - who wouldn’t!”
23 is one of the most commonly-mentioned prime numbers, only divisible by itself and one, and the lowest prime number featuring consecutive digits. It’s also a ‘happy number’ along with one, twenty two and twenty four. If you can actually understand the maths behind happy numbers, we salute you!
In Dickens' novel The Tale of Two Cities, the old woman counting those to be executed shouts out “23”as the hero gets his head cut off. Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times. William Shakespeare was born on 23rd April, then died on the same date 52 years later. The Nobel Prize winner John Forbes Nash, the economist whose story was told in the movie A Beautiful Mind, was obsessed with 23 and published a total of 23 scientific articles.
Twenty three is a movie star. The disaster movie Airport shows the evil bomber in seat number 23. In the Monty Python movie Life Of Brian, there are 23 crosses shown on the hill at Calvary. Subway station 23 is where the train derails in Die Hard With A Vengeance. If you lost the plot in the TV series Lost you might remember that one of the six-number combo that haunted the characters was 23. To avoid their fate, which remains annoyingly unknown, they were supposed to enter the number into a computer. It was baffling. If you know what that was all about, please let us know ;)
The number 23 has even wormed its way into the sporting consciousness, with a host of superstitious attitudes to it in the highest echelons. US basketball super-star Michael Jordan wore it constantly. Our own David Beckham insisted on a jersey with the number 23 when he joined Real Madrid, in respect for Jordan. Manchester City football team, on the other hand, hates and fears it. They haven’t used it in their squad since 2003 when Marc Vivien Foe died wearing it while playing for Cameroon. Cricket hasn’t escaped either, with the brilliant Aussie bowler Shane Warne insisting on wearing a top numbered 23.
Writers have fallen for the number’s power, including William Burroughs. He once met a ship’s captain in Tangiers who had run his ferry from Spain to Morocco and back for 23 years without incident. Later that day it sank and the captain was drowned. At the same time the news reported Flight 23 had crashed on the way from New York to Miami, and the plane’s captain had the same name as the ship’s captain – Clark. From then onwards the author noticed every time he came across the number, and wrote it down. Did he discover anything weird? Nobody knows.
Finally, a composer called Alban Berg used the number in the structure of his music. Apparently he suffered an asthma attack on 23rd of each month and was fascinated by the 23-day average human biorhythm we mentioned.
Happy birthday to us!
Twenty three years down the line, Holistic Silk remains a trusted and respected beauty, wellness, sleep and relaxation brand. Over the years we’ve helped thousands of people enjoy life more and feel great. Thank you to our loyal customers. We appreciate you more than we can say. And welcome, in advance, to all the new customers who’ll come our way throughout the next 23 years. Let’s raise a glass of something chilled and bubbly to that!
