The Number 23: Proof Gematria Is Relevant to Hollywood

On February 23, 2007, the movie The Number 23 was released starring Jim Carrey.  The movie is about numerology and the psychological impact it plays on the main character's life, Walter Sparrow, played by Carrey, once he discovers the significance of the number twenty-three within a book his girlfriend buys him at a local bookstore.  As it turns out, this book creates a very personal and life altering insight for Sparrow by the end of the film.

The main character is born February 3.  If you recall Jim Carrey's 90s movie Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, you may recall his job was tracking down lost animals.  In The Number 23, Carrey catches stray dogs, and in the beginning of the film, has to catch a dog named "Ned".  At the time he is catching Ned, he doesn't realize what is special about his name, but later in the film he comes to understand.  The name Ned consists of N, the 14th letter, E, the fifth letter and D the fourth letter.  If you add 14+5+4, you get 23.  Thus, Ned = 23.

Ned ends up biting Carrey and sending him on a spiral of coincidences.  At the time of being bitten, he is convinced the name Ned means, "nasty evil dog".  Carrey's character then starts to say Ned is dead, and dead Ned out of frustration and anger.

Walter Sparrow's girlfriend's name is Agatha, and she owns a cake shop named after her.  The address of her shop as shown in the film is 698.  If you sum each number digit by digit, you get 23.  It shows Agatha leaving her shop just before meeting her boyfriend Walter.  In the next scene, it shows the two meeting at a bookstore named "A Novel Fate".  In the story, Agatha buys the book, The No. 23 by Topsy Kretts, A Novel of Obsession.  The bookstore is address 599, which sums to 23 as well.

In the film, it never decodes the name Topsy Kretts, other than Walter Sparrow realizing that the name Topsy Kretts almost forms the words "top secrets".  If you extract the numerology of the words, TOPSY KRETTS you get the following:

• TOPSY = 2+6+7+1+7 = 23
• KRETTS = 2+9+5+2+2+1 = 21
• TOPSY KRETTS = 23+21 = 44
• 44 is the number of assassination

As the movie rolls along, 23s are coded into scenes often and in different ways.  The film progresses as Carrey reads from the No. 23 and dreams about himself as the main character in the book.  When he reaches chapter five, he meets the "Suicide Blonde", who lives across from Apartment 959; you do the math.

In the apartment, the following information is written on a mirror the Suicide Blonde is looking at.

• Timothy Charles Hunt
  110/66/63
  2/12/9
  red = 14+5+4 = 27
   white = 23+8+9+20+5 = 65
  65+27 = 92/4 for letters in pink = 23

The Suicide Blonde explains to the day dreaming Walter Sparrow that you can calculate Pink by adding the numerical value of red and white, and then dividing by 4, the number of letters in the word 'pink'.  What the movie doesn't tell you, is that you can also calculate pink as twenty-three by doing what I did above for the name TOPSY KRETTS.

• Pink = 7+9+5+2 = 23

You would think the movie would have explained it that way, but it didn't.  At no point in the movie, did it ever explain how to calculate the value of words using the Pythagorean method.  For an example of the Pythagorean method, let us examine the state name Delaware, the first state of this nation founded by 33rd degree Free Masons.  Within this name, is a secret number.  The only other states with this same outcome are Massachusetts, the sixth state, and Hawaii the fiftieth and final state.

• Delaware = 4+5+3+1+5+1+9+5 = 33
• Established December 7, 1787:  1+2+7+1+7+8+7 = 33 
• Massachusetts = 4+1+1+1+1+3+8+3+1+5+2+2+1 = 33
• Hawaii = 8+1+5+1+9+9 = 33

Later in the film, Walter Sparrow encounters the dog Ned again.  Ned leads him to a tombstone where a Laura Tollins is buried.  On her tombstone the following information is given:

• Born February 10, 1968
• Died February 10, 1991
• 2/10/1991 = 2+1+0+1+9+9+1 = 23

At this point, Carrey's character has a major breakthrough, which I will not give away.  Through the remainder of the movie, there are twenty-threes coded within, from number sequences to words.  Have a look!

• 6/9/1931
• Dr. Miles Phoenix
• Isobel Lydia Hunt
• King Edward Hotel
• Kyle Jacob Flinch
• Topsy Kretts
• PO BOX 977
• West Highland, USA
• 61007
• License 906 8TC
• Dr. Sirius Leary, MD
• Room 318
• Case 85037
• Casanova's Park
• 023 5HJ
• Walter Paul Sparrow
• "Be sure your sin will find you out" 32:23

In the film, Walter Sparrow's nemesis is named Issac.  In numerology, Issac has a very special number sequence.

• Isaac = 91113 
• Isaac = 9+19+1+1+3 = 33

IMDB gives 223 critic reviews of the film.