Let's review allowed variations, and add a couple more. As the 22nd letter of the alphabet: V. Using the second letter twice: BB. Or in combination. VB. Victoria Bitter. My best buddy V...... B.... .

Or consider the numbers 31 and 13. Because they each add up to 4 (3+1=1+3=4), I think of these numbers as made up of four objects grouped together in piles of three and one, or one and three. So that by simply moving one object from one pile to the other, they can be transformed into two piles of two objects, or 22. So 31 or 13 are simple variations on 22. Now when I see 2213: it looks to me like 2222. Which is my phone number actually: XXXX 2213.

To be or not to be.

2 B or not 2B

22 or not 22.

One of the primary purposes of the Sepher Yetzirah was to elucidate how God designed, that is, engraved, carved, weighed, permuted and transformed, the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet to form the foundation of his creation and how he combined these letters to generate the words by which "He depicted all that was formed and all that would be formed." The text states that God "placed them in a circle." In this regard, Rabbi Kaplan noted that:

The word for circle here is Galgal. This can also be translated as 'sphere' or 'cycle'. In a number of places in the Talmud, this word is also used to denote the cycle of events in the world. Later, the Galgal is depicted as king over time. [It] also denotes the mystical array of the 22 letters.

This Galgal, this mystical array of 22 letters that reigns as King over Time is none other than a primordial vision of God's Wheel "seen in a glass darkly." It is a prophetic glimpse of the final form of God's eternal Word by his ancient beloved people, the Jews. Its etymological relation to Golgotha is discussed in The Axis of the Wheel.

An Ancient Witness

The great Indian batsman V.V.S. Laxman played in the #22 shirt for India on their tour of Australia this summer. Recall V is the 22nd letter of the alphabet, so here are three 22s in convergence.

Another one: our local bottle shop advertises Black Bottle Brandy for $21.99 (which means one pays $22).

So, if B=2, then BB=22, then a phrase like Big Brother, initials BB, represents 22.

Big brother is associated with 1984. 1+9+8+4=22.

See what I mean?

Yesterday on an interstate flight, I was allocated seat 22B.

The letter 'B' is the second letter of the alphabet. Therefore, 'BB' may stand for 22.

My local second-hand bookstore is Blackwood Books. Their telephone number is XXXX-2200, where XXXX is the area code common to all local phone numbers.

One night driving home from work, I was telling my son about this crazy 22 thing. When we arrived home, the Simpsons was on TV. It's the episode where Lisa gets on the #22 bus. However, it turns out to be the wrong bus. She asks the driver about it, and he explains that there are actually two #22 buses, the 22A which runs Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and the 22B on the other days.

On a recent business trip, having finished my appointments early, I arrived at the airport to fly home around 1PM. My flight was not until later that evening, but I hoped to be able to change my ticket to fly out earlier.

I enquired at the helpdesk of one of the airlines. They checked their computers. The best they could offer me, I was told, was the 2.20pm flight. It would cost me $222.

The 22nd letter of the alphabet is V.

The next letter, the 23rd, is W, which is not actually "double-U" at all, but a doubled V.

So 23 is, by this alphabetic reading, masquerading as double-22.

Robert Anton Wilson plays with 23 in his books as the cosmic number, but I think he's really talking cryptically about the doubled-22.

22. Twenty-two. What is it about this number? From catch-22, to the 22 yards of a cricket pitch, to the 22 major arcana of the Tarot, twenty-two pops up in all kinds of interesting places. Moreover, it has this strange property: it seeks to appear twice, in close proximity, if it possibly can. I first noticed this at a house numbered 22 near where I live. On the kerb, in the usual place, the number was painted twice. 22 22. I began noticing other occurrences of the number 22 around, and found that, almost invariably, a second 22 was not far away. Once I started observing this phenomena, it began showing up all over. I've started this blog to track and record some of these.