Why does Russell Brand have a 33 tattooed on this wrist? And other explorations about this fascinating fella.

Some time ago (in 2017 when I first starting piecing this together), I captured the moment of Russell Brand from his previous channel, Trews, episode 247 “Is there a God?”. I was fascinated by the the way his hands naturally fell into this position while he was making a point. It seemed mudra-like.

Doing a bit of internet research, I found similar Buddha poses, though mirrored. There’s the Teaching Buddha, which represents teaching, wisdom, understanding, fulfilling destiny and enlightenment, and there’s the Protection Buddha, which represents courage and protection from fear, delusion and anger.

There are also depictions of Saint Nicholas of Myra (aka Santa) and Jesus in similar poses, which are referred to as the ‘seal of life’ or ‘seal of the sun’, with the various fingers representing earth, energy, strength, endurance, and fire and divine nature.

What was Russ talking about at the time he made this (spontaneous) pose? “There is an awake-ness, an awareness, that sees it all.”

I also noticed the ’33’ tattoo on the inside of his wrist. This is a number I’ve looked at before and it has lots of significance. For one, it is believed to be the age Jesus died. Thankfully, Russell is safely past that milestone now and will hopefully be with us some time yet.

Coming back to this writing in 2021, and doing some more internet research, I’m happy to come across a video of Russ explaining why he has his 33 tattoo. He says it’s because he loves the Lord Jesus Christ and it’s a lucky number – he thought he was going to die at the age of 32.

Russ loves the number 33 and when he sees it, he feels like he’s on the right path. Strangely enough, it’s my fascination with the number 33 that has brought me here. It feels to me that Russell Brand is a teacher for our times. And what is he here to teach? In the tattoo video (which I now notice I’ve paused at 3:03), he says the only thing worth talking about is how to get people to band together to challenge authority.

I enjoy it when synchronicity reveals itself, like seeing the number 33 appear just now. I know Russ is a fan too. In his Recovery course on Commune, he goes into a fair bit of detail about his daily practice. It includes daily reading and meditation, four 12-step based prayers, gratitude practice, an overview of the day ahead, healing or prayer for others and ending with a plea or prayer for synchronicity. Russ wants to be ‘attuned to the unseen, invisible realms’ and to ‘see the coincidences and signs’. He aims to live a life of conscious contact with God, so this ‘invisible, unknowable world’ is important to him.