User:Norwikian

HI WIKIPEDIA ENQUIRER !! Welcome to my utterly unabashed and totally non-NPOV (Neutral point of view) VANITY PAGE!!!

History and likes

I'm a Norwich-born scholar and writer who graduated from the University of East Anglia reading European History and German. I've travelled around Europe visiting at one time or another Amsterdam, Cologne, Geneva, Verona, Venice, Rome, Athens, and the Mediterranean islands of Naxos and Sicily. I've worked in archaeology, wholefoods, hotels, teaching and am currently based at the new Norfolk and Norwich University hospital.

My passions include-

Norwich, its history and cultural relationship to Europe, its writers, painters and characters.

Sir Thomas Browne

Who wuz he ? Dunno much about history?

Dunno much about English literature? ?

Dunno much about religion or science in the seventeenth century?

HEY ! now is your big chance to learn something new and fill those gaps in your knowledge !!

Go to http://quote.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne now to read a selection of quotations by Sir Thomas Browne.

Hermeticism , comparative religion and the esoteric in general; more specifically the largely unacknowledged influence of these subjects in the spheres of science, religion and the arts.

I enjoy listening to viol consort music especially that of John Jenkins and to Baroque music in general, including the lute. Also Mozart Sibelius,Carl Nielsen, Mahler and Bartok, as well as Philip Glass, Frank Zappa, Kraftwerk and The Beatles. I enjoy watching video's of Japanese anime, Bollywood, Federico Fellini and Chaplin. I also play Chess.

Novels I've read and 'lurrved', even if often only in translation -

Favourite American T.V.

The Simpsons Why does the Jail-bird baddie have a posh English accent?
Sex and the City The 'sufferings' of these poor little rich girls regularly crack me up, but at least Sex is discussed much more openly than in the U.K.

Why Norwikian?

I call myself the Norwikian because I hail from the City of Norwich (U.K.) The etymology of this place-name originates from the Saxon of Nor = (North) and Wik, meaning a port or settlement, the Dutch equivalent being Noordwijk. In ancient Roman times I would called a Norvicensian;

This pseudonym is in no way disrespectful to the Great Wikipedia i.e. NO WIKI ( or hopefully to any unencyclopaedic contributions of mine) but simply means pertaining to the ancient City of Norwich and/or a resident of the NORTHERN PORT or NORTHERN WIKIMAN. Of greater relevance I chose it because Norwich is where Sir Thomas Browne author of the encyclopedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica once lived !

The title-page of Browne's encyclopaedia bears this quotation-

To cull from books what authors have reported is exceedingly dangerous;true knowledge of things themselves is out of the things themselves. -Julius Caesar Scaliger

Sir Thomas Browne on the Wiki ?

Sir T.B. is so quoteable I cannot resist! ( N.B. his humour as regards the Wiki upon, undivided and endless volumes}. Go to sister-site wikiquote for no less than 30 quotations by Browne. the following are inspirational for me.

'I intend no Monopoly but a Community in Learning. I study not only for myself but for those who study not'. from Religio Medici

'There is all Africa and her prodigies within us. We are that bold and adventurous piece of nature which he that studies wisely learns in a Compendium; what others labour at in an endless and divided volume'. Ibid

'Would Truth dispense, we would be content, with Plato, that knowledge were but rememberance; that intellectual acquisition were but reminiscential evocation, and new Impressions but the colouring of old stamps which stood in the soul before. For what is worse, knowledge is made by oblivion, and to purchase a clear and warrantable body of Truth, we must forget and part with much we know'.

-from 'To the Reader', Pseudodoxia Epidemica

"Sir Thomas Browne is amongst my first favourites, rich in knowledge, exuberant in conceptions, and conceits, contemplative, imaginative: often truly great and magnificent in style and diction......he is a quiet and sublime enthusiast with a strong tinge of the fantast,- the humourist constantly mingling with, and flashing across, the philosopher, as the darting colours in shot silk play upon the main dye. In short, he has brains in his head which is all the more interesting for a little twist in the brains......Fond of the curious, and a hunter of oddities and strangnesses,.....- he loved to contemplate and discuss his own thoughts and feelings, because he found by comparison with other men's, that they too were curiosities..."

-from a letter by Coleridge dated March 10th 1804 Sat. night 12 o'clock

My dislikes

War (what is it good for, absolutely nothing, sing it loud!)

Jingoistic nationalism hey kids isn't about time you stopped waving those coloured rags you call flags about, to 'justify' your national pride; aren't they just a pretty excuse for 20% of the world to bully the other 80%??

Christianity which is Jingoistic

(N.B. Dictionary definitions of Jingoism include -War-like, boasting and chauvinistic, originating from a popular song of the 1870's We don't want to fight, but by Jingo if we do...).

Hey fellow Christians quit behaving like kids, turning the key to heaven against each other. "You're not coming in", "o yes we are", "o no you're not." There are now no less than 400 branches of Protestantism forever fragmenting, never uniting, until the Kingdom Come ? You don't agree with my theology or spirituality? You must surely be under the influence of the Devil!! Although Christianity claims to be a Trinity, by its relentless emphasis upon the existence of the Devil, it is in reality as the Swiss psychologist C.G.Jung amply demonstrated based upon the Quaternity, however Christianity refuses to acknowledge that this inferior function or fourth element is an important part of its theology. Like it or not if a spiritual force such as the Devil exists, then his existence has by and large been invented, developed and promoted by Christain theology!! Sexuality also remains a big stumbling-block for Christianity. The 'great horror' is viewed more healthily by other world religions. By persistent emphasis upon the 'sinful' nature of this important aspect of human life, Christianity has unconsciously asserted sexuality as part of its religion!! 2000 years later and still Christianity is deeply divided over issues such as homosexuality, promoting itself as homophobic. We await further spiritual schism over sexuality. Christianity is in serious danger of becoming a bigoted, decadent, elitist religion at a time when more than ever before humanity is in need of its moral teachings and of having Christ in their lives.

Bank Charges - As the decrepit old man of capitalism gasps his last breath, aware he is dying and fearful of his death, he desperately invents new and extortionate ways to sustain his godless life.

Meat- I've not eaten it for thirty years and am alive and healthy.

Just think how many animals an individual eats in a life-time. "Good morning sir how can I help?" "I'd like 200 chickens , 20 pigs, 12 sheep and 6 Cows , please." "To eat in your life-time Sir ,?" " That's right! I'll send someone round to kill them for me, 'cos I'm a little bit squeamish at the sight of blood and pain myself".

Hey Kevin ! it's time to get off your soap-box !

"No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another". http://quote.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne

File:Boating 97.jpg

Here I am on Barton Broad, one of the bootiful Norfolk Broads, a series of artifical, inter-connected shallow lakes formed from the digging of peat during the Middle Ages.

I continue to define myself as a Christian with hermetic inclinations.

Good-day my Melik Evrim XXX

==Articles== I've started and a few which I've contributed to so far (Nov 27 '03) include-

Norwich * Iceni* Sid Kipper* Religio Medici * Pseudodoxia Epidemica * The Garden of Cyrus * Library of Sir Thomas Browne* Musaeum Clausum* Sir Thomas Browne on America* Norwich School * Joseph Stannard * John Jenkins * William Taylor* Physiognomy * Macrocosm * Proteus*Vulcan of the alchemists* Arthur Dee * Jacques Gaffarel * Guardian angel * Kingdom of Heaven * Oedipus Aegyptiacus *sistrum * Tetramorph*adipocere * Athenaeus * Deipnosophistae or Banquet of the Learned or Philosophers at Dinner or a room full of wiki's eating and discussing together. Phew!

I hope to contribute articles on Microcosm* viol consort* 200 Motels* Theatrum Chemicum* Martin Ruland* Quaternity* Hermetic phantasmagoria* Giambattista della Porta and add book-titles to the controversial page which is barely relevant to an encyclopaedia, the Library of Sir Thomas Browne ( a list of American supermarkets IS however available) . And perhaps whatever else is considered worthy of inclusion and/or not yet elucidated upon by fellow Wikipedians within the quite finite circle of my knowledge.

My web essays

Browne and the Zoroastrian religion http://adherents.com/lit/sf_zor

(A page of allusions to Zoroaster/Zoroastrianism in science-fiction (mostly American novels). Deep at the bottom of a very, very long LIST. Scroll right down, down, down for a peep at just a v. small stub on the first reference to Zoroaster and his religion identified in English literature. (Earlier than the OED claims!)

Spiritual and literary affinity between Julian and Sir Thomas Browne.

http://umilita.browne.net.

The two 'Norridge' mystics briefly compared in terms spirituality and literature, just as the title states.

Prayer and Prophecy in Browne.

Piety, oracular utterances about America and my chance to use Sir T.B.'s words to voice my dissent and disapproval upon the foreign policy of certain nations and present-day world events.

http://www.umilta.net/thosbrowne.html

Alchemical and hermetic thought in the literary works of Sir Thomas Browne

A lovely animated phoenix, Mercurius figure and urn in the top margin. Please Adam, pump up the font-size! (Alternatively cut and paste). A revision of a paper I delivered at at UEA March 2002. Boy was I nervous! Lots of eminent American academics visited for this conference.Excellent!

http://www.levity.com/alchemy/sir_thomas_browne.html