User:Norwikian

'Hi Wikipedia enquirer and welcome to my utterly unabashed and totally non-NPOV (Neutral Point of View) Orgoglio et Vanitas(Pride and 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 and teaching and am now currently based at the new Norfolk and Norwich University hospital http://www.nnuh.nhs.uk/.

My passions include-

Norwich, its history, writers, intellectuals, social reformers, artists and cultural relationship to Europe.

Iceni* Sid Kipper* Norwich School * Joseph Stannard * George Borrow* John Jenkins * William Taylor*James Edward Smith

The physician and philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82)

Religio Medici * Pseudodoxia Epidemica * The Garden of Cyrus * Library of Sir Thomas Browne* Musaeum Clausum* Sir Thomas Browne on America*

Go to http://quote.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne to read a selection of quotations by the man himself and a taster of these subjects!!

Alternatively, visit the website with all of Browne's majoor writings at http://penelope.uchicago.edu/index.shtml

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

Physiognomy * Macrocosm * Proteus*Vulcan of the alchemists* Arthur Dee * Jacques Gaffarel * Guardian angel * Kingdom of Heaven * Oedipus Aegyptiacus I enjoy listening to viol consort music especially 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.*sistrum *

I enjoy video's of Japanese anime, Bollywood, Federico Fellini and Charlie Chaplin. I occasionally 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 very real and the imaginary 'sufferings' of these poor little rich girls regularly crack me up, but at least Sex is discussed more frankly than anything on U.K. T.V.

Why Norwikian?

I call myself the Norwikian here because I hail from the ancient 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 be a Norvicensian;

This pseudonym is in no way disrespectful to the Great Wikipedia i.e. NO WIKI ( or hopefully to unencyclopaedic contributions of mine) but simply means pertaining to Norwich and/or a resident of the NORTHERN PORT or even perhaps NORTHERN WIKIMAN. Of greater relevance I coined it because Norwich is where Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) author of one of early modern Europe's ealiest encyclopedia's Pseudodoxia Epidemica 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 eminently quotable I cannot resist! Note the humour as regards undivided and endless volumes as regards the Wiki! Go to sister-site wikiquote http://quote.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Browne for no less than 30 quotations by Browne. The following seem pertinent to the collation of an encyclopedia.

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?? Although Christianity is modelled upon the 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!! Human Sexuality remains a big stumbling-block for Christianity. The great horror is viewed far more healthily some world religions. By persistent emphasis upon the sinful nature of this important aspect of human life, Christianity unconsciously or not has asserted sexuality as part of its religion!! We await further spiritual schism because of ideology upon human sexuality. Today Christianity is in serious danger of being perceived as a bigoted, decadent, elitist religion when more than ever before, humanity is in need of its moral teachings and of 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

    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!

What's New? Jan 2004 Giambattista della Porta author of Natural Magic.

4 short essays transcribed from the Latin of Sir Thomas Browne

http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_a_friend_intending_a_difficult_work

Sir T.B. on literary criticism

http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_an_illustrious_friend_on_his_wearisome_Chatterer

Browne at his most humourous.

http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_a_reading_of_Athenaeus

A stoical Browne on one of his favourite authors.

http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Dreams

Superb snippet in original early modern English. Get that spelling! Browne's deep interest in dream-interpretation, one of the first modern physicians to recognise the importance of the psyche to well-being.

http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notes_on_Cookery_of_the_ancients

Browne on Cookery of the Ancients,(whatever next)! I just love the lines

I wish we knew more clearly the aids of the ancients, their sauces, flavours, digestives, tasties, slices, cold meats, and all kinds of pickles. Yet I do not know whether they would have surpassed salted sturgeons’ eggs, anchovy sauce, or our royal pickles.

Alternatively visit http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Modern_Texts:Authors for a complete listing of minor pieces by Sir T.B. I've contributed.

I hope in 2004 to contribute articles on Microcosm* viol consort* 200 Motels* Theatrum Chemicum* Martin Ruland* Quaternity*Fasciculus Chemicus Hermetic phantasmagoria and also to add book-titles to the controversial page barely relevant to an encyclopaedia, the Library of Sir Thomas Browne ( a list of American supermarkets IS however available) and whatever else is considered worthy of inclusion/ escapes VfD (Votes for Deletion) 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 :A page of allusions to Zoroaster/Zoroastrianism in science-fiction (mostly American novels). Scroll deep down, down, down to the bottom of a very, very long LIST. for just a v. small stub on the first reference to Zoroaster and his religion identified in English literature. Well a bit earlier than the OED claims anyway!

http://adherents.com/lit/sf_zor

Spiritual and literary affinity between Julian and Sir Thomas Browne.

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

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

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 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