Wikipedia’s Enigma Embargo

The best philosophers were not academics, but had another job, so their philosophy was not corrupted by careerism. 

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

A fan of my blog and YouTube channel recently professed, “After reading much of your blog and listening to all your videos on YouTube I am fascinated by your theory and convinced that you are absolutely right!” She then asked why Wikipedia makes no mention of my numerous discoveries. That is a very good question worthy of a reply.

The short answer is Wikipedia’s anonymous editors refuse to mention my original research because they maintain there are no reliable, published sources. On its face, such an objection is manifestly groundless. To publish means to make generally known and disseminate to the public. Clearly, my blog and YouTube Channel more than meet the threshold of that definition. Like Wikipedia, my findings are published virtually and made available to the world via the Internet. A global audience reads my blog which recently surpassed 150,000 page views. How could there be so many page views for something allegedly unpublished? One important reason for this rising tide of interest is the major search engines routinely rank my blog number one in the world. That is the case not only for Google searches of Elgar Enigma Theme and Elgar Enigma Solution, but also for comparable Bing, Yahoo, and Dogpile queries.

The real hang-up for Wikipedia’s editors is my research has not undergone any formal peer-review process prior to publication. There is little chance any of my findings will ever crop up in the pages of a recognized journal due to the overwhelmingly secular bias of academia. The results are far too Christian to excite the slightest sympathy of post-modern scholars steeped in a secular humanistic worldview. The scholars may retreat behind the walls of their ivory towers and pretend nothing has changed, but the reality is far different. The power and reach of the Internet make academia’s monopoly on research and discovery a relic, a thing of the past that no longer dominates or defines the debate. That debate has left them far behind in the digital dust of the Information Age.

Unlike all other purported solutions to Elgar’s Enigma Variations, my blog and YouTube Channel offer a readily accessible forum to share and evaluate my findings. Such a fortunate condition grants the academic community a golden opportunity to critically evaluate any and all aspects of my original research. Towards that end, I am publicly inviting that silent minority to speak now with the caveat they may only do so publicly. There will be no hiding behind the veil of anonymity. Tell us who you are, and you will be granted an open forum to comment about my solutions to Elgar’s enigmas. My conclusions will thrive or wilt under academia’s heated criticisms if only they would be willing to radiate them in the light of day. As Elgar's secret friend is famous for saying, there is no virtue in hiding your lamp under a basket. There, the proverbial gauntlet has been cast down. My experience has shown time and again that closed minds studiously avoid open forums. Perhaps the academics are merely following the proverb, “It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

Wikipedia's insistence on citing only peer-reviewed sources is fatally undermined by one unavoidable fact: Prominent Elgar scholars agree the answer to the Enigma Variations is unknowable because the composer died without revealing the answer. Michael Kennedy writes, “People have ingeniously been trying to guess the tune ever since, a harmless but pointless recreation since the secret, if there was one, died with him.” J. P. E. Harper-Scott echoes this sentiment:

Although human nature guarantees that attempts to solve it will never end until the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail are on permanent display in the British Museum, they all somehow fail to convince. It is easy to carp, since the riddle cannot be answered now its perpetrator is dead, but the evidence supporting all of the ‘solutions’ is weak.

According to these respected authorities, all purported solutions to the Enigma Variations amount to nothing more than pure speculation. Even Julian Rushton contends, “The only solutions which it may be safe to rule out are those based on false chronology; yet even here we cannot be perfectly certain . . .” The experts agree the solution to Elgar’s Enigma Variations cannot be identified with any degree of certainty. If that is indeed the case, then how could this inexplicable matter be plausibly subjected to the peer-review process as Wikipedia’s editors demand? Such an undertaking would be as frivolous as debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. According to some critics, the head of one of Wikipedia's editors would also suffice for just such a thought experiment.

Wikipedia’s embargo of my discoveries is not a fatal blow, but rather a badge of honor since its reputation as a reliable source is marred by controversy. While it continues to serve as an important online resource, Wikipedia exercises no express monopoly on reliable knowledge. Multiple sources should be consulted before formulating an informed opinion on any given subject. As long as that remains the case, my blog and YouTube Channel will continue to offer a counterweight to Wikipedia’s outdated article on Elgar’s Enigma Variations. In the final analysis, Wikipedia’s staid reliance on secondary sources ensures its continued dominance of second place (or worse) in the web rankings. Their anonymous editors should be asking why their work lags behind my own. If web rankings are any measure, then in the free marketplace of ideas my theory has already won the day if not the argument. To learn more about the secrets of the Enigma Variations, read my free eBook Elgar’s Enigmas Exposed. Please help support and expand my original research by becoming a sponsor on Patreon.

Soli Yah Gloria