Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Master Hilarion

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep all. Pigman☿ 23:18, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Master Hilarion, et al

Master Hilarion (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Article about a... thing... that has no notability outside of an obscure Victorian spiritualist movenment. Some material might be merged into Seven Rays, H. P. Blavatsky, etc. Adam Cuerden talk 16:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also nominating for delete/merge:

and the Theosophy sectoon of Count of St. Germain, at least, if the huge section discussing a dozen or so different Theosophanist's views on him in great detail is again restored. All form part of a huge walled garden. Adam Cuerden talk 16:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Related AfD pages:
[The above related-AfD links have been added in the interests of process transparency. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 21:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)][reply]
  • Delete or merge unless notability established on each individual article. These articles seem to fail WP:N: no evidence of substantial coverage from independent, reliable sources. The sources in the article are from publishing houses that are owned by/associated with the various New Age movements that believe in these things. I conducted Lexis-Nexis searches of all the major English-language newspapers, plus Google Scholar searches, and found no substantial coverage from reliable, independent sources. I went to the Harvard library and pulled what seem to be the major reference books that discuss Ascended Master Teachings and other New Age movements and found little or no coverage of these subjects. Full disclosure: This AfD is the result of a somewhat heated discussion on the Fringe theories noticeboard (e.g., someone compared me and other editors to the Nazis and then the Taliban for trying to "censor" a religious movement). Fireplace (talk) 16:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Definitely keep all.
Since I am the individual being referred to by User:Fireplace, let me again repeat: I was referring to the mentality that desires to DENY information on subjects they find worthless. I had written: "Today that same mentality would smother access to subjects that it deems "fringe" and "pseudoscience". You have no right to make that value judgement when dealing with sourced and referenced articles, no matter what the subject matter. Using that tactic is simply not the way to build Wikipedia into the academic and NPOV encyclopedia that it is intended to be. "
I object to deletion. Before considering how to eliminate these few articles on subjects that many people consider spiritually significant to their lives, how about first considering the elimination of the
In the last 132 years, hundreds of books have been written about "Theosophy" and the "Ascended Master Teachings", in various languages and by many publishers. These have described their religious / philosophical theories, their "saints" and adepts, and the social phenomena of the 19th and 20th century organizations that developed from the foundations of the writings of Helena Blavatsky, Rudolph Steiner, Alice Bailey, Guy Ballard, and various others. Great White Brotherhood, Hilarion, Sanat Kumara, Morya, Kuthumi, Paul the Venetian, Serapis Bey, Master Jesus, Djwal Khul all are prominent in many 19th and 20th century religious and philosophical organizations.
All one can do with any religion, let alone those apart from the mainstream, is to faithfully report their beliefs taken from the literature of the believers of their religious belief system. In doing so, we are not assesing truth claims (such as the Mormons believing that God is a physical being on another planet), one simply reports on the beliefs held, with as much accuracy as possible - with reliable sources and references.
There is no need at all to assess the truth claims of the 20th century new religions. If people were to delve into assessing the truth claims of religion, then an entry on Christianity may as well begin with assessing whether God exists. The best approach would seem to be an accurate rendition of any movement's beliefs, nature, history and activities (regardless of what a Wikipedia editor's own views are). Questioning the validity or "notability" of religious beliefs isn't the role of an encyclopedia entry. Arion (talk) 19:46, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have been a researcher for the past 4 decades of the new religious movements of the 20th century, especially the ones born from the foundations of Esoteric Buddhism, "New Thought", Theosophical and Ascended Master Teachings. Our university department has especially examined the historical and social contexts of those minority religions. To exclude relevant data from Wikipedia on their beliefs, key religious "saints" known as "Ascended Masters", and the individuals who helped shape these organizations would be unthinkable. Arion (talk) 05:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am against deletion or merging of the articles on Dwal Khul, Hilarion, Sanat Kumara, Morya, Kuthumi, Paul the Venetian, Serapis Bey, and Master Jesus. They are spiritually, historically, and socio-culturally significant to stand as separate articles Sage 122568.231.166.180 (talk) 17:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)— 68.231.166.180 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

  • Comment. A neutral point of view encyclopedia is founded on verifiability. Of course Wikipedia should have an appropriate depth and breath of coverage of the history, beliefs, and personalities of the theosophist movement, but having perused the articles, it appears that every one of them rests on overtly theosophist books for effectively all of the content. This is not a healthy state of affairs and seems to be an argument in favour of ruthless merging and/or redirecting. Could any of these articles be rewritten to use independent, non-theosophist sources for at least the key points? Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:50, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all Major figures in a major religion. I find it just as appropriate to use Theosophical sources as a description as to describe those of any other religion from its works. We don't look for non-Christian sources about Saint Paul, or insist on non-Moslem sources for Ali. If there is a controversial discussion of correspondence with secular individuals, then that might need better sourcing, but I do not see such claims being made, and its a matter of editing in any case. I generally wonder whether attempts to remove such articles are perhaps sometimes expressiond of a POV on religion or on certain religions.DGG (talk) 04:25, 15 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]
  • Keep all Theosophy is not an “obscure Victorian spiritual movement”. It is the original basis for the New Age movement, which is composed of millions of people in the United States and Europe who believe in reincarnation. It was a Theosophist named Alice A. Bailey who invented the term New Age.
  • In addition, the Church Universal and Triumphant, the major religious body formally subscribing to this belief system, has about 100,000 members, which seems significant. Keraunos (talk) 15:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Also, there is the contemporary spiritual teacher Benjamin Creme who follows this metaphysical system of Theosophy and who has tens of thousands of followers all over the world. Keraunos (talk) 12:27, 22 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have added the following references to the articles to establish notability:
      • Encyclopedic reference:
        • Melton, J. Gordon Encyclopedia of American Religions 5th Edition New York:1996 Gale Research ISBN 0-8103-7714-4 ISSN 1066-1212 Chapter 18--"The Ancient Wisdom Family of Religions" Pages 151-158; see chart on page 154 listing Masters of the Ancient Wisdom; Also see Section 18, Pages 717-757 Descriptions of various Ancient Wisdom religious organizations
      • Scholarly studies:
        • Campbell, Bruce F. A History of the Theosophical Movement Berkeley:1980 University of California Press
        • Godwin, Joscelyn The Theosophical Enlightenment Albany, New York: 1994 State University of New York Press
        • Johnson, K. Paul The Masters Revealed: Madam Blavatsky and Myth of the Great White Brotherhood Albany, New York: 1994 State University of New York Press Keraunos (talk) 15:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No to any merging or redirecting As for reliable sources and verifiability: An excellent point was raised by DGG who pointed out that its "just as appropriate to use Theosophical sources as a description as to describe those of any other religion from its works." I agree that is how you get an accurate description of the beliefs of a religion or a philosophical concept. The article on Jehovah's Witnesses is an example how discussions of a religious belief have references to books written by the adherents of that belief. The same is true of the Roman Catholic Church and references to the "self-published" Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church when discussing what Catholic beliefs are. Arguments that we can apply different standards to a religion that has a smaller number of members are unconvincing.

An example of the problem with using an article that someone may erroneously consider a "reliable source" is that the author of that article may know practically nothing about the actual beliefs, and may only be interested in expressing contempt and ridicule of the subject. Fireplace used such an article (which used mocking terms like "two-bit alias" and "one of the kookiest cults") from the Los Angeles Magazine (See WP:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Walled_gardens_of_woo) to completely rewrite the I AM Activity article into an article written from a POV that this religious belief is a fraudulent con game, with inaccuracies such as the erroneous statement (from that Los Angeles Magazine hatchet job) that Guy Ballard claimed to be the reincarnation of Saint Germain or Jesus! Any review of the original sources would quickly reveal how contrary to their beliefs such a statement was. This emphasizes the problem with using outside sources to describe the religious beliefs of a church or religion. Arion (talk) 17:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There were factual inaccuracies placed in the "I AM" Activity article by User:Fireplace as of result of his relying on an error-riddled article from Los Angeles Magazine. I just made edits that corrected a number of factual inaccuracies in this Wikipedia article, and gave specific citations to actual source documents to verify those edits. Within one half hour these corrective edits were reverted by Adam Cuerden (a Wikipedia administrator). What kind of explanation can possibly justify such action - again made without discussion nor consensus? Arion (talk) 19:22, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*Keep all, regardless of what other editors think about Theosophy (and I'd like to note that I am not particularly fond of Theosophy), it is without a doubt a notable new religious movement and it's major figures are each deserving of an article just as much as the figures of any other religion. One must note that the Christian Bible is essentially a self-published work of the Roman Catholic Church, with a number of more modern translations also published within the walled garden of Christian religious publishers. Are you FRINGE guys serious about trying to apply this science guideline to matters of spiritual belief, or is this some kind of joke? Because if the former, you've just made yourself look rather ridiculous and this calls into question some of the other uses which has been made of this guideline. Curious Blue (talk) 22:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC) — User:Curious Blue has been indefinitely blocked as a checkuser-confirmed sockpuppet.[reply]

there seems to be a considerable discussion on this at Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard, initiated by the nominator of these articles, and, Fireplace, you've taken part in it yourself. is there so much prejudice against the articles as to try to claim different rationales in different processes?. At Fringe, your argument was that the religion was "pseudo-philosophy." DGG (talk) 22:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's precisely the discussion I was referring to. Is this what is known as "forum shopping"? Curious Blue (talk) 22:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this tone is helpful, please assume good faith. Curious Blue: The issue isn't whether the religion itself is notable -- it is. The issue is whether the individual deities of its pantheon are notable per the "significant coverage in independent sources" standard. DGG: There is a WP:N aspect of this discussion, appropriate for AfD. There is *also* a WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE aspect, appropriate for flagging at the fringe noticeboard and for discussion on the individual talk pages. This isn't forum shopping -- there are multiple aspects to the discussion. Fireplace (talk) 22:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've replied on your talk page. My apologies, I did go too far with that forum shopping remark. Otherwise, though I stand by my comments as I was careful to talk about appearances leaving open the possibility that the appearances were just that, surface only. Curious Blue (talk) 00:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep All. - I'm not a follower of this religion and have not edited these articles prior to this AfD. I must voice my concern that a group of articles about a significant minority religion were nominated for deletion following derogatory comments on the WP:Fringe theories/Noticeboard in a report titled "Walled gardens of woo". What is "woo" intended to convey? It reads like an insult to the believers in this religion, and to the editors who worked on the articles. An insult appears the text of this nomination also: The listed pages represent "Masters of Wisdom" according to Theosophy. In the nomination, they are described as "a... thing ..." What does that mean? How would people respond if a Catholic Saint or Archangel were referred to as "a... thing ..." ? Insulting characterizations of minority religious beliefs and the work of well-intentioned editors do not belong in Wikipedia.
  • Not an "obscure Victorian spiritualist movenment [sic]": Not "Victorian", it started in the late 1800s and continues today; not one movement, but several; not "spiritualist", Theosophy and its descendants are part of Western esoteric tradition, forerunner of the modern New Age movement which generates a marketplace of billions of dollars a year today. Theosophy also has significant history in India. Google Books search for "Theosophy" shows 9,780 books. How many Google webhits? Over 2,400,000. Google tests have their flaws, but a number that large can't qualify as "obscure".
  • Notable and verifiable: Inconsistent referencing is not a reason to delete, it's a reason to improve. References can be found; Google Books shows hundreds of hits for each title, and Google Scholar over a hundred each. (The searches are not simple; some of the names have alternate spellings). Further on notability: here are a few Theosophists... poet WB Yeats; composer Alexander Scriabin; Rudolf Steiner, founder of the Waldorf Schools. Van Morrison's 1982 album Beautiful Vision states in its liner notes that the lyrics were influenced by a Theosophical book describing the teachings of Djwal Khul, one of the articles listed in this AfD.
  • Not a WP:walled garden: Examples that link to the listed pages within a few clicks: Philosophy - Freemasonry, Kabbalah, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Alchemy, Mysticism, Humanism, Metaphysics, Philosophy of religion, Esoteric Christianity; and, notable people - Carl Jung, WB Yeats, Alexander Scriabin, Rudolf Steiner, William James, Emanuel Swedenborg, Arthur Schopenhauer. (Some were Theosophists, but not all. The point is they link in a few clicks to the nominated pages showing there is no walled garden).
  • References: It is not unusual for articles on religion to be based on references published by members of the religion. Examples: Ecumenical council, Eucharist (Catholic Church) , John of Damascus, Full communion ...each have no references not published by Catholic sources. Many religious articles on Wikipedia currently have no references at all. Examples: Divine Liturgy, Council of Ephesus, Veneration, Church Fathers. (No specific meaning in choice of examples, just for illustration). And, some of the nominated pages do have non-Theosophy-related references. I've not vetted them in detail, but I found these in a quick review: University of California Press, State University of New York Press, North Atlantic Books, Kessinger Publishing, Baker Book House, Sophia Perennis.
  • Summary: The topics are notable and verifiable; not a WP:walled garden; they are part of a religious philosophy that has influenced Western society and others for over a hundred years. A religion may be small, but that does not mean its information should be excluded from Wikipedia. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
[Some of my comment may end up cross-posted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Great White Brotherhood, because that closely-related topic was nominated separately for deletion. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 00:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)][reply]
  • Keep all. There are dozens of subjects, from Xenu to Mary Baker Eddy, that might with equal justice be claimed to "have no notability beyond an obscure spiritual movement." This is a serious misreading of the notion of "notability," which is generally passed if a subject has generated a considerable literature - even if that literature is made mostly by believers for believers. FWIW, this seems to marginalize Theosophy and its offshoots more than is justified: for much of the twentieth century, the theosophical stream was the major current in Western esotericism, even if that stream became diminished in favour of others over the last third of the twentieth century. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 08:01, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep: This entry has 9 sources all tackling the subject in a an appropriate manner for their use the breadth and depth of these sources confirms both notability and verifiability. I would suggest that the user who started the afd is simply "unaware" of the subject because they are not interested in/an expert in the field.

I'd like to point out that notability is relative, not absolute, else few things would pass it. For example, as far as most of the world's 6 billion people are concerned, football (as played in America, not soccer) is a minority sport with little following or notability. I'd wager that the 90% of the world's population couldn't tell you what month the super bowl is played in, let alone which team won it. If notability was absolute you'd simply look at the fact that the game isn't played or watched anywhere else in the world except in a few specialist circles, then you'd look at the percent of the world's population who care about it (basically less than half of the US population), then you'd look at the people who don't care about it (most of the world's population), and you'd declare that football was not notable in absolute terms. - perfectblue (talk) 11:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This content would be a lot more accessible to a general audience if it were condensed and merged to a single article, or one main article with a few linked articles. If merging isn't acceptable I'd have to suggest deletion. Dan Beale-Cocks 14:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, and as for merging, not only do I not see the point but the seven rays and ascended master teachings articles would be far too long with all the info on the ascended masters in them as well. This is what we do when articles are too long - split them. Just a long standing opinion of mine that it just looks tidier having separate articles on subjects where possible rather than having one huge article with an awkward title, which in this case would be on far too broad a topic, that people get redirected to.

Saying the ascended masters have no notability outside of theosophy is a silly rationale, just like saying the 1976 Wimbledon Championships have no notability outside of tennis and therefore all those articles should be deleted. There are published sources on this subject, therefore there is enough verifiable information.

I can't see what makes the articles on the ascended masters unmaintainable. I can, however, share User:Jack-A-Roe's concerns above of an obvious personal POV influence in the nominator's rationale for this whole thing... - Zeibura (Talk) 19:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep At the very least, these articles need to be considered independently. There may be cases where some of these can be merged, but others have significant attention devoted to them within Theosophy. As long as it is clearly identified within the article (which it seems to be in most cases) that these figures are specific to theosophy and their existence is the opinion of Theosophists rather than established fact, I don't see any NPOV problems. Notability needs to be resolved by individual cases of merging and expanding, rather than with a blanket vote. --Clay Collier (talk) 00:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep all. Per Clay, these articles should be considered independently. Some may be a bit stubby right now, but that is not cause for deletion. —Whig (talk) 01:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Providing balance for the articles by adding a third party skeptical viewpoint: I added to the articles about the “Masters” that Madame Blavatsky spoke of in her lifetime the skeptical view of scholar K. Paul Johnson, who maintains that the “Masters” were actually idealizations of people who were her mentors. According to Johnson:

  • Djwal Khul was actually Dayal Singh Majithia, a member of the Singh Saba.

These are all referenced to the appropriate page in Johnson’s book Initiates of Theosophical Masters Albany, New York:1995 State University of New York Press.

The other "Masters" were apparently added by C.W. Leadbeater in his book The Masters and the Path.

In Hindu mythology, Sanat Kumara is a minor deity. Sanat Kumara is mentioned in Madame Blavatsky's most important work The Secret Doctrine. Keraunos (talk) 12:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

    • Actually, today I found out that it was Alice A. Bailey who added the other “Masters” in her 1922 book Initiation, Human and Solar. C.W. Leadbeater wrote about the same ones in more detail in his 1925 book The Masters and the Path. Keraunos (talk) 08:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I found an even earlier reference today in my library for the “masters” were not claimed to have been encountered by Madame Blavatsky in her lifetime. They are all mentioned in the 1913 book Man: Whence, How and Whither by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater. Keraunos (talk) 11:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I favor keeping those articles in Wikipedia since they are references with reliable sources. Is there suddenly a problem with space on Wikipedia? There sure seems to be room for hundreds of articles on characters from mythology, Catholic saints, and gods of Hinduism. Yet, there is no room for a mere handful of articles on Theosophical and Ascended Master teachings? Sage 1225Sage1225 (talk) 16:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete or merge - the sited references only mention the subject twice. Subject does not meet WP:N or WP:BIO guidelines. The article is only 3 sentences on the subject. There should be a page that lists all the deities with a brief description. GtstrickyTalk or C 16:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changing opinion to Keep following Keraunos' additions of several third-party, reliable sources providing significant coverage. As I've said elsewhere, I'm saddened however by the quality of this discussion. Analogies to Catholic Saints are inappropriate -- aside from WP:OTHERCRAP, there are books like the Oxford Encyclopedia of Catholic Saints that establish third-party notability. Arguments of the form "theosophy is notable, therefore its deities are notable" are a misunderstanding of WP:Notability. Arguments of the form "this AfD is motivated by anti-new-religion prejudice" both fails to AGF and is irrelevant to the WP:N criterion. Fireplace (talk) 17:05, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe OUP makes the bulk of its money from publishing the Bible (it used have a UK monopoly, together with Cambridge--don't know if it still does) and OU was explicitly founded and endowed as a Christian organization. Therefore anything about Christian saints published by them is by your method of reasoning not 3rd party. This can be extended. Nothing about activities in the US can be N unless we find sources by those in other countries. Nothing by black authors is notable, unless those of other races write about it. Nothing by males is notable unless there are substantial publications about it by females. Nothing, in fact, written by humans will be notable until extraterrestrials discover us and start compiling their galactic encyclopedia. I am of course merely joking, but to show that at some point there is a cut-off by what we mean by "third party" or "independent". You have found yourself saying one rather extreme position, and if I were to say that any Religion, however small, determines its own notabiliy, I would be as far out in the opposite.
So the real question is where does Theosophy fall? Maybe its not a line, but a range: I'd say that it was large enough for its first level divine entities and organizations and leaders to be notable, but not below that, whereas the Christian church is large enough to accept the notability of not just the trinity, but all the saints. I think even here I wouldn't accept the lower level of "blessed" It's unfortunate that we are in the situation where the choice is N/~N. It makes these problems more difficult than they need be. DGG (talk) 23:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I really can't see why we'd delete this sort of thing; theosophy may be "an obscure Victorian spiritualist movenment" (though I've heard of it, which seems to count for something!), but the details of it are certainly of historical interest to the same extent they would be if contemporary. Shimgray | talk | 00:27, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • St. Germain article now matches other articles: I restored St. Germain’s alleged previous incarnations to the St. Germain article so it would match the other articles, but I kept it short and didn’t reinsert all the other material that was there before. Also, so it would match the other articles, I restored the Theosophy template to the St. Germain article. Finally, I added the encyclopedia reference from The Encyclopedia of American Religion and the skeptical scholarly books so that the references to the St. Germain article would match the other articles. Keraunos (talk) 10:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Key figures in religious movemrnts are automatically significant. Dimadick (talk) 15:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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