Talk:Djwal Khul

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on March 12. The result of the discussion was keep.


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[edit] Neutrality

The first section states all kinds of things as if they are facts, although probably a majority of people will find them highly dubious or worse. For example: "These esoteric teachings form the origin of all the world's great philosophies, mythologies and spiritual traditions." Most Christians will disagree that these esoteric teachings, whatever they are, form the basis of their spiritual traditions. Or is the implication that these traditions are petty? "As a Mahatma, Djwal Khul is working mentally for the furthering of spiritual evolution on our planet, using his highly developed powers of meditation, or siddhis." So this implies (1) that Djwal Khul has "highly developed powers of meditation", and that he is working "mentally" (what does that even mean?) for the "furthering of spiritual evolution on our planet". How can we conceivably check this? --LambiamTalk 19:51, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

How can we conceivably check the "the fundamental Christian fact" that Jesus walked on water? Somebody from Tibet could post the exact kind of message you have posted here on Jesus' Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia is not a discussion forum for beliefs. You may "believe" something other than what was posted on Djwhal Khul's page but you have not offered any "evidence" contrary to what was stated. How do you know that the information posted here didn't come from the same source where Moses received his? The information posted on Jesus' page and the information posted on Djwhal Khul's page essentially came from the very same source. Our beliefs! [1] Posted by James P Buturff, a Christian and an avid pupil of Djwhal Khul. [2]

  • Um, this really wasn't very difficult to fix. Any contestable beliefs like this should be clearly attributed to the groups which hold those beliefs in the initial sentences. After that, a switch to the present tense alone is sufficient, since all further statements are taken to be those made by adherents.Eaglizard 18:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Effort to delete this article by redirecting it to Alice Bailey

There was an attempt to delete this article by redirecting it to Alice Bailey. I consider this to be an inappropriate attempt to get around accepted proceedures to delete articles, namely discussion and consensus. Arion (talk) 03:31, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this article should not be erased because Alice Bailey was not the only one who wrote about Djwal Khul. I added a few footnotes about that after you put the article back again and started to work on improving the wording. I think it can be made a lot better. --Linda (talk) 05:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I would not characterize it as an "effort to delete", it really is a standard merge, which had been suggested at least once, somewhere (on talk AAB, I believe). In any case, it was inappropriate without discussion. I planned to revert it tonite, after having given User:Adam Cuerden time to respond to a note on his talk page asking him to justify it. He hasn't; but then, he's apparently under both exams at school, and a RefArb where they're threatening to desysop him. I understand his failure to reply. :) However, I'll revert this change (if it hasn't been already), and the change to AAB as well. Eaglizard (talk) 06:09, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a merge debate, not a deletion debate. On first sight, I agree with Adam that there appears to be no compelling reason why the "Djwal Khul" channeled entity should be discussed separately from the "medium", Alice Bailey. dab (𒁳) 12:36, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, this is an attempt to make articles that someone unilaterally decides he does not want to appear in Wikipedia, to - in effect - no longer exist on Wikipedia. I do not believe this is a sign of the greatest respect for fellow editors. Saying the issue is a "merge debate" is not true, since the action on this and another article were taken WITHOUT DEBATE. It was only after I reverted the redirects, with a comment that redirects should not be done without discussion or consensus, then comments began.
To make this very clear, unilaterally creating a redirect on an article to another article that does not have the same content, results in that article no longer being accessable. This happened to the "Djwal Khul" article and the "Guy Ballard" article. These articles, until I reverted the redirects, were unavailable. If I had not had them on my watchlist, I would not have known how to undo these unilateral actions. Arion (talk) 15:01, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Lexis-Nexis search of newspaper articles turned up zero hits for 'Djwal Khul', and a google scholar search turned up very few, and none showing substantial coverage from independent reliable sources. Looks like a merge candidate. Fireplace (talk) 15:50, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I repeat that this is a merge debate. Since there are objections, and these are being discussed right here, there is nothing "unilateral" about it. If we're going to keep this article separate, we'll need to see why the topic of "Djwal Khul" is notable enough for a dedicated article, as opposed to a brief paragraph in the Alice Bailey article. This can be discussed calmly and in good faith. As Fireplace points out, such notability is not established at all, since this article does not rely on independent sources at all. dab (𒁳) 16:18, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

As Linda pointed out "Alice Bailey was not the only one who wrote about Djwal Khul" and Djwal Kul (another current accepted spelling) is currently written about in other books and publications that have nothing to do with Alice Bailey.

Before considering how to eliminate (or "merge") these few articles on subjects related to the "Ascended Master Teachings" and "Theosophy" that many people consider spiritually significant to their lives, how about first considering the elimination of the HUNDREDS of Wikipedia articles on comic book characters from Marvel Comics and DC Comics - for example, see: List_of_DC_Comics_characters. How about considering the eliminating the HUNDREDS of Wikipedia articles on Catholic saints (List_of_saints) and HUNDREDS of Wikipedia articles on Hindu gods and goddesses (List_of_Hindu_deities)? Arion (talk) 16:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Being referenced by multiple people does not establish notability. If XYZ and ABC both talked about Djwal Khul, but Djwal Khul fails WP:N, it would be appropriate to have subsections in the articles of XYZ and ABC talking about Dwjal Khul. As to your second point, as Dbachmann has already explained to you, WP:OTHERCRAP is not an accepted argument form on Wikipedia. Fireplace (talk) 16:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Referring to the innermost deeply held spiritual / philosophical beliefs of other people as "crap" is what is unacceptable! Arion (talk) 13:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Courtesy notification of report at WP:Fringe theories/Noticeboard

This is to inform editors on this page that this topic, along with a list of related topics, have been mentioned in a report at this link on the WP:Fringe theories/Noticeboard. It has been mentioned in the noticeboard report that some of the articles listed in the report may be nominated for deletion.

The report at the noticeboard was not posted by me. I'm placing this comment here as a courtesy for the editors working on this article. --Jack-A-Roe (talk) 06:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minority religious beliefs should not be treated as "fringe theories"

All one can do with any religion, let alone those apart from the mainstream, is to faithfully report their beliefs taken from the literature by 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 of religious beliefs isn't the role of an encyclopedia entry. Arion (talk) 13:31, 14 December 2007 (UTC)