This article was nominated for merging with Ascended master on 2020-11-05. The result of the discussion ( permanent link) was merge. |
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Ascended Master Teachings redirect. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This redirect does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
The series of articles in Category:Ascended Master Teachings seem to be mostly non-notable. I've ran a Lexis-Nexis search of all newspaper records and a Google Scholar search, and turned up very very little. The "I AM" Activity is notable, as it was a popular Los Angeles "cult" in the 1930s and 40s that made headlines when its founders were convicted of fraud, a conviction the Supreme Court overturned. It seems like the Ascended Master Teachings article is broader than the "I AM" organization, so perhaps that warrants an article as well. The rest should be redirected. Fireplace ( talk) 22:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with merging Ascended Masters with "Ascended Master Teachings". "Ascended Masters" are specific beings that are part of that belief system, just as "Saints" or "Angels" are particular beings that are part of the belief system of the "Roman Catholic Church" or "Christianity or "Sufism" or "Islam". Arion ( talk) 01:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Support merge - Grown way out of hand. Adam Cuerden talk 01:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Don't merge Seven Rays. It sounds like people are talking about merging more than one article. I clicked on the merge notice in Seven Rays and it brought me here. But this is about merging other articles too. Seven rays should not merge because it's used by lots of different groups and not alll in the same way. So if it was merged into one group then the seven rays used by the other group wouldn't be able to go into that one and it would have to go somewhere else, or else that other article would get messed up. Also, I just found some books showing that Seven Rays are in other religions too, like Hinduism and I added those footnotes to the article. So Seven Rays should stay as it's own page. -- Linda ( talk) 10:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Oppose merge. The two AfDs proposed for the group of related articles were both closed with a result of keep and keep all. The AfDs did not include this particular article, though it was mentioned in the discussions. In the AfDs the support for keeping each of the individual Ascended Masters articles was strongly decisive with minimal "delete" comments.
Some of the articles suggested for merging are either stubs or quotefarms. Those need to be improved, but there's no hurry. There are a zillion stub articles about fine points and terminology of mainstream religions too. In comparison, these are a tiny number of articles and there is no problem letting them be improved over time.
I suggest that we close out this merge discussion and move on to more productive work. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 02:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Ascended Master Teachings passes WP:N, but the majority of the content in this article is sourced to self-published or otherwise questionable sources coming from within the movement. While such sources can be used in this article, they are limited by the policies of WP:SELFPUB. There do seem to be some reliable, independent sources out there (mostly books on minority religious movements and cults in the 20th century), so the article should, it seems, be rewritten from the ground up using those sources. Fireplace ( talk) 19:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree that more references would be better and that the article has lots of room for improvement. However, the references in this article are not all self-published. They can't be, because the topic appears in the literature of more than one organization. They are not all related and do not form a single "movement". And there are a few books listed published by mainstream publishers: MacMillan Publishing Company, Oxford University Press, and Triumph Books. Finding more like those would be a good plan.
Regarding the Catholic Church articles, there are many that have only self-published references, and no-one is complaining about them so far, for example: Transubstantiation and Eucharist (Catholic Church) -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 08:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Arguments that we can apply different standards to a religion that has a smaller number of members are unconvincing. Arion ( talk) 18:09, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Agreed strongly. There are two references out 13 that are not published by Saint Germain Press, the "sole publisher and distributor for all the Ascended Masters' Teachings" (www.saintgermainpress.com/). Out of the notes/citations, only ONE is a reference to a non self publication, and I'll excerpt the sentence for which this note is applied: 'Other "Ascended Master Activities" believed that the Ascended Masters, Cosmic Beings, Elohim, and Archangels continued to present a program for both individual development and spiritual transformation in the world.' I would be interested in seeing the quote from the Oxford Press publication that supports this. -- Nog lorp ( talk) 04:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
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) 06:35, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
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) 13:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
The site claims to have no affiliations with any organization but is registered by Allen Buresz of Natural Health L.P. in Virginia. Checking the Virginia company records online, no such limited partnership has been registered as active. Consequently the registration is suspect with apparently false information. The site appears to be another rambling self-published and self-promotional site with no claim as to status or validity. It does not meet the guidance for wp:reliable sources and should not be used as a source, ever, by anyone.— Ash ( talk) 08:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
This site has no official affiliations and makes no such claims. It appears to exist in order to make money from subscribers, donations and the sale of books and CDs. The site appears to also promote Monroe Julius Shearer and Carolyn Louise Shearer as "anointed representatives". The site consequently appears to be a straightforward scam and should not be used as an External link as it fails WP:SPAM or used as a reference as it fails WP:RS.— Ash ( talk) 08:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I strongly agree with what Arion wrote in the section #Minority religious beliefs should not be treated as "fringe theories" supra, a few years ago. However, right now, we have the opposit problem; a relatively new user, Lovejoyhealth ( talk · contribs), who has contributed and extended the exposition of the "teachings", but at the same time rewritten the text from an obvious believer's POV. The content of the "Teachings", and its character of esoteric common nucleus of all existing religions, now are presented as 'absolute truths'.
I've written to Lovejoyhealth, and I'm going to restore some of the descriptive character of the article. As usual, I think that new and POV-pushing users should get a chance to change their ways. The subject in itself is not without encyclopaedial interest, and Lovejoyhealth is very welcome to improve the article - editing NPOV and also elsewise following our policies, of course. JoergenB ( talk) 18:53, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
This article appears to be applying the capitalization style of sources rather than general Wikipedia capitalization style and specific style for religious doctrine. Examples are words in all caps and general capitalization of terms that have a special AMT meaning. I'd like to make a pass and correct this as best I can but expect I'd make some mistakes. To prevent wholesale reversion of my changes, I'd like to know I have some support for this before I start. Joja lozzo 22:07, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Most of this article is little sourced, and the sources that are used are mainly taken from one or two neo-Theosophist books, this is not acceptable really to keep as a separate article. There is already an article called Ascended Master - I see no reason to keep both articles, there are more references on the Ascended master article that would be the one to keep, and I can move some of the material on this article to there. Redirect to the Ascended Master article? GreenUniverse ( talk) 18:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Wondering why this article is categorised under left hand path stuff when it's a form of gnosticism and an offshoot of Theosophy and turns up in spiritualism - it may not be mainstream religion but it wouldn't be the same as Satanism for example. It looks out of place in the category for left hand path articles. Have a peek & see what I mean. Manytexts ( talk) 13:51, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
what the hell is this? 69.181.14.193 04:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
This article is a review of the beliefs of various organizations (also known as "Ascended Master Activities") that claim to be based upon revelations and understandings given directly by Ascended Masters. They believe that these "Teachings" were partially released by the Theosophical Society beginning in 1875, expanded by C.W. Leadbeater and Alice A. Bailey, and to have begun more detailed public release in the 1930s by the Ascended Masters through Guy Ballard in the I AM Activity and Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the Church Universal and Triumphant. Emery 06:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. What the fuck is this shit?
This feels like a fake article, or maybe its too abstract. The first paragraph in the intro should be updated (by someone who knows this stuff) and made more specific. Emery's explanation right above ^ a better explanation than the intro to this article. Androsynth ( talk) 01:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
This article begins (as of April 2020)
Students of Ascended Master Teachings organizations (also known as Ascended Master Activities) believe
Do other wikipedia articles begin "Students of Zürich S-Bahn organizations believe that trains go through the Weinberg Tunnel"? "Students of neurophysiology organizations believe..."? Wikipedia has articles on teachings, it has articles on organizations, but except in this instance, it does not have rambling articles on anonymous wikipedians who are students of anonymous organizations. Tonedeafyodler ( talk) 19:45, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
This article was nominated for merging with Ascended master on 2020-11-05. The result of the discussion ( permanent link) was merge. |
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Ascended Master Teachings redirect. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
This redirect does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
The series of articles in Category:Ascended Master Teachings seem to be mostly non-notable. I've ran a Lexis-Nexis search of all newspaper records and a Google Scholar search, and turned up very very little. The "I AM" Activity is notable, as it was a popular Los Angeles "cult" in the 1930s and 40s that made headlines when its founders were convicted of fraud, a conviction the Supreme Court overturned. It seems like the Ascended Master Teachings article is broader than the "I AM" organization, so perhaps that warrants an article as well. The rest should be redirected. Fireplace ( talk) 22:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with merging Ascended Masters with "Ascended Master Teachings". "Ascended Masters" are specific beings that are part of that belief system, just as "Saints" or "Angels" are particular beings that are part of the belief system of the "Roman Catholic Church" or "Christianity or "Sufism" or "Islam". Arion ( talk) 01:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Support merge - Grown way out of hand. Adam Cuerden talk 01:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Don't merge Seven Rays. It sounds like people are talking about merging more than one article. I clicked on the merge notice in Seven Rays and it brought me here. But this is about merging other articles too. Seven rays should not merge because it's used by lots of different groups and not alll in the same way. So if it was merged into one group then the seven rays used by the other group wouldn't be able to go into that one and it would have to go somewhere else, or else that other article would get messed up. Also, I just found some books showing that Seven Rays are in other religions too, like Hinduism and I added those footnotes to the article. So Seven Rays should stay as it's own page. -- Linda ( talk) 10:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Oppose merge. The two AfDs proposed for the group of related articles were both closed with a result of keep and keep all. The AfDs did not include this particular article, though it was mentioned in the discussions. In the AfDs the support for keeping each of the individual Ascended Masters articles was strongly decisive with minimal "delete" comments.
Some of the articles suggested for merging are either stubs or quotefarms. Those need to be improved, but there's no hurry. There are a zillion stub articles about fine points and terminology of mainstream religions too. In comparison, these are a tiny number of articles and there is no problem letting them be improved over time.
I suggest that we close out this merge discussion and move on to more productive work. -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 02:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Ascended Master Teachings passes WP:N, but the majority of the content in this article is sourced to self-published or otherwise questionable sources coming from within the movement. While such sources can be used in this article, they are limited by the policies of WP:SELFPUB. There do seem to be some reliable, independent sources out there (mostly books on minority religious movements and cults in the 20th century), so the article should, it seems, be rewritten from the ground up using those sources. Fireplace ( talk) 19:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree that more references would be better and that the article has lots of room for improvement. However, the references in this article are not all self-published. They can't be, because the topic appears in the literature of more than one organization. They are not all related and do not form a single "movement". And there are a few books listed published by mainstream publishers: MacMillan Publishing Company, Oxford University Press, and Triumph Books. Finding more like those would be a good plan.
Regarding the Catholic Church articles, there are many that have only self-published references, and no-one is complaining about them so far, for example: Transubstantiation and Eucharist (Catholic Church) -- Jack-A-Roe ( talk) 08:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Arguments that we can apply different standards to a religion that has a smaller number of members are unconvincing. Arion ( talk) 18:09, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Agreed strongly. There are two references out 13 that are not published by Saint Germain Press, the "sole publisher and distributor for all the Ascended Masters' Teachings" (www.saintgermainpress.com/). Out of the notes/citations, only ONE is a reference to a non self publication, and I'll excerpt the sentence for which this note is applied: 'Other "Ascended Master Activities" believed that the Ascended Masters, Cosmic Beings, Elohim, and Archangels continued to present a program for both individual development and spiritual transformation in the world.' I would be interested in seeing the quote from the Oxford Press publication that supports this. -- Nog lorp ( talk) 04:58, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
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) 06:35, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
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) 13:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
The site claims to have no affiliations with any organization but is registered by Allen Buresz of Natural Health L.P. in Virginia. Checking the Virginia company records online, no such limited partnership has been registered as active. Consequently the registration is suspect with apparently false information. The site appears to be another rambling self-published and self-promotional site with no claim as to status or validity. It does not meet the guidance for wp:reliable sources and should not be used as a source, ever, by anyone.— Ash ( talk) 08:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
This site has no official affiliations and makes no such claims. It appears to exist in order to make money from subscribers, donations and the sale of books and CDs. The site appears to also promote Monroe Julius Shearer and Carolyn Louise Shearer as "anointed representatives". The site consequently appears to be a straightforward scam and should not be used as an External link as it fails WP:SPAM or used as a reference as it fails WP:RS.— Ash ( talk) 08:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I strongly agree with what Arion wrote in the section #Minority religious beliefs should not be treated as "fringe theories" supra, a few years ago. However, right now, we have the opposit problem; a relatively new user, Lovejoyhealth ( talk · contribs), who has contributed and extended the exposition of the "teachings", but at the same time rewritten the text from an obvious believer's POV. The content of the "Teachings", and its character of esoteric common nucleus of all existing religions, now are presented as 'absolute truths'.
I've written to Lovejoyhealth, and I'm going to restore some of the descriptive character of the article. As usual, I think that new and POV-pushing users should get a chance to change their ways. The subject in itself is not without encyclopaedial interest, and Lovejoyhealth is very welcome to improve the article - editing NPOV and also elsewise following our policies, of course. JoergenB ( talk) 18:53, 22 June 2011 (UTC)
This article appears to be applying the capitalization style of sources rather than general Wikipedia capitalization style and specific style for religious doctrine. Examples are words in all caps and general capitalization of terms that have a special AMT meaning. I'd like to make a pass and correct this as best I can but expect I'd make some mistakes. To prevent wholesale reversion of my changes, I'd like to know I have some support for this before I start. Joja lozzo 22:07, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
Most of this article is little sourced, and the sources that are used are mainly taken from one or two neo-Theosophist books, this is not acceptable really to keep as a separate article. There is already an article called Ascended Master - I see no reason to keep both articles, there are more references on the Ascended master article that would be the one to keep, and I can move some of the material on this article to there. Redirect to the Ascended Master article? GreenUniverse ( talk) 18:54, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
Wondering why this article is categorised under left hand path stuff when it's a form of gnosticism and an offshoot of Theosophy and turns up in spiritualism - it may not be mainstream religion but it wouldn't be the same as Satanism for example. It looks out of place in the category for left hand path articles. Have a peek & see what I mean. Manytexts ( talk) 13:51, 11 December 2012 (UTC)
what the hell is this? 69.181.14.193 04:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)
This article is a review of the beliefs of various organizations (also known as "Ascended Master Activities") that claim to be based upon revelations and understandings given directly by Ascended Masters. They believe that these "Teachings" were partially released by the Theosophical Society beginning in 1875, expanded by C.W. Leadbeater and Alice A. Bailey, and to have begun more detailed public release in the 1930s by the Ascended Masters through Guy Ballard in the I AM Activity and Elizabeth Clare Prophet of the Church Universal and Triumphant. Emery 06:40, 16 October 2007 (UTC)
I agree. What the fuck is this shit?
This feels like a fake article, or maybe its too abstract. The first paragraph in the intro should be updated (by someone who knows this stuff) and made more specific. Emery's explanation right above ^ a better explanation than the intro to this article. Androsynth ( talk) 01:07, 20 January 2017 (UTC)
This article begins (as of April 2020)
Students of Ascended Master Teachings organizations (also known as Ascended Master Activities) believe
Do other wikipedia articles begin "Students of Zürich S-Bahn organizations believe that trains go through the Weinberg Tunnel"? "Students of neurophysiology organizations believe..."? Wikipedia has articles on teachings, it has articles on organizations, but except in this instance, it does not have rambling articles on anonymous wikipedians who are students of anonymous organizations. Tonedeafyodler ( talk) 19:45, 2 April 2020 (UTC)