Talk:God in a Pill?

Notability

Please see discussion at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Meher Baba related entries —Preceding unsigned comment added by Editwondergirl (talk • contribs) 01:38, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I think the notability of this article on God in a Pill would have been more appropriately discussed here on this discussion page than on the Neutral Point of View Noticeboard. I can't see where there is any bias in this article. If there is a consensus that "God in a Pill" pamphlet containing correspondence on LSD with notables such as Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert is not notable enough, than one possibility is to move this article to the name "Meher Baba on Drugs" since Meher Baba's influence on the drug culture is widely known and certainly notable. An entire article in Rolling Stone was dedicated to it, written by Pete Townshend in 1970. As for the several articles tagged for notability by Editwondergirl, I think it is better to discuss these one at a time and not as a group as there are different issues to address for each article. My previous name was User talk:72.204.47.141 and I recently created this account so that is why I do not appear to have a lot of prior edits. Thank you. LittleDoGooder (talk) 12:24, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I want to add that I think an article on the only 60's guru I'm aware of to have expressed an opinion on drug use, and been this specific on the relation between drugs and spirituality (the only major counterclaim to those of Timothy Leary at that time) and who was contemporary to Leary, is a notable subject for an encyclopedic article. If this article were renamed "Meher Baba on drugs" or something more like that, even more relevant information could be added and it could be expanded and this is not a bad idea. For instance, Meher Baba had certain academics do press releases and television appearances against the use of drugs in the late 1960's. The idea that this article would lack neutral point of view or notability is especially absurd since Meher Baba is the only notable counter-point to the Timothy Leary view (expressed at length on Wikipedia) that LSD was good for you spiritually. To include Leary's POV and delete the one notable who publically opposed him would actually be very POV. In an expanded version of this article, the notability could be strengthened since academics Allen Cohen, Rick Chapman, Robert Dreyfuss, and celebrity Pete Townshend of the Who all participated in Meher Baba's initiated information drive. I can't see how excluding this information from Wikipedia is furthering NPOV. If anything there appears to be some bias in this editor's motivations. See the first 11 edits of Editwondergirl here. LittleDoGooder (talk) 12:41, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Woops, I tried to edit this at the same time as you, and lost what I had said. I think that it is easier to keep this conversation centralised on the "neutrality" page so that people don't have to do so much hopping around. I suggest that we copy and paste this conversation there, but I won't do that without your agreement.

The fact that I made several edits on Meher Baba entries is not evidence of biased motivation (see previous discussion on my talk page). The issues involved in these entries may not be identical but they are related and might be open to a common solution/s - eg merging several entries with existing pages or with a new entry (eg focusing on places of pilgrimage, or as you suggest on drug use). Any new or merged entry/entries would still have to deal with the issue of the lack of NPOV souces, however. One Rolling Stone article by Pete Townshend (who as I understand it is a Meher Baba devotee) is not really enough. I assume that Townshend's piece was basically an opinion piece - as the guidelines say:

"Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact."

And some of the other entries include no non-Meher Baba source at all. I do not suggest taht the content of these entries should not be on Wikipedia at all - only that they may not be best dealt with as stand-alone entries and that they seriously lack NPOV sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Editwondergirl (talk • contribs) 13:17, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you trying to persuade an administrator to delete 11 articles for you all under one single criterion? If so, good luck with that. I don't know what else to add. I've already said all I can think of on this and you are going round and round in circles (something Nemonoman has already pointed out and in the past refused to participate in). Usually, notability and POV are taken up one article at a time. I don't see how an admin is going to agree with you that your list of very long-standing arcticles all relating to one person are both non-notable and non-NPOV. But if that's what you want to try, then God's speed man. Your edit history speaks for itself. You appear to be a complete kook. Or maybe you just don't understand Wikipedia policies. If so I suggest you slow down and take some time to learn them. LittleDoGooder (talk) 14:21, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

The only real criterion for notability is a single reliable secondary source. This article has passed that test. --nemonoman (talk) 14:36, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Not according to the guidelines as I read them, Nemonoman.

Yep, I'm sick of hearing myself say the same thing more than once too. So I promise that this is the last time that I'll say it: the reason why I tagged multiple articles was because they were on a related subject and so might be open to a common solution (eg merge some/all of them together). And I'm open to your suggestions on that - I've already taken on board your suggestion of an entry on Meher Baba on drugs although I think it needs to be further discussed/considered. Deletion is only one of the options mentioned in the notablity tag - I think that merging the entries and/or adding (if available) neutral sources would be both more likely and more suitable.

I'm aware that these are long standing entries (mostly created and/or worked on by the same small group of editors) but I saw that as a reason for tagging them rather than the reverse -ie enough time had elapsed for ordinary setting-down to have happened, and if that had not been enough to address the problem, then perhaps more extensive action needed to be considered. Some of the articles had been around since 2006, and still didn't include any sources that weren't Meher Baba publications of various types.

The "notabilty" and the "neutrality" issue are linked by the "notability" tag - ie, it says that the best way to establish notability is to use neutral third party sources. --Editwondergirl (talk) 15:03, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

In which case, the appropriate tag is {{NPOV}}. An NPOV discussion is likely to be more fruitful.

The references cited here are more than adequate enough to satisfy notability guidelines, however.

I'm telling you as gently as I can that you are not handling your concerns in the proper fashion. I'm not trying to mislead you. I want you to be satisfied, and to find ways to get a consensus for your concerns. If you don't believe me, please, please ask for help by putting {{helpme}} on your talk page. There are dozens of non-involved editors who can help you get this effort on a better track. --nemonoman (talk) 15:34, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Criticism

I think the article misses a criticism section for completeness. Something along the lines of: "Some people, like Albert Hofmann and Stanislaw Grof, claim that mind-altering substances, in particular psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin and mescaline, do not produce spritual visions and revelations themselves, but make them only accessible to the conscious mind with the human brain being their actual creator. Under this assumption they assert that they are not any less valuable for one's spiritual advancement than e.g. spontanous mystical experiences, meditation, prayer or holotropic breathwork. However, they also emphasize their dangers, if they are abused in a non-clinical/non-cultural setting." The section should also include that the following statement made by Meher Baba is scientifically not supportable, at least not for mentally healthy individuals not possessing latent schizophrenia: "Baba stresses that repeated use of LSD leads to insanity which may prove incurable in mental cases, even with LSD treatment." Moreover, one should note that there has not been put forth any scientific evidence to support the claim that LSD or psilocybin causes any physical damage to the body or brain in recreational dosages despite the numerous attempts to do so. In rare cases they can however trigger (not cause) latent psychoses and cause HPPD, PTSD and/or delusional beliefs. 139.18.149.71 (talk) 13:49, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Was such critism on Meher Baba's views on drugs published somewhere or is this your critisicm based on your personal evaluations and assumptions? To me it sounds like original research. Hoverfish Talk 16:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The article is simply stating what was in the pamphlet, and nowhere does it give arguments that the author's opinions were TRUE. There is no argument FOR the content of the pamphlet in the article. Thus no BALANCE is needed, as the article gives no opinion. As it is, the article offers no place for soap-boxing. Hoverfish Talk 17:26, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Where do we comment on the views in the article? I feel that some sort of counter argument should be included maybe under "see also". There is a very good lecture by Alan Watts entitled "Turning The Head", probably the most fitting for this subject — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.56.234.232 (talk) 19:55, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

As Hoverfish correctly stated, the article does not give a view about drugs. Rather it gives some relevant "facts" about the subject of the article, which is a well-known 1966 pamphlet. The article contains no views about the content within the pamphlet, only the facts about those views in it. Also, to add viewpoints regarding the pamphlet, one would need to cite sources, or it would be Original Research. See, for an example of how criticism of a pamphlet is handled on Wikipedia, the article on Common Sense (pamphlet) by Thomas Paine, a very famous pamphlet. Note that the criticism is of the pamphlet, not of the idea of Independence from Britain. Also note that such criticism is citied from sources. Dazedbythebell (talk) 23:46, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

If you would like to add the views on drug-use by other writers to Wikipedia, then a good place to start might be Recreational drug use, which is on the broader subject of drugs themselves. This article would not be the appropriate place. Dazedbythebell (talk) 23:54, 21 March 2014 (UTC)