Talk:Halo (religious iconography)

Latest comment: 7 months ago by Johnbod in topic Note 16. Page cited is incorrect.

Pope edit

The picture of the Pope does not contain a halo, it is the back of the Seat of Peter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.149.140.5 (talk) 17:51, 23 January 2011 (UTC)Reply

No, it isn't. Johnbod (talk) 20:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Etymology edit

I would suggest a much older origin for the etymology of "halo" meaning "a corona of light around an object". In an updated version of Julius Pokorny's Proto-Indo-European (PIE) wordlist [available from Univ. of Texas site <http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ielex/PokornyMaster-X.html> ], the entry # 58 al (6) = 'white, gleaming' This homo-organic phonetic etymon derivation for "halo" also coincides very well with the Hebrew Semitic "halal" ( see root הלל) in Hebrew <E. Klein, A comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language, Jerusalem 1987 ISBN 965-220-093-X> ] meaning "shining". Therefore, considering these considerably older sources, I would submit that an ancient etymon “al or hal” was used to describe the “halo” phenomenon and was most likely the precursor of the Latin "halo" AND the Greek "halos" which are later Indo-European languages.79.179.30.25 (talk) 19:40, 19 January 2012 (UTC)RosinskybReply

Well find sources making the connection & it can go in. Johnbod (talk) 20:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)Reply

Somewhat back down to earth edit

Read Aristophanes' Birds and Dunbar's commentary to 1114-5. The oldest sacred statues had bronze halos (known in Greek as moons) to stop birds shitting on them! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.129.245.255 (talk) 07:46, 15 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Feeling vs Seeing edit

I would like to know more about Feeling vs Seeing with halos. Most days I have an experience of having it feel like my head spiritually turns into a super intense shining spiritual sun. I've never had anyone comment about seeing anything visible, but the "feeling" I have is like the most awesome high ever that matches very well to some of the Buddha type halo pictures where the head is like a sun. This makes me comfortable saying I have an intense halo most days, but some people have said it's only a halo if people can see it. I'm open minded to halos being visible to some people in some cases, but I seriously wonder if the core part of a halo has to do with feeling and not seeing. For instance with pics showing Buddha's head as a sun, I can't imagine anyone actually seeing something visible that looked like that, but what I feel matches extremely well to the pics depiction. SickSpirit (talk) 20:57, 3 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

How often halos are felt and seen edit

I have real world experience of daily feeling an intense halo where it feels like my head becomes an intensely shining sun and wonder how my experience compares to others. For me the average duration of feeling it is pretty short, like avg maybe 10 seconds and 30 seconds if I'm really lucky. At least sometimes it can come back in under a minute and then there's the fact I'm at extremely low potential in life. I wonder if later I will have my head feel like an intense sun for hours a day. I'm usually in my room by myself when I feel it and am not sure if anyone would see anything visibly or not. This makes me wonder some things like for saints how often they felt their halo and how often others could visibly see it. Also I wonder in cases like mine where an intense halo is felt for just short periods if on some level the halo could still always be present, such as maybe making it always visible but only sometimes felt in some cases. SickSpirit (talk) 21:08, 3 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Brain activity while feeling an intense halo edit

I sent one e-mail to UCSD medical school inquiring if they might know a good person to connect me with that would be interested in monitoring me during the different kinds of mystical experiences I have each day, such as feeling an intense halo. So far I haven't heard anything back. I'm open to participating in something like this if anyone knows good people to connect me with that have the skills and devices to monitor things. The feeling of literally having it feel like my head became a shining spiritual sun is crazy intense and I guess it's likely the right kind of brain scan could show remarkable things. SickSpirit (talk) 21:15, 3 June 2014 (UTC)Reply

Requested move 6 February 2016 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved per a lack of support to establish religious iconography as the primary topic. As such, the current disambiguation page is the most appropriate target for now. (non-admin closure) Tiggerjay (talk) 04:34, 14 February 2016 (UTC)Reply


Primary topic. The Oxford Dictionary definition for halo is the following. Shhhhwwww!! (talk) 06:35, 6 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

A disk or circle of light shown surrounding or above the head of a saint or holy person to represent their holiness.

Ha, ha! You're joking of course, especially as there are several different articles on the franchise. But Halo (series) should be better named. Johnbod (talk) 11:21, 6 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • Strong oppose a halo is a visual phenomenon. IT appears all over the place, halos around the sun and the moon abound in photography, St. Elmo's Fire halos frequently appear on vehicles. -- 70.51.200.135 (talk) 16:54, 6 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
Comment on everyone Even if the company has more views than the fruit and the singer more than the color, "apple" and "pink" are the titles for the common nouns not the proper ones. It is established by more than thousands of years, at least five thousand, that a "halo" refers to the object on a person's head that signifies holiness. The reference to the video game simply reeks of Recentism and Western bias and is a symptom of the problems that arise in the Criticism of Wikipedia. Any dictionary has the religious iconography placed first as the definition. The scientific term came much later and still less prominent in definitions. Shhhhwwww!! (talk) 10:06, 7 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
Merriam-Webster:

a circle of light that is shown in a religious painting, drawing, etc., around the head of a holy figure (such as an angel, saint, or god)

The Free Dictionary:

1.

a. A luminous ring or disk of light surrounding the heads or bodies of sacred figures, such as saints, in religious paintings; a nimbus.

b. A ring or disk resembling the halo of a sacred figure

Cambridge Dictionaries:

a ​ring of ​light around the ​head of a ​holy ​person in a ​religious ​drawing or ​painting

Collins Dictionary:

Noun (plural) -loes or -los a disc or ring of light around the head of an angel, saint, etc, as in painting or sculpture

That's not how WP:PTOPIC works. Johnbod (talk) 03:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • Weak oppose. The visual phenomenon, while derived from the usage in religious iconography, is the actual primary topic. The video game series certainly is not. 64.105.98.115 (talk) 03:36, 8 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
No, the point is there's no primary topic. That we already have 3 different suggestions for what the primary topic is confirms that there isn't one! It certainly wouldn't be the visual phenomenon. Johnbod (talk) 03:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)Reply
  • Oppose. I agree that the etymology arises from the religious concept. However, after reviewing sources, I do not believe any of the topics are primary. Thus the page is best left as disambiguation. --Regards, James(talk/contribs) 00:00, 12 February 2016 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Halo in art?? edit

Why the discussion is only about the presence of the Halo in the religious iconography? So many saints and people have experienced/are experiencing this, why there's not an entry about this? The religious iconography should be just a historical section and not the whole entry devoted to the entry Halo. People meditating in our times are experiencing Halos', there should be a definite entry on this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Viperalus (talkcontribs) 09:16, 26 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

Lead image edit

There has recently been edit-warring over this, with a group(?) of banned sock-puppets and temporary ips pushing Jain Indian POV (see User_talk:GB_fan#Halo_(religious_iconography)). As I promised there, I'm raising the issue here (for the first time) so a consensus can be formally established. I'll put up 3 possibilities, but others can be added.

Please say what you think below. Johnbod (talk) 16:32, 11 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

  • A or B Johnbod (talk) 16:34, 11 July 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • B Modernist (talk) 23:58, 13 July 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • A or B. Widely recognized art masterpieces and works that have passed the test of time should be preferred. Ewulp (talk) 06:03, 14 July 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • A or B Vexations (talk) 12:27, 14 July 2018 (UTC)Reply
  • B - both B or A would work, but a lead image's main purpose is the visual identification of the article topic. B has less additional details and is slightly better for this purpose (especially in a minimized thumbnail view). C is a low-res image with no verifiable information about the artist and the image's origin, thus not suitable. GermanJoe (talk) 12:35, 14 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

Halos being depicted much earlier edit

halos are depicted but before the greeks here are some halos from indus valley civilization.

indus seal lord of animals halo on top

one halo on top with peepal leaves, one halo on bottom

sumerian diety with halo

lord of animals depicted with halos

indus valley civilization halo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.188.53.210 (talk) 03:27, 11 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

Reverts edit

@Johnbod: Hi, what's the problem. Why do you keep reverting? Wolfdog (talk) 00:10, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

Because your edits are not improvements - you added a section called "In Sumerian art " for a single sentence that says nothing at all about Sumerian art. Get real. Johnbod (talk) 04:34, 12 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

@Johnbod: Why are you continuing to ignore my requests for discussion? You can't keep reverting and then refuse to engage in conversation. Not how it works here. Wolfdog (talk) 16:29, 15 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

I apologize, I didn't see that you responded after all. MY problem was actually with the grammar, not really the semantic details. All other sections follow the "In [blank] art" convention. That's what I'm pushing for. I'll make the appropriate changes (though I'm still not sure why commentary about Sumer is being placed in the Ancient Greece section). Wolfdog (talk) 16:42, 15 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
Because it isn't worth a section for one sentence with only literary stuff. Note that "Ancient Greek world" better covers the Hellenistic mentions in modern Turkey etc, and also Iraq, the Greco-Buddhist art of the lead image, and the Indo-Greek coin illustrated. There is no real reason for consistency in section titles, and there is no issue of grammar here. See the discussion above re the best lead image. Johnbod (talk) 17:03, 15 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
I appreciate the commentary on the Ancient Greek world issue. An alternative to the structure "In [blank] art" (which is indeed, a grammatical structure) would be that we simply remove "in" from the other sections. It's hard for me to fathom why you would want to decrease consistency, except a general desire to control every aspect of the page. MOS:HEADINGS briefly urges aligning to a "consistent style" (though it mostly focuses on what not to do). Wolfdog (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
I've no objection to removing the "In"s (something none of your edits did. Johnbod (talk) 20:53, 15 January 2022 (UTC)Reply
Yes. This was a new idea I was proposing. A compromise. Wolfdog (talk) 23:46, 15 January 2022 (UTC)Reply

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion edit

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 00:07, 9 April 2022 (UTC)Reply

Note 16. Page cited is incorrect. edit

Have book. Checked page. Nothing on that page regarding the statement in the article. 12McCurdy (talk) 00:28, 6 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

Has wind. But not direction. Moved ref a bit. Johnbod (talk) 17:37, 6 September 2023 (UTC)Reply