Talk:Thomson Jay Hudson

Latest comment: 4 months ago by 5Q5 in topic Notability and independent sources

Untitled edit

Man has two minds: the objective mind (conscious) and the subjective mind (subconscious).

This is backwards: consciousness is subjective. Michael Hardy 00:29, 11 January 2006 (UTC)Reply

Notability and independent sources edit

In relation to notability, versions like this and this claim that the author was virtually unknown until someone speculated about a relationship to Sheldrake (source of the claim unspecified and no citation provided), or that someone else speculated about "electronic voice phenomena" using Hudson's arguments (source still unspecified and no citation). Then more recently we have mentions of Hudson on an in-universe spiritualist site (now cited). And apparently some reviews of the book may exist.
The older versions also provided some biographical information about the author's life before the book writing, but without citations. If the book is more popular than the author, perhaps the article scope could be changed and the article renamed, to be about the book.
The current article is based on one in-universe source as well as editor synthesis, a summary of the book itself, the primary source. If reviews really exist, it probably should be rewritten using those and they of course should be cited. Still, can any of those be considered independent?
For my own impression, that obviously cannot be used as a source, but may serve as a guide on what an independent source may plausibly cover: while I'm familiar with these concepts that are common in the pop spiritualist pseudoscience of the era, this particular author and book were unknown to me, despite having read on these topics for about a decade, years ago. Hudson begins with false premises like an a-priori belief that Christian Science and other "psychic" healing are effective, then with syncretism speculates about how this and other alleged "abilities" (rather than beliefs and personal experiences), might be explained with simple pop psychology, another doctrine relying on false premises and where the "subconscious" is claimed to tap in the universal "objective", allowing magic.
Finally, if independent sources don't exist (if they're promotional/in-universe), the notability is questionable and WP:AFD should be considered. —PaleoNeonate – 22:08, 6 December 2023 (UTC)Reply

He's included in Dictionary of American Biography and The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography so he was notable in his time, regardless of current sentiment. --Animalparty! (talk) 03:03, 7 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
As I wrote on the WP:FTN I found a digital archive with 21 mainstream U.S. newspaper mentions of "Thomson Jay Hudson". As time permits I will go through them and add any appropriate references to the article. 5Q5| 12:35, 13 December 2023 (UTC)Reply
Finished. A lot of the old newspaper sources I added referred to him as Thomas instead of Thomson. They both are versions of the same name so it's possible Thomas is how he was known informally. 5Q5| 15:30, 21 December 2023 (UTC)Reply