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Can somebody fact check my change the 1957 date for visit to more likely 1956?
Definitely in Myrtle Beach in May 1958.--Nemonoman (talk) 14:45, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
The newspaper speaks of a 10th visit, which was changed to 6th visit. ?? ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:28, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Another reason for believing that this article was most probably written and meant to be published in 1956, not 1957, is its title Man Keeps Silence for 31 Years. Baba's silence began in 1925. Do the math. (Or perhaps the article's math provides enough reason to state that Baba's silence actually began in 1926 -- or that there are differing opinions about when his silence began -- or...or...or. Oh hell.)--Nemonoman (talk) 14:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
I do not see any reason to include in this article references to newspaper stories that are clearly and obviously in error.
I can (sort of) understand a desire to include the AP "Messiah" story. I'd like it if there were a footnote saying "*Much of this is total BS."
But an article that says MB WILL visit Washington in July -- printed in June 1957 -- does not prove that he visited in 1957. And when the article clearly references an event that occurred and was highly documented as occurring in July Nineteen Fifty SIX, and dozens of people, some still living, have described being there, I'm SO inclined to note that the article is JUST FLAT WRONG!!!
And what's the reason for including it? "However, other one other source -- the Widely Respected Big Spring (Texas) Herald, winner of ZERO awards for integrity in journalism -- published an article indicating that an EXACT DUPLICATE of the 1956 visit was scheduled to occur ONE YEAR LATER! -- so take THAT uncited, point-of-view laden editors!!!"
Does this mistake change a non-neutral point of view. Is that paper, or ANYONE, maintaining that such a visit took place in 1957, or was even scheduled to take place in 1957, and that the MB article editors are trying to hide some relevant fact?
Same with the Death Notice. WTBF?? Numerous Indian Newspaper accounts describe the mourners gathering ON JANUARY 31 in AHMEDNAGAR, not in some cave hundreds of miles away. It's JUST WRONG. OK, it exists. But there are dozens of wire-service articles that are wrong -- just look at the archives of -- I don't know -- say the minutes following 9/11 attacks, or JFK assasination, or any damned event. And those often got picked up, printed, and never corrected even though the wire services sent out changes.
Including CLEARLY ERRONEOUS reportage does not advance the cause of knowledge. Unless we want to include a subsectino: Newspaper Articles of Dubious Reliability. --Nemonoman (talk) 16:39, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I am only attempting to find published reports related to this fascinating person, so please do not shoot the messenger. If these reports are wrong, meaning that there are an overwhelming number of other sources that report a different account, then we can decide if to use it or not. So:
(a) In regard to the 1957 account that is argued here happened in 1956, what published sources we have that say differently?
(b) In regard to the report of the death, what published sources do we have that say differently?
Here are some articles published in Time Magazine in 1932 and 1936. As there are editors here much more familiar with this subject than I , I would kindly ask them to help in incorporate this material into the article. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
This one is interesting as it makes a distinction between Indian disciples and others. The former referring to MB as "the messiah", others as "perfect master". This is interesting as it validates other press reports in this regard.
At Harmon, N. Y. where New York Central trains change from electric to steam engines, not far from Briarcliff, stands ready a retreat called Meherashram (Home of Compassion) where the pious of any & all sects may soon meet with a long-haired, silky-mustached seer who calls himself Shri (Mr.) Sadguru (Perfect Master) Meher (Compassion) Baba (Father). To his Indian co-religionists the Parsees, Meher Baba, 38, is the "God Man" or the "Messiah." To many another follower he is simply the "Perfect Master." His U. S. sponsors, Malcolm and Jean Schloss who await him at Harmon, think and write of him in uppercase: He, Him, His, Himself. Next week the God Man is to sail from England, will arrive at Meherashram May 16.
At 19 Meher Baba met a holy woman named Baba Jan (Angel of the Father) who died lately at Poona at the reputed age of 130. Meher Baba soon had a vision of his divine nature. For nine months he lay in a coma, came out of it "merged into God." It is explained that many people are in such a super-conscious state but few can remain in touch with the world, like Meher Baba, and help others to attain divinity.
For almost seven years Meher Baba has uttered no word. When he arrives at his U. S. retreat his lips will be unsealed with much ceremony. Meanwhile he carries a small board with letters and figures to which he points when he has something to say. He intends to found retreats in New Hampshire and California. Meher Baba is supposed to have performed many miracles but now he wishes only to make "Americans realize the infinite state which I myself enjoy." His method of accomplishing this is cryptic yet reassuring. "Let God flood the soul. What I am, you are."
With an alphabet board under his arm and adroit publicity before him, Shri Sadguru Meher Baba, Parsee "God Man," arrived in the U. S. last May (TIME, May 2). Though long-haired, silky-mustached Meher Baba indicated he had spoken no word for nearly seven years, he was willing to be interviewed by pointing to his little board, and to be photographed while doing it. Not every one was aware that this was not the God Man's first arrival in the U. S. Last December he quietly terminated an unpublicized stayin Harmon, N. Y., returned unostentatiously to India while his sponsor, a retired bookseller named Malcolm Schloss, began making plans for a triumphal reentry. Meher Baba, said Sponsor Schloss, would bring to the U. S. an "infinite state." In July he would break his silence with an internationally broadcast talk. What Meher Baba did was eat, play ping pong and cricket with his followers, many of them socialites, at Harmon. Still keeping mum, the God Man visited San Francisco, suddenly went to Shanghai where he stayed one day, "for spiritual reasons." Last week Meher Baba was to have spoken. But he changed his mind, announced through his secretary that "conditions are not yet ripe." He indicated they would be ripe next February.
Baba. The U. S. four years ago was fascinated by the arrival of a long-haired, silky-mustached Parsee named Shri Sadgaru Meher Baba (TIME, May 2, 1932). Called the "God Man," the "Messiah," the "Perfect Master," Meher Baba never speaks. The God Man claims to have been strictly silent since 1925, carries a little alphabet board on which he deftly spells his mute revelations (see cut, p. 37), among which is the declaration that he is in an "infinite state." He became that way, he says, after kissing an ancient holy woman named Hazrat Babajan, remaining in a coma for nine months.
From his London interview with Meher Baba, Author Landau got little. But a female disciple in Manhattan gave Landau a graphic description of the holy man's entourage: "He gets up very early. . . . He takes a very hot bath, and his hair is attended to with the greatest care. . . . He then goes from room to room, stops for a while in front of every bed, looks at the sleeping person, and, no doubt, directs in his own way the life of the disciple for the rest of the day. . . . He never reads books, but he knows everything. . . . Baba does not read a paper. He just goes over the headlines."
I thought this information might help some people. User:Cowalert Incidentally the Time Magazine articles are included in Lord Meher. Cowalert (talk) 16:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
From an op-ed in the New York Times today
Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true.
With time, this misremembering only gets worse. A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility [emphasis mine] during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength. This could explain why, during the 2004 presidential campaign, it took some weeks for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign against Senator John Kerry to have an effect on his standing in the polls.
See the full piece here. --Nemonoman (talk) 12:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
See here.
I have removed the {{refimprove}} and placed {{fact}} in these portions lacking sources for easy identification. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Still looking for some cites for 2 lines, but it's a lot cleaner now, sort of.--Nemonoman (talk) 23:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
To make the sourcing easier and more compliant with WP's guidelines, this would be a good effort:
... and so on for the other sources. This will make the current reference section tighter and provide a better way for readers to see the sourcing used in the article. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:52, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
I have completed the listing of all book sources, now listed at Meher Baba#References. Now there is a need to convert all the <ref> tags to the format as explained above. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
(actually this should be Breaking (lots and lots) of promise(s) to speak....)--Nemonoman (talk) 20:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
There is information available related to a declared intention to break the vow of silence, but the article only touches on this lightly and without following in up on the reasons he did not. It would be very pertinent to expand on that. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:14, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
His decision (all one line of it, after a 10-page buildup) is found here. (note -- keep looking -- it's in there! about the middle of the page)
Also Lord Meher quotes the AP:'
I don't know how reaonable it is to quote Lord Meher quoting the AP
PS MB promised to break his silence on several occasions, and broke them all. Lord Meher quotes devotee Quinten Tod thinking but his faith in Baba deepened. Tod thought to himself: "No ordinary man would behave like this." Faith is a wonderful thing.
Recently one or two accounts have surfaced from devotees who claim that they heard MB speak a word or two a few hours before his death. Some editor made a fuss about it here --Nemonoman (talk) 20:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
I still believe that more material about this is needed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:28, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
Enough with the big speeches and the giant rallies...Whoa, that was LAST season.
What I MEANT to say was: Enough with the "It is reported" and the [citation needed] entries. This article has at least one reference in every paragraph, and most have several. If there are competing or contradictory sources, they have not made themselves apparent. There is nothing to suggest in anyway that any of the material in the article is false or is original research.
I know that this is an article (a) written mainly by persons with an affection for Meher Baba, and (b) referenced mainly by books written by persons with an affection for Meher Baba. It is the nature of the subject that this is the case. Meher Baba was inspired hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people, and is a well known spiritual and cultural figure. For the most part there are two kinds of people; those who have never heard of MB or just don't care at all, and those who like him with considerable fondness. There are very few who dislike him, or have a 'debunking' agenda typical of some other recent spiritual figures. There just isn't much literature of the debunking variety.
For my own part, I was sent to Meher Baba by Swami Muktananda. About Muktananda, by contrast, there's practically a debunking industry. You can scarcely look up the name without seeing a half-dozen nasty-pages seeking to put him down. This just isn't the case with Meher Baba.
I believe in fair, accurate, NPOV reporting, and have made every effort to turn the prose into NPOV-safe phrasing. If there are credible alternate points of view available and not represented, PLEASE POINT TO THEM, and I will PERSONALLY Put them in.
That said, it DOES NO GOOD AT ALL to add "it is reported that..." to statements in this article. OF COURSE it is reported that...That's what the article IS, a compilation of reports. The phrase suggests that the information to follow is not credible. Yet virtually every matter of fact has been referenced to a reasonable source.
Next, let's lay off the [citation needed] entries, shall we? Minimum 1 reference per paragraph is COMPLETELY overdoing it if you ask me. Many times a reference here[1] has continued application to the rest of the paragraph. Should one reference[2] the same book[3], the same page[4], every couple of words[5]? TRY LOOKING UP THE REFERENCE in the paragraph FIRST and see if the matter is covered. ALL the books in the REFERENCES are available on line. Leave me a message if you need help finding it. --Nemonoman (talk) 02:54, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes the article is now more consistent with the now current view of what consitutes a good wikipedia article. Yes the article has been refined and reshaped. Now it will be harder for half-baked, agenda-filled editors to find fault. I don't like it very much however. It has been 'fixed', much like a dog that has been fixed. All the personality, vibrancy and fun has been replaced with these[6][7][8][9].
I temporarily ended my wiki retirement because whether I like it or not, this article will be the first point of reference for many web surfers. To keep the article free of distractions like [citation needed] this, and to assure that the 'soft bigotry' of phrases like 'it is reported that...' do not interfere with that initial experience, I have taken a reasonable and pleasant-enough article written in good faith, mostly, by a very diligent and honest editor ( Sharnak ), and left behind an article that is hard to read, overly referenced, and free of grace. But it is, I believe, protected from editors who will chase it with [citation needed].
It is not protected, I am sorry to say, from editors who will tack NPOV tags on it. Since it is essentially a positive portrait of a good man, it must be wrong. It must be POV. This is where the next attack will come from. Instead of "It is reported that..." the article will be crammed with "His followers claim that...", etc.
I'm bracing for it. But for now, I have 'fixed' this article as much as I mean to, and I am again leaving active WP editing.
Thank you, Jossi.--Nemonoman (talk) 12:32, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
The phrase in the opening that he appeared "unhinged" misrepresents the context. The source says, "He had no food; he did not sleep; his parents thought his mind to be unhinged. He was given food, but gave it to the dogs..." I mean my parents still think I'm unhinged. Does it follow that I appear unhinged to everyone like my clients? By using the word alone and in quotes in that way without giving the broader context a much more general claim is being made. Which might be true, but the citation as used is misleading. Also "much of that time" is written to appear to refer to the 7 years, but actually refers to the 9 months of fasting and sleeplessness, not the 7 years. Actually he was working and even began a couple businesses during that 7 years. There are pictures of him in a business suit -- though admittedly his eyes and demeanor are strange. He even applied for a liquor license with a business partner. So he could not have appeared "unhinged" to everyeone for most of seven years. I think this refers to his parents appraisal of his sudden fasting and hiding food and not sleeping that lasted for nine months at the start of the 7 years and prior to meeting Upasni Maharaj after which he started normalizing. 72.204.46.220 (talk) 23:11, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
It's been two weeks:
Score so far:
End result: a reasonably good article is now in limbo as to its status, and unlikely ever to be settled. Not a lot different than being an "enemy combatant" in Guantanamo. Once the "process" has been initiated, there's no clear way to resolve it.
Note to Wiki editors. The GA process is essentially broken. --Nemonoman (talk) 20:38, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
For a better understanding of the so-called "Good Article Reassessment Project", see this edit, and the 2 comments that follow it: this and this. --Nemonoman (talk) 21:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
There was a Wikipedia:Peer_review/Meher_Baba/archive1 with good comments. I took a shot at implementing some of the suggestions.--Nemonoman (talk) 18:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
The Main drive, motivation must be to be true to the spirit of Baba's work as we understand it. We are here on the gross plane and have limited function BUT we should not put our critical intellect into abeyance. There will be differences BUT we need to work toward light and service to others not service to self which can manifest as ego: This is essentially dark. The article has improved over the years it may be 3 steps forward 1 back BUT its not lopsided and strange anymore i.e. Townsend dominated. Keep going forward. I believe Baba would approve of more truth being expressed. OK. GA may be a medium that is flawed. It too will evolve and some friction is OK when moving forward. . --Liamjones4477 (talk) 01:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
Does anyone know how to archive the peer review template at the very top of this page like the older peer review was archived in the "Show" pull down part of the lower template? It would make the page look more tidy and clear what has all occurred. 72.204.46.220 (talk) 11:03, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
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