Talk:Alice Bailey

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Alice Bailey article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: 12 months

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

Women

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.WomenWikipedia:WikiProject WomenTemplate:WikiProject WomenWikiProject Women

Occult Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Occult, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles related to the occult on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.OccultWikipedia:WikiProject OccultTemplate:WikiProject OccultOccult
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Biography: Arts and Entertainment

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
	This article is supported by the arts and entertainment work group.

Religion: New religious movements Low‑importance

	Religion portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Wikipedia's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by New religious movements work group (assessed as Mid-importance).

Spirituality Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Spirituality, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of spirituality-related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SpiritualityWikipedia:WikiProject SpiritualityTemplate:WikiProject SpiritualitySpirituality
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Skepticism Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Paranormal Low‑importance

	This article falls under the scope of WikiProject Paranormal, which aims to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to the paranormal and related topics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the attached article, help with current tasks, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and discussions.ParanormalWikipedia:WikiProject ParanormalTemplate:WikiProject Paranormalparanormal
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Philosophy: Philosophers / Contemporary Low‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Associated task forces:
/
	Philosophers
	Contemporary philosophy

Women's History Mid‑importance

	History portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women's History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women's history and related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women's HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject Women's HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Women's HistoryWomen's History
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Women writers Mid‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women writers, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women writers on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women writersWikipedia:WikiProject Women writersTemplate:WikiProject Women writersWomen writers
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Women in Religion Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of the Women in Religion WikiProject, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of women in religion. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.Women in ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject Women in ReligionTemplate:WikiProject Women in ReligionWomen in Religion
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Greater Manchester Mid‑importance

	Greater Manchester portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Greater Manchester, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Greater Manchester on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Greater ManchesterWikipedia:WikiProject Greater ManchesterTemplate:WikiProject Greater ManchesterGreater Manchester
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

"The Jewish problem" and NPOV

This section uncritically quotes Bailey several times repeating her anti-Semitic statements. The quotes may be valuable in demonstrating her anti-Semitic views, however as stated they do not appear to follow the guidance of WP:QUOTE: the quotation is being used to substitute rhetorical language in place of more neutral, dispassionate tone preferred for encyclopedias. This can be a backdoor method of inserting a non-neutral treatment of a controversial subject into Wikipedia's narrative on the subject, and should be avoided.

At the moment the section lacks balance by effectively repeating her unchallenged viewpoint. Responses from a critical reliable source would address the balance and probably reduce the need to include so many of her anti-Semitic quotes.—Ash (talk) 16:43, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  There were more references given about two years ago, but they were removed over time by editors who wanted to paint AAB in a bad light.

But therein lies the rub. There is a severe lack of sources available on Ms.Bailey. One can only surmise from her own quotations that she considered both the Jews and the Negroes to be a problem. The problem with this article goes way back to when a group of people looking to exclude all mention of Bailey's antisemitism invaded the article as if Bailey were still alive. Personally I do not see that section as NPOV. Albion moonlight (talk) 01:30, 24 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

About "...she considered both the Jews and the Negroes to be a problem." Actually, the only "problem" she address in connection with the Negroes, to used the term current then, was to bemoan their bad treatment by the whites. And the issue of concern was not so much the Jews as Zionism, the parts of Jewish culture that overlap with that. Even with all the safeguards in place a crowd-sourced Wiki like this seems incapable of dealing objectively with things of a religious and political nature, and especially if the subject of race is part of topic. 19:32, 18 February 2016 (UTC)Mystic1muse (talk)

Alice Bailey's quotes in this section are taken out of context and blown out of proportion. Countless times in countless ways, she indicates that unconditional love for everyone is essential. That is a central theme throughout all of her Work. She wrote that the Masters have perfect loving understanding for every human being, with no exceptions - and that all of us must eventually manifest the same qualities if we are to evolve and at the same time, we must speak out against injustice. 72.177.95.213 (talk)

Please check the guidance of WP:SOAP, your statement appears to be promotional rather than specifically suggesting improvements to the article.—Ash (talk) 14:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the NPOV suggestion; article itself is not dealing with a controversial subject, it is a biography of a person. The quotes are not used to "Substitute rhetorical languague", but are the subject itself. ie the quotes are note assisting dealing with the issue of antisematism, the quotes themselves are the subject, and so it cannot be considered POV to include them. More of an issue is whether they're cherrypicked as XXX.213 is suggesting. As Antisematism is not the issue, but the views of Ms Bailey are, there is no necessity to counterbalence unless the statements are unrepresentative of her views. I suggest remove POV tag, but have someone check for balance . Clovis Sangrail (talk) 14:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It may be worth taking a moment to see how the William Shakespeare article handles quotes. He is the most quotable person in history and yet the article keeps the number and length of quotes quite modest and always gives context. In this article the proportion of quote to article text is disproportionate for the controversial sections in question. Most of these sections have no criticism. Repeating a quote with no context or analysis (when plenty of independent reliable sources are available to give context and analysis) makes for a pointless article that reads like a fan site. The NPOV tag appears justified with little improvement made in these areas since the tag was added. Ash (talk) 15:50, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that there seems to be a disproportionate focus on the quotes, and should be kept in context. It feels as if its written to provoke the reader rather than inform on her opinion. I agree that it needs to be tidied up. I don't think its this articles place to challenge / counterbalance her statements (with fact), but her quotes do need to be reprensentative and and in context. I'm happy not to remove the tag, since the article is loaded with issues so the tag is minor, but I'll move it slightly higher up so it covers all her racial theories, since her 'Negro' views are presented in a similar manner. Clovis Sangrail (talk) 00:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Consider: http://www.bookreader.org/bailey/Alice_Bailey.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.107.74.253 (talk) 00:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the controversial aspects, this biography is not so much an accurate reflection of Bailey as it is a reflection of editors outrage over some of her statements on controversial topics. The selections made, and the lack of balancing selections, show the editorial bias. Excellent contributions to the article have been cut away, useful references deleted. The article becomes less about Bailey and more about the battle between editors. The battle has raged for years and will no doubt continue unabated into the future. Such is the nature of human editors and the Wikipedia rules do little to prevent the travesty. Wikipedia is wonderful for noncontroversial subjects, for a topic like Bailey it is, and will remain, a relative failure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.155.9.214 (talk) 23:02, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Excessive primary sourced material

I removed material which was all primary sourced because the amount of primary sourced opinions on the article, sourced to bailey herself was excessive. It was reverted with no specific objection. Can people outline their specific objections here. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:56, 10 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the amount of sourcing to Bailey was far in excess of the norm on biographical articles. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:37, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm curious as to why this edit was reverted here with an edit summary saying it had to do with primary sources when it clearly does not (at least to me). Was there another reason? Debouch (talk) 23:15, 18 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your reply is unclear. How does it not? Most of the material I have removed is that cited to primary sources, namely Bailey herself, Second Quantization (talk) 00:00, 19 February 2014 (UTC) (Formerly IRWolfie-)[reply]

You are right, it is unclear. Sorry. I had removed some primary-sourced material and you inadvertently put it back. Debouch (talk) 00:16, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That specific Diff was due to the revert mechanism failing. (The diff viewer showed my edit, but after the commit a different revert had been made). I had to manually correct it by copying and pasting the earlier version of the article here: [1]. Second Quantization (talk) 00:23, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

My edit was poorly timed. I'll redo it at some point. Thanks. Debouch (talk) 00:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The early editions of this article contained additional sources as well as additional information that was in many ways better than subsequent evolutions of it. Many of these were erased by editors who lacked objectivity. There is an older and much modified version that can be found here: http://en.rightpedia.info/wiki/Alice_Bailey#cite_note-39 This version, in this self-proclaimed "God" oriented Wiki, has an agenda and also lacks objectivity and still retains a lot of material that worked at painting Bailey in a bad light and so is really something of an attack piece (as was the article here from time to time) rather than an encyclopedia article. That said, there are many good statements and references in the "rightpedia" version that should be resurrected incorporated in this Wikipedia. Mystic1muse (talk) 19:20, 18 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Two missing terms

There are two terms that seem to apply to the writing of Alice Bailey that are apparently missing from the article.

Ascended Masters
Channeling, noting that the article Mediumship has a section on channeling.

Are there any thoughts on adding some content to the article on these subjects? I know that Bailey objected to being classified as a medium, and that she did not use the term Ascended Master. But her books, as all Ascended Master literature, seems classifiable as channeled literature; and the term Ascended Master Teachings does seem to accurately describe her work.

Kwork2 (talk) 22:36, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Ascended Masters" is present where it should be under "Influence" section on Elizabeth Clare Prophet. Elizabeth Clare Prophet invented the phrase. Bailey did not use the phrase at all, apparently regarding it as redundant since all Masters are by definition "ascendant." Bailey refers to one specific "initiation" as that of "ascension" but it is not used in connection with the term "Master." Curiously, there is a widespread conflation on the net of the Elizabeth Clare Prophet's phrase and teaching with the Bailey writings and even from many supposedly scholarly sources. Also Bailey's "Master" is a different entity than that defined by Elizabeth Clare Prophet. In her writings Bailey refers to the "I Am" of Elizabeth Clare Prophet as a "travesty." The Theosophists are also unhappy with the confusion in the public mind, see: Mahatmas versus Ascended Masters Mystic1muse (talk) 00:29, 19 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

why is that there? sjoo

Hey Mystic1muse -- I don't want to get in your way, but while you're working so hard on this article, might you take a look at the section Alice Bailey#Her Ideas about Races and some Criticisms and figure out where to put the three things near the end (Sjoö and the Blavatsky comparison) where they belong? Originally, they seemed to be in the Bibliography in a section called Criticism, but then people started using that section to discuss the criticism, and now that three-item bibliography kinda floats there. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 00:11, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the note. Yes, I was just noticing yesterday and the criticism are sprinkled in multiple places whereas I think, to compare with other articles on Wikipedia I've seen, criticism are usually placed in a discrete "Criticism" section. I've not looked too much at the overall organization but it probably should be tweaked, inclding putting all the critiques in a single section. I think it might be good to have all the criticism together and divide that into subsections with the Blavatsky part as 1, and the Sjoo as another, etc. Mystic1muse (talk) 21:29, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't the arrangment of the criticism section that I noted, just the odd placement of those bibliography items. But yeah, that too. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 23:42, 21 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking that the criticism might stay in multiple places but be given their own heading and started to do that with section 2.9. Does that fix the issue you saw or is there something more? Or is one section better, or? What do you think?

Original research in the popular culture section

I've done some inline tags for original research in Alice Bailey#In popular culture but I'm also flagging it here as I'm about to tag the article as whole in the hope that someone with more subject knowledge can either source the claims properly or remove them. I noticed this issue as a reader and don't feel able to do more than tag. Thanks. Amedee123 (talk) 11:05, 31 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]