Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Master Hilarion (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's
talk page or in a deletion review
). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus‎. and as CV has been addressed and found mot to be an issue, no pressing reason to delete Star Mississippi 02:31, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Master Hilarion

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There are no reliable independent sources about this topic Big Money Threepwood (talk) 04:53, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Yes, obviously there are heaps of unreliable sources on the topic. But it's simply false that no reliable independent sources exist. Some are already listed on the page. The Masters Revealed: Madam Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge and Radiance from Halcyon: A Utopian Experiment in Religion and Science are both academic studies that appear to have significant coverage of Hilarion. There's an entry in Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, published by
Gale Group. And, if you weed out the non-RSs from Google Scholar, you find plenty of modern scholarship that covers him -- [1], [2], [3], [4], and so on. Jfire (talk) 05:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 05:55, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Jfire. Skyerise (talk) 10:44, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete The article has not had any good academic or scholary references added to it in over a decade (in fact none since it was created). There are also now copyright issues. Neither of the books Jfire mentions have significant coverage of Master Hilarion they have a few scattered lines, the papers on brill.com do not mention Master Hilarion in any detail. One of the sources Jfire lists as "modern scholarship" covering Master Hilarion is this paper on the gay activism of Wallace de Ortega Maxey, it has a mere line about Master Hilarion [5]. Wallace de Ortega Maxey is a non-notable figure himself. I don't see how any this is relevant or will establish notability. We want in depth scholarly sources that mention this topic. There is no point in citing a paper just because it has one line about the subject. Anyone can look on Google Scholar, just because you get a few hits does not mean these sources contain significant coverage. If you look on JSTOR, the same thing happens. There is only passing mention of Master Hilarion [6]. This does not establish notability. In conclusion, only the Gale Group source was a useful one but a single source is not enough to build an article on. I see a serious lack of independent neutral sources on this topic. I vote delete. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:13, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is an inaccurate summary of the sources. In The Masters Revealed, Hilarion is the primary topic of pages 59–62. Here's the first paragraph from these pages:
ONE OF THE MORE ELUSIVE MASTERS of HPB's Egyptian Brotherhood is the man she called Hilarion (or Illarion) Smerdis. The authorship of several fictional works published by HPB has been attributed to him, including the stories "Unsolved Mysteries," "The Ensouled Violin," and "The Silent Brother." Along with Morya and Koot Hoomi, Hilarion has continued to be an alleged source for "channelers" in the twentieth century, most notably Canadian medium Maurice Cooke. In May 1875, HPB's scrapbook noted that Hilarion and a companion "passed thro' New York & Boston, thence thro' California and Japan back." In 1878, the same scrapbook, referring to a letter or psychic transmission received from Hilarion, noted "panic in England. Russians at Constantinople. Gorchakov hoodwinks Disraeli." This seems to indicate shared interests that are more political than spiritual. In July 1881, The Theosophist published Hilarion's report of his explorations of Zoroastrian ruins in Armenia. After the society moved to Adyar, Smerdis sent a letter advising Olcott that Serapis wanted him to travel in South India and Ceylon. Hilarion was described by HPB as a Greek gentleman with a black beard and long flowing white garments, looking from a distance like Serapis, and passing through Bombay en route to Tibet for his "final initiation." After going to Tibet, he allegedly inspired Mabel Collins's Idyll of the White Lotus and Light on the Path, although this was later denied by Collins.

I don't have access to the full text of Radiance from Halcyon, but if anything its coverage of Hilarion appears to be even more significant than The Masters Revealed -- hits in 47 snippets, many of which are clearly discussing specific aspects of Theosophist beliefs about Hilarion.

Here is what the paper on Maxey says of Hilarion:
Maxey wrote extensively on the esoteric wisdom of Theosophy, tracing it through the avatar of the Master Hilarion, located by Maxey in various incarnations from Orpheus in 7000 BC through Ramses II, St. Paul, Montezuma, Hiawatha, and George Washington... Maxey also found Hilarion's work at play in the American Revolution, particularly in "the beautiful and occult vision which took place at Philadelphia," which he felt best embodied the "Universal Brotherhood unhampered by creed, race, or color."

Here is what another of the papers says:
Adepts and brothers were often experienced in their astral bodies. A May 1875 article in the Spiritual Scientist mentioned that one or more ‘Oriental Spiritualists of high rank’ had just arrived in the United States, whom Blavatsky identified as At[rya] and Ill[arion] passing through New York and Boston en route to California and Japan.43 Illarion (also called Hilarion), a Greek Cypriot adept, features as an elusive figure in Blavatsky’s memoirs. She had first met him on Cyprus in 1860 and again in Egypt in 1870. As a visitor to New York, he is supposed to be a physical body, but there are also indications that his astral body or projection is involved. She described Illarion with his ‘dark pale face, black beard and flowing white garments and fettah’ as ‘the form of a man’ whom Olcott and others met about their New York apartment, and she also referred to him as ‘John King’ because her companions might find it easier to accept a spirit than the astral body of a living man. Hilarion also collaborated with her in the writing of her occult stories and signed himself ‘Hilarion Smerdis’.

This constitutes significant coverage, demonstrating in depth commentary and analysis of Hilarion's role in Theosophy. Jfire (talk) 19:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This isn't in-depth commentary or significant coverage, only the first piece of green text you quote has some information so I agree that is a good source but it doesn't give us much else. These sources might be good if this article was a biography of Maxsey or Eugene O'Neill but this article is about Master Hilarion. I don't see how a good article can be built by cherry-picking like this. Wallace de Ortega Maxey was a gay rights activist who is non-notable himself, I am not sure why he is relevant to an article on Hilarion. Why are we citing him? This source you cited from 1960 is on the Irish playwright Eugene O'Neill [7]. It might be useful for his own biography or for a line of information, but it is not going to add significant coverage. This is not in-depth coverage from academics evaluating the Theosophical claims of Saint Hilarion, the last two are not strong sources and only have passing mention of Hilarion. This doesn't establish notability. If this topic was notable, historians would have written full papers on it. Psychologist Guy (talk) 19:54, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to bow out after this and let others make their own assessment of these sources, but I just want to say that "historians have have written full papers on it" is not a Wikipedia notability criterion. We can and do cover many topics that don't have "full papers" written by historians. Jfire (talk) 20:16, 7 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 08:41, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 14:03, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Four reliable, independent, third-party sources:

ISBN 0-8103-8570-8
.

ISBN 1567183360. (The New Encyclopedia of the Occult was selected as a reference text in 2005 by American Libraries and noted by Booklist.[8][9]
)

French, Brendan James (2000). The theosophical masters : an investigation into the conceptual domains of H.P. Blavatsky and C.W. Leadbeater (Vol.1). Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney. p. 119.
McClelland, Norman C. (2010). "Hilarion". Encyclopedia of Reincarnation and Karma. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. p. 111.
ISBN 9780786448517.--Pisnyy Mykola (talk) 15:21, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Comment: Whole article has been removed for a potential copyvio, likely not helping much at this point. Oaktree b (talk) 16:07, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a
WP:BACKWARDSCOPY. Jfire (talk) 16:45, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply
]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Final relist.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NotAGenious (talk) 18:52, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.