Talk:Entheogen/Archives/2022

Uses in Judaism and Christianity section
Essentially this section was just a lot of WP:FRINGE. I took it all out. If there are any encyclopaedic nuggets I missed, please restore them. Springnuts (talk) 11:41, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I restored it. While there certainly may be issues to be discussed, the scholarship regarding the use of drugs and the origins of religion is fairly well respected, however, in the recent past, this scholarship has been ignored due to draconian drug prohibition and cultural norms which valued the role of religion above secular scholarship and rationality.  This may account for why you believe this is “fringe”.


 * Given the history of entheogenic drugs and their role in the archaeological record, however, it is well established that the shamanic use of sacramental drugs has a close connection with religious beliefs and practices. This could be perceived as a “fringe” theory by religious people who think that religion is best explained by supernatural justifications, but in science, it is more likely that the human brain was perturbed by the ingestion of plants and substances which resulted in these superstitions, and that is hardly fringe, but certainly controversial to the billions of religious adherents.


 * To put it another way, which is more likely: a super-omniscient being came down from the sky and gave laws to humanity, or someone ingested a psychoactive plant that gave them visions of such an event? Do you think this same super-intelligent being took the form of a man and died for the sins of humanity, or is it more likely that this trope follows the archetype of a shamanic vision brought on by psychoactive drugs prepared in a ritual manner?


 * The secular, default position would be to suggest that human culture has been influenced by drug use, not that a being came down from the sky and performed miracles. Furthermore, if this secular explanation offends billions of people, is that a good reason to consider it fringe? Or to put it another way, by appealing to the wishes and desires and beliefs of the majority, should the minority position be considered fringe for this reason? I would venture that the answer is no.


 * Additional thought: with the rise of QAnon, researchers have been given the rare opportunity to watch a new religious movement arise and develop in almost real time, as right-wing conspiracy theories and evangelical Christianity merged together. While we can’t implicate the role of entheogens in this instance, we can see how an unusual idea can memetically spread and reproduce in human minds that are susceptible to it.  This could provide an analogous scenario for the spread of religious ideas that arise from drug-induced rituals and shamanic practices.


 * Newer research show that the use of entheogens in a controlled setting leads to higher instances of religiosity (or its equivalent values) in the participants, including the so-called benefits of religious practice and belief (social cohesion, cooperation, community-driven, oneness and spiritual fulfillment).


 * It’s also been claimed and demonstrated that the same benefits can be derived without entheogens by reducing activity in the default mode network in the brain through various practices, such as meditation. Past surveys have indicated that a significant number of meditators were brought to that practice due to their use of entheogens, and were seeking to replicate the experience without drugs. Again, we have yet another analogy for drugs leading practitioners to religion. Viriditas (talk) 23:31, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

With all respect you kind of make the point for me. Springnuts (talk) 23:19, 15 December 2021 (UTC)


 * And what point would that be? A discussion of entheogenic research about religion is not "fringe" in an article about entheogens. Viriditas (talk) 23:29, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

Please re-add any encyclopaedic and sources material. Springnuts (talk) 23:22, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Please stop edit warring and point me to any unencylcopedic material you don’t think should belong. You are repeatedly deleting well sourced material by known scholars. Viriditas (talk) 23:29, 15 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Okay, making an attempt to mediate here and hopefully not antagonizing everyone in the process...
 * In general, I think it is better to discuss and reach consensus before removing longstanding material, and unlike much of the page this section at least has sources. That said, I think the claim that the only viable alternative to supernatural explanations for the origin of religion is entheogenic explanations would definitely have to be backed by WP:RS, and otherwise is just an editor's opinion. There could be many explanations for where religion came from and why it persists.
 * With that aside, I think the key issue is definitely: do the sources qualify as WP:RS? I see one by M.D. Merlin that looks good. The rest are hard to judge because the citations are not well written, but at least one states that it is self-published. I will try to look at the rest soon to get a better sense of whether these are reliable for an encyclopedia. Or else, if either of you wants to state why the individual sources are or aren't reliable, go right ahead.
 * We should also keep in mind that it's possible there are good sources on the topic but they aren't currently in the article. In that case we should remove the existing material and rebuild it with good sources. Overall, I think it's better to have a short, reliable article than a long, dubious one. Gazelle55 (talk) 00:23, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The burden is on Springnuts to explain why they removed sourced material. I have asked repeatedly and I have not yet seen a reply other than “I don’t like it”.  And looking quickly through Springnut’s edit history, it becomes apparent that they often do this and remove large swaths of material that they find objectionable or critical of Christianity.  So there’s a pattern here. This is often called POV pushing. My explanation up above has less to do with this article and more to do with trying to get through to Springnuts, and offer them a reasonable explanation as to how anyone could think religion and drugs have a relationship.


 * The entheogenic hypothesis states that early shamanic drug use by human cultures led to and influenced the development of what later became religion. The very idea of the “supernatural” isn’t viable within a modern, scientific framework, because everything is part of the natural world and can be explained in some form or another to some extent based on the simplicity or the complexity of the question. When questions can’t be answered or explained (such as what came before the Big Bang?), we don’t automatically default to supernatural thinking.  We simply say “we don’t know”.


 * Because uncertainty and not knowing are anathema in most religious communities, religious adherents have created a set of supernatural beliefs around their religions to answer questions that can’t be answered and to develop a body of knowledge that has no data supporting it. Instead of doing this, the entheogenic hypothesis posits that these ideas and archetypes and symbols and imagery originate in the human mind, and are often described by those who use entheogens.  The entheogenic hypothesis attempts to account for what religion says and does in the experience of the users who have ingested the substances. This neatly explains many of the religious impulses by analogy (for example, Pahnke 1962; Griffiths 2006). Viriditas (talk) 01:14, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

Come on - this is not edit warring, and in fact I’m not going to force the point if you choose to 3R. But I agree fully that a smaller article with RS would be better than this mish mash. Alternatively WP:DYNAMITE. Friendly regards to all. Springnuts (talk) 10:26, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It is edit warring by every known definition. Now that you have come back to the talk page, and have stopped blanking entire sections for the moment, please specify exactly which material you find problematic.  Please do not speak in generalities or in broad strokes, instead, please specify one example in the section that you blanked that should be removed as an example of the problem. To make this as easy as possible, please specify a claim and its associated author, as well as the source, if any. Viriditas (talk) 10:32, 16 December 2021 (UTC)


 * " Do you think this same super-intelligent being took the form of a man and died for the sins of humanity" Please, don't imply that a fellow Wikipedia editor is unhinged. Because what sane person would believe that a deity died for humanity? Dimadick (talk) 20:33, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
 * It’s also a fascinating topic that nicely intersects with this one. Ego dissolution or ego death, is “described as a key feature of the psychedelic experience”, and is a central element of the death and rebirth mythology in entheogenic discourse. It is entirely likely that these experiences by early human tribes informed the dying-and-rising deity cults that arose in large towns and cities over time as nomads turned to agriculturalists, staying in one place and influencing the cultural landscape. It can be argued that this is exactly what happened, and historically it was known as the Eleusinian Mysteries.
 * Discovery of fragments of ergot (fungi, that grows on barley, containing LSD like psychedelic alkaloids) in a temple dedicated to the two Eleusinian Goddesses excavated at the Mas Castellar site (Girona, Spain) provided legitimacy for this theory. Ergot fragments were found inside a vase and within the dental calculus of a 25-year-old man, providing evidence of Ergot being consumed. This finding seems to support the hypothesis of ergot as an ingredient of the Eleusinian kykeon.


 * It’s easy to imagine that over time, political and cultural factions and classes arose, with some preferring to shroud the sacrament as an inner mystery reserved for the elect, with others preferring to share it with everyone, with still others wishing to dispense with it altogether and replace the sacrament with symbols and rituals. Fast forward several thousand years and look at institutional religion today. The entheogenic sacrament is gone, but the rituals and beliefs remain. Without the entheogen, it’s reduced to a cargo cult. Viriditas (talk) 23:37, 16 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I do plan to take a look at the sources to move forward with this, but in the meantime just a friendly reminder to all that Wikipedia is not a forum and that talk pages are for discussing improvements to their articles. Best, Gazelle55 (talk) 00:25, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

My assessment of whether the sources in the section are reliable:
 * David Hillman: not reliable. Not published in a scholarly venue and I can't find any indication that he has published other works in scholarly venues.
 * Sara Benetowa (aka Sula Benet), Michael Zohary, Arne Jensen, James A. Duke: quite possibly reliable. However, they should be cited through their own works rather than through pop science books that quote from them.
 * M.D. Merlin: reliable. However, we should just quote him saying pop science books on the topic are wrong, rather than quoting the books being criticized too, to avoid any sense of WP:FALSEBALANCE.
 * The Living Torah: probably not reliable. For sources on religion, while it is fine that the authors be adherents, they should publish in secular scholarly venues as we would expect for other topics.
 * "Sex, Drugs, Violence, and the Bible": not reliable. Pop science.
 * Dan Merkur: reliable if we can find the source. He appears to be a scholar in good standing but no source is given.
 * Entheos journal: maybe reliable. As noted in WP:SCHOLARSHIP, we should avoid sources that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view, though I don't know enough about the journal to say whether that's the case here. If it's reliable, we need to cite specific article(s), not the "general picture" given by the journal. The second use of the journal looks better than the first.
 * Erwin Panofsky: reliable. However, we should cite his scholarship directly.
 * Book by Carolina Academic Press: reliable.

and, let me know what you think about this. I haven't made any changes yet since I'm hoping to get some consensus first. Gazelle55 (talk) 00:21, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Good morning all. I had a go at removing the unencyclopedic material here: []. Each edit was made separately so please check the page history to see in the edit summary how each one is justified. I went into the Wayback Machine etc where possible to see the sources. You may feel that it has been an exercise in peeling an onion. Springnuts (talk) 11:37, 10 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Nope. You’re just doing the same thing again, even after the above discussion.  How about doing one edit at a time and bringing it up for discussion?  That’s what you’re supposed to be doing as a result of this discussion anyway.  Your edit summary doesn’t justify anything.  Bring up a single change for discussion here, first.  That’s the plan, and it’s what we discussed up above. Furthermore, your edit summaries are false.  Here’s some examples of the problem:


 * 1, in this edit, you claimed to “ rewrite to remove undue weight iaw WP:FRINGE”, however, much of this material is cited in reliable sources, for example, Radenkova et al. 2011, among many others. And given the sheer renaissance in cannabis research over the last ten years, this is hardly controversial material.  The idea that cannabis didn’t exist in the near east isn’t supported by the facts.


 * 2, in this edit, you claimed that “ m non RS material: "Entheos" appears to have been a short lived non-academic journal”, which is not true. Ethneos has been in publication since 2001, and has editors who are experts in their fields, including Celdrán, Strassman, Fikes, Krippner, Petrine, Rick, Webster, and Hoffman. I would consider it more of a magazine than an academic journal, however, since it isn’t focused on original research. In any case, it is reliable.


 * 3, in this case, you claim to be removing original research, but in fact that material is appropriately cited to Wasson and Panofsky regarding the phenomenon of mushroom trees in Christian art. Nothing about this is “original research”, which tells me you don’t understand what you are editing.


 * Many of the sources are misused. For example, Merlin 2003 is misused to negate the entheogenic hypothesis as “widely dismissed as erroneous”, however, that quote is cherry picked to make the point. The full quote from Merlin 2003 actually says: “An early relationship between humans and psychoactive plants, often within a highly ritualized, ceremonial context has been suggested by a number of authors (Allegro 1970; Emboden 1979; Furst 1972; Goodman et al. 1995; La Barre 1970, 1972, 1980; Schultes et al. 2002; Sherratt 1991, 1995b; Wasson 1968; Wilbert 1972; Wohlberg 1990). A number of these authors believe this kind of use of consciousness-altering plants provided the inspiration for initial human religious experiences, even perhaps three of the world's largest religions, Hinduism (Wasson 1968), Judaism (Dure 2001; Merkur2000), and Christianity (Allegro 1970; Ruck et al. 2001). Although this hypothesis and some of the specific case studies (e.g., Allegro 1970) have been widely dismissed as erroneous, others continue to call attention to the importance of psychoactive drug plant use by humans and the origin of spiritual concepts (e.g., Smith 2000, also see Rudgley 1994, 1998, and Roberts 2001). For example, according to some classical scholars, Christianity evolved within the milieu of Judaic and Hellenistic healing cults, magic, and the Mystery initiations: "All four of these inevitably imply a sacred ethnopharmacology with traditions going back to earlier ages of the ancient world" (see Ruck et al. 2001).”


 * I can go on like this with all your edits. It’s as if you don’t know what you are doing, but are committed to deleting the material because you are upset about your religion being associated with drugs. I gave you a link on your talk page a while back so you could educate yourself on the subject, and instead you’ve reverted back to the same bad behavior again. Viriditas (talk) 00:38, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, perhaps we might start by noting that there are two sections on Judaism with the section on Christianity sandwiched in between them. Would you be happy to reunite the Judaism sections and put them above Christianity, it being the older religion? Might that be non-controversial for you? Springnuts (talk) 00:56, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * If you think you can made an uncontroversial edit like that, involving the merging of sections, then go do it. But it would also help if you would read some of the basic literature so you can get a grasp of the subject.  I left you one link on your talk page, here is another. Viriditas (talk) 01:03, 11 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Note, I would just delete the entire section on Judaism and replace it with the well-written and reliably sourced content about Judaism and hypothesized entheogenic use from the religion and drugs article. Viriditas (talk) 01:29, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

@Viriditas (talk), your comments here make me feel that you have a strongly held POV. Rather, we should be interested in the questions Gazelle55 (talk raised about which sources are reliable. For clarity I should add that I have no strong POV on this topic; I am happy for the encyclopedia to reflect whatever is in reliable sources. Your comments above and on my talk page make me wonder if you are too close to the topic to edit this article reliably?  I do not say you are; just that your comments make me think you may be.  On the subject of deleting a section and replacing it with material from elsewhere, that is certainly an option, though I generally prefer to improve what is in this article, which should be more specific, than to "outsource" the section.  With all respect, Springnuts (talk) 20:10, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I think you are projecting again. Your entire edit history is focused on the topic of Christianity. Viriditas (talk) 23:09, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Please remain WP:CIVIL Springnuts (talk) 19:04, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Recent edits

 * I have disassembled the sandwich. So I now propose we change the opening sentence from "It is generally held by academics specializing in the archaeology and paleobotany of Ancient Israel, and those specializing in the lexicography of the Hebrew Bible that cannabis is not documented or mentioned in early Judaism." to the simpler and more clear: "Scholars hold that there is no mention of cannabis in early Judaism." or  "The majority of scholars hold that there is no mention of cannabis in early Judaism." or "Modern scholars hold that there is no mention of cannabis in early Judaism."  The current phrase opens the door to false balance: we should close it.  I await your constructive thoughts with interest.  Springnuts (talk) 20:25, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * As I said above, the entire section needs to be rewritten because it isn’t based on what the sources say. I specifically asked you to review the sources and you don’t appear to have done that at all.  It seems like you aren’t paying attention to anything that is discussed. To begin with, the sources that you have a problem with all cite Polish anthropologist Sula Benet, and she has support from botanist Michael Zohary and psychologist Benny Shannon, among many others.  Shannon himself uses the exegesis of Jewish texts to derive an hypothesized, historical entheogenic influence implicit in the Bible. Further recent evidence, such as archaeological excavations at Tel Arad from 1962-1963 by Yohanan Aharoni, and a study that examined those finds by Arie et al. 2020, indicates the first ever direct evidence of cannabis use in the Near East. The authors conclude: "The use of psychoactive materials is also well known in ancient Near Eastern and Aegean cultures since prehistory. It seems likely that cannabis was used at Arad as a deliberate psychoactive, to stimulate ecstasy as part of cultic ceremonies. If so, this is the first such evidence in the cult of Judah…The presence of cannabis at Arad testifies to the use of mind-altering substances as part of cultic rituals in Judah." This in turn, has been cited by even more recent articles, such as Balanta & Garnatjea 2021, who write: "Recently, ritual use of Cannabis was also confirmed at the Judahite Shrine of Arad in Israel, dating to the 8th century BCE (Arie et al., 2020). All these finds reveal that in the past Cannabis had an important role in religious rituals." This is how science works.  Unlike religion, knowledge accumulates over time through a process known as consilience.  You are ignoring the evidence, because you evidently refuse to study the topic, and instead keep trying to make baseless claims that aren’t supported.  Now, please actually study the topic and look at the sources.  The idea that “cannabis is not documented or mentioned in early Judaism” is false, and it most certainly does not fall under the category of “fringe”. Viriditas (talk) 23:33, 12 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You may forgive a wry smile that having reverted a bunch of edits because, to quote your own words, editors should “Bring up a single change for discussion here, first”, as soon as that process is begun you disengaged and made a bunch of edits, not having discussed them here. However, let’s try to find a productive way forwards: in the section on Judaism you now start with Sula Benet’s views, in a way that to me replaces false balance with unbalance.  Please can you indicate how SB is a reliable source as defined in WP:RS; with particular reference to WP:SCHOLARSHIP and WP:PARTISAN.  With all respect, Springnuts (talk) 20:40, 13 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Which source do you propose using to make the edit you desire? I’ve asked this multiple times up above with no answer from you. To recap: you wish to add and delete info based on no stated rationale. I’ve given you many reasons for my edits up above.  Now, let’s see yours. To repeat, the ritual use of Cannabis was confirmed at the Judahite Shrine of Arad in Israel, and Sula Benet’s claim about cannabis in the Bible is currently made in the article along with its counterclaim.


 * This claim was previously already in the article. In fact, my recent edits changed very little.  So I’m very curious, exactly what is your objection and which source do you propose using to fix it? I don’t think you’ve looked very closely at what the section actually says. Benet claimed that the original Hebrew language refers to cannabis both as an incense and as an intoxicant.  We now have direct evidence of this cannabis-infused incense from the 8th century BCE shrine of Tel Arad.  That other people disagree with Benet’s interpretion as an anthropologist is to be expected, and that disagreement is represented in the current article.


 * You’ve asked how Sula Benet can be considered a reliable source. Benet’s anthropological opinion about cannabis in the Bible has been cited by reliable sources, particularly current review articles focusing on the historical role of cannabis. For example, "Medical Cannabis: A plurimillennial history of an evergreen" (2018), published in the Journal of Cellular Physiology, cites Benet (known as Sara Benetowa) as an authority along with anthropologist Vera D. Rubin: "The Jews might have known Cannabis before the exodus from Egypt (ca. 1220 BCE). The Polish anthropologist Sula Benet (Benetowa) asserts that in the Bible both in the Jewish and Aramaic edition and in the “Talmud,” there are documented references to Cannabis, named “kanehbosn,” used as inebriating incense during religious services (Benetowa, 1936; Bennett, 1999; Rubin, 1975)."


 * More to the point, how reasonable is Benet’s claim? We aren’t talking about space aliens or supernatural events. We are talking about the word for cannabis being closely shared throughout Europe and the Mediterranean: "The kapnobatai, “those who walk in the smoke clouds,” were the shamans using Cannabis during trance (Emboden, 1972). Its ancient definition Quonubu or Qunnapu appears for the first time in a clay tablet dated to the epoch of Ashurbanipal, the last great king of the Neo‐Assyrian Empire (about 600 BCE). The Assyrian term has the same radix of all the words defining Cannabis used at those times, the Jewish Quanneb or Kaneh, the Persian Quonnab, the Arab Quannob, the Greek Kannabas up to the Latin Cannabis, still now used."


 * What is it about this perfectly mundane claim that seems so obvious given the above, that has you tied up in knots? Scholars Raphael Mechoulam and Michael Zohary acknowledge the validity of the claim. "Benet’s supposition is not unreasonable in view of the close etymological similarity”, writes Mechoulam (1986).  Zohary also agreed, as did anthropologist Brian M. du Toit (1996): "There exists a number of historically related words, differing to some degree in the characters employed, but quite clearly derived from the same stem. Sanskrit uses Cana, Hebrew Kaneh and Aramaic Keneh. Persian employs Kenab, Arabic Kannab, Assyrian Qunnabu, Chaldean Kanbun, and Scythian Cannabis. Benet (1975) suggests that, in time, Hebrew and Aramaic linked their root forms with the word meaning 'aromatic', namely, bosrn and busrna, respectively. The result are terms which look much like other Middle East terms, namely kanabos in Hebrew and kannabus in Aramaic."


 * If Benet is fringe and unreliable as you claim, why is she cited throughout the relevant literature as an authority, and as someone whose claims are repeatedly referred to as "reasonable" by scholars in disparate fields? Benet’s claims have been in circulation in the literature for 86 years, yet you would have us believe that they are considered fringe and unreasonable. Why is that? Viriditas (talk) 23:14, 13 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pinging me. I don't have time right now to give any more detailed thoughts, but I think the revised section for Judaism looks much better in terms of sources (though the Musselman ref should be reformatted so we can see who the publisher is). If there are sources disputing the conclusion that cannabis was used, they could be added too. The Christianity section still needs better sources as I wrote about a while back in the discussion. Hope to have time to help more soon. Gazelle55 (talk) 18:34, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

The section should start with the mainstream view, and if SB is a reliable source and represents the mainstream view there is no problem. But I don’t think either of those are clear. Can I ask again for some indication of how SB fulfils our criteria to be a reliable source? Springnuts (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
 * This is the mainstream view, according to ethnobotanists Mark Merlin and Robert C. Clarke. It’s also supported by the anthropologists listed above. For example, see Clarke, R., & Merlin, M. (2013), in Cannabis: Evolution and Ethnobotany, published by University of California Press.  This hypothesis is based on the following lines of evidence:


 * The earlier assumption that hemp/cannabis was not known in ancient Palestine/Israel is incorrect. (Benetowa 1936; Benet 1975)
 * Cannabis arrived in the Near East between 2000 and 1400 BCE (Warf 2014; Forbes 1956; Aldrich 1997)
 * The Scythians brought cannabis to the region, and it diffused through trade and warfare with Semitic peoples. The Scythians cultivated cannabis to smoke and used it for rituals and in burial tombs (Warf 2014; Artamanov 1965)
 * The word cannabis is Semitic and was borrowed from the Scythians (Benetowa 1936; Benet 1975)
 * Cannabis was traded and used in the ancient Near East a millennium before Herodotus mentioned it (Benetowa 1936; Benet 1975)
 * Cannabis was likely used in Assyrian and Babylonian temples (Meissner 1925)
 * Jewish texts mention it in terms of hemp fiber, ritual incense and psychoactive use (Benetowa 1936; Benet 1975)
 * Hemp was used for robes of priests in Solomon’s temple and as material for the construction of thrones (Warf 2014)
 * Cannabis was discovered in a tomb in Beit Shemesh where it was used for ritual and medicinal use (Zias et al. 1993)
 * Hemp fiber was discovered in Christmas Cave in the Quidron Valley (Murphy et al. 2011)
 * Cannabis in the form of a psychoactive incense was discovered in an Israelite sanctuary altar at Tel Arad dating to the 8th century BCE (Arie et al. 2020)


 * Let me know if you have any other questions. Viriditas (talk) 21:57, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

Please could you address the question of Benet as a reliable source iaw Wikipedia policy. Springnuts (talk) 22:04, 14 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I did by citing a review of the literature by Clarke & Merlin (2013), and other reviews up above as a sample. With respect, I think you are still confused. Back in 1936, there was no good evidence for cannabis use in the Near East due to a lack of investigation. Benet challenged this idea at the time and argued that the word itself appears in Jewish texts.  Over the decades, her hypothesis gained support, while some people still claimed the word cannabis referred to other plants.  Meanwhile, mainstream Jewish scholars have admitted that hemp appears in their texts, but some still deny it refers to psychoactive drugs (see for example, the Encyclopaedia Judaica, both the first and second editions). Since that time, good scientific evidence has arisen for psychoactive drug use in ancient Israel.  And that’s exactly what the current article suggests. The takeaway here, is that reliable reviews of this subject cite Benet as a reliable source. As Wikipedia editors, we aren’t making that determination. Viriditas (talk) 22:19, 14 January 2022 (UTC)


 * Also,, Benet is a reliable source quite apart from being cited by other academics, because she herself was an academic and published her work in an edited academic volume (by the publisher De Gruyter) that was edited by other academics. WP:RS states: "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses." In fact, this is the best type of source available. Even if a Wikipedia editor identified a possible flaw in the source, we would not include that in an article until another reliable source published that criticism, because doing so would be original research (which is forbidden on Wikipedia).
 * Hopefully that clarifies things. Happy to answer any other questions you might have or to hear if you feel I am misunderstanding, though apologies if it takes me a little while. Gazelle55 (talk) 00:56, 15 January 2022 (UTC)

Eucharist
The additions on the eucharist were very appropriate, thank you. Altanner1991 (talk) 13:41, 27 November 2022 (UTC)