Talk:Soul retrieval

Notability
On 8 May 2014, administrator JzG, now signing as Guy, redirected this article to Robert Monroe without discussion, stating No evidence of independent significance. I believe that that issue needs discussion, as apparently does Xoloz with this edit, which removed a "prod". If JzG, or another editor, believes that this concept is not notable, then a fuller discussion opportunity is available at Afd. --Bejnar (talk) 00:31, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * It's an editorial decision that does not require any independent debate. As I said, the article has no sources establishing notability independent of its originator. And of course it's also patent nonsense, which means we have to be very careful not to give it undue weight. Guy (Help!) 10:48, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I respect Guy's opinion that Soul retrieval has not the material for a article of its own, although I might disagree with it. Nonetheless, while it is bold to redirect an article of some 2,716 bytes after another editor, in removing a prod has said: I'm sympathetic to the claim that this topic is loony. That is irrelevant. If the article is sourced, and a sufficient number of people advocate for it, it *might* be notable); take to AfD if you wish as did Xoloz with this edit, however,it is not in the spirit of Wikipedia:Consensus to do so a second time after a third editor has stated with his restorative edit: please discuss at Afd before removing article, and initiated discussion on this talk page, as I did. I see that Guy responded on this page that Guy's edit was a mere editorial decision. But that conclusion does not appear to be a consensus one.  I have no fear that a simple Afd would reach the correct decision with regard to notability, content and any questions of undue emphasis. But I believe that when parties disagree, discussion is appropriate, and the Afd venue will provide scope for that discussion. I hope that Guy will consider this and restore the content so that an Afd may be conducted. --Bejnar (talk) 18:45, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't we redirect to an article that has a section on the term...or at least uses it. It seems useless and confusing to simply redirect to what one editor, familiar with and disdainful of the subject feels is related, rather than to an article that at least uses the term in context and might allow a reader new to the subject to feel that they have learned something. Rather than redirect to a page that explains nothing to the novice, shouldn't we at least explain the term and then list related articles?71.235.31.212 (talk) 00:53, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

One person
Administrator Guy has indicated that the subject matter of this article has no existence outside of the scope of the Robert Monroe article. This may be slightly disingenuous as Guy initiated the afd for the Sandra Ingerman article in which article the claim was made that Sandra Ingerman was a proponent of "soul retrieval", although I do not believe that there was an inline citation for that section of the now-correctly-deleted article, so to the extent that Guy was only talking about citation to sources, Guy would be correct. However, to the best of my knowledge search for those sources was not made, as it was not key to Sandra Ingerman's lack of notability. Jack Raso at Quackwatch has defined "soul retrieval" as a ''Form of spiritual healing promoted by Sandra Ingerman, M.A., and Christina Pratt. In soul retrieval, the shamanic healer purportedly "journeys" to "other realms" to retrieve the client's "soul parts" and restore the client's "vital lifeforce."'' here. I do not know if Guy would consider Quackwatch a reliable source or not (see discussion at Talk:Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine for example), but no mention is made of Robert Monroe in that definition. I also note the following book: --Bejnar (talk) 18:45, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Relation to other practices
The follow quote from a fringe group is suggestive of where looking into academic research of these fringe beliefs might yield reliable sources. ''A number of spiritual practices – in addition to Dianetics and Karol Truman’s modality in Feelings Buried Alive Never Die – agree that the body can heal itself once the energetic disruption from a traumatic event is discharged. How this is achieved is where there may be some major differences.'' Quoted from here.

Undue weight
I agree that with patent nonsense, and fringe theories, that we have to be very careful not to give them undue weight. Nonetheless, where notable, they should be accorded the weight of their notability. See, e.g., the List of topics characterized as pseudoscience. Wikipedia needs to document the foibles of mankind as well as its successes. --Bejnar (talk) 18:45, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * This applies where they have significant currency outside their inventors (or a tiny number of proponents). This does not. There seems to be a walled garden of articles related to "shamanic healing" of which this was one. I don't mind sending it there instead, but it's clear from the Quackwatch page that this is a very minor practice.
 * Look at the cited sources:
 * Bruce Moen, "Afterlife Knowledge Guidebook: A Manual for the Art of Retrieval and Afterlife Exploration"; ISBN 978-1-57174-450-0
 * Robert Monroe, "Ultimate Journey" p110+; ISBN 0-385-47208-0
 * Recording of The Patrick Event
 * Rosalind McKnight, "Cosmic Journeys: My Out of Body Explorations with Robert Monroe", Chapter 21: The Patrick Event; ISBN 978-1-57174-123-3
 * So two of these are related to a single claimed event, none of the three sources is actually reliable (they promote rather than explore these crazy ideas) and the coverage within them is small apart from the Monroe book. This really does not look like a subject that we can cover properly without sources that discuss the validity of the idea and which critically examine the claims of proponents. Guy (Help!) 19:00, 18 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It seems that "shamanic healing" may have appropriated this term and theory from the larger body of new-age spirituality. See Relation to other practices above. The investigation of fringe spiritual theories seems to be fraught with unreliability, probably because of the falsifiability issues and application of scientific theory outside of a scientific sphere. Even hard-headed John W. Campbell was initially taken in by Hubbard's exposition of Dianetics (Campbell later attacked Dianetics). I do not believe that the existing (or rather former) article here is a decent representation of the literature, either promotional or otherwise, as I mentioned in the section One person above. Improvement of the article, and any broadening that library research may suggest, is not currently possible. If a redirect is necessary, the target needs to be broader than Robert Monroe. --Bejnar (talk) 19:37, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I whole heatedly concur. Just because the article is a stub once reference to a niche interest is removed, does not mean that all interst in the term is served by pointing towards that niche. The fact that Robert Monroe has self-purported authority on the subject, by no means gives him ownership. The fact that I widely and vocally claim to be the ultimate authority on Elvis Presley dosen't grant me copywrite, and if my authority on the subject is shown to be false or only accepted by a small circle, we don't direct all questions concerning the King to a greater discussion of my particular theories! We don't do that even if one of my supporters had filled half the Elvis article with citations of my work, we simply limit my influence on the topic of broader interest-we cut down or remove the section on my theory! This was, at one point, an article on a practice long predating Monroe and a much broader subject than it's place in his work. By making this Heading a redirect to Robert Monroe we are only supporting the infection that began when Monroe's work grew from one sentence, to half the article. Even if we were to credit coining of the phrase to Monroe (I'd need to see evidence of this) he uses it to refer to practices written about extensively by Carl Jung, among others-a man who seemingly disagrees almost entirely with Monroe's New Age interepritation and has indeed written entire books on the subject that, (if I recall correctly), make no mention of subjects like reincarnation. If Monroe has indeed popularized a label, he still doesn't own that which it referrs to! Not to mention the fact that outside of his usage, the phrase appears to have wide spread use in various shamanistic comunities FOR A BROADER SUBJECT, that has little, if anything, to do with the use to which Monroe applied it.71.235.31.212 (talk) 21:02, 22 February 2015 (UTC)