Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Flower of Life (geometry)


 * 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. (non-admin closure) sst✈discuss 08:09, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Adding closing rationale per request on my user talk page: the article has been overhauled since the start of the AfD, including the addition of a dozen sources, but this does not affect the notability of the subject. Editors voting for deletion noted WP:SYN and WP:OR concerns, reliability of sourcing used in the article, plus the fact that the article was previously deleted in an AfD discussion. Editors voting for keep noted the sources used in the article, the expansion of the article, and how these sources bring the article above the general notability guideline. While the number of "keep" votes are certainly more than the number of "delete" votes, some "keep" votes did not present any policy-based arguments. Since both sides presented valid arguments, I closed this as no consensus, with no prejudice against speedy renomination. sst✈discuss 16:27, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Flower of Life (geometry)

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Already deleted once before because of a lack of reliable sources which actually declaim this shape as special and then recreated out-of-process (there was never a proper deletion review), this new article on the same corrupt subject suffers from even worse problems than the previous one. It promotes a non-notable fringe theory by Drunvalo Melchizadek that has received zero independent notice of the kind we require for stand-alone fringe articles. jps (talk) 13:01, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Speedy delete per G4 - I remember this one, just pure drivel that had fake citations that failed verification. —Мандичка YO 😜 13:05, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - there are plenty of sources to support this topic. If the article needs work it should be improved, not deleted. Tom Ruen (talk) 14:08, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * There is no evidence of multiple (or any) WP:RS discussing this in a manner that would make it meet WP:GNG.  —Мандичка YO 😜 14:22, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Please, if there are sources independent of Drunvalo Melchizadek that identify this figure as the "flower of life" and as notable, what are they? jps (talk) 14:51, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * (Inserted later:) A really independent source is the British newspaper "The Independent", where the name "Flower of Life" was used on Nov 6 (now ref. 15 in the article). -- Karl432 (talk) 21:44, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's a few, at least showing Melchizadek's name for this ancient symbol has stuck, and is being propagated. Tom Ruen (talk) 17:07, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Artifacts of the Flower of LifeAugust 29, 2014Marko Manninen
 * Flower of Life: 5Dzine Lesson
 * Flower of Life Design in Herod’s Palace
 * From Google books:
 * CRC Concise Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Second Edition, Eric W. Weisstein
 * Modern Esoteric: Beyond Our Senses By Brad Olsen
 * Meditation and Qigong Mastery By Ricardo B. Serrano
 * Sedona: Beyond the Vortex: The Ultimate Journey to Your Personal Place of Power By Richard Dannelley
 * Diamond Light Awareness By Iris Barkhuysen
 * Ascension Magick: Ritual, Myth & Healing for the New Aeon By Christopher Penczak
 * The Lotus and the Lily: Access the Wisdom of Buddha and Jesus to Nourish ... By Janet Conner
 * Sedona: Beyond the Vortex: The Ultimate Journey to Your Personal Place of Power By Richard Dannelley
 * Aesthetic Cognition and Symbolism: A Hermeneutic Analysis of the "Apprentice ... Doctoral dissertation, B. Marie Brady-Whitcanack, Appendix I: Melchizedek's examples of the flower of life, tree of life, golden spiral,
 * Lost Technologies of Ancient Egypt: Advanced Engineering in the Temples of ... By Christopher Dunn
 * UNIVERSAL TRUTH: Thinking outside the Box:, Book 2 By Dr. Peter C. Rogers,
 * Cosmic Connections:: Ancient Knowledge Meets Spiritual Science By Dr. Cheri St. Arnauld
 * The Map of the Psyche By Timothy R. Nuske
 * You Are a Spiritual Being Having a Human Experience By Bob Frissel
 * The Reawakening of Consciousness By Luis Miguel Falcao
 * The Devolution of Man By Loren Psaltis
 * The Grand Illusion: A Synthesis of Science and Spirituality—Book One By Brendan D. Murphy
 * Rune3Master - Into the Depths Brad Lorenz
 * Prophecy of Days - Book One by Christy Raedeke
 * Prophecy of Days - Book One by Christy Raedeke


 * Sorry, blogs don't count as RS. (One of them is partially copied from the Wikipedia entry!!) And the book only has a brief mention, hardly the in-depth coverage required. Please see WP:GNG. —Мандичка YO 😜 16:55, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm looking and see that the tilings listed at Mathworld, for example, only allow for a single instance of the "flower of life" to be considered as one pattern found at the Temple of Osiris in Abydos while other patterns (including others found at the same temple) which are explicitly mentioned in our article are declared by Mathworld to be specifically other patterns. (e.g. the Seed of Life). Making this into a redirect to the Temple article, that would be okay, I guess, but I think that this is largely the arbitrary naming scheme adopted by Weisstein for convenience sake rather than an actual name for the figure. Certainly the academic literature is devoid of reference to this tiling with this particular name. As Wikimandia points out, basically every other source is aping Drunvalo Melchizadek because they are true believers in that fellow. jps (talk) 20:09, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Your last argument is a red herring and logically incorrect too, as being a true believer does not imply "aping" Melchidazek and does not prevent somebody from producing external references (otherwise, e.g. regarding the belief of catholic Christians, the relevance of all theological literature from Augustinus to Benedict XVI could be questioned on this base). Here is another source from an (apparently) "true believer" (Ibo Bonilla), who instead of "aping", constructs sculptures 17.8m high referring to the Flower of Life, standing in a prominent place in Costa Rica:
 * -- Karl432 (talk) 12:58, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * -- Karl432 (talk) 12:58, 7 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Mathematics-related deletion discussions. North America1000 14:50, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. North America1000 14:50, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Visual arts-related deletion discussions. North America1000 14:53, 5 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Speedy delete WP:G4 due to Articles for deletion/Flower of Life (2nd nomination). Tagging it as such. J bh  Talk  18:53, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Appreciate that, but for some reason there are a number of admins who are refusing to accept the G4 rationale for reasons that are close to baffling. I'm in discussion with one right now who claims that the article is substantially different from the deleted one (it's not). Another removed the G4 notice because it the discussion you mention wasn't conclusive enough! I'm not sure exactly what's going on here, but we may with to ask for a salting or a protected redirect to the article on the Temple of Osiris if we agree to adopt Weisstein's scheme, for example. jps (talk) 20:38, 5 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed, the admins are completely failing on this one. The article has already been deleted twice this year alone, and there's nothing new, just more blog posts. I find many of the offline sources (note - no page numbers) to be very suspicious and likely taken directly from Melchizadek's book.  —Мандичка YO 😜 08:32, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * There is something new in the meanwhile, especially the use of the name in the British newspaper "The Independent" on Nov. 6 (now ref. 15 in the article). -- Karl432 (talk) 21:54, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment. A speedy deletion has been already declined for this article, so that we need to wait until the end of the 7 days period.--Ymblanter (talk) 00:50, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. The decline of the speedy deletion tag is unfortunate, but all of the unreliable-sourcing problems that caused the previous deletion are still present, and the out-of-process recreation is also a problem. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:06, 6 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep. Hello, friends, and thank you to those who've given constructive feedback. The deletionist crusade is unconscionable and embarrassing to the community. I am gratefully respectful of the detailed rationales given when citing policies about demonstrating WP:N and WP:RS.  That has been instructive and motivational, and I'm grateful for them guarding and honing our Wikipedia craft.  However, the response to this of wanting to delete it, is not.  It's an aggressive deletionist agenda.  Especially while the article is under development and the preponderance of sources may require expertise and drive to locate.  The given references already existing in the article right now (more than the minimum number required just to keep the article, if you lack a vendetta against it), already demonstrate that the figure is present across countless ancient cultures of the world.  That fact alone demonstrates a reasonable expectation that printed, and possibly old, sources exist.  And the given references in the article demonstrate that Druvalo's interpretation is only one concept, but is nonetheless widespread throughout culture, and just happens to have recently given us a handy dandy name for it. Furthermore, this is not at all the same article that once was.  It was a hot mess that I would have deleted half of.  I am a non-deletionist who routinely deletes huge amounts of articles and leaves warnings in order to save the articles. Nonetheless, I repeat that the subject's notability is already substantially demonstrated. People here within this discussion are literally saying that printed books don't exist, which were already references within the article at the time they wrote such comments yesterday.  They're saying the ones in the article don't exist, and they're replying to the list of books above to helpfully inform us that those, too, fail to exist.  If you think the sources in the article or in this thread truly fail notability, can you enumerate each one and the reason why, as per the policy of WP:RS? That would help the non-deletionists continue to improve the article about the already-notable and non-deletion-worthy subject further. And it would help to improve us as Wikipedians, as the proverbial iron sharpens iron. Even those sources which are works of fiction, serve to demonstrate the notable culture significance of Drunvalo's concept and name of "Flower of Life", let alone the other sources which demonstrate geometric principles and other things.  And they're saying if they can't find more reliable sources within a cursory scan of google while holding an agenda against doing so, then it doesn't exist and cannot exist. WP:IDONTLIKEIT WP:ICANTHEARYOU WP:NORUSH #leavebritneyalone #hakunamatata. — Smuckola(talk) 08:21, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is a fact that the geometric ornament exists, and that it is called "Flower of Life" at least by some since the 1990s, when an author from the esoteric scene attributed some properties to it which has given some popularity to it. Now, the name is found not only in the original work, but also in examples of available literature not published by the original propagator (see lists above and the references currently in the article). Thus the name exists. The references thus prove the existence of the name and the existence of the concept. The name is also e.g. used by jewellery vendors which have no direct affiliations to the scene (look e.g. at amazon.com for "flower of life" in the department "Arts, crafts and sewing"). Wikipedia's task to keep knowledge about things and concepts, including referencing judging of such concepts without judging itself, as Wikipedia does e.g. for astrology or the virginity of Mary. (Of course, an article like this is subject to changes by propagators of the esoteric beliefs and has to be watched for this.) -- Karl432 (talk) 09:21, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. I honestly don't know what you guys are on about when you guys say this shape isn't notable. Surely now that Coldplay's brought attention to the Flower of Life, you are willing to conceed that, yeah, people actually do recognize this shape as that cool thing you could do with circles. This is just getting ridiculous. :| Philip Terry Graham 11:04, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. At its current form, it is a well-sourced article about a shape and symbol that seems to exist "out there". Zezen (talk) 14:59, 7 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep. It is part of popular culture, with enough references to prove it, and to show that htis is the common name for it. It should be moved back to the unqualified title.   DGG ( talk ) 01:13, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * wants to know what's wrong with the references. Let's start with the fact you have fake references in there. For example, Ref. 9 "Sightings: The Secret of the Sphinx & Edgar Cayce", as I pointed out in the previous AfD, does NOT contain any mention whatsoever to the statement it supposedly claims to reference! Yet it was very specifically suspiciously added back into this article? That calls into question the other off-line sources. Drunvalo Melchizedek has no credentials (besides selling his services online), and he and his "followers" are not reliable sources and fail WP:FRINGE. The "source" you are using to confirm it is called this who "acknowledges" Melchizedek (Martha Bartfeld) self-published her own book! Fail fail fail WP:RS.  —Мандичка YO 😜 18:24, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I just have replaced the reference "Sightings: The Secret of the Sphinx ..." by a reliable one. Admittedly, some other references seem questionable, which only proves that the (already ongoing) work on the article is not finished yet (not uncommon for Wikipedia articles). Martha Bradfield is only referenced for the geometrical properties (which are there independent of any belief system or theories on their importance) and for having used the naming. Besides that, the subject of the article is not Melchizedek's belief system (personally, I have difficulties to name it a "theory"), but a geometrical pattern, which (as pointed out in the article) now plays a role in popular culture beyond this specific belief system. -- Karl432 (talk) 20:07, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. I wasn't asking for a reiteration of a personal agenda in the form of a weasel-worded rant with juvenile chanting, and a single belabored cherry-picked example.  I was asking for you to back your extraordinary and counter-factual claim of deletion, by examining and marking each citation.  Or else nothing at all, because I know an apology for aggressively wasting all our time is unlikely, although the community has conclusively proven that you were wrong.  Doubling down on wrong upon wrong isn't working. If you were to do the civil thing, by actually labeling them here or marking the inline citations with the appropriate tags such as ,  , then that would be an encyclopedic contribution. And it would be appreciated because this isn't the easiest thing in the world. It sure isn't as easy as throwing rocks from AfD. Instead, the fact that you weaselword the objective facts with "suspiciousness" instead of making any analysis (policy-based) is unencyclopedic and the opposite of WP:AGF. That is just community abuse. If this article was a person, then that plus the repeatedly egregious deletionism would constitute WP:NPA. This is like barratry, just abusing the blatantly unpoliced deletion process as a personal weapon for WP:IDONTLIKEIT. So if there's no neutrally and encyclopedically policy-driven piece-by-piece evaluation of proposed sources, then please just disregard. Thank you. — Smuckola(talk) 06:06, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep. There have been three phases in the evolution of the subject. Firstly we had multiple occurrences on/as historical artefacts. These are probably unlinked with likely different meanings. Then New Age author Melchizedek took a shine to this symbol, gave it a catchy name and imbued it with doubtful mysticism. The third phase has been the subsequent 15 years or so when it escaped into the wild and there have been widespread appearances of this pattern in popular culture, fashion, jewellery etc. mostly with the appellation 'Flower of Life'. To take just one example, a Google search for "Flower of Life" produces pages of products of this pattern and with this name. What we have now is a widely used definitive geometric pattern with a generally accepted name. Oh, and before I forget, there are enough sources out there to meet WP:GNG. Yes, the article and a number of the references are flawed but this is progressively being fixed and meanwhile per WP:NEXIST the deficiencies, some of which are highlighted in this discussion, are not grounds for deletion. Just Chilling (talk) 01:09, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep - this article could really use improvement, but I don't see how the sources found don't show notability. Bearian (talk) 19:59, 10 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment There is a bit of Synthesis, and OR, and cultural appropriation going on in the article, but there isn't any doubt that the motif that the article describes does exist. But what is the motif? My main issue is with the article's title "Flower of Life" - the article states that it was "coined in the 1990s". This motif, if it has antiquity and has spread amongst many cultures, one would suppose had a name before that, probably several names. There is also what I would call gross ignorance on display in that coining. This pattern is actually composed entirely of compass points / arcs, i.e. it is all construction lines. In that form it exists a preliminary underlying stage (a framework) for the creation/construction of more complicated interlace patterns. See for example pages 120-122 of "Islamic Patterns, an analytical and Cosmological Approach" by Keith Critchlow (from 1976, long before the name "Flower of Live" was coined). Critchlow does not give a name for this motif, because for him it is simply the preliminary laying out phase for constructing more complicated patterns. So there is a question in my mind about whether historically it ever existed as an actual standalone object. Any historical objects might just be practice exercises of the preliminary stage required for the production of more complicated geometric motifs. and since most modern-day viewers would not understand how those more complicated motifs were constructed, they do not realise that this "Flower of Life" is nothing more than layout lines. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:03, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Your comment seems to express a nominalistic view, while e.g. I adhere more to Philosophical realism (see Problem of universals for the philosophical problem). Therefore I claim that a "Flower of Life" pattern can "exist as as standalone object" even when not named or even perceived as an entity by a conscious mind. As Wikipedia requests relevance of things rather than the relevance of names, a "bad naming" of a thing (e.g. a naming derived from "gross ignorance") is no counter argument against relevance of the thing if this is perceived now. Moreover, I am not convinced of your claim "if [anything] has antiquity and has spread amongst many cultures, one would suppose [it has] a name" – this is a linguistic theory but not a fact. Thus, I regard your arguments as hints to improve the article, but not against keeping. -- Karl432 (talk) 22:59, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah. Aren't you just describing what a geometrical form is, as distinct from what a physical product is?  I mean this *is* geometry.  So I believe it's as obvious as you say. — Smuckola(talk) 07:24, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * And this thing is clearly an ICBM; here is one being launched: . Just because a thing superficially looks the same does not mean it is the same! All the alleged historical precedents presented in the article are just fringe. I don't know whether it is OR fringe, or comes from sources that mention the subject. If the article is kept that content will need to be removed if it is OR, or if from sources will need to be rewritten to make it clear these identifications are just the opinion of non-expert sources. I've yet to see any archaeological or art history source cited that uses the term "Flower of Life". Have yet to vote because I have yet to decide if the subject is notable enough for an article. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 00:58, 13 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Those examples are exact objects, not forms. So that's another non-sequitur. We're saying that these objects are ancient by all sources and they do obviously match these forms, which doesn't need any more citation than to say that the sky is WP:BLUE. — Smuckola(talk) 07:24, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Keep - All though for some it may seem fringe or syn, there are lot of resources available and even documentaries made on this! and also for all the above reason sake! Shrikanthv (talk) 06:39, 13 November 2015 (UTC)


 * 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.