Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kundalini syndrome


 * 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   redirect to Kundalini. Consensus is that this isn't suitable for inclusion as an article topic. The question is whether some content should be merged to Kundalini, as some propose. I'll handle this as a suspended "delete" outcome: this is now closed as a redirect, but if after a few months no content has been merged from the history (and has by consensus remained in the target article), the outcome of this discussion is "delete" and the redirect can be nominated for speedy deletion with reference to this discussion. Otherwise the outcome remains "redirect and merge".  Sandstein  11:48, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Kundalini syndrome

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Only attested to by true believers and therefore fails our notability policy per WP:FRIND. There has been absolutely NO notice of this "syndrome" outside of the community of true-believers in the existence of the kundalini. jps (talk) 18:25, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom, and WP:GNG as well - so little notice outside the ranks of the believers I can't even find a debunking. WegianWarrior (talk) 18:55, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge per Logos - Concept has been appropriately described in many reliable citations.(e.g. ----) Bladesmulti (talk) 19:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete I thought it could be saved and turned into a very small article that basically explains what it purports to be and then how it's viewed in independent RS's but there are no independent RS's I can find.  A simple Google search and I got 10 pages of nonsense and gave up.  A Google scholar search just brought up books and papers by true believers from the dodgiest journals imaginable. Capeo (talk) 19:03, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Hinduism-related deletion discussions
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletion discussions.
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Philosophy-related deletion discussions.


 * Keep - May need some more cleaning though, but subject is notable with over 700 searches on Google books and over 35,000 in Bing. Delibzr (talk) 19:21, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment Haven't read all those lines, but seems like WP:REDUNDANTFORK, to me. Kundalini article mentions the "syndrome" as well. Anything useful/valuable can be merged to Kundalini. Logos (talk) 19:50, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Given that notability is highly due to Kundalini - the main concept and this kind of syndrome has multiple meanings. Of course it is because of Kundalini that these terms have been invented. Merging is a good suggestion and I must include it as my vote. Bladesmulti (talk) 20:00, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Wow. That article is a credulous mess too and again treats Kundalini energy as though it's a real thing.  And it's even more reason to delete the one under discussion. Capeo (talk) 19:56, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete. A fringe theory not clearly identified as such is sure to mislead the readers. The cited articles masquerading as reliable sources are not reliable at all. --Ghirla-трёп- 09:44, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * AFD is not for cleanup or re-write. From where you have confirmed it? Including those,- are all reliable. Read RS and deletion policy more carefully. Bladesmulti (talk) 09:58, 10 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete. Lacks notability. Junk. Alexbrn talk 12:32, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Kundalini. No concerns about its notability, much of its content is taken from Kundalini. Instead Kundalini can be expanded. Noteswork (talk) 12:55, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Please read the articles talk page under the heading: Considerations for using the term "Kundalini Syndrome". The notability issue has been discussed earlier.--Hawol (talk) 14:59, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
 * You are talking about this discussion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kundalini_syndrome#Considerations_for_using_the_term_.22Kundalini_Syndrome.22. ? You can still expand Kundalini. Noteswork (talk) 15:16, 10 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment on notability and credibility. Since there is debate about the credibility of the concept of "kundalini syndrome", and its notability, I will provide an overview which shows where the concept is coming from. The terminology is, in fact, represented in the PubMed database, however sparsely. A search for the term "Physio-Kundalini syndrome" produces 1 result (  [PubMed]). A search for the term "Kundalini" produces 26 results. The summary below does not make any specifications regarding the authors ontological position towards the subject, it only locates where the discussion is taking place. For other considerations regarding the credibility, notability and ontology of the topic, see the articles Talk-page (Talk:Kundalini_syndrome) under the heading: "Considerations for using the term "Kundalini Syndrome". The concept of "Physio-Kundalini syndrome", "Kundalini syndrome" or the understanding of Kundalini phenomena as a "syndrome", is discussed in a number of publications. Many of these publications are situated within the fields of Transpersonal psychology and Near-death studies, while the rest are situated within the fields of psychology, mental health, religious studies and parapsychology. (Please follow the wiki-links to get a source-critical feel for the publications orientation). They include: International Journal of Culture and Mental Health (Paradkar & Chaturvedi, 2010), Journal of Near-death studies (Ring & Rosing, 1990; Prosnick & Evans, 2003), Journal of Religion and Health (Greyson, 1993), Journal of Transpersonal Psychology (Greyson, 1993; Greyson, 2000), Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research (Thalbourne & Fox, 1999), Mental Health, Religion & Culture (Valanciute & Thampy, 2011) and Psychological Reports (Thalbourne, 2001). There is also a very brief mention of the concept in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (Le Fanu, 2002) where the author discusses medical mystery syndromes. Transpersonal writers Grof and Grof (Jeremy P. Tarcher Inc./Perigee, 1989: page 15) and Sovatsky (State University of New York Press, 1998: page 180) also use the term "syndrome", but usually prefer other terminology. The concept of Kundalini-problems, or kundalini-phenomena in a clinical context, is mentioned in the following publications: Journal of Humanistic Psychology (Johnson & Friedman, 2008), Journal of Transpersonal Psychology (Waldman, 1992;  Ossoff, 1993; Jerry, 2003), Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (Turner, Lukoff, Barnhouse & Lu, 1995), Psychiatric Clinics of North America (Lukoff, Lu & Turner, 1995), The Humanistic Psychologist (Bynum, 1996; Elmer, MacDonald & Friedman, 2003) and Transpersonal Psychology review (Sanchez and Daniels, 2008). Clinical issues are also discussed in books by transpersonal authors Kason (Harper Collins, 1994) and Scotton (Basic Books, 1996). Vernon-Johnson (2004), representing the field of psychotherapy, discusses the issue in  a doctoral dissertation from Pennsylvania State University Graduate School. One of the most recent publications to mention kundalini in a clinical context is the book Spirituality and Psychiatry (see chapter 11: Read and Crowley, 2009), published by RCPsych Publications, an imprint of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. There is also a brief mention in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry (Grabovac & Ganesan, 2003) where the authors present a proposal for an academic lecture series on religion and spirituality in Canadian Psychiatric Residency Training (see Table 3). I guess some of these publications are considered to be less mainstream, while others are considered to be more mainstream. Anyway, all the journals listed are (as far as I know) peer-reviewed journals. I do not consider any of the less mainstream publications to be fringe-publications (see Fringe science), but other editors may of course disagree with me on this. It is beyond the scope of this comment to discuss the credibility of Transpersonal psychology, Near-death studies and Parapsychology. I leave that to the individual wiki-articles on those fields. I agree that the terminology of "syndrome" seems to be less pronounced than other terminologies, such as "awakening" or "experience", in the literature. The question is wether to keep the terminology of "syndrome" or if the topic should be merged into the main kundalini-article with the emphasis on another terminology, such as "kundalini awakening" or "kundalini experience". I leave that decision to the continuing debate.--Hawol (talk) 12:52, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete. Google hit counts are irrelevant, of course. It lacks independent sources; it is a POV fork promoting notions that haven't a chance of being retained in the main article. bobrayner (talk) 13:18, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete or possibly userfy or move to draft space. Some of the journals mentioned above look like they might be sufficient for notability, but they may also be biased toward the woo side and without outside non-woo coverage the article would be unbalanced by default. If it were to be moved to userspace or draftspace though, I do think that there would be no reason not to merge any possible reasonable content into the existing Kundalini article, which apparently is a bit of a mess in the short term, and revisit deletion of the draft/userspace page in a few months if a reasonable article can't be cobbled together in that time. John Carter (talk) 18:07, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge / Redirect. Reported by some journals and books, it is hardly very large to be written especially in balance. After it is already noted on existing Kundalini, just a redirect would be enough. VandVictory (talk) 02:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Merge There are valid references as already presented. It is not promotional or copyvio, does not require to be purged entirely. Unique content should be merged into Kundalini. --AmritasyaPutra T 05:26, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Comment. Just one more observation that might help put the matter more into focus, and maybe make it a little less suspect. Before I make the comment I would like to emphasize that my framework here is phenomenology, not ontology. There is a lot that can be said about the phenomenology of "kundalini syndrome" without invoking ontological viewpoints. I would also like to emphasize that Kundalini, first of all, is a cultural/spiritual concept, not a psychiatric category. However, in this particular context, via the language of syndrome, a small part of the concept of Kundalini becomes linked to psychiatry. I agree that "Kundalini syndrome" is a marginal phenomenon, on the borders of culture and science, but the lesson from Cross-cultural psychiatry and Medical Anthropology has taught us that mainstream medicine, in some instances, observes these syndromes with a new kind of sensitivity. In 1994 the American Psychiatric Association published the the fourth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-IV. In the manual they included a "Glossary of Culture-Bound Syndromes" and an "Outline for Cultural Formulation". The glossary listed several cultural syndromes. A few of the syndromes even bear some resemblance to our subject matter at hand. The "Kundalini syndrome" is not included in the glossary. However, the DSM-IV did include a new diagnostic category named "Religious or Spiritual Problem (V-Code 62.89). The proposal for this new category was initiated by clinicians associated with Transpersonal psychology who suggested the term "Psychoreligious or Psychospiritual Problem". It was submitted to the Task Force on DSM-IV in 1991, and approved in 1993 after changing its title to "Religious or Spiritual Problem". The particular spiritual problems of the 62.89-code are not identified by the DSM-text. However, in 1995 the authors published an elaboration of their work in the psychiatric journals Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease (Turner, Lukoff, Barnhouse, Lu, 1995), and The Psychiatric Clinics of North America (Lukoff, Lu, Turner; 1995). In these articles they describe "kundalini awakening" in a clinical language,  and as a phenomena that (in some instances... I guess) can be conceptualized as a spiritual problem. Therefore, we see that the language of "kundalini" was part of psychiatric discourse already in 1995, however brief and marginally. --Hawol (talk) 16:55, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete: Complete and utter lack of substantial coverage in multiple reliable independent secondary sources with no verifiable existence whatsoever in the real world. Written entirely using unreliable fringe sources, it can be deleted in its entirety. Nothing worth merging or saving. It's all basically non-encyclopedic blither of the worst sort. If anything, redirect to main article, but do not merge content. Better yet, salt. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 17:22, 13 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete - This articles fails the general notability guideline and lacks significant coverage in reliable sources. — CutestPenguinHangout 12:30, 15 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Merge. At this point, if the article does not qualify as a separate article, I would have to say merge. My suggestion is to integrate the terminology of "syndrome" under the existing heading called Psychiatry (in the main Kundalini-article). I believe that is where it belongs. Several of the clinical references can also be integrated under that heading. That said, I believe that the main Kundalini-article does need quite a bit of rehabilitation. It still includes a lot of "cut and paste"-editing, relying too much on direct quotes. This material could be rewritten as sourced original prose, giving the article a more fluent style. The article could also benefit from a source-critical rehabilitation. It needs more academic references.--Hawol (talk) 16:10, 15 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete No coverage in independent reliable sources, thus nothing reliably sourced to merge. No evidence for notability. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:42, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom, needs more reliable sources to meet our WP:GNG.--Crystallizedcarbon (talk) 09:08, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Redirect Article is somewhat inaccurate and the references are not even linked. Should be redirected to Kundalini, the term "Kundalini syndrome" seems circulated enough for that. SamuelDay1 (talk) 09:32, 17 January 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.