Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Prem Rawat 6
Case Closure
[edit]Based on the advice of the Mediation Committee, this case will close. The mediation broke down after a party demanded a change in mediator, alleging that the mediator had misinterpreted content policy [he might equivocate with WP:OR] mistakenly and then maliciously. The committee did not agree that such a change was warranted. As a result MedCom is considering referring the case to ArbCom.
For the Mediation Committee
Seddon talk|WikimediaUK 11:20, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
- Actually I didn't "demand a change in mediator", I "asked for a change of mediator as per - Requests for a change of mediator under the second condition should be submitted stating precisely why the mediator is not performing satisfactorily". And I did so because a) Seddon contravened WP:OR by claiming in his second post that a source supports a position that it does not and was "an analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not advanced by the source", [1] b) when I pointed this out to him he didn't correct it [2] and c) when I directly asked him to address my concern he didn't reply.[3] The error is bad enough but to ignore someone's sincere concern when directly asked for a response is extraordinary behaviour for a mediator. I concluded my email to MED:COM with "In conclusion, I am not interested in being a part of a mediation where the mediator makes such a fundamental error and then ignores discussing it when raised".Momento (talk) 22:44, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
- Even though the editors on the article page in question don't agree with you, and the entire medcom committee didn't agree with your policy interpretation either. I guess it's off to ArbCom, not unexpected. -- Maelefique(talk) 00:16, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- I'm surprised to find out that all the editors on the talk page think Seddon shouldn't reply to me, particularly when I asked him to?Momento (talk) 03:24, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- I would be too. -- Maelefique(talk) 05:31, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- Well, I didn't make a comment about the non-response of Seddon to Momento either way, so saying "all" isn't correct, Momento. I've been busy so I hadn't written anything on this page, although I was reading it. That said, I'm disappointed with this outcome because the mediation was cancelled before it barely got off the ground. I thought that it would take some time for Seddon (or any mediator) to get up to speed on this article (given the contentiousness of many issues) so I don't see what the hurry was to wait for a response. I also was encouraged by Seddon's ability to cut through the opinionated comments that have no bearing on the direct issue of this edit. But, I still don't see the necessity of arguing the point of whether or note Rawat actually said the words "I am God." He never said those words that I know of, but he certainly promoted himself as a God in a Bod. I think this is an issue that will never be resolved due to the lack of secondary sources that support adherants' position on this. Oh well, par for the course, I guess. Hope everyone's well otherwise. Sylviecyn (talk) 16:07, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- I was commenting on Maelefique's claim that "the editors on the article page don't agree with me"! He didn't say "some" or "most", which was why I was surprised he would say such a thing since it clearly isn't true. Once again I am blamed for someone else's error.Momento (talk) 23:11, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- I would be too. -- Maelefique(talk) 05:31, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
- Once again, you're mistaken. If you had read the entire sentence (much like policy pages) you would see I was talking about your interpretation of WP:OR which you keep mentioning. Nothing to do with Seddon at all. Never has been. Once again, <everyone can finish their own sentence here>.
- And Sylvie, there was only the smallest chance that anything less than ArbCom was ever going to solve this issue, it's just a mandatory step on the way, it's all part of the process, so don't be too disappointed. -- Maelefique(talk) 02:34, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
- I'm quite disappointed because Seddon was being impartial and was assuming good faith of everyone here. He was interpreting Wiki policies correctly, imo. It takes anyone significant time to get up to snuff on the Rawat articles and I expected that Seddon would need to do that, too. There was never any urgency to resolve the edit that brought us here. One editor took it upon himself to contact the committee requesting a change of mediator, when the process had only just begun. While the mediation guidelines allow for that type of request via private email, I believe Momento usurped this whole process, again. I was being patient until the issue was resolved. Now it's gonna take even longer. I was part of the last two ARBCOMs and I remember those findings well. But, since it's a gorgeous spring day here in Vermont, I'm going outside to enjoy it! Be well and see you in the next phase. :) Sylviecyn (talk) 14:58, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
- Now I am confused. Since no editor has commented on my "interpretation" of Seddon, how can you know they don't agree with me.Momento (talk) 09:36, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
- I don't agree with you.PatW (talk) 19:11, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
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| The actual mediation proceedings are on the talk page attached to this request. Please do not modify those discussions or this page. |
Now what?[edit]Sooo... what happens now? -- Maelefique(talk) 23:08, 26 April 2012 (UTC) Lets get underway[edit]Sorry for the delay in getting this underway. RL creeps up on you in strange ways. I have been reading over the somewhat failed RFC and this request and it seems pretty clear what the issues are so rather than getting bogged down into asking peoples opinions of what the issue is here I would like to just get stuck in and see what the issues here are. So based on the request page the questions we need to answer are:
Since this mediation and all editing on the project has to follow the projects rules on sourcing as well as that preferably our sourcing should be from secondary sources and free from interpretation, what we need is secondary sources claiming that Prem Rawat has at some point said he was god. If such sources exist then they in all likelihood deserve a place within this article. However, if such sources do not exist, then wikipedia is in no place to make such claims. Subsequently if there are then counter-sources, that refute such claims, what we have their is to some degree a "controversy". Currently in the text I don't see anything on him claiming to be god himself, are their diffs that I could look over? In summary we need sources that state Rawat claimed to be god or that he made such claims and they were false. Do we reckon this is possible? Remember that wikipedia is effectively here to report what others have said, not to make our own judgements. Seddon talk|WikimediaUK 13:34, 30 April 2012 (UTC)
Secondary Sources list of "God Claims"/"God Denials" and published discussion of either[edit]1) Melton,Gordon - Encyclopedic handbook of cults in America, p. 220, "Finally, without public announcement, in the early 1980s, Maharaj Ji ordered all of the ashrams disbanded, though local informal gatherings (primarily in members' homes) were not discouraged. Maharaj Ji was no longer to be venerated as God."
2) Preface, And It Is Divine (DLM Newsletter/booklet published through the 70s and 80s) - "Dear Reader, By the grace of Almighty Lord, we bring you the magazine And It Is Divine. You will find this magazine very different from others, because it shows not only the suffering of the world, but also a way out for all humanity. 'There has never been a time when the Lord of Creation did not manifest Himself in human form, and come to this planet Earth to do away with evil and spread the True Knowledge." 3) The New York Times, April 8, 1973 "The Delhi headquarters of the Divine Light Mission is like a fortress: an 8-foot-high wall with an iron-grilled gate encloses a courtyard and a complex of buildings consisting of offices, reception rooms, kitchen, refectory, dormitories, a temple and the residential Suite of Balyogeshwar, the Child God"
4) GREAT BEND TRIBUNE, Great Bend, Kansas Sunday, September 23, 1973 - EDITOR's NOTE: To a swelling number of followers, Guru Maharaj Ji is the "Perfect Master". 'Some even call him God.' But to others, he is a pudgy, 15-year-old business titan who processes his disciples through a personnel department and keeps track of them with a computer. Here is a look at the guru and his mushrooming missionary corporation. 5) MALCOLM N. CARTER Associated Press Page A6 THE STARS AND STRIPES, Sunday, November 4, 1973 THEN CAME the guru with a promised path to inner serenity and an answer to life's great questions. To his fervid followers, he is God himself. 6) Collier, Sophia, Soul Rush, p. 122 "As the Mahatma said in my Knowledge session, "To me, Guru Maharaj Ji is my divine father ... he is the Lord himself standing on the earth.""
7) Time Magazine, Apr. 28, 1975, Religion: One Lord Too Many, "He may look like just another plump, pubescent lad, but the 17-year-old Guru Maharaj Ji is worshiped as the "Lord of the Universe" by devotees* of the Divine Light Mission in many countries round the world." 8) Lans, Jan van der and Frans Derks, "Premies Versus Sannyasins" in "Update: A Quarterly Journal on New Religious Movements", X/2 (June 1986) "DLM and Rajneeshism are comparable in that in both, the Indian guru is the central object of devotion. While in the Christian tradition the spiritual master is only an intermediate between the individual and God, standing outside their personal relation, in both these new religious movements the devotee's relation with the guru is considered identical to his relation with God. The guru is accepted as the manifestation and personification of God. His request for total surrender and complete trust is grounded in his claim of ultimate authority derived from his godliness.'" 9) Downton, Sacred Journeys. "During 1971, there were social forces encouraging the development of millenarian beliefs within the Mission. They were developed in part by the carryover of millennial thinking from the counterculture; by the psychological trappings of surrender and idealization; by the guru's mother, whose satsang was full of references to his divine nature; and partly by the guru, himself, for letting others cast him in the role of the Lord."
10) Rolling Stone Magazine, Issue 145 - Oct. 11, 1973 - "Perfect Master On the Ropes?", "Our informant told us that the teenaged Holy Person may, in fact, finally reveal to the world who he actually is. Some of us have speculated on the possibility that he may announce flat-out that he is God. Others feel that this may be presumptuous in a 15-year-old and point out that Jesus didn't announce until he was 30. A consensus opinion is that the guru will opt for an interim status such as Son of God, or Chosen Speaker. A viable alternative involves various reincarnations: Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha or some cosmic combination." 11) Vogue magazine, Ken Kelley, March 1974, "An East Indian Teen-Ager Says He Is God", "Shunning the austere, simple life of traditional godheads, he has decided to make the best of his self-proclaimed divinity. ... "Last time around the Messiah came as a beggar," says Rennie Davis. "This time he's come as a King!"
12) Playboy Magazine, Robert Sheer, June 1974, "Death of a Salesman", "God, alive and walking around on the planet, the source of all creation, here now, with a plan to end all poverty, racism, sexism and other suffering." (referring to Maharaj Ji) 13) Los Angeles Times, Robert Sheer, April 1, 1977, "How I was Stood up By The Venusians", "However, there was one time when I got to cover God and experienced the full rapture of tens of thousands of believers cast suddenly into his presence here on Earth. That was at a weeklong encampment at the Houston Astrodome in 1973, when God appeared as a chubby and giggly 13-year-old Indian named Guru Mahara Ji"
14) Radio interview with Bob Mishler, Radio Station KOA, Denver, Feb 12, 1979, "I had persuaded him to see that he was going to lose his popularity and ability to do any good at all in this country, if he became a cult leader. If he continued to allow his devotees to believe that he was God, that was inevitable. He agreed, and we started de-programming our own membership and telling them to see Maharaji as only a human being who had a great concern for humanity."
15) Sociological Analysis Vol. 39 No. 2 by Association for the Sociology of Religion, Foss & Larkin, "Worshiping the Absurd: The Negation of Social Causality among the Followers of Guru Maharaj Ji", "Thus, divested of the necessity of making sense out of the material world, they could accommodate themselves to the resurgence of dominant institutions by conforming in the name of Guru Maharaj Ji for the purposes of spreading his Knowledge of the universal Truth which could only known through the worshiping of a God who made no sense." 16) Messer, Jeanne, "Guru Maharaj Ji and the Divine Light Mission" in The New Religious Consciousness by Charles Y. Glock and Robert N. Bellah, 1976, p.52-72 "For Maharaj Ji's devotees, fixed referents begin to dissolve as they practice meditation. New initiates are caught up in the same dogmatic and philosophical questions that most of us are. "Who is Guru Maharaj Ji?" is answered in terms of new cosmologies designed to fit this young man into the universe, into history, and into the major religions as well as one's own experience and philosophy. Common answers from new initiates, for example, are that Guru Maharaj Ji is Christ, that Christ has been on the earth many times, as Jesus, as Buddha, as Mohammed, as Krishna, or that Christ has always been on the earth (this inferred from Guru Maharaj Ji's assertion that there is always a Perfect Master on the earth). Others assert that he is God himself, but still others that he is simply a guru, of whom there are many, with remarkable power."
17) Carrol Stoner and Jo Anne Parke, "All Gods Children: The Cult Experience - Salvation Or Slavery?", 1977, p. 77, "Premies learn that their guru is a messiah in a direct line of Perfect Masters that includes Jesus Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, Lord Krishna, Shri Hans (the young guru's late father), and the guru himself. The issue of conflict between Divine Light teachings and Christianity or Judaism is seen in the answer to a premie's question: "Just who is the Guru Maharaj Ji?" The answer often given by other premies is, "The Guru Maharaj Ji is God."
18) Charles Cameron, "Who is Guru Maharaj Ji?", 1973, back cover "Why do more than six million people around the world claim he is the greatest incarnation of God that ever trod the face of this planet?" -- Maelefique(talk) 05:24, 4 May 2012 (UTC) from Collier, Sophia, Soul Rush - back cover: ""Guru Maharaj Ji, though he has never made a definitive statement on his own opinion of his own divinity, generally encourages whatever view is held by the people he is with. Addressing several hundred thousand ecstatic Indian devotees, prepared for his message by a four-thousand-year cultural tradition, he declares, 'I am the source of peace in this world ... surrender the reins of your life unto me and I will give you salvation.' On national television in the United States he says sheepishly, with his hands folded in his lap, 'I am just a humble servant of God.'"" PatW (talk) 08:59, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
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Seddon, do you need more secondary sources than that? I can keep adding them if needed, but if the point is already made, I won't bother listing additional ones, let me know please. tnx.-- Maelefique(talk) 15:18, 3 May 2012 (UTC) Taking a step back for the moment :)[edit]Lets just take this a step at a time ok guys. I am glad this discussion is happening, this is genuinely constuctive in parts and it is something that needs to happen. Lets just try and extend to everyone a good amount of good faith, attacks veiled or otherwise will make this process more painful for everyone. I have cut a load of the discussion that's not on topic or useful to anyone. Please if you see me do this, don't revert me. Its just to keep things focused. I hadn't responded previously because I was giving time for people to post. If you could give me 24 hours to read through and mull over what's been said If people have more secondary sources that they feel give an opinion of one side or another then please post them in the above section. Lets keep the commenting on the references down to zero for the moment. Also I will be posting some questions in the next few days that I would like people to ask. When I do, please do not comment on other peoples responses, nor use your responses as rebuttals to others. It's important for me to gauge where people stand.
I agree that's what we should be doing here. If I read that correctly, you'd like more secondary sources if possible, so I will add a few more. Thanks for helping to keep us focused, I have no problem with you trimming irrelevant text, it's easy to wander off into "discussion" that's off-point at times. -- Maelefique(talk) 00:26, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
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