Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development

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 Keep (non-admin closure), as notability has been confirmed by this discussion. Ecoleetage (talk) 02:15, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rudolf Steiner's exercises for spiritual development

These exercises have not received notice outside of the anthroposophy community. Therefore they can not be independently sourced and that calls their notability into question. The entire article seems to be an explicit violation of Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Waldorf_education#Waldorf education and related articles placed on probation since it does not have any outside sources and only contains anthroposophy propaganda. See WP:SOAP and WP:ADVERT. ScienceApologist (talk) 20:46, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: there are 6 reliable sources referenced in this article which are published in non-anthroposophy related publications in accordance with the arbitration ruling. Therefore it is properly sourced and notable. The article factually describes meditative exercises but doesn't mention, let alone promote, any practitioner, teacher or group who could gain from this description, so it is not an advertisement or WP:SPAM. It describes the exercises in a neutral way as presented in the cited sources; the descriptions are not detailed enough to put into practice, so it is not self-promotion or advertisement. --EPadmirateur (talk) 22:09, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- This is accurate; all of the references are to independent sources. Hgilbert (talk) 00:45, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for the reasons described by EPadmirateur. Thebee (talk) 07:27, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per above - ill-founded nomination.HeartofaDog (talk) 15:21, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Comment~~ Keep (updated per below) The Hemleben source is not independent of anthroposophy. It looks fine as a resource for the views of followers, but does not establish real-world notability. The other, less credulous, Steiner biography at my local library, ISBN 978-1-58542-543-3, is half again as long but barely mentions these exercises as part of Steiner's more general philosophy that "supersensory consciousness" is attainable by anyone. The Hammer (ISBN 900413638X), though, does appear sufficiently independent and to provide sufficient depth of coverage to argue for notability within the wider spiritualist community. If the Faivre (ISBN 0824514440) or some other independent resource provides a similar depth of coverage (viz. not a mere passing mention), I think this article should certainly be kept. If not, I am not sure that a single description is sufficient to warrant a full article on this aspect of anthroposophy, and would lean towards delete. - Eldereft (cont.) 20:35, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- The original, German edition of the Hemleben book is published by one of the largest and most respected presses in Germany, Rowohlt; thus it both satisfies the requirement of the arbitration, that the publishers are independent and include a review process, and establishes notability. There are six independent sources here. The article might require clean-up, but satisfies the notability requirement. (It could be merged back into the Rudolf Steiner article, but this is already excessively long.) Hgilbert (talk) 20:44, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- The Faivre article has slightly more than five pages essentially dedicated to the subject. Hgilbert (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a sufficient treatment, I have updated my comments to favor keeping. Thank you for checking this. - Eldereft (cont.) 23:10, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.