Vivekananda, Sarah Farmer, and global spiritual transformations in the fin de siècle

Bibliographic Data

ID12876456
AuthorsRuth Harris (0000-0002-6916-0518, New College, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume14
Issue2
Pages179-198
Publication date2019-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Global History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1740-0228 • E-ISSN: 1740-0236
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1740022819000020
OpenAlexW2957591415
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited32

As Swami Vivekananda travelled West at the end of the nineteenth century to propagate what has become known as ‘Hindu Universalism’, the American Sarah Farmer travelled to Palestine to embrace the new Baha’i faith. This article will ask why both wished to create ‘universal’ religions, and why they found inspiration at Green Acre, Maine in 1894 in the wake of the Chicago World Parliament of Religions in 1893. Visitors to Green Acre discussed ‘divine femininity’, engaged with men such as Vivekananda and Abdu’l-Baha, and began to criticize colonial hierarchies in the search for spiritual reconciliation, all concerns which touched on questions of ‘Eastern’ religion. However, spirituality was not a mere epiphenomenon of larger historical developments. Rather, the ‘transformation’ discussed here drew on an essentialized notion of ‘Eastern wisdom’ that contrasted spirituality with materialism, tolerance with intolerance, transcendence with instrumentalism. Yet, such polarized characterizations misjudged the ways in which Baha’i and Hindu Universalism destabilized the very categories of East and West, while retaining a vision of ‘Eastern wisdom’ untouched by Western corruptions

Aesthetics · Faith · Hinduism · Materialism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Spirituality · Swami · Theology · Transcendence (philosophy · Universalism · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious studies · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Religious Tourism and Spaces

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