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.

中文翻译：

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Vivekananda、Sarah Farmer 和世纪末的全球精神转变

19 世纪末，斯瓦米·维韦卡南达 (Swami Vivekananda) 前往西方传播被称为“印度教普世主义”的东西，美国莎拉·法默 (Sarah Farmer) 前往巴勒斯坦接受新的巴哈伊信仰。本文将询问为什么两人都希望创建“普世”宗教，以及为什么他们在 1893 年芝加哥世界宗教议会之后于 1894 年在缅因州格林阿克获得灵感。格林阿克的参观者讨论了“神圣的女性气质”，参与与维韦卡南达（Vivekananda）和阿博都巴哈（Abdu'l-Baha）等人一起，并开始批评殖民等级制度以寻求精神和解，所有关注都触及“东方”宗教问题。然而，灵性不仅仅是更大的历史发展的附带现象。相当，这里讨论的“转变”借鉴了“东方智慧”的本质概念，将灵性与唯物主义、宽容与不宽容、超越与工具主义进行对比。然而，这种两极分化的描述错误地判断了巴哈伊教和印度教普世主义破坏东西方类别的稳定方式，同时保留了不受西方腐败影响的“东方智慧”的愿景。