"There is a great interest in comparative religion and a desire to understand faiths other than our own and even to experiment with exotic cults"
About this Quote
Emily Greene Balch points to a modern hunger that is both intellectual and spiritual: the wish to compare, to understand, and even to try on unfamiliar systems of belief. The rise of comparative religion as an academic field in the late 19th and early 20th centuries gave Western audiences tools and language to look beyond inherited traditions. Travel, immigration, and print culture widened the lens, while new movements like spiritualism, Theosophy, and New Thought made experimentation feel accessible. Balch captures that mix of curiosity and restlessness, a search for meaning that does not stop at old boundaries.
The phrase exotic cults reveals the period’s asymmetry of power and perspective. What felt exotic to Western seekers was often someone else’s living tradition, misunderstood or simplified. Balch’s wording hints at both the allure and the risk: fascination can slide into consumption, and reverence can be replaced by novelty. Yet the same desire to understand other faiths can be the seed of empathy, an opening toward dialogue rather than dogma. As a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a leader in internationalist and pacifist causes, Balch saw that genuine knowledge of the other is a practical tool for peace.
Her observation also marks a pivot from communal identity to individual spiritual agency. Moderns construct meaning from many sources, sampling practices, texts, and rituals. That freedom can deepen conscience and widen horizons, but it can also produce a market of spiritual experiences, where depth yields to trend. Balch’s line balances admiration for intellectual openness with an implicit caution about superficiality.
Set against the upheavals of her era, with shattered certainties and new global entanglements, the interest she names is both symptom and remedy. It signals the loss of a single authoritative frame, and it offers a path toward mutual understanding. The challenge is to move from experiment to engagement, from curiosity to responsible, sustained encounter.
The phrase exotic cults reveals the period’s asymmetry of power and perspective. What felt exotic to Western seekers was often someone else’s living tradition, misunderstood or simplified. Balch’s wording hints at both the allure and the risk: fascination can slide into consumption, and reverence can be replaced by novelty. Yet the same desire to understand other faiths can be the seed of empathy, an opening toward dialogue rather than dogma. As a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and a leader in internationalist and pacifist causes, Balch saw that genuine knowledge of the other is a practical tool for peace.
Her observation also marks a pivot from communal identity to individual spiritual agency. Moderns construct meaning from many sources, sampling practices, texts, and rituals. That freedom can deepen conscience and widen horizons, but it can also produce a market of spiritual experiences, where depth yields to trend. Balch’s line balances admiration for intellectual openness with an implicit caution about superficiality.
Set against the upheavals of her era, with shattered certainties and new global entanglements, the interest she names is both symptom and remedy. It signals the loss of a single authoritative frame, and it offers a path toward mutual understanding. The challenge is to move from experiment to engagement, from curiosity to responsible, sustained encounter.
Quote Details
| Topic | Faith |
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