COMPARATIVE-HISTORICAL METHOD [FIRST EDITION]. A means of studying religion as a whole, as well as the particularities of each tradition or subtradition, the comparative-historical method draws on historical data in comparing religions. As Wilhelm Schmidt (1868–1954) argued, the method aims to show not only the interplay of the general and the particular elements of religion, but also the interplay of influences between religious phenomena and the secular factors in human culture.

General Considerations

The comparative-historical method differs from purely historical approaches because it is cross-cultural. "Pure history" can deal, for example, with the unfolding of European pietism or South Indian bhakti without getting involved in comparisons and contrasts between the two phenomena. Obviously the comparative-historical method presupposes "pure history" which, together with ancillary disciplines such as philosophy and archaeology, supplies the facts upon which comparisons depend. It differs from psychology and phenomenology of...