The increased religiosity of British women's poetry and spiritualism are both central to Emily Manning's poetry. The Balance of Pain and Other Poems (1877) published under the pen name ‘Australie’ presents a questioning and challenging of gender roles that were part of the spiritualist movement, and spiritualism and theological inquiry operate as intellectual spaces challenging the limitations of separate spheres of ideology. Born to a well-off family, Manning was writing on Warrang lands of the Gadigal people of the Eora nation, called Sydney by settlers. Manning's poetic concerns and approaches to spiritualism, religion and questions of social justice do not encompass any discussion of Indigenous Australians. She was involved with intellectual settler circles, and in 1865 she left for London where she ‘had connections which allowed her to move into the literary world, meeting Tennyson, Browning, Huxley and George Eliot’ before returning to Australia. Patricia Clarke points out that it was in London that her journalistic career began, with Manning writing for periodicals including Charlotte Yonge's Monthly Packet of Evening Readings (1851–99) and Golden Hours (1864–84). Her poetry was also originally published in Australian newspapers and periodicals including the Town and Country Journal (1870–1919) and the Sydney Mail (1860–1938).

Occultism is an important aspect of Manning's title poem ‘The Balance of Pain’ which was first published in the Sydney Mail (1876) over two full pages, and her engagement reflects the vogue of the occult revival. Yet the heightened interest in both spiritualism and religiosity, as well as the connection of these areas to questions and challenges to the domestic ideal, involves three significant aspects. First, Manning's poetry foregrounds the connections between occultism and, more broadly, spiritualism, with nineteenth-century imperial feminism. Second, the occult revival in Manning's poetic practice delineates a continuation of anglophone women's writing traditions. Spiritualism operates as a conceptual theorization in poetry with connections to the legacies of literary Romanticism and political voice. Through the domestic ideal, particularly religious devotion, as well as spiritualist disruptions to the separate spheres ideology, Manning's poetry articulates concerns around social inequality, gender inequality and marriage.