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"The Eastern Aspect" is the section talked about next. I think in this section they use too much citations and references and can easily confuse a reader. They quote a bit from Cox, which at the end of his citations I think is a weak argument which we talked about in class. "In conclusion, Cox noted a great irony, that though many critics charge who are clear-headed enough to be "open to other life-patterns."" I think in this statement it is a poor result because he talks about brainwashing which can have alternate meanings and I think can not be taken all too serious. In summary of this section they again go to table 1 on page 355, and reflect on the percentages of Eastern influence of cult formations. One thing that I think was very clever by Finke and Stark was that they brought up the immigration laws that kept out most Asians therefore Eastern religious teachers. Then in 1965 it was dropped and big influencers of Eastern religions were let into the country. What Finke and Stark say in this section that clarifies their argument, I think is that it took only a relatively a small number of American converts to Hinduism to generate some Hindu-based cult movements ; which if you think about it, it is not an explosion it is a normal thing to do when something new like that comes into to an area.
The "New Age" is supposed to be the cult threat of the age, but seemingly to Finke and Stark it does not seem a threat at all. Even though there are 20,000 people in the so called New Age religion, some people think that it is a joke. This section is rather small but very effective with what resources they use. They use just as many citations that are needed. They tell us what the New Age comes from, the older folk that believed that flying saucers would bring aliens to the Earth. They also bring to the table both ideas, from one source that the New Age is a threat and another that they are a joke and should not be worried about.