Word: coxes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Cox explains that he began his researches from a detached-observer position, determined to give a "fair" description of movements which he was not personally involved with. However, as the time passed, he found himself emotionally (and not just academically) caught up in the phenomenon he was researching. The results were unexpected. What had begun as a survey of the various Eastern religious organizations over the country at large turned into more of an autobiographical essay. Cox moved from bending-over-backwards-to-avoid-bias against what he initially considered to be "inward" and "socially passive" philosophies (this stance, Cox...
...greatest danger facing the writer of such a "critical autobiography" (once having donned the rosy lenses of enthusiasm) may well be losing the ability to distinguish the sincere practitioners of a faith from the charlatans. However, Cox explains that his own involvement in such practices as meditation actually had the reverse effect: he found himself less tolerant of people such as students of Buddhism, who ostentatiously carried around their meditation cushions and bragged about transcendental experiences, than he had been initially...
...reflections on Ghandi, George Orwell once penned words that Cox seems to have followed: "Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent." Given the fact that Cox has found a balance of tone between skepticism and sensitivity, his theories are that much more convincing. His own experiences with the "New Orientalism" have not diminished Cox's Christianity. Rather, he has found out not only how valuable the traditionally Judeo-Christian meditative traditions are, but also how similar they are to many Eastern practices. This is not to say that the New Orientalism's importance lies in showing...
...Cox feels that the most insidious element of the "New Orientalism" is not the superficial chaos worsened by public outcries of brain-washing and sloganeering, but the underlying Americanization of imported Eastern faiths. Acclimation (to a certain degree) is inevitable in the spread of a religion. Few observers, however, have stressed enough that, as Cox would say, "when the gods migrate, or are transported, to a civilization where everything is to some extent a commodity, they become commodities too." The danger here lies in the potential reduction of these new faiths to products of a "profit-oriented culture" such...
Neverthless, while cautioning against "consumer" psychiatry and religion, Cox does not condemn a "search for identity" outright. He wishes to prevent its manipulation by the materialistic elements he sees as basic to American social structure. God, Cox declares: "liberates the oppressed by enabling them to liberate themselves...Anything else feeds the kind of millenial fantasies which have kept the poor in bondage for centuries...