ABSTRACT
It is not possible to comprehend how the West has become Easternized without an understanding of the critical events that occurred in the 1960s. For it is these that constitute the “hinge” of modern history, that crucial watershed that separates a civilization dominated by traditional Western values and beliefs from one in which these have been largely replaced by an Eastern worldview. This fact first became apparent in the discussion of the evidence for Easternization, where, time and again in the course of discussing those movements that had arisen to express a changed attitude toward nature and the natural (such as the vegetarian, animal rights, holistic health, and human potential movements), it was noted how each appeared to have its origins at this time. This impression was then strengthened when it was observed that the New Age movement itself-the principal form in which a generalized Eastern outlook currently manifests itself in the West-also has its origins in the 1960s, and what is more that it was born out of that most dramatic and distinctive phenomenon of the 1960s-the counterculture-which can in turn be seen as an expression of the East in the West cultural tradition.
