as Ganesha and East Asian iconography such as the Yin and yang are also sold in many stores in Western countries. Ishka a chain store in Australia sells many Asian-origin content particularly from India. The selling of Eastern cultural objects has however been met by criticism, with some saying many who buy these items do not understand the significance of them and that it is a form of Orientalism. Religion As recently as the 1950s, Crane Brinton, the distinguished historian of ideas, could dismiss "modern groups that appeal to Eastern wisdom" as being in effect "sectarian", "marginal", and "outside the main current of Western thought and feeling". Yet some Westerners have converted to Eastern religions or at least have shown an interest in them. An example is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom the Beatles followed, first to Bangor in Wales in 1967, and subsequently to India to study Transcendental Meditation in 1968. The Dalai Lama, whose book The Art of Happiness became a best-seller, can attract huge crowds in New York's Central Park or London's Wembley Stadium. Buddhism in some countries is the second biggest religion. FWBO is one of the biggest and fastest-growing Buddhist organisations in the West. Belief in reincarnation has never been a part of official Christian or Jewish teaching, or at least, in Christianity, it has been a formal heresy since it was rejected by a narrow margin at the Second Council of Constantinople in AD 553. However nearly all polling in Western countries reveals significant levels of this belief. "Puzzled People" undertaken in the 1940s suggested that only 4 per cent of people in Britain believed in reincarnation. Geoffrey Gorer's survey, carried out a few years later, arrived at 5 percent (1955, p. 262). However, this figure had reached 18 percent by 1967 (Gallup, 1993), only to increase further to a sizable 29 percent by 1979, a good six-fold increase on the earlier "Puzzled People" figure. Eileen Barker has reported that around one-fifth of Europeans now say that they believe in reincarnation. Karma, which has its roots in ancient India and is a key concept in Hinduism, Buddhism and other Eastern religions, has entered the cultural conscience of many in the Western world. John Lennon's 1970 single, "Instant Karma!" is credited towards the popularisation of karma in the Western world and is now a widely known and popular concept today giving rise to catchphrases and memes