The Buddha Effect

Over the last 25 years or so Buddhism has certainly grown in western countries.  Growing from the humble beginnings of the few pre existing Buddhist Western Societies most of which had been operating only since the end of The Second World War, by the end of the 1980's newer Buddhist Societies began emerging with  much greater frequency.  This was probably driven largely by south east asian immigration to the west, but not completely.  Immigrants from Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia Sri Lanka have helped raise the Buddhist population  of  Australia, for example from a mere handful prior to the 80's to the 300,000 plus of the latest(2006)census.  This means a1.5% fraction of our 20,000,000 population is comprised of people  officially declaring themselves to be Buddhist.  I would confidently expect that this trend would have been replicated with similar percentages in The UK, Germany Holland, The USA, Canada and so on. The point I am hoping to establish is that, although 1or 2% is statistically significant, it is nonetheless a fairly small number in comparison with
the 40 to 60% of declared Christians for the same period in Australia. However, the pervasive presence of Buddhist or neo Buddhist Iconography has been almost ubiquitous in all media far above and beyond  what this small statistical presence could be expected to proportionately generate. This is what I will refer to
as "The Buddha Effect".  To put it another way,despite a deliberate search for it twenty five years ago I had difficulty in finding any visual evidence of the presence of Buddhism in Australia beyond the confines of the few Buddhist Societies of the time. Now it is hard to miss it !