This work is considered to be one of the most important and widely cited studies of the process of religious conversion.

J. Gordon Melton stated that, in 1970, "one could count the number of active researchers on new religions on one's hands". However, James R. Lewis in 2004 wrote that the "meteoric growth" in this field of study can be attributed to the cult controversy of the early 1970s. Because of "a wave of nontraditional religiosity"