I have already noticed the change. Back in the late 1980s, my former congregation had numerous people getting baptized. A sizable minority of them were baptized during the 1980s. I was one of 8 that got baptized at the same a$$embly, and there were two more that got baptized in the previous a$$embly, just in my former congregation. And the message was rather brisk, albeit having took all my time and was crap.
These days, it is normal to go through an a$$embly with maybe 3 or 4 getting baptized for the whole thing (and most of them are children under 18, still with their parents). The message is quite a bit less brisk. True, they still waste all your time. But, there is no excitement any more. They didn't get excited during the last waste of paper distribution campaign. They had pxxx poor results in the REJECT Jesus waste of paper distribution campaign for 2008. Almost no one seems to know what they believe, since it changes almost every boasting session. Even the "generation" is dead--there will always be those presuming to be among the 144,000 even though there were way more than that in the first century alone.
By contrast, the "secret society" I joined is much more about making things happen. The "enemy" is not the public or those exposing them. It is the few that are actively preventing anyone, members or not, from making any changes that mean anything. And you do not have to be a member of that "secret society" to be looked up at (anyone that does not intentionally destroy value and impede progress, and there are only extremely few that do, is accepted).
In fact, their growth is more likely to come because of exposure of the Establishments as corrupt. It is going to be because people are getting sick of living in the 1950s when it comes to transportation, medical progress, and everything except the communications and computer industries. They are getting sick of having someone telling them what to think, say, and do. They are getting sick of working to earn money only to have the government take it away to redistribute it to those too lazy to work. They are getting sick of religions that claim to have all the answers, pray to some God, and then wait on Him to do it for them. And even then, the excitement is not the growth but the hope that they can alter the course of mankind and unseat people from power that want to destroy progress.
It is going to be miserably difficult for damaging cults and high-control groups to gain members. All they can do is clamp down on existing members. All the while, those "secret societies" that seek to open society up to progress will grow as dissenters find nothing to bash them about and no weaknesses to ruin them. As will groups that are more mainstream--I wonder how quickly MySpace has grown (that site wasn't even around before the 1990s, and now it has more than 200 million members). Other similar sites like Facebook and YouTube also have many millions of members despite being around for a short time.
Down with cults that cannot be fully integrated in honesty! Down with religions that seek to quarantine themselves because opposers can find logical grounds to attack! Down with groups that alter their beliefs to react to dissention, even tampering with their own Bible so they can produce fake authority! Only those that can take the heat of outside criticism are going to have a chance.
