  There has been a recent coming together of the Converse Theorem for $\gln$
and the Langlands-Shahidi method of controlling the analytic properties of
automorphic $L$-functions which has allowed us to establish a number of new
cases of functoriality, or the lifting of automorphic forms. In this article we
would like to present the current state of the Converse Theorem and outline the
method one uses to apply the Converse Theorem to obtain liftings. We will then
turn to an exposition of the new liftings and some of their applications.
