i'm wondering how a spritual/cultural tradition which is indigenous to an area which you do not live and which operates from a different foundation than the discourse about "individuality, free will, etc." that you are expecting it to answer for you is supposed to work in the way that you wish it to.

i'm starting to grow weary of all this bookstore philosophy/spirituality which tries to explain ideas to people who have no real connection to the cultures from which these ideas arose. you can go to a bookstore and study to be a buddhist, shaman, magician, native american spiritualist, african spiritualist, egyptian mystery school adherent, etc, etc, ad infinitum. there is lots lost in translation, and so much more of the "reality" of these practices are not accessible to us because we simply don't live in the cultural conditions/livity from which these things arose.

we can learn for sure, but we can't claim to know or even expect to know without being from the culture.