I agree with all of your points except 3, if you're using 'cult' to refer to any group of practitioners. I agree that a lot of them are extremely fucked up, but there are some good ones too, it's just up to you to find one that fits you. A good group, with teachers, structured learning and practice, interaction with fellow students etc. will increase your progress exponentially. The hard truth that people these days don't want to hear is that you just can't learn it all out of books. Books can't answer questions, offer advice, adjust due to context, provide living and breathing examples, offer first hand assistance or participate in back and forward conversation.
If you're aiming for serious magical development, self education just won't cut it for the majority of students. Look at all of the famous and exceptional magicians and mystics of history, then count how many of them learned from a teacher or within a group, and how many of them taught themselves. That should tell you all you need to know.
>>2286Because the new age has a long history of dumbing down and commercializing teachings, appropriation, excessive eclecticism and completely butchering decent systems of development in the process. Look at what Yoga has been turned into - for thousands of years, it was a system of spiritual evolution passed down from guru to acolyte, in less than a century the new age movement adopted it, co-opted it, corrupted it, commercialized it, used it to scam, exploit and abuse and eventually turned it into a way for vapid housewives to keep their asses nice and perky.
