Can you provide the same illumination re the question your reply to Tempora creates? The whole history of the ideas and methods of forms of meditation or self-awareness came from and are based on there being the very hierarchy you condemn. Even the idealised, "primitive" Hinayana Buddhism relies on the figure of one and one only "realised, enlightened" person of his time who was unable to pass on his "experience" to anyone else. Or one other person depending upon the "history" you are prepared to accept.