The Powerful Call of the Feudal System
Consider the allure of Star Wars and The Lord of The Rings. Part of their charm is that they are set in the Feudal system, with Lords and Knights and Masters and Magicians and Slaves and serfs. I loved them, as did much of the world. In Star Wars, one of the main characters - Darth Vader, had been a slave when he was the child Anakin. Then later, when he was the universally feared Lord Darth Vader, he was able to enslave entire planets. And in turn, he was the slave to his Master, the Emperor.
We all have a certain vulnerability to being manipulated by the feudal system, because it is the ancient pattern of culture. If you think you are beyond such things, that makes you even more vulnerable because you will be blindsided by the attraction.
Groveling
In the Feudal system, groveling was the way to go for just about everything. You get up in the morning and bow down to your parents. Then you bow down to the altar with its gods. You go to school and bow down to the teacher. And like anything else people do all the time, I would imagine that bowing has a whole realm of nuances, things that only people who bow down all the time can see – the speed of bowing, the depth, whether you touch your head to the floor, whether you then crawl on hands and knees to try to touch the toes of the person you are groveling before.
It is very strange to see Americans, who have not grown up in a culture of groveling, learn this habit and associate it with meditation, of all things. Meditation, which is supposed to be a way of accessing your internal wisdom and guidance, has been corrupted into something that makes you dependent upon a domineering external authority.