It&#x27;s hard to argue, because you could pick up literally any textbook on Buddhism to see this is a fringe theory.<p>If you are actually curious about this topic, I would suggest you look up the importance of lineage in the Tibetan, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Mongolian, and Japanese traditions. Warm hand to warm hand, as it is called, is extremely important. Lineage is legitimacy, and it&#x27;s always the first line of defense against charlatans. That means that the most important thing in those <i>actual</i> traditions is where a practice comes from and who the teacher is (and their teacher, and theirs, etc.). It&#x27;s even fair to say that the de-emphasis of lineage and tradition exists <i>only</i> in &quot;Western&quot; or &quot;Mainstream&quot; Buddhism.<p>If you&#x27;re curious, Buddhist Geeks has long been far from the academic mainstream and has more recently gone much, much farther out.