B"H

See: Doreen, Why Are You A Neo-Essene?

The following is speculation based on my experience.

From the looks of Rabbinic Judaism today it seems to me that there are many Rabbis who fancied themselves ga'onim and even ilui'im when they were young.

Of course, with such an attitude and given the fact that Rabbinic Judaism is imperfect and distorted in many ways these men never reached the level of being able to see HaShem in Torah.

Rather than coming to the humble conclusion that they had not set their hearts properly and had been learning that which is not wholly true Judaism and that is why they did not succeed, they came to the conclusion that there is no truth in Torah, chas va'Shalom. They thought that if "geniuses" like them did not find holiness in Torah, then there is no holiness to be found, for certainly if there was holiness in Torah it would have been revealed to such exalted personages as themselves.

They came to the conclusion that Torah is nothing at all. But what to do with all those years of study? Shrewdly they understand that there are many who can be gullibly led by errant teachings. They use the Torah cynically to manipulate others, donning black, doing the outward mitzvot but all the while not respecting the Torah or all or even attributing worth to it, except as a very effective device for mind and emotion control.

They are worse than those who do not learn Torah or do mitzvot, for they do them not believing a word of Torah at all, but only for the sake of being able to lead and manipulate others and live a very comfortable life economically.

This is the way the current situation looks to me in many cases.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat