Well Yent, what you bring up is (IMHO) a major issue I have with “magic” Yiddishkeit. My personal feeling on the matter is that many many years ago when some of these things were written (this is my whole premise on the start of chassidism) the knowledge of the average shlep was nil. And we were pretty much all shleps. There is a reason those times were called the dark ages. Your average Jew was in serious danger of no longer following/knowing/observing torah and halachah. So a new method of keeping the faith was made. A focus on the mystical, ethereal Judaism. I believe that in an effort to stem the tide, a conscious effort was made on the part of the gedolim to adapt and teach what they could to keep people observant. Kabbalah. Mysticism. Segulahs. All of that combined in all likeleyhood saved the Jewish people of that time. Because even if you couldn’t teach the masses the actual in depth halachos of shabbos, you could interest them and dazzle them with loft thoughts that “must” be kept in mind during Kiddush. There are other things, too many to mention that are not “core” judaism, but were enacted as a way of riding out some rough times by glamorizing the observance and thus skirting the almost impossible task of educating an entire nation. Lets face it, the Middle ages was a rough time to be a Jew.
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