Yes I agree that the most basic mindfulness meditation techniques lack enough texture to give anyone a full spiritual experience just by sitting and not thinking.
There are however some things about meditation that one must understand and learn as to not fall for the traps laid out.
Meditation is a tool, just like thinking, imagination and other mental powers. But people usually forget to lay down the tool when they're done and keep on carrying their thoughts while having their emotions go up and down. This creates thoughtforms and strange thought habits that cannot be understood from the subjective point of view (also other peoples' thoughts and ideas might slip in as part of the clutter and you might not notice it) which leads to the idea of meditating as to allow observation of the thoughts. In basic meditation, we observe our thoughts and take distance from them as to allow us to see where the thoughts come from, what they are based on and where they go.
When working with astral projection or any magick rituals, it is important that the practitioner knows how to silence the mind and allow an empty mind so that it can work more freely with the imagination and the subconscious mind. Without thought you focus on the breath, and through focus on breath you sit in the present moment. After you've meditated for 5-10 minutes, all thoughts should have been silenced and a light state of trance is achieved.
However, some people are so busy thinking every day, stressing over mundane things and being afraid of things that are harmless, meditation for them is a soothing cold breeze on a hot day. In their stage of whatever journey they are on, they feel contempt with the meditation where they can enjoy a silent mind for a long period of time because it gives them the rest and energy they need to keep doing the stuff they need to do. Some few people also gain contact with some spirits when their mind turns off which leads them on famous paths like the famous occultists of the past.
And in a world of endless gratification, satisfaction and access to what we want at a moment's notice, our mind gets filled with thoughts and emotions that eventually becomes very alien to our mind. Some people get used to living like this but the consequences leads them down the path to stress, fear and anxiety because they always have one more thought about what they should do or not do to prevent being judged by others or themselves.
While the silence of the mind teaches some that most things we seek is illusions. Being afraid of heights is stupid when there is fences everywhere and you trust your feet. To need to hear from others what they think about you becomes less important. You get your priorities straight and you can focus on the things that mean something instead of wasting time doing things we think we have to do but we really don't.
If you are deep into magick you probably don't spend more than 1 minute meditating just to get to the state you need and less than 10 minutes falling into a trance. And when you talk to some hippie new age person about your achievements, they will understand less than normal mundanes really. They are unbalanced and completely in emotional energies so they don't understand anything except for the feeling of love they get from loosh being that is always near them when they meditate. Even on hippie festivals with chanting, beings are present and give people the idea that they get healing from sitting in a ring while the spirits traverse the room and shoot enormous amount of energy into people. If you can invoke your own love from within, you don't even need to go to the hippie festivals.
1. Learn how to sit, be quiet, silent in both mouth and mind.
2. Play with your imagination, day dream, build things or make pictures of things you remember.
3. Open, align chakras and vibrate mantras to awaken your inner powers.
4. Learn how to go into trance and practice staying there.
5. After vibration shift, leave body and go explore the astral with 20/20 astral vision.
6. Be patient, never give up.
Have fun.