The Method of Action is a way to digest a potion. The Otherworldly must behave as their step prescribes until the power becomes part of them. While the potion is not digested, the bearer is vulnerable: the power is already there, but there is no control over it yet.
The roles of the path are pastoral: the Listener hears what is not said to others, the Shepherd is responsible for those who followed him.
The Method long remained the knowledge of the few: church hierarchies were in no hurry to reveal it, and many Otherworldly rose blindly, paying for it with their sanity.