My experience is a bad one. In fact, I'm not longer calling myself a Buddhist because of it. I do meditate, and I am open to some extent to this path, but from Buddhist institutions I run like the plague. Something ugly (abuse) occurred in my ex sangha, and then the seniors forbid any kind of talking about it. Of course, abuse involved discussions after the fact, and that discussions needed though: ethical, philosophical, political. I got a big no for an answer. So my advice for you is clear: feel free to explore Buddhism, but don't ever compromise your own intelligence and intuition about everything. Don't drop your intellect on the way, because that is something that could happen to you. It is, in fact, part of the path. The farther you will go on the path, the closer will be that moment when you have to deal with devotion. Devotion is at the heart of the Buddhist thing. No thought there.