I understand most would feel the same, some schools crucify him for making such complicated system but if you think the Yoga of India is no different, it has a strict code of ethics long arduous practice for decades away from civilisation and who stuck to their guns get to behold the ultimate reality in their hands and they play with world like a toddler plays with toys.
Bardon took many concepts from Yoga and Hinduism, his thought control methods are from Raja Yoga of Patanjali (that is why Crowley wanted his students to learn Patanjali's Aphorisms for beginners) and many years ago some on occult subreddit provided proofs of his correspondence with Swami Sivananda a great Yogi and liberated being who clarified confusions Bardon had in Raja Yoga. Besides Bardon had few private disciples and wasn't fancy either. He gave the system with the sequential steps and there is no hegemony at any state, no amateur or no adept only those who just practice his system for decades consider themselves as adepts but how would you know if such a person is an adept, you certainly can't peep into his mind but can only verify through the physical results.
Some people who deify him and look down up on other systems are no different from elites which Bardon didn't want except that he said with conviction that sooner or later people would find his methods to be the most workable because without mind control and meditation no magic is possible.
You are right most wouldn't achieve what Bardon set out for people to do but unless you travel the path and have seen the end you have no authority to say the path is wrong or it leads no where, Gandalf travelled a lot that is why he acted as guide to the Fellowship and no one else.
Another thing worth mentioning as well is that if someone deifies an author, does anyone really have control over that?
Like, if an author dies, and a number of people decide to deify him, is that the author's fault? If the author is
asking to be deified, I get it. Then sure, I can see how that would hurt the author's credibility. That's literally an example of personal ego.
My understanding is that in Bardon's case, he was not asking to be mythologized.
But still, I can agree with Beyond Everything here, that that still can mean an individual is "overhyped", sure. The claims being made by other people after the author's death are more extravagant than appropriate.
But again I have to wonder,
does an author exist who did state that any health condition could be healed, and who did actually do it (recorded as fact)? I can't think of one. Maybe Jesus, who wasn't an author, but fits that mold. He claimed to heal others using holy/divine powers, and it was recorded that he did it (according to the books, anyway).
But I don't know of a lot of occult authors who claimed to heal themselves and then were actually able to do it.
But I'll give one small example of a rare healing that is recorded as actually happening (as recorded, anyway). This is not an inventor of an occult system, but rather a supposed historical story of someone who healed using non-medical means. Some consider this book a work that belongs in the category of Hermetics (very loosely), some don't.
The Healing of Rodolphe Grivel (detailed in the book by Fabre D'Olivet). There's essentially no information out there other than the book itself, so this is quite literally a bit of an esoteric work. But in the book, this man heals from a congenital condition using a change in consciousness/internal state. Allegedly. Another difficulty here is that there is no actual historical account of the man in the book having existed. The author supposedly is verified as existing (Fabre D'Olivet). But it's not verified that Rodolphe Grivel was an actual person.
So again, we have missing pieces here. Here's a story of someone who actually healed by changing their inner state. But was it even a true story? This is fully anecdotal.
Trying to find someone who created an occult system that heals people, and then proves it by actually doing it, is going to be pretty tough. Does anyone know of one? As far as I know, there are usually missing pieces.
