"Ars Vercanus" has a more traditional approach where the importance of groundwork and thorough preparatory exercises is stressed. Many modern authors, e.g. the Gallery of Magick, see this requirement as a form of gatekeeping designed to keep you from getting what you want by supernatural means as fast as possible but I couldn't disagree more. Mind you, this comes from a guy who loved to read about the occult for decades without even attempting to perform the simplest ritual (I was what is commonly called an 'armchair magician'). The book that gave me the nastiest shock and kept me firmly in the armchair for years was Franz Bardon's "Initation into Hermetics" with its daunting syllabus that hardly anyone ever completes. So I grabbed the GoM books and dove right in, without bothering to do as much as five minutes of meditation - anyone can do magic (and right now) correct? Wrong. I had absolutely zero success with the Gallery of Magick books, as good as the intentions of the authors may have been, but at least they got me started and cured me of my earlier Bardon trauma.
My advice (and that's what I'm currently trying to do) is to complete the basics (meditation, breathwork, visualisations. energy work, etc.) so that you'll be able to perform a ritual without being constantly assailed by intruding thoughts about tomorrow's shopping list, who posted what on social media, your mom's last phone call, etc. In one of his books, Draja Mickaharic wrote that he could teach anyone how to find a 100 dollar bill in the street by magic - it's just that it would take 3-4 months of diligent preparation and exercises. I've come to think that he is just about right regarding the amount of effort required for this comparatively trivial result. 'Knowing' the mechanics and the theory of magic isn't enough, not by a long chalk. We're talking about a skill you need to acquire, not book learning. I'd even go so far as to say that you won't really understand certain books without having thoroughly done your groundwork, even if you read them dozens of time; I say this because this is currently happening to me.
At this point it's customary to add well-meaning advice in the form of analogies involving the difference between reading a lot of cook books and actually trying out a recipe, learning a new musical instrument, building muscle in the the gym, etc. but it's not like that, I'd say. That tedious groundwork is liable to trigger transformational processes completely unlike the ones described in the aforementioned analogies, ones that are magical in itself and about nothing meaningful can be said because of the simple fact that they will be different for everybody.
Here is a challenge: Sit down on a hard chair, spine erect, don't move, empty your mind and try not to think for five minutes or so. See? It's one thing to read about meditation and another to actually do it. Or try to perfrom the LBRP, usually considered a simple basic exercise (as well as a valuable general ritual to master) in the Western Tradition:
How did you fare? You were trying to do actual magic, not just 'studying' it. See how much more is involved? I think the usual progression is "I bought this book with 200 witchcraft spells, tried one and it didn't work, so I decided it was all bullshit and put the damn book up for sale on ebay". If you're not curious about how far you can go in developing your mind and are only intent on finding that 100 bill tomorrow after casting a simple spell, you're most likely to get disappointed by magic.
Read books, even try advanced rituals to satisfy your curiosity, explore by all means, but please be sure to do the groundwork as well, or you'll be missing out on really fascinating experiences later on (of which I have mere inkling now after two months of empty-mind meditation, I'm not here to promise you anything). If you want deeper knowledge, you have to earn it. No harm in accumulating advanced occult information, it's just that you won't be able to do anything with it, let alone enjoy, if you don't practice regularly.
