I'm new to this and honestly, quite sceptical about it...
I was also skeptical about "occultism" and "magick" stuff. I was an atheist-materialist. Very logical, very rational, didn't believe in spirits, nothing.
I understood enough to know that dabbling and toying around with occultism and magick, like reading books, doing melodramatic rituals in robes, and so on will always keep me skeptical and never challenge my atheist-materialists world views. Like taking a few hits of a joint, will never get you that hardcore high you're looking for. You have to go for the hardcore shit, the crack, the heroin.
I jumped straight into the hardcore shit. So occultism is like drugs. You have the softcore stuff like the books, the philosophy, the hermetic stuff, the magick stuff.
Then you have the hardcore shit, like Haitian Vodu, Santeria, Mayombe. You come from a logical and rational paradigm, and next thing you know 16 animals are sacrificed, there's blood all over you and everyone, everyone is drinking and dancing to drums for 6 hours into the night, smoking cigars, your drinking rum and shit, people are getting possessed by spirts left and right... and boom, you lose control of yourself in a trance, and get possessed.
Next day: you have a lot to think about; things that don't fit into an atheist-materialist paradigm. Like what possessed you? What possessed those people around you?
But... most people don't dive into the deep end from the get-go. They prefer to stay in the shallow end. Things will always be questionable in that shallow end of the pool.
