Ownchef,
This is where I always had a fundamental difference with other practitioners and one which always had alienated me from a community as a whole. Or rather, prevented me from engaging with the community and wanting to practice occult more seriously in my life. I do view occult inherently through scientific lenses as I perceive that the ultimate achievement is reproducibility of desired goals and effective tutoring of accumulated experience. To me, owning said power is the most important thing. The strongest and most consistent desire for me was to own that magical power. For it to be an inherent part of me. My motivation was not to do anything with it, but rather to understand it and to claim it for myself.
Practically everything you had said is complete opposite for me. Even the part about high morality developing through the journey. To me, my youth was an age of disappointment in everything and I developed this harshness, old age cruelty around me. I even started to view world through religious lens which had stemmed from the occult. I grew to dislike word ''art'' due to associations with modern art as it is everything I despise. Though, I do understand what it is meant by it.
Did I succeeded while being wrong, as you had put it? Answer is nuanced, in some areas I experienced immense success, but in others it is like bashing your head against the wall. One of those areas are communication with spirits as I had never been able to interact with them directly. I go directly to names like Lucifer, Lilith, Hecate.. I met others such names too, once on their own initiative, other time by accident. Their respond in usually a very deliberate dream which seems like an answer to what I was pestering them that night for. Sometimes those dreams come a lot later and several times with very deliberate timings like right on Christmas eve. Sometimes it is a possession. Other times it is synchronicity which are too unusual to appear naturally on their own. The only time when I felt someone was talking to me was to trick me. It tried to convince me to be rational and stop imagining things which do not exist. One single sentence, made after entire morning of something trying to get in and I holding it back through shields which I fantasized that I created long time ago.
This is something which bothered me, because while I felt spirits, some even more 'evil ones' wanted to pester me and told my friend that it will come to me (he was dealing with it for many years himself). I only managed to scare it away when it approached and it never came back. The only consistent spirit which I met was one which I made thread about. Due to my poor sleeping habits, I noticed a spirit walking, whispering and then leaving in a middle of a night for no apparent reason. Ironically, it came about a time when I had purchased my own apartment and was moving out within a week to a new place. However, there was never anything remotely close to what people are describing. If there is an interaction, it is usually very deliberate and professional from their side. They seemingly try to avoid saying anything to me. When they say anything, most of the time it is done through primal emotions which carry one or other meaning. They never linger nor come to me on their own.
I wrote second half of it in hopes that maybe someone will have useful insights. Something which would stem from an experience rather than assumptions. Spirits with me interact in completely different way. Never personal or close, but often very involved and powerful. I simply do not have any idea why my experiences are so radically different from what all the other people are describing them to be.