There we have the problem with learning from books. These days, it's trendy to write books for a living, and consequently 80% of the stuff you see in occult bookstores in absolute crap (I used to work at one, so that's from personal experience). In order to sell more books, the author has to operate on the pretense that he or she can provide information that other authors can not, while remaining derivative enough to spare themselves a lot of hard labor. What you end up with is a book that contains three or more of the following:
1) Chakras
2) Chants in a foreign language
3) The Threefold Law
4) Herb, oil, or incense magic from "tradition" (ie 777)
5) A leftist political agenda
6) Some form of sexism
7) At least one ritual from Crowley or the Golden Dawn
8) Sex magic
9) Drug magic
Read anything from Starhawk, Kenneth Grant, Z Budapest, or Chris Hyatt, to name a few.
The practical aspects of magic can be broken down into its constituent parts, in a sense a system of magical physics. Every "system" of magic consists of a few simple rules, along with a lot of window dressing. That's the trap of modern magical traditions--arguing over the window dressing.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % There is no grace % There is no guilt % There is no God but Man. % % Ludvig Prinn % LudvigPrin@aol.com % http://expage.com/page/whitehandschool % (White Hand School of Magecraft)