Ive seen a lot of questions lately regarding magick. I have been studying the occult/magick for the last 6 months and this is what I have found: After studying Buddhism and Yoga very intensely for several years, my "inner guru" led me to realize that my next step of spiritual evolution was going to involve energy work. Yoga has very powerful energy work (magic) but one is not going to learn very much unless they follow a guru. If you do follow a guru, you may find out many years later that energy work is not his strength and learn very little. Taoism is very powerful magic but is still somewhat limited in its uses and difficult for a westerner to fully grasp and master. The occult is energy work on steroids. I dont think any traditions can touch it in that arena. A lot of people would disagree but that is simply because there is a weird bias in the west that true spirituality can only be found in the east.  The philosophy is a bit different than Buddhism or Yoga. Rather than claiming the physical world is "unspiritual" and that one should just dissolve the self and wait for death/liberation, Occultists believe that the physical world is created by the divine and should be mastered and engaged in like all the other realms in a process of eternal spiritual evolution. They believe one must dissolve the ego identification by seeing through the mechanism of the ego. They use the ego as a tool, created by the divine, for  divine purposes. They believe in observing the mechanism of the ego through meditation and disassociating from the aspects that are animalistic or of lower vibration. Once one has fully broken their identification with the ego, they can discover their True Will of their higher Self/soul. The True Will is generally associated with looking outward to how you can serve other beings for their greater good. High Magic is employed for the purpose of achieving ones True Will and spiritual purification/evolution.  Energy work in all the traditions I have studied (Taoism, Yoga, Buddism, Kabbalah) involve intense visualization, breathwork, rituals, concentration and certain physical movements. The occult has pretty much of what they all have but a lot more imo. Magick/the occult incorporates a lot of Kabbalah/Jewish mysticism into its ultimate view of God/reality. There is also a lot of philosophy that is incorporated from hermeticism, which is an amalgam of greek, egyptian and pagan mysticism.  I would highly suggest just sticking to High Magick, which is for the purpose to become one with the divine. I also do some rituals for health and prosperity because both can be used to help meet my spiritual goals. Despite what many say, there is nothing spiritual about weakness, poverty and sickness. With that said, be VERY careful with using the occult for prosperity. That can very easily solidify and inflate the ego. Keep your intentions based in love and that will guide you. Stay vigilant about not feeding the ego's animal selfish side by carefully observing the present moment. Personally, I have combined what I have learned from Buddhism, Yoga and the Occult. For me, it is a complete spiritual practice. I also incorporate a lot of psychedelics into mediation and magic, which is very powerful. If you want your have the experience of seeing your chakras light up like a christmas tree, magick is definately a way to do it. It didnt take me long to being able to have powerful experiences of moving energy around me and through me. I Iearned quickly how to identify "bad" energy and replace with "good" energy and all its many possible uses. (me meditating 1-1.5 hours a day for the last 3 years was a factor). You can also envoke the powers of archangels for various reasons. My significant other doubted whether magic was real. We did a ritual to summon an arch angel and the angel appeared. Im not going to go into too much detail about what happened but it was an extremely powerful and beautiful experience. Lets just say my significant other is now totally on board with magick.  Magick is a tool. It can be used for "good" or "bad". Whatever you use it for, it amplifies greatly.