Good teachers always come with warnings. Practicing anything related to magic without first being initiated into the meaning of life is how 99% of practitioners destroy their psyche and become swallowed and harvested by the void of non-existence and chaos. It is exactly why all they can ever talk about is how they live on a prison planet or in some sort of mental matrix that feeds on their emotions. The meaning of life, the context of the "why" behind existence - without this, you will just not understand why things need to be the way they are, and how life itself functions, and why the magical, or the formulaic, work at all. Without the proof of God, and of the nature of God and of being itself (including its many fervent laws), as the primary prerequisite which is earned through spiritual purity and moral hygiene - you remain a journeyman of the arts. It is not your 'magic' that is working, it is the 'magic' that is being worked through you - by whatever force that wields you at that time. Do not put your soul up for adoption. Living aligned with one's conscience provides full and total immunity to all such negative works.