Don's Source About Magical Personality

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There is much more to these traditions than the "attaining of states", in my humble opinion, but everyone finds their own way to the One and no path is wrong.

As for how these recipes were tested, they were not built from nothing. The founders of the Golden Dawn were Master Masons and high ranking SRIA Rosicrucians who had practiced and studied esoterics for many years. Dr. Wescott in particular was quite oriented towards the sciences and they were tested through repeated experimentation as far as I understand, building from hypothesis. The LBRP is but one ritual of the Golden Dawn which was built from a variety of influences, of which there is indeed a verifiable history scattered across various books.

However, the easiest way to understand Golden Dawn is as "fringe masonry", it has a lot of similarities to masonry in its ritual structure and design but is pointedly more pagan and 'occult' than masonry which is more influenced by Hiram and Judaism.

Ultimately, everyone connects with different things and different paths. I'm of the opinion that many paths exists because people are very different but everyone will find their own way.

As far as i know, magickal rituals in similar form were practiced in ancient sumeria, so one can say that they are as old as our recorded history goes - who knows where they got it from. Tbh if i had to bet i would say that magick in different forms was somehow channeled to us, or brought to this density by incarnated figures from higher densities, like Hermes Trismegistos (if he was a real individual) or Jesus.

Actually a lot of stuff in magick is parallel with what i've read in the Law of One. For example, as you develop yourself, you move through sefirots on the tree of life, and get to tiphereth - you attain something called knowledge and conversation of your holy guardian angel. I think it is synonymous with establishing a contact with your higher self. Couple of steps later, you get from chesed to binah - this process is called crossing the abyss, and it is synonymous with starting to perceive the world from perspective of unity. Getting to the top, keter, would be connecting to intelligent infinity - which means progressing to the next octave of experience while still being in 3rd density.

If i had to describe magick rituals (like lbrp) performed with intention to make a change in consciousness - they are a set of symbols visualised and performed in a ceremonial setting to make an imprint on your unconscious (which speaks through symbols), in order to make parts of it conscious. All zodiac signs, planets, and elements (air, fire, water, earth) work as archetypes, that exist in our minds, so that we can make certain forces in us stronger or weaker in order to achieve equilibrium, or any other state we want. Thats why magick is explainaible for people that both believe in supernatural or not. Explaining manifesting things is harder though haha, but i never felt drawn to that part so i wont even start.

Many such rituals were built on ancient concepts, traditions and mystery schools across time, so naturally you are going to see syncretisms and parallels.
Magic is not something that is owned or possessed by any individual or group, there are many paths of magic.
In the case of the LBRP there is actually a recorded history, it's not something shrouded in the obscurity of time.

Also some paths of magic are not compatible with others in their ways of working, and not all concepts are shared. For example the concept of the Holy Guardian Angel derives from the work of Abramelin the Mage and is a main feature of Thelema, but does not exist in the Golden Dawn or Rosicrucian tradition, for example . Then from Thelema you have the development of Wicca which takes the focus to pagan concepts of God and Goddess combined with witchcraft, but which then makes it counter to the concept of Thelema eschewing worship. Just to show how even derivatives can turn on their progenitors.

There is a definite history of traditions growing out of eachother whenever someone has a different way of thinking, so while we can say all magic likely comes from the same trunk and roots, there are so many branches each with its own characteristic. I think it's important to recognize these branches and not just chop them all off, the branches are part of the tree too.

That being said, I would largely agree with your description of ritual more or less. I do believe there is more to it than just self-impression, but that's a different topic.