Hi again,
I answered ur above question in ur other post but wanted to add a comparison I've been thinking about for a few days.
Steve Pavlina has used the same ideas as Chaos Mages.
Why? Meta-beliefs. The idea that beliefs can be worn and shed like clothes. Using a system of belief for a particular purpose and then casting it aside.
When Steve was first forming his ideas on the power of belief this is exactly what he did, embedding himself in a belief system and living it. His world took on the characteristics of his chosen belief system. Thus he worked his way around to the theory of subjective reality. An impressive feat. A very chaos magic approach too, trying the belief and observing the results. While Steve did it all by himself, the Chaos mages did it first - back in the 80's
Rather than Black or White I think of them as Grey Magicians. Originally they believed all magic was relative so they took from all traditions and made new methods. It's really just eclectic magic.
If the occult (occult meaning hidden) makes u uneasy maybe best to avoid it. But remember that most of the LoA stuff was channeled,
most new age techniques are channeled from "higher sources". Magic practice uses invocation (to invoke a spirit/god/being into a person) for similar tasks, however magic has a long tradition of banishing rituals to ensure nothing sticks around and reality checks should always be used when dealing with spirits and such
Peace.