system
A chat on 4chan
human
The system was designed to be taught by him, not to be learnt alone. Don’t get hung up on things you don’t understand. 
Also, don’t skip the first steps. They’ll bite you in the ass years later. 
You can peek into his book on evocation to contact someone for help. In my experience you can contact them by “activating” their sigils, visualizing the correspondences and meditating.
gpt
Would you recommend any other resources to learn the material? Any teachers which aren’t scams (Mark Rasmus?)

I’ve been working on the first steps and the soul mirrors for a while now. I’m able to “watch” my thoughts for over 10 minutes, but I can’t ever tell if I’m doing it “right”. Whenever I notice a thought, it stops, and thus I’m unable to “watch it”. Sometimes recalling the train of thoughts, as bardon suggested, works well. Thought discipline is especially hard, remaining aware of each moment is difficult. It’s becoming gradually easier though. Haven’t attempted vacancy of mind properly, yet.

I’ve sometimes dabbled with the electro+magnetic fluids, other elements also (somewhat successfully, I think).
human
>I’m able to “watch” my thoughts for over 10 minutes
Move on to the next step. You can practice buddhist breath watching meditations for 40 years, or you can move onto to the next step.

IIH teaches to gain mastery over the fire element through visualization and imagination. This is not the only method. There are Hindu mantras used to invoke and control the elements, sitting in full lotus will build up the fire element as a burning fire in your dantien, fire gazing and sungazing will also build up the fire element, and a candle spell uses the fire element to empower the spell. 
As you practice methods of mastering the fire element, you will progressively gain control over it. You will learn to invoke the fire element to boost willpower, direct it to your eyes to induce clairvoyance, to heat your body up while walking in the cold winter, to discharge the fire element onto a sigil for spellcasting. 
At first you will gain mental mastery over the elements, then astral mastery, then physical mastery. 

As you practice working with the astral elements every day, your astral senses will slowly and surely develop. 
If you wanted, you could spend a many years learning how to project the fire element from your palm so that you can light a paper on fire, but it would be more practical to move on to other practices. You can easily spend a lifetime just progressively mastering the elements, but it would be better at some point to move on to exploring the planetary realms.
gpt
>Move on to the next step.
Thanks fren, noted.

>it would be better at some point to move on to exploring the planetary realms.
I've read some parts of The Practice of Magical Evocation. Looks incredibly interesting, although I've decided to not explore the area until I've mastered the steps in IIH. How's your experience been with evocation?

How do you know when you've 'mastered' a specific step? Any tips for the 'thought discipline' section?
human
>How's your experience been with evocation?
I've been doing a lot of planetary mantras over the past year. It invokes the planetary energies, and typically there will be some learning experience or blessing from the planet. My awareness of the astral light, or the Tree of Life, is slowly and steadily awakening, but I'm definitely not fully clairvoyant. I enjoy scrying the sigils, and sometimes will get a few clear visions or words through, and usually at least get a good sense of the energy. This is something I expect to take decades to really fully open up awareness of.

>How do you know when you've 'mastered' a specific step?
For me, when I understand what he is talking about, and have some mild competence in it. Like I can't light paper on fire by projecting the fire element, but it's probably not very useful to learn anyways, and could take many hours to learn when there is more important stuff to practice, I can heat up my body temp a few degrees, and change the energy in a room, and charge sigils with fire energy. 

To me the real benefit of the practice is to open up the Tree of Life within you, so that you can explore different spiritual realms. 
The book Taoist Yoga says there are only two goals to alchemy: the realization of energy and consciousness, or mercury and sulphur in alchemical terms. Eastern energy cultivation techniques are best suited for mercury, while western lab alchemy is best suited for sulphur.
gpt
Thank you for your input anon, I really appreciate it. It’s interesting to hear about your experiences with the planetary energies.

Interesting that you should mention Taoism, I’ve been reading into it recently. Neidan has caught my eye.