I detect a contradiction which is causing confusion.
Early on in the teaching, it states:
"Beware of the beginner who seeks to change the teachings he has not yet fully mastered and of the amateur who experiments on his own with powers he does not fully understand."
Yet farther down, under the heading "Criteria" for running experiments, Crowley states as Axiom #6:
"The experimenter is encouraged to use his own intelligence, and not to rely upon any other person or persons, however distinguished, even among ourselves."
So which is it to be? By experiment, I've always taken that you are, in fact, experimenting, not following an experiment that has already been run. Even if you ran an experiment that already has been run, would you not, based on criteria, possibly obtain a different result? Should you not rely, then, on your own experience based on your own result, rather than come to the conclusion that you did it "wrong" because it doesn't fit someone else's results?