Thanks for the compliments, Lefty! I'm really glad people are enjoying my blog. I'm hoping to put a lot more stuff up there soon.
I think you're right about the nature of the journey in one's path. I guess just about any craft can be like that.
I had gotten into NAP after feeling like I had wasted my time pursuing practical, results-oriented magic through Wicca and then through Ceremonial Magic and Chaos Magic. With Chaos Magic I had gotten moderate successes, but I also had a constant push and pull between it and Ceremonial magic. So I often concentrated on Ceremonial magic because authors like Regardie had convinced me that I absolutely HAD to have the spiritual development be first and foremost.
So then I found NAP, and it seemed like a wonderful combination of the western Qabalah that I was stuck on, and practical magic that didn't rely on complicated talismans and extremely drawn-out consecration rituals (at least going by the GD material, which I was).
I got a couple of minor successes, but it really wasn't much. It wasn't even as good as sigil magic, for me. HOwever, even sigils had stopped working for me by that time. Then, one by one, I had the failures I mentioned before. Other NAP workings just failed with no discernable effect.
It wasn't until I stumbled on sorcery and revisited aspects of magic I practiced way back in the day as a Wiccan, that I found out what was going on. At one point I had fallen under a crossed condition that had also affected my ability to work magic. I even found ways to diagnose my spiritual condition and change it! I hadn't found much in the way of that when I had practiced ceremonial magic, and even chaos magic. Studying sorcery I learned what seem to be some good, solid methods that have stood the test of time.
By no means am I trashing NAP. Obviously others on here have worked with it successfully in a consistent basis. Also, there were aspects of my practice with it that were not consistent on my part that I think got in the way. I'm sure if I would have practiced NAP's material more consistently, I could have used it to diagnose and break my condition. But from what I remember, there wasn't much dealing with that in the book, aside from a case study during which Gray-Cobb didn't mention how and when to check for crossed conditions.
There's more I could go on about, but it would be a bit off topic I think, and it goes into a variety of tangents!