While I am thinking through my entire system how I am seeing it I think I can summarize it in touhou.


Higher magic. Reimu. She does everything via Shinto and the Gods

Lower Magic. Marisa. She collects elemental materials that she puts into her Master Spark cooks mushrooms writes her own Grimoire and the only reason she can operate because she lives in the "Forest of Magic" which is a magical forest that generates every ingredient for her craft. Mostly mushrooms. Without the ingredients Marisa would be a normal human and even ZUN stated that this is the reason why Marisa is the "Player's self insert character"

>It is representational magic, magic using words or symbolic artifacts or drawings, sigils
While higher magic can truly be influenced via using the ceremonial arts that is still a sort of "lower magic" that forces the "hand of higher magic" to do the bidding.

>"lower magic". This has been called "cultivation"
True because you need to collect energy and burn clean the channels to reach the "higher truth" but lower magic refers to other ways too when you sacrifice things because with that sacrificed energy you can connect to entities "close" to earth dimension. For higher magic you need to transmute that energy in several ways. That is why that entire "ceremony" is needed.

>representational magic should not be practiced
That whole ritual is like dialing up a higher power and missdialing it might have dire consequences. I consider "higher magic" when you work with gods and with their energy/power but there are beings that are outside of our realm of existence that cannot be even categorized as anything. Accidentally summoning one that you are unable to handle is the dangerous thing. Theoretically it is impossible and only powerful and knowledgeable beings can do that. Theoretically... The chaotic nature of reality is not always that simple.