To throw in a personal opinion, I don’t think there has ever yet been a single coherent Norse “system” that echoed (for example) Mithraic mystery cult initiations, the Hindu systems of gurudom and lineage, or the established traditions of ancient Egyptian priesthood, or the current systems of pathworking the Qabbalistic trees, etc.
Ancient Egypt and its systems, initiations, and pathworkings (to take just one example) existed for over one thousand years - whatever the people of northern Europe had at (for example) 500BCE was obliterated by first, the Romans, who wiped out our Druids as being the equivalent of insurrectionist spiritual leaders; later this weird middle-eastern cult of Xianity blurred the past’s wisdom and heritage, and so the northern European god~man connection is only now finding the air to breathe.
Early Norsemen just got on with stuff, lived their lives, probably did some fucking atrocious stuff, but they lived in a world of flesh and blood and hadn’t yet had any reason to believe this may need defending, or that they were being targeted as some kind of unique problem upon the planet.
A lot of Norse magick and empowerment in my experience only remains true right now to its Viking roots - go out using the best tech you can lay your hands on (the Northern Europeans had their boats and seafaring knowledge) and see what you can find - and claim.
Or follow Odin’s example, and break down new barriers, refuse to accept the state of man or the state of magickal knowledge and power as being static, fixed, explained in full in some dusty old books and just waiting to be learned by rote - go break some stuff, savage things, seduce that which has what you want, and be ready to give up something precious for something better.
Odin seems to be the only god with a sense of the idea of progress - of the future being bettered by the discovery and exploitation of that which was previously unknown, un-held, un-owned - to take the esteemed and amazing god Dhjuty/Thoth as an example, he teaches the learning of that which is already (but which is static, complete, lawful) - of that which is true, but Odin? He says fuck that shit and goes and breaks a load of laws and does some pretty crazy stuff to find something newer, something better, something different.
Thor meanwhile, his hammer was so eloquently described in the first Avengers movie as the building/destroying tool of a god - electricity, lightning, hmmn - I wonder how we’d be having this conversation if electricity had never been comprehended and put to good use? 
No internet, that’s for sure.
Books - I like Thorsson/Flowers Nine Doors Of Midgard though as usual with his writing, what I got most from it wasn’t what he put on the page, but what I read between the lines, and that was mainly to make the Runes part of yourself and develop a magickal “identity” (very like some NLP techniques where you create a self who embodies what you most desire to be) but mainly, just take the Runes up and work with them and don’t let the fact that these are gods of the controversial “white race”- about which everyone and his dog has an opinion - interfere with you finding your own system and truths.
The Norse gods and their concepts are in many ways very NEW - not built upon decaying sand-whipped megaliths, destroyed idols, nor the dusty words of a maniacal troll-god who wanted to be all alone in being worshipped, because nobody liked him, and he had no love to give… 