Don't be discouraged because Kashmir Shaivism is such a deep well. I too know only a minor part of that what sod obnoxion has studied, and I'm pretty certain he'd say he also has only scratched the surface. What we need in making sense of such extreme treasury of old occult knowledge, is a sturdy amalgam of pride & humility, to put into use that tiny bit we can grasp.
One of the reasons why my own studies in the splendor of Abhivanagupta advance extremely slowly is because every page I read from him is so immense. It's like my own intuitions & ponderings are given almost perfect shape, so every more page is like a new monument of a bit differently digested familiar doctrines. It makes reading an almost disturbing experience. I really feel like being a pupil of this doctrine much longer, so long that most of my soul is cast out in such form from the beginning. The strange fact that in my early teens I made up for myself a pseudonym that I only now much latter learnt is name of one of the tantric adepts in this path, gives some weight to this intuition. Perhaps some fragment of my being has known such a luminary as a teacher.
Boreas mentioned theosophical master Koot Hoomi, the Kashmir adept who was one of the two behind the theosophical school. This is the person, or rather, entity, I have always followed as my occult authority number one. It has been quite interesting to see how the esoteric vista opens from that abstract (to us) point in Kashmir... an Uddiyana, to the Star of Azazel, in "four peaks".