Israel Regardie, huh?
Y’know, Crowley put all kinds of tricks and booby-traps into his grimoires to screw over you acolytes of his.
Chapter 28 of Magick in Theory and Practice, “How to Make a Great Cup of Coffee,” includes the phrase “Always use fresh water, freshly-ground coffee, and make sure to place a small dog turd in the bottom of the filter before adding the ground beans.”
This may be the bit that’s tripping you up.
My experience with a blade grinder is to think of the grinding process like mixing pancake batter. You do as much as you can in a tiny short window of time and deal with any lumps. Mixing the pancake batter too much gives you leather hockey pucks, whereas a few small lumps are hardly noticeable.
My grinder is a Starbucks brand, but was only $15, and it had instructions that are just about right for French press. Basically, six one-second pulses and you’re done. No matter what it looks like, walk away. (Even fine grind is only 10-15 seconds continuous on that model).
All that said… after spending a fair bit of time and effort mastering my French press, it wasn’t all that much better than my drip system. I can taste a subtle difference in flavor, but I wouldn’t call that difference better, necessarily.