Note: These are my views and entirely my own and not officially or necessarily endorsed by The Chinchilla Club.
It is an honorable thing to desire God and honor His commandments. That was a good start. I have had some experience with the occult in my own past and have witnessed some freaky things. Although I was not into new-age per se I discovered my spirituality was patterned by it. God has mercifully led me out of that by bringing me to the basics of His Bible. Which BTW, excludes the "lost books" the new age movement tries to pin onto it.
Because people are spiritual beings by nature we all have an innate ability to experience and interact with the spirit world although some are more perceptive than others. Our ability to discern the truth about what we experience, however, has much to be desired, because we are cursed with the nature of sin and our natural desire (contrary to popular belief) is not to seek God but to seek what makes us feel good about ourselves and feeds our selfish pride. The biggest lure of the occult is the promise of supernatural power but it comes at the cost of truth and puts you at the mercy of deceptive spirits. The end result is always confusion and deep uncertainty about the nature of the experiences we are trying to make sense of since they are being filtered through our fallen and sinful minds (Jer 7:19). And because spirits are real that can lead us into very real danger. I believe that is one of the reasons behind God's prohibition on divination and sorcery (Lev 19:6, Lev 19:31, 2Chr 33:6 etc) but certainly not the primary reason, which is to rely on God and not the vague whateveritis of human experience to guide our decisions. (Exo 20:3-6) Otherwise we are not making God the God of our lives and relying on His willful control and not ours in regards to spiritual things.
The world of the occult is filled with charlatans who can fabricate whatever facts they want to, sell millions of books, and no one would be the wiser if they put the right spin on it. Because most of our own encounters and religious experiences are somewhat vague it makes it easy to pigeon-hole them into the framework and interpretations of new-age authors and purveyors of false religion. They can gather thousands of followers and gain credibility they don't deserve. I know this because I've been duped myself for many years and have lived in constant fear of superstitious beliefs. (I was in the Word of Faith movement. More info can be found here:
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/word-faith.html)
The wisest thing to do is look to God's Word which has withstood the test of historicity for thousands of years, written by people who did not simply have private and vague experiences, but unambiguous experiences that were witnessed by nations and carefully preserved through history. (for a very brief synopsis:
http://carm.org/is-the-bible-reliable) Contrary to popular belief and conspiracy theories by so-called Bible scholars the historicity and accuracy of scripture is truly defensible and logical. Its meanings are logical, concrete and can be understood and proclaimed as absolutely true. When you go to scripture and examine it in context to find those original meanings you will discover a different way and a different kind of power that does not involve occultic things like astral projection, telepathy, psychokenesis, etc. These things are sorcery warmed over and interwoven with ideas borrowed from false religions.
(
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Bibliology/Perspicuity/Clarity-of-Scripture/)
The Bible does establish the existence of deceptive spirits (Eph 6:11-12) that we encounter. They are intelligent beings and I know in my own experience they can and will toy with you especially when you open yourself up to the things you describe. I was pulled in slowly and then the true colors of my practices began to show when I was tormented by spirits which is very common among occultists. When I closed myself off to those extra-biblical practices and relied on God, (who is personal and who hears my pleas for help) and developed a strong Christian worldview based on Scripture, only then I found peace. I was utterly deceived and mercifully corrected.
When you look at the life of Christ and His apostles there is an absence of new-age practices among them. When they approached God they did not look to things outside of him for help but went straight to the source. When God did not grant them what they asked they continued to do His will until their last breath as an act of worship because they understood who God is. Their affection was entirely for Him and their example melts my heart just to think on it.
Aside from that I believe that animals are not spiritual beings. There are numerous Biblical reasons I have for that but I know that is an area of disagreement among Christians (The Bible doesn't specifically say). If you affirm the Bible I strongly recommend that you examine the reasons why you believe what you believe and how that relates to God's Word and make an effort to start closing the door to the occult. I have some links that you might find helpful.
http://carm.org/out-of-body-experiencehttp://carm.org/new-age-biblical-responsesI hope this helps.