A lot of people think that the way to develop spiritually is to first develop their psychic abilities. They think that by studying something like psychic healing, communicating with animals or having prophetic visions of the future that it will lead to spiritual enlightenment. This is a case of putting the cart before the horse which obviously doesn't work very well. The dangers of doing it this way is that you are concentrating on the development of your dark spirit rather than your Light spirit. 
    The best approach is to work on awakening your soul and developing the Light spirit and, in the process, you will likely develop some psychic abilities. But the development of psychic should never be the goal. Yes, you can do some exercises to help you communicate with your pets or see into the future, but that should not be your primary effort or goal.
     Another example of putting the cart before the horse is the way many of us put spiritual development on a back burner so we can concentrate on our jobs, our families, and our material needs. This is understandable in the world we live in today and especially with the current economy, but rather than saving spiritual development for some time in the future that may never happen, we need to find time for it now. It doesn't have to be a lot, an hour a week will do, but you have to spend at least some of that time in actual spiritual development, not just sitting in a church listening to sermons. Fortunately, the International Community of Christ has modernized ancient spiritual development techniques to suit out current times so they can me done in only five or ten minutes a day.