I’m not going to tell you that is no power outside the biblical Covenant of Christ. When Moses stood up in Pharaoh’s court, we see that the magicians were in some ways on par with Moses in terms of wonders. No one was demanding that Pharaoh abandon his pagan beliefs, but that he respect Jehovah’s claim over His people.
Throughout the Bible, we see the narrative sometimes condemns various magic acts as fakery, but some it seems to take seriously. Those watching the drama between Pharaoh and Moses would have seen wonders performed before their eyes on both sides (up until about half-way through the Plagues). It was a different world entirely than ours today.
On the one hand, Paul in 1 Corinthians 10:19-20 teaches that any power not arising from the biblical covenants arose from the worship of demons. That’s not to say the wonders attached to pagan religion are due to some evil magic of demons. Satan and his demons report the truth when it suits their interests, and they have revealed the way of Creation to a lot of people who don’t love Jesus.
I’ve already said you can be heart-led without the Holy Spirit. I’m hardly the first guy to write that Creation is alive, sentient and willful. While I learned that from my pursuit of biblical studies, the idea shows up in a lot of pagan literature, too. Looking back over human history, the brief window of Western Civilization is the only period when any significant portion of humanity did not regard the heart superior to the intellect. The heart-led way is a gift of God to all humanity; only in the West has the Devil been allowed to hide it at all. It’s the default of humanity, even after the Fall, to trust the heart over the head.
And even without a clue about Jehovah, the God of the Bible, the heart tends to lead people to some measure of truth about reality as God made it. So one may ask: What difference does it make?
It’s in the word shalom. Without the biblical covenants, you cannot have peace with the Creator. The honest truth is that you can have a lot in this world with direct knowledge of God. But by the same token, we have a substantial record of people finding God without the Bible. I suppose that in standard Western English we might say the heart is a necessary element in full redemption, but not of itself sufficient to bring redemption.
Take a look at Isaiah 43:1-7. That’s a part of the Covenant of Moses, implied as part of the Covenant of Noah, and now part of the Covenant of Christ. It’s a part of what’s included in shalom. But shalom itself is now available only in Christ. There may be an awful lot of good heart-led lore there outside the Bible, but you aren’t going to get Isaiah 43:1-7 without Jesus.
Satan would love for you to believe making Christ Lord is not necessary. He has been granted a significant amount of power to give to those he deceives. But those powers stop at the boundary of faith. Those snakes in Pharaoh’s court could not hurt Moses and Aaron. We do see Job having a tough time, but he’s the extreme example. We also see that Satan tried hard to hijack Jesus from the path of a mystical Suffering Servant Messiah (Luke 4:1-13). In other words, the last thing the Devil wanted was for Jesus to die on the Cross.
In broad general terms, you don’t need to worry about repeating the experience of Job, and Christ alone could shed blood for sin. You’ll have your own unique cross to bear, but you’ll be granted the faith to handle what comes with it. That’s the key; humans cannot simply summon faith from any other source. The power of consistent trust in God working in Creation comes only from God. Through it all, nothing can remove God’s favor on you. The real power of shalom is what’s inside of you, and there’s only one source: Jesus Christ.
I have been reading Carla Rueckert’s “A Wanderer’s Handbook” (PDF available), which has some pretty good general spiritual information. Also stuff from channeled New Agey sources, which I suspect are not really totally friendly to Christianity (the old small-g gods, or something else). The channeler herself is a Christian, but doesn’t seem to have a problem channeling stuff that doesn’t take her faith that seriously, there’s a somewhat strange lack of cognitive dissonance there… Don’t know if I would recommend the book to anyone, but it’s not all useless. There are nuggets of good information everywhere, even if some of it is definitely trying to lead you astray.
Also some local Christian sects have apprently thought that you should forbid front-loading washing machines at some point in time… I wonder what’s the thought process behind that one. Strangely hypnotic laundry or something?
The world of religion is full of the most improbable prohibitions. I’ve not heard of anything regarding front-loading washing machines, so I can’t comment on any presumed underlying principles. However, there’s nothing wrong with sampling the writings of those who don’t see things the way we do, if you feel led to look at it. How else can you understand their moral failings? We might counsel folks to be cautious about some ideas, but it’s a natural part of our human existence to be curious and poke around like that. In the end, our individual influence is limited. We have to know for ourselves what it takes to have peace with God. Again: All truth is God’s truth.
The important thing while reading “alternative sources” is in my opinion to stick with the basic truths of Christianity and the fact that it’s a true spiritual battle out there. Information vs. misinformation, spiritual warfare. You shouldn’t put much trust in other sources or interpretations — there really are entities that actively try to mislead you. As much as possible, using every strategy available, truth mixed with appropriate lies. Better even to be paranoid than sorry sometimes. Being blue-eyed is not always wise.
I’ll go with that for people who haven’t learned their way around yet.