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If you came to my house, you would see a myriad of crystals. They’re perched atop shelves, tucked into bookcases, and nestled among potted plants. I have tattoos of moons, suns, and stars on my arms.

I know what you’re thinking: You must be into New Age?

What begins as innocent curiosity, a desire for meaning and connection, or just a simple wow, that’s beautiful can set people on a path of consorting with the demonic.

Actually, no.

And I have a follow-up question: When did matters of geology and astronomy become emblems of the occult?

When did we agree that any part of God’s creation belonged to groups that, whether they know it or not, fraternize with the demonic?

I look around and wonder if any Christians are as nettled about this as I am. We already silently surrendered to the hijacking of the rainbow. Are we going to allow another group to lay claim to more aspects of nature that should point us back to God?

That’s not to say that we can stop New Agers, occultists, witches, or anyone for that matter from abusing God’s good creation — we can’t. If they want to infuse stones with dark magic and deduce faulty ideas from the skies, so be it.

But the Christian recoiling from anything involving crystals, astronomical bodies, or other elements of nature is a fundamentally flawed response.

A disclaimer

It’s unwise to purchase crystals or any trinket, no matter how innocuous it appears, from New Age shops and companies. There are telltale signs we should look for: tarot cards, books on modern witchcraft and spellwork, smudge sticks, incense, and anything claiming to “cleanse the energy” in the room.

Some of this merchandise is cursed intentionally. A pretty rock isn’t the only thing you’ll be bringing home with you.

New Age ideas found in books and games beckon the naive down paths of evil masked as “spiritual awakenings” and guides to connecting to the universe and other energy sources, all of which are demonic.

At bare minimum, purchasing products from New Age shops funds groups that practice and champion the dark arts. For the same reasons, Christians should avoid reading horoscopes or purchasing anything in that vein.

Why it matters

Isn’t it interesting that many of the things we associate with occultism and New Ageism, which is just a gateway drug to the occult, are not only part of nature but specifically the most ethereal parts of nature?

Ice tundras, scorching deserts, and mosquito-ridden swamplands do not embody the dark arts. But prismatic crystals, radiant celestial bodies, and deep, mysterious forests — things that are so striking they seem to exude the supernatural, because they do — these specifically we associate with witchcraft.

This is no accident.

Satan uses beauty — the very trait that defined him before his fall — to attract and ensnare. The most sublime elements of nature can be a kind of bait that draws people in. Anyone with an affinity for nature or metaphysics is especially at risk.

That’s why it’s common to see bohemians, naturalists, hippies, and the like gravitate toward the New Age. However, what begins as innocent curiosity, a desire for meaning and connection, or just a simple wow, that’s beautiful can set people on a path of consorting with the demonic. And before they know it, the jaws of dark magic are closing around them.

Further, nature isn’t just the game board on which the story of humanity plays out. Certainly there’s a practical side to oceans, mountains, and the moon, but these elements were also designed to reflect the nature of their Creator, who spoke them into existence, and elicit worship from the spectator.

When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

what is mankind that you are mindful of them,

human beings that you care for them? —Psalm 8:3-4

These words from King David capture a divine purpose of the natural world. He gazes at the sky, bears witness to God’s creativity, His beauty, and His love for mankind, and he responds in worship.

Stealing wonder

But Satan hates the worship of God. It’s fitting that he would steal and pervert the elements of nature likely to stir up that feeling of awestruck wonder: If this exists, there must be a higher power out there. Which, of course, is the point. The complexity and beauty of nature shout the name of the One who created it.

Occultism does indeed leadto a higher power, but not the highest power. Not the power that heals, redeems, and saves but the power that confuses, corrupts, and destroys.

Under Satan’s sinister influence, glittering stones hidden among clay and rock become untapped sources of power instead of reminders of God’s creativity and whimsy. Constellations become pathways to phony insight and introspection instead of evidence of God’s artistry and brilliant design for navigation. The moon becomes an object of worship instead of a great stabilizer in God’s spoken cosmos. The deep woods become a gathering place for witches instead of singers of God’s glory (1 Chronicles 16:33, Psalm 96:12).

Shouldn’t Christians have something to say about this?

Everywhere I see warnings to stay away from New Age ideas and paraphernalia. And that’s good. People need to be educated about this pitfall.

However, I see nothing regarding the flip side of that pitfall — the erroneous belief that certain elements of nature now belong to the occult. They don’t. They were stolen and repurposed for evil, and I, for one, want them back.

Taking back beauty

On the darkest night when no moon can be seen, I know it’s still there in the exact same place it’s always been. I know that as it waxes and wanes, it’s not really changing its form. This is what I mean when I say that God infuses nature with elements of Himself.

Though from my fixed, finite perspective, He may appear to change with the coming and going of seasons, the moon reminds me that God is constant always — fully present, fully perfect, fully God.

And when I look at crystals — their erratic yet somehow ordered structure — I can’t help but think about how the same God who parted seas, sent a great fish to swallow Jonah, and designed both the songbird and the anglerfish is the same logical, pragmatic God who gave Moses the Ten Commandments and invented mathematics. Beautiful, strange, mysterious, and evocative are both crystals and their Creator.

I’m also reminded of the New Jerusalem promised in Revelation 21 — a redeemed and holy city of pure gold surrounded by a wall made of layered stones, some of which are crystals.

“The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst” (Revelation 21:19-20).

Crystals and precious stones are quite literally reminders of God’s promise to create a new heaven and earth where toil, sickness, pain, and sin are forever defeated, but now that the occult has invented “crystal healing,” they’re off-limits to the very people who will inherit God’s redeemed Jerusalem? Now that moon rituals and dating parameters based on your “sign” exist, suddenly it’s taboo for Christians to marvel at certain elements of God’s creation?

I reject that.

I’m embracing my affinity for crystals, moons, and stars even if it means giving the “wrong impression.”

Ask me if I use my crystals for healing, and I’ll say, No, but let me tell you what will heal you. Ask me about my identity as a Libra, and I’ll tell you to Whom my identity is attached. Ask me about the sun and moon tattooed on my left arm, and I’ll point you to the Psalms.

I think it’s high time we stop retreating every time a new group sticks its flag in our territory.