Crystals, sage, astrology and manifestation stop being harmless self-care when people use them to draw spiritual power, protection or guidance from somewhere other than God. Jude 3 Project draws the line at intent, not the object. Sage burned because you like the smell, or a crystal kept on a shelf because it is beautiful, is not a spiritual practice. A ritual to clear negative energy, a birth chart consulted to steer your future, or an effort to will a new reality into being is a different thing, and it does not fit with following Jesus.
That answer is where this guide starts, not where it ends. The harder work is understanding why these practices appeal to people you know, why the calm they bring tends to wear off, and how to talk with a friend about it without condescension. You can work through this alone in one sitting or with a group in about an hour. If you lead a group, read each section aloud, give people real time for the short observation tasks, and hold the discussion questions until the group has done the Scripture work.
Write down the pitch
Before you evaluate anything, collect the actual claims. Take a few minutes and list every phrase you have heard attached to these practices: the universe has your back, protect your energy, it’s in my chart, I’m manifesting it. Next to each one, write what it promises. Peace, protection, direction, control and healing are the usual answers.
The Faith That Makes Sense curriculum, in its lesson on New Age Spiritualism, names the promise under most of those phrases. It says these practices offer spiritual power without religious rules, and then adds: “This feels safe because it makes self the highest authority.” Slow down on that sentence. The draw is mostly not the stone or the smoke. It is the arrangement. You decide what to keep, what to skip and what counts as true for you. The curriculum compares this to curating a playlist.
Now look back at your list. How many promises depend on you doing the practice correctly? How many depend on someone outside you who knows you and cares what happens to you? Most lists come out lopsided. Notice that before going further.
Whose story is being told?
A careful reader asks who is being described before drawing conclusions. The curriculum refuses the easy story that people who use these practices are simply rebelling against God. Faith That Makes Sense says, “Many young people turn to New Age practices not because they are rebellious but because they are looking for an anchor.” It points to anxiety and to a world that feels unpredictable. It also names something the church has to own: “This feels safer than a church experience where you might have felt judged, unseen, or controlled”
The reasons are not all the same, and the differences matter. One person lights sage after a breakup because the apartment feels heavy. Another reads horoscopes because planning a future feels impossible. The curriculum also describes a deeper ache among some Black young adults. After learning how Scripture was twisted to justify slavery, some turn to Kemeticism, crystals or African spirituality in search of a self untouched by oppression. That hunger deserves honor. Jude 3 Project affirms the desire to respect heritage and the dead, while drawing a line at veneration and spiritual contact. It also holds that Christianity is not foreign to Africa. The faith took root there centuries before it reached much of Europe.
The curriculum adds a historical irony worth checking for yourself. It notes that much of the material used in modern Kemetic practice, including popular editions of the Book of the Dead, was translated and popularized by European archaeologists and occultists in the nineteenth century. Someone leaving the church to escape European influence may be leaning on European sources. Treat that as a claim to look into, not a weapon to swing.
None of these reasons belongs to one community, and no one should assume a friend’s reason before asking. A note for leaders: some people in your group may have relatives who practice rootwork, Santería or ancestral veneration. The curriculum’s instruction is plain: “Don’t mock the relative they love.” Speak to the practice, not the person.
Why the calm keeps wearing off
The curriculum makes a simple observation: “New Age spirituality is high maintenance.” It goes on: “Sage must be burned repeatedly because the peace fades.” Think about what that implies. If the peace came from a reality outside you that was actually holding you, it would not need constant renewing. The upkeep is not a side detail. It shows that the practice depends on the user’s effort.
The curriculum’s second point goes deeper. Clearing a room of bad energy assumes the problem sits outside you. Scripture locates the deepest problem inside the human heart. Faith That Makes Sense puts it bluntly: “Sage is like using air freshener in a burning house.” The room may feel better for an evening. Whatever was actually wrong is still there.
Manifestation adds a quieter cost. If your thoughts create your reality, then your setbacks are your fault. The curriculum states the logic directly: “If you are your own god, you must be your own savior.” And elsewhere: “If you are the hero who saves yourself, you are also the failure who blames yourself when things go wrong.” What looks like a promise of control turns out to be a transfer of blame. The job loss, the diagnosis and the friend who left all become evidence that you did not align your intentions well enough.
Here is the strongest objection, and it deserves an answer. Christians repeat things too. We pray daily, gather weekly and read Scripture again and again. Is repetition itself the flaw? No. The difference lies in what the repetition is doing. A crystal is recharged because its power is supposed to drain. Prayer is repeated because it is conversation with a Person whose care does not drain when we pray badly or not at all. The curriculum frames the relief this way: “We do not have to carry the world; Christ carries what we cannot.” Prayer is a relationship kept up, not a battery topped off.
Read Romans 1:25 inside Paul’s argument
The verse most often cited here is Romans 1:25: “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” In context, Paul is not singling out a fringe group. Romans 1:18-32 describes humanity as a whole turning from God toward created things. Then in Romans 2 he turns to the reader who has been nodding along in judgment, and by Romans 3:23 he concludes, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God”. The verse diagnoses all of us. It levels the ground before it ever touches your friend’s nightstand.
Now read Psalm 19:1-6. Verse 1 reads, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.” Firmament is the older English word for the sky’s expanse, and sheweth means shows. Circle every verb that creation performs in these six verses. You will find speaking, declaring and showing, all aimed beyond creation itself.
Put the two passages side by side. Psalm 19 shows the sky pointing past itself to its Maker. Romans 1 shows people stopping at the sky. The stars are the same in both. What changes is where the worship lands. Genesis 1:1 grounds the distinction: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” The Maker is not the material. The curriculum draws a practical conclusion about the difference between a force and a Person. Of a crystal it says, “You can hold it, but it cannot hold you.”
Testing the two most common replies
Expect two responses when this comes up. The first is that it works. The friend feels calmer, so what is the harm? The curriculum points to Exodus 7, where Pharaoh’s magicians produced real effects, and moves the question from whether something gives you a feeling to what the source of the power is. Faith That Makes Sense says, “Just because a practice feels spiritual does not mean it is holy.” Scripture treats the unseen world as real and not always friendly. Paul warns in 2 Corinthians 11:14, “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” The text does not support a map of which objects attract which spirits, and speculating about that will not help your friend. It does support confidence that Christ has authority over that world and that what is attractive is not always safe.
The second reply is that the friend uses these things to worship God. The curriculum’s leader guide points to Exodus 32. When Aaron made the golden calf, he announced a feast to the LORD (Exodus 32:5). The people were not obviously trading gods. They were worshiping the true God on terms borrowed from the nations around them. Intent matters, but it does not make the method faithful. Hold this point gently, because the friend who says it usually means well. The curriculum puts it this way: “Our goal is not to attack their intent.”
One more test, and it is about you. If a friend turns to these practices to manage serious anxiety or depression, a better argument is not the whole answer. Jude 3 Project holds that therapy is not a failure of faith, and that spiritual and mental health concerns are not an either-or. The curriculum’s pastoral note fits here too: “Know your limits: be a bridge to professional counselors, not the cure.”
A practice: one honest conversation
This week, have one real conversation with someone who uses crystals, sage, astrology or manifestation. If no one comes to mind, use the solo version below.
- Ask the curriculum’s question in your own voice: “What are you hoping this will do for you?”
- Then follow the curriculum’s next instruction: “Listen without judging.” Do not correct anything in this conversation. Your only job is to understand.
- Say back the need you heard, in one sentence. For example: So it sounds like it helps you feel less on edge at night. Ask whether you got it right.
- Ask one follow-up about duration: how long does the calm usually last? Listen to the answer without turning it into a point.
- Only if they ask what you do, describe honestly where you turn when your own peace runs out, including the times it has not felt easy. Do not script a testimony.
Afterward, write down three things: the need they named, what surprised you, and whether Jesus speaks to that need in a way that does not depend on their upkeep. Matthew 11:28 is worth sitting with as you reflect: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Solo version: for seven days, note every time you hear universe language, from friends, ads or yourself. Replace “the universe” with “God” and read the sentence again. Does it still make sense? What changes when the one who has your back can also hear you?
For groups, debrief the following week. Ask people to share the need they heard, not the friend’s name or private details. Anyone can pass.
Questions for discussion
- Look at the list of promises you wrote at the start. Which promise would be hardest for you personally to give up, and why?
- The curriculum suggests some people find these practices safer than church. What would a church have to do differently for that comparison to change?
- Where is the line between enjoying sage or crystals and relying on them? Would you draw it in the same place as this guide? Explain your reasoning.
- Romans 1:25 sits inside an argument that indicts everyone. How does reading it that way change how you would bring it up with a friend, if at all?
- What is the difference between repeating a prayer and recharging a crystal? Is there any way your own spiritual habits have started to function like the second?
- If a friend told you their practice works, what would you want to understand about their experience before you answered?
Here is a question worth carrying into the week: when your own peace fades, what do you reach for first, and does it require you to keep it working?