Consumer Witches and Fake Crystals

Words by Niamh Vaughan (she/her)

Gen Z is fascinated by the occult. 

There’s no denying it. Pick a Card tarot readings run rampant across every social media platform; your best friend probably keeps a piece of citrine in their wallet in hopes of attracting financial abundance; witch-tok is a beast within itself, with users threatening to hex celebrities and lighting pink candles to honour Aphrodite; when you landed a job interview, your flatmate said they’d manifest a good outcome for you; even at the back of this magazine there’s a horoscope section that you almost definitely flicked to before looking at this feature. Metaphysical spirituality has a choke-hold on all of us.

Growing up, I was always around these ‘witchy’ practices. My mum had a tin of crystals and a deck of tarot cards that I used to play with all the time. She even had a set of runes I thought were Scrabble tiles before I was old enough to read. When I was a teenager, I started going to spiritual fairs: halls filled with ‘psychics’, tarot cards and readers, reiki healers, and mountains upon mountains of crystals. It always seemed I was the youngest person in the room (except for the little girl who would talk to people’s dead pets), but as the years went on, the halls got busier and busier. Last time I went, I recognised so many people I knew.

About six years ago, I learned how to read tarot. I was 16-years-old and would beg people to let me practise on them. More often than not, no one was interested. But pretty quickly, momentum started to build up. By the end of high school, I’d hear people showing off the crystals they’d stolen from Cosmic, and gemstones were hanging around everyone’s necks. Nowadays, I would never think to offer someone a tarot reading. I can’t go to a party without someone asking if I brought my cards. I get stuck in the corner of a dark room doing back-to-back readings while a huddle of onlookers watch me tell yet another querent to stop sleeping with their ex-boyfriend. 

As resident Salient Wizard and horoscope writer, I have frontline experience with the current thirst for astrological knowledge. But, in my opinion, the headliner of Gen Z’s spirituality is crystals. 

Just about everyone owns at least one, whether they believe in a metaphysical property or not. Though this boom in interest seems novel, none of it is actually new. The crystal side of TikTok might be, but humans have had relationships with crystals since the dawn of time. Thirty-thousand-year-old amber amulets (not technically a crystal, but neither is obsidian, so I’m using ‘crystal’ as a broad definition here) were discovered near Hanover, Germany, and crystal healing is thought to have stemmed 6000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia. You may have been on Instagram when you discovered moldevite, the crystal promised to have the ability to ‘completely fuck up your life, but like, in a good way’ (to quote an old friend). Really, moldevite was first discovered by prehistoric people in the Czech Republic up to 43,000 years ago. 

Susan has run the crystal store The Capricorn Spirit for eight years, first launching it in Levin before opening a second branch on Willis Street last year. She describes her business to me as a “holistic health shop” with a focus on crystal healing. The few tarot and oracle decks she sells are not for fortune telling, they are a mindfulness tool to aid in being more conscious and aware of oneself. Susan has also noticed a sudden influx of interest in crystals, noting how other spiritual shops seemed to have “all of a sudden” appeared in the past year or so. 

Having received a Bachelor of Science, Susan noticed a gap of knowledge and information in the crystal market. “I realised [there] wasn’t a really good crystal shop [near me], and there wasn’t good knowledge about crystals and the science behind [them],” she told me. Susan describes herself as a “crystologist” who combines her geological background with her metaphysical knowledge, using her understanding of crystal systems and structures in her healing practice. 

With the new era of spirituality and the widespread popularity of crystals comes a sudden and immensely profitable market. It’s not just the spiritualists or healers like Susan who can get behind the healing. The capitalists can too. 

The market has been overrun by what Susan calls “imposters”, a title describing crystals that have either been dyed, heated, or essentially spray painted through to ‘crystals’ that are actually man-made glass or simply plastic. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your piece of moldavite? If you didn’t pay a top dollar price—we’re talking $300 to $400—then it isn’t moldavite. That glass wasn't forged by a meteor but by a man with money on his mind, especially if the piece is bigger than the size of a fingernail. Goldstone is produced in factories, opalite (which I’ve sometimes seen sold as an imposter moonstone) looks like foggy, rainbow-catching plastic because it is, and malachite is usually just malachite powder mixed with resin and painted. 

There isn’t necessarily something wrong with buying imposter crystals. Not everybody buys in hopes of metaphysical properties, some are just interested in finding something that looks nice to put on the shelf. The problem is that most buyers don’t realise they’re forking over their cash for something fake, whether they’re buying with spiritual practices in mind or not. A crystal seller that advertises imposters for what they are is a rare thing, and that’s if they even know that what they have is fake in the first place. 

For Susan, if your intention when buying a crystal is to work with its energy, then the imposter crystals are a nefarious thing. “[Altering the crystal] kills it, from my perspective. [...] By buying even a [dyed crystal], you’re not buying anything. You’re buying a dead crystal.” To her, it’s like the difference between a cow and a steak. “The reason a crystal is a crystal is because it has a regular repeating structure pattern. Each cell repeats over and over again. And that cell structure is perfect. [...] That's why its energy is perfect. It takes hundreds of thousands of years [before crystals form] and we dig them up.” Altering the crystal with dyes and heat changes this structure and any metaphysical ability it may have.

Currently, there are no crystal selling regulations in New Zealand. There is nothing protecting a buyer from walking into a shop looking for blue obsidian and walking out with cyan-coloured glass. There is nothing preventing someone putting a toxic or dyed crystal in one of those expensive bottles promised to ‘cleanse’ your drinking water. There is nothing stopping a large factory from heat-treating ametrine and selling it to you as citrine (if that piece you keep in your wallet looks like an orange amethyst, you have an imposter on your hands). Everybody wants a cut of the nearly $5 billion industry, whether they have any expertise, or even interest, in crystals at all. “I’ve seen people selling moss agate as ocean jasper,” Susan said, “usually because the seller just doesn’t understand [crystals].” 

Misinformation is rife in the crystal community, thanks to imposter crystals, a lack of real geological knowledge or government regulations that protect both buyers and sellers, and the virality of TikTok. When TikTok’s trend cycle popularises a particular crystal, it drives demand for a finite resource, resulting in imposters flooding the market. Shortly after, the cycle repeats with a different mineral. Susan saw it happen with moldavite, and can see consumers’ eyes wandering to things like tiger’s eye and blue-lace agate.

“No crystal comes into my shop unless I’ve gone in person, felt it, and made sure its energy is okay,” Susan says. “[I also try to source] from sustainable [miners] as much as I can.” Here is the rub: many crystals are not ethically sourced, and since crystals pass through many hands before being shelved at a wholesalers, it can be incredibly hard for shop owners to trace what mines and conditions they come from. So even for sellers with ethics on their mind, it can be hard to guarantee what mine a crystal came from. 

Typically, specific minerals and crystals can only be found in one part of the world, and it’s not uncommon for these areas to be bought out by a singular company wanting a monopoly on a certain ‘product’ and mined dry. Some of the worst suppliers even rely on child labour to get their hands on a profit. 

Susan likes to know where her crystals come from and does her best to buy from small, sustainable mines when she can. She recommends having a chat with the owner of whatever crystal shop you go into and asking about the origins of their crystals. Study up on where certain crystals are mined—if a seller says their Caribbean calcite is from a place other than Pakistan, it’s not authentic. Personally, if I walk into a shop and see bismuth or opalite being sold as natural stones, I walk out again. Either the seller doesn’t know what they’re doing or they don’t mind being dishonest. Buy with intention and commit to the process of finding the right crystal for the right purpose.

Crystals are undeniably beautiful: and 40% of Salient’s voting Instagram followers believe in their metaphysical properties. But if you want to make more informed decisions when purchasing, maybe don’t source all your information from TikTok. The Capricorn Spirit runs courses on how to spot imposter crystals and how to actually use your crystals for healing. Judy Hall’s Crystal Bible series is a great place to start building up your background knowledge. Don’t trust websites that have a product to sell. Ask before you buy, learn what you can, and maybe rethink buying that piece of moldavite.