New Age Practices to Avoid as a New Christian
I taught and practiced the new age for over ten years. After being saved, I let go of all the new age practices that were a part of my everyday life for years. It felt like a relief that God was telling me exactly what to do and what to let go of. And, It didn’t feel like a ‘have to’ but a ‘get to’. I got to embrace my love for God through my obedience and admitting that these practices were never what he wanted me/us to participate in.
If you’re an ex new ager, a new believer, or you’ve been a Christian for most of your life, it’s a healthy practice to check in from time to time - are you using new age practices? Is there idol worship in your life? Are there any practices you make excuses for but know the Holy Spirit is convicting your to stop participating in them?
As the new age becomes more mainstream in our culture, I hope sharing these new age practices to avoid supports you in your discernment process.
Destroy all places where there is idolatry.
- Deuteronomy 12:1-2
✨ 12 new age practices to avoid as a new christian ✨
New Age Practices to Avoid #1 Goddess and Priestess interest and practices
This is a big category for many because these communities are growly fast online. I had immersed myself in the online goddess culture and built a strong connection to the goddess Isis. Looking back now I see that there was a piece I was searching for within myself of motherly connection and a desire for community. I received neither of these, truly. These spaces were always image-focused and void of empathy and understanding. I always felt like another transaction.
Once I started to read the Bible, especially the book of Jeremiah, God helped me to see so clearly that worshipping goddesses and goddess culture was idolatry. It might seem obvious to mature believers but as a new Christian I just didn’t know. And maybe you didn’t either.
We are to put no others above God.
New Age Practices to Avoid #2 Moon rituals and meditation journeys
In the new age there’s a huge focus on worshipping the moon with specific spoken invocations and moon rituals. It always felt so anti-climatic. You’re told to do these steps and you’ll manifest or co-create your ideal life with the ‘universe’. I tried it all. None of it ever helped me in any way. It always felt off.
Once you don’t moon practices anymore you’ll look up at the moon and enjoy it’s beauty. You can think how lovely the moon is as God’s creation. Nothing more.
Meditation was another practice that I stopped doing for myself before being saved. Like God was preparing me ahead of time before I’d be letting go of the new age. The way meditation is taught in the new age is to empty your mind and connect to demonic presences. Dangerous!
God showed me to let go of the ‘meditations with goddess Brigid’ or ‘a journey to connect with your star family’. These were all, of course, not God-led and ended up taking so much of my energy away. Making me tired, sad, and unwell.
As an alternative, did you know Christianity has a beautiful contemplative prayer practice? Instead of emptying the mind, you fill your mind with God’s Word by focusing on 1 verse of the Bible in a calm, quiet way.
New Age Practices to Avoid #3 Tarot readings and divination cards
I got my first tarot deck in high school after playing with a deck at a friend’s house. The cards were beautiful and tarot is marketed as a way to ‘know your future’ and help you sort out your life’s problems. Who wouldn’t want to know helpful steps to take to get out of a hard time. Tarot is such a dark magic, though. Doreen Virtue who was a huge new age author and card creator has turned to Jesus and says these practices are evil.
How does tarot work? Sadly, tarot readers and psychics are being used by demonic energy to get information that seems accurate to you. Be honest, have you ever had a tarot reading that left you feeling good or amounted to anything positive in your life? Even if you still use this practice or buy psychic readings it’s not too late to toss those cards in the garbage right now.
God is the only one who is omniscient. No matter how much we’d like to be, we aren’t created to know everything - including the future. Let’s trust God to provide and comfort us in our seasons of working out difficult experiences in our lives.
New Age Practices to Avoid #4 Channeling, watching channeling, light language and starseed origin
This one taps into our desire for ‘specialness’. I saw channeling as a unique gift that I got praise and attention for. The insta posts where I shared songs that Isis gave me or inspirational channeled messages from the goddess were always met with 100s of likes.
I stopped channeling in 2020. I don’t know how many new age friends got mad at me for this decision! It triggered them too. But I’d rather be right with God than right with the entities that were using me to share demonic messages. I didn’t want to keep participating in something I knew was dark and wrong. And I didn’t want to feel like I was being a part of an ongoing problem.
With the decision to stop channeling, I also stopped watching other people channel. I unsubscribed to email lists and YouTube creators who channeled messages from entities, aliens, and especially if they used light language. Watching it felt just as damaging as doing it.
New Age Practices to Avoid #5 Manifestation and new age affirmations
My introduction to the new age was with Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life. I loved this book! I used it during the time when I was most isolated and no-contact with my family at 21. It felt like a life line. But did these affirmations really ever do anything for me? I don’t think so. I wanted them to.
Manifestation is another industry, yes, industry, that for years took all my money. They’d tell you ‘you need to invest in yourself’ to become financially secure. And that they’d show me the exact formula to build wealth. I’m sure it works for people. It did NOT work for me. It’s another area of the new age that’s very transactional and devoid of any meaning or value.
If you’re still mixed up in this, ask God for discernment to help you spot untruths. Ask God to help you find authors and books that honor God. As you wake up you’ll start to see the practitioners who can offer you genuine support and solutions for change and those who won’t.
New Age Practices to Avoid #6 Personality assessments: enneagram, human design, and astrology
I personally believe these are all tools for distraction. Practices like human design, enneagram, and astrology all take you away from your time with God. Instead they put all the focus on how you aren’t good enough and need to be fixed/better.
These particular new age practices feel satanic in the aspect that satan lovessss self-idolization, self-love, and self-worship. Essentially extreme narcissism. The new age is flooded with all kinds of practices that are focused on the self. Eventually you don’t realize that you’ve become obsessed with improving yourself, healing yourself (spiritually and physically), and bettering yourself. All the while you’re not actually improving, healing, or growing at all.
Similar to how I felt about tarot I always tried to get into these tools and I just never could. They didn’t feel right and so I wouldn’t push it. God’s protection. See the theme?
The enneagram is used in a lot of Christian spaces (and churches) but has a weird creation story. Human design is channeled while astrology points to what could happen in the stars. But God’s in charge. You can’t override God.
I see why people value these tools. You want to get to know yourself, be a better person. That’s a good intention when it’s centered around glorifying God. But when it’s devoid of God it’s wrong. In my experience, the best tool to grow with God has been studying the Bible. In being diligent in my study I’ve seen God teach me through my life in a way these tools never did.
New Age Practices to Avoid #7 Using a pendulum
I used a pendulum very often in selecting flower essences for clients. It’s one of the ways many practitioners teach their students to make best choices for their client’s blends but also for muscle testing. And this was one of my selection tools for years.
The main reason to stop using a pendulum is because you don’t actually know the energy that’s connected to the other end of it. Is it your own thoughts? If so, it’s pointless. You can think and make choices without it! Is it entities and demonic energy? Then it’s controlling you and it’s dangerous.
Another reason I started to question this was because it can be used as a form of divination. Asking the pendulum questions and receiving answers. It started to not feel good and so I stopped using it and actually threw my pendulum in the trash.
New Age Practices to Avoid #8 Saying universe instead of God
Early on in my new age journey the word universe was said over and over and over. I noticed it in nearly every Hay House book. Why pray to the universe and not God? It seems so odd.
And why say the universe can help you co-create when we know God is the one doing all of the creating? God created the universe and everything in it. It seems dangerous to want to delete His mighty name.
After being saved I realized using the word universe was a way of making accommodations for people who weren’t comfortable saying God out loud and admitting God exists. This ties into the idea of the new age love and light club. People who only focus on what feels good instead of what’s truthful and real.
Language matters! If you’re saying universe when you mean God start asking yourself why.
New Age Practices to Avoid #9 Receiving reiki or energy healing of any kind
This is the one I have the strongest opinions on. Reiki is dark. It’s a channeled healing practice that’s become pretty normalized today. It seems harmless but it absolutely does harm to those who use it. Especially the practitioners.
Things took a turn in my life in my early 20s when I started letting people use reiki on me. I let an experienced practitioner do reiki on my sick dog, Enzo - and he died the very next day. I can’t say if they’re related but I sense there’s a connection there.
After I started to put this together I had an experience with a trusted person in my life that I was working with. She would give energy work as part of our barter exchange. The morning of our session I asked the Holy Spirit to protect me from any reiki or energy work that was not from God. Because I was still questioning if energy healing was on my safe list.
During the session the practitioner started to get upset (entities get mad, y’all) and told me that my inner child was acting out and not letting her get any work done. See what she did there - she placed the blame on me. It was the demonic energy that’s attached to her that’s making the decisions.
Moral of the story. God is all the protection you will ever need. Ask the Holy Spirit to come upon you and walk with you, protect you, hold your hand, help you find the truth. You’ll always receive it. And, pray for the practitioners and friends we have who are still caught up in these practices. Pray that they get saved or, at the very least, pray that they stop working with reiki and energy healing.
New Age Practices to Avoid #10 Programming crystals for love, money, and success
This one just feels embarrassing to me now. How in the world did I believe that talking to a stone or a crystal and programming it with my intention would bring me abundance, protection, love, or peace? I hate that so many of us have gotten caught up in this lie. But here we are.
I enjoy crystals today as a beautiful creation of God’s. They are lovely to look at. But I was recently convicted by God to get them all out of my house except one because I love it for its beauty only. If we read Revelation 21:9-21 we see how Heaven’s gates and walls are decorated with many crystals. We’ll see the beauty of it one day. But on earth, crystals are pretty to look at but we should be leaning on God for healing and sustenance.
Btw I spent so much of my money on crystals. Probably thousands over the last 15 years. It’s a good, good lesson for me. Maybe you’re waking up to it too? Ask yourself, do you really, truly, honestly feel like working with crystals in rituals or by programing them has ever helped you? It might be time to get the crystals out of your home, love.
New Age Practices to Avoid #11 Praying to anyone except God or Jesus
I used to pray to angels and archangels for help. I’d pray to different goddesses. I’d pray to Mother Mary or Mary Magdalene. In many traditions you’d pray for Mother Mary or a Saint to intercede and bring your prayers to Jesus or God - not to directly pray to them for help. I misunderstood that when in the new age because that’s not how it’s taught.
In the new age it’s taught that we’re all powerful, we can all be our own god, we’re all spiritually connected and we can create what we want when we want. The Bible says there’s only 1 God. Jen Wilkin explains this really well in her book Ten Words to Live By.
I only pray to God and Jesus now. If you do a novena or pray a rosary let’s remember the order of things. If you pray a Hail Mary it’s with the intention that Mother Mary intercedes and shares your prayer with God for the help, comfort, hope, and grace you’re seeking.
New Age Practices to Avoid #12 All Hay House self-help books (many authors channel their content)
After being saved this was one of the things I knew needed to go - allllll the books. I got rid of all the self-help, guru-esque, channeled, you’re-perfect-and-you-can-have-the-life-you-dream-of books.
I thought it would feel a lot harder but once they were out of the house it felt amazing. Most of the time we buy the books because we think they’ll really help us - most of these books I didn’t read all of the way through!
But mostly it’s the sparkly marketing tactics if we’re honest. Isn’t it? I know for me it was. They push in on the pain points in your life and you feel like you need whatever that author has to say.
God’s protection is such a theme. You might be protected from these things that just aren’t good for you. Give yourself a permission slip to toss the books that don’t feel right anymore.
I truly hope that this post has been helpful. The new age is very connected to our outer culture right now and some of these might feel hard or shocking to let go of. God doesn’t expect you to let go of everything all at once. You don’t need to rush. Let the Holy Spirit lead you toward your relationship with God and ask for all idols and new age practices in your life to be made obvious so you can let them go for good.
Trust me when I say God has something even better for you. You won’t even miss that ‘old you’.
Love,
Eliza
