MEN WHO ROCK
Instead of buying sports cars and bottle ser vice, titans of finance and tech are spending thousands on crystals and quackery
B ACK in the good old days, Alex Hill used to drop a couple of grand a night on models and bottles at Provocateur and Top of the Standard. But now he spends his money on a different indulgence: amethyst crystals.
Hill, the CEO of his own real estate firm who once dabbled in investment banking, had all the trappings of a successful alphamale existence: a sweet apartment hugging the High Line, a shiny BMW X5 and nights out in the Hamptons and Las Vegas with five-figure bar tabs. But he wasn’t fulfilled. “I was seeking a deeper purpose, but I was blocked,” says Hill, a Riverdale native, of his realization.
So, four years ago, he turned to crystals for help,
dropping tens of thousands of dollars on rocks and selling off most of his possessions, including the majority of his 35 suits and a Rolex Explorer watch, to fund his new habit. He went to a spiritual festival in Brazil, gave up his apartment in the Meatpacking District and now spends much of his time in the Venice section of Los Angeles.
“I’m happier, focused on my mission and in love,” says Hill, who recently married a woman whom he met at the festival.
The medical and scientific community considers “crystal healing” to be quackery: “They have absolutely no power whatsoever to affect the human body,” says Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine and a monthly columnist for Scientific American. But that hasn’t stopped the practice from growing in popularity: Earlier this year, Fast Company reported a 40 percent jump in “crystal healing” Google searches over the past four years.
Crystals have long been popular with New Age enthusiasts and wellness fanatics, from Kim Kardashian, who turned to them to recover from her Paris robbery, to Gwyneth Paltrow and her Goop followers. But, increasingly, they are attracting an unexpected demographic: alpha men. Finance titans and startup bros are dropping big cash on shining rocks that supposedly have healing properties as the popularity of crystals spreads beyond hippie-dippy circles.
“These are people who run hedge funds, who work on Wall Street. These are guys who are running businesses and handling all these people’s money,” says Colleen McCann, a bicoastal “energy practitioner” who charges $250 an hour for her “crystal reading” private sessions, of her changing clientele.
Alphas approach crystals with the same intensity as investing in the stock market or launching a new app.
Anthony C., a 37-year-old who works in luxury commercial real estate and lives in exclusive Sands Point, LI, spent two months to find exactly the right moldavite, a rare stone said to be from a meteor that crashed into Earth nearly 15 million years ago.
His former guru, based on Long Island, told the single, lovelorn Antho- ny: “You’ll start manifesting stuff, get protection, abundance.”
But the guru turned on him when he found out Anthony wasn’t buying the crystal from him.
“He’s all about the money, so he’s not a good guy,” says Anthony, who eventually found a European dealer to sell him a 46-ounce moldavite set in 22-karat gold for a cool $10,000.
Anthony, who declined to give his last name for professional reasons and lives in a 15,000-square-foot waterfront home, thought nothing of dropping that kind of cash on a rock.
“I’m not thinking about the money — I’m thinking about what I need,” he says. “I’m doing it for all [kinds of ] reasons — finance, making things happen in business.” The moldavite hasn’t arrived yet, but he’s confident it will prove effective.
He also says that other stones he’s purchased worked initially but lost their powers when they cracked, although he’s hesitant to offer details.
“You’re not supposed to talk about it,” he says. “Even good ones crack. They did their purpose, and now you move on.”
Experts say that it’s not surprising — or all that spiritual — that these men have turned into stoners.
“This is still a quest for material things. They’re still spending money on buying the most expensive or rarest crystal you can find,” says Kathryn Smerling, a therapist on the Upper East Side who works with many high-networth individuals.
Whatever the motivation, local gem shops and guides are enjoying the uptick in business.
“I’ve had millionaires come in here and [they] are totally into the crystal powers. These are CEOs of companies,” says Robert Teixeira, the manager of the Astro Gallery of Gems in Midtown, where Anthony C. and Alex Hill have both shopped. Teixeira claims his crystals yield tangible results.
One time, a wealthy client bought a pyrite, believing it was a “money magnet,” recalls Teixeira. Three hours later, the buyer returned to the store extremely satisfied. “The contract he put a bid on six months earlier [had] just [come] through.”
Zya, a fashion blogger-turned-energy healer from Chelsea, helps clients, including professional men, find crystals and advises them on how to use them.
“I tell clients how to wear them — as bracelets, pendants, tumble stones in a pouch in their pocket,” she explains.
But some crystal bros say friends and family question their hobby.
“A lot of people didn’t really understand it at first — they thought it was drastic and not very well thought out,” says Hill. But they’ve come around. Now “everybody supports me.”
Eli, a real-estate agent who declined to give his last name for professional reasons, doesn’t broadcast his crystal habit at work, but he definitely uses his rocks for business.
“If I’m on the phone with a client, I’ll hold the crystal — a citrine — to connect to its energy,” he says, although he admits it doesn’t always seem to work.
“Do I feel the energy all the time? No, but it’s nice for it to be there.”