Spiritual shift
How millennials replaced religion with meditation, astrology, crystals
A growing number of young people — largely millennials, though the trend extends to younger Gen Xers, now cresting 40, and down to Gen Z — have turned away from traditional organized religion.
I love myself. I am beautiful.
It was an unseasonably chilly night for June in Los Angeles. About three dozen people, mostly women in their 20s and 30s, were spending their Friday evening lying on yoga mats on the back patio of a shop. Attendees had been invited to bring whatever they needed to make the space cozy: blankets, pillows, crystals.
I am powerful.
Ana Lilia was leading them in affirmations, closing out a 90-minute breathwork session.
I am a bright light. I am ready to be seen.
Most days, Lilia works with individual clients. In the evenings, she teaches classes or puts on events. She got into breathwork four years ago and started taking classes to become a teacher six months later. If you’ve never done it before, it’s a mix of breathing exercises and guided meditations.
Combination of factors
Lilia is one of a growing number of young people — largely millennials, though the trend extends to younger Gen Xers, now cresting 40, and down to Gen Z — who have turned away from traditional organized religion and are embracing more spiritual practices such as tarot, astrology, meditation, energy healing and crystals.
And no, they don’t particularly care if you think it’s weird. Most millennials claim to not take any of it too seriously themselves. They dabble, they take what works for them and leave the rest.
“I know this work is weird,” Lilia said of her breathwork practice. “But it makes me feel better and that’s why I keep doing it.”
The cause behind the spiritual shift is a combination of factors. In more than a dozen interviews with people ranging in age from 18 to their early 40s, a common theme emerged: They were raised with one set of religious beliefs — Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist — but as they became adults, they felt that faith didn’t completely represent who they were or what they believed.
Millennials increasingly identify as “nones” when asked about their religious affiliation, according to a 2017 Pew survey: They are atheist or agnostic, or say they are “spiritual but not religious.”
Today, young people still seek the things that traditional organized reli
gion may have provided for their parents or grandparents: religious beliefs, yes, but also a sense of community, guidance, purpose and meaning. But it can be hard for young people to find those things in their parents’ religions. So they’re looking elsewhere.
On top of that, a lot of younger people feel alienated by mainstream religion — by attitudes toward LGBTQ people and women, by years of headlines about scandals, or by the idea that anyone who isn’t part of that religion is inherently bad or wrong.
One of the big draws for younger people about spiritual practices is the ability to “pick and choose,” said Jim Burklo, a progressive Christian reverend who works with college students as the senior associate dean of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life at the University of Southern California.
“This is a worldwide, but certainly American, trend toward heterodoxy — toward individuals cooking up their own spiritual or religious stew and cooking it up their way,” Burklo said.
On social media
Astrologer Chani Nicholas said social media has helped guide the way for a lot of young people. Nicholas is based in LA and has just shy of a quarter-million followers on Instagram. The majority of her social media following is people ages 25-34, solidly millennial. With social media, she said, divinatory practices such as astrology, crystals and tarot have been able to take up space in a public conversation. It helps that they all look great on Instagram.
Nicholas was raised Jewish and still practices the tradition of honoring the new moon, which she brings into her astrology practice — what she calls “a way of being ritualistic that isn’t dogmatic, isn’t sexism, doesn’t have this history of empirical violence.”
“I think that it’s a yearning to return to something. There’s a rejection of things that don’t work,” Nicholas said. “I think we’re yearning for something that technology cannot give us, that capitalism cannot give us.”
But capitalism is certainly trying.
The astrology-and-crystals trend is one of those things that, once you start noticing it, is suddenly everywhere. Raw crystal and astrology-inspired jewelry and decor dominate Instagram. At a fashion show in LA for Mother Denim’s new capsule collection, Mystical, attendees received a velvet pouch packed with crystals, with accompanying cards indicating their meaning.
Looking to the stars has made landfall in the tech world as well: Facebook recently announced its new cryptocurrency, Libra.
The astrology iOS app Co-Star, which recently raised a $5.2 million seed round to launch an Android version, sends users push alerts with fun, social-mediafriendly daily horoscopes. Another astrology startup, Sanctuary, raised $1.5 million and launched March 20 — a date set to coincide with the start of the new astrological year. New York magazine called the app’s largely millennial user base “The Astrology Generation.”
A lifestyle
Growing up, Leah Garza said she was never particularly religious — her parents were Christian but not devout — and as she’s advanced her spiritual practice, she said she feels even more disconnected from traditional organized religion.
“Unlike in certain dogmatic religions where there’s a right and wrong way to be a practitioner, there isn’t that in these nondenominational spiritualities, which I think is so beautiful,” Garza said. “There isn’t one way to be a human being.”
Today, she’s the cohost of a podcast called “We Are Power Crystals.” She does readings and workshops and sells jewelry and products through her business, Crystals of Altamira, and at Mostly Angels LA, a metaphysical shop that features crystalenhanced beauty products, candles with RuPaul on them and pendants where the packaging reads, “My intuition dismantles the patriarchy.”
Breathwork instructor Lilia, the oldest daughter of Catholic Mexican immigrants, said talking to her parents or teachers about any kind of alternative beliefs was made to feel like a sin.
“I felt like I wasn’t supposed to talk or question anything, that I needed to accept what was said,” said Lilia. “I just didn’t feel empowered.”
When Lilia tried a breathwork class for the first time, her experience was intense: She said she cried the whole time. But when it was over, “I felt physically lighter. The colors outside looked brighter. I was hooked.”