According to Laura Argintar, Senior Women’s Writer on the Generation Y online magazine Elite Daily, she decided to try a Wiccan practice discovered while watching the openly-Wiccan star of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Carlton Gebbia, in order to find the man of her dreams. The ritual involves the use of crystals and the alleged energies they hold that are somehow made magical when buried in the direct light of a full moon.

“In time, the crystals’ energies coupled with your intent will bring this man to you,” Argintar writes.

She summarizes the five easy steps of this ritual to use when trying to attract the right mate, which include writing down your specific goals and the traits you desire in the person.

You must also do your homework about crystals and purchase stones with the right “energies”, such as turquoise which supposedly sends unconditional love.

Once you’ve made your selection of stones and created your list, wait for a night when the moon is full. When this night arrives, recite an incantation of your choice, then “Partially bury the list with your crystals in plain sight of the full moon, so that the moon can cleanse and embrace the different vessels of energies,” she instructs.

Once done, she advises the mate-searcher to “be at peace with yourself” then grab some wine and enjoy the rest of the evening.

Argintar’s story doesn’t come with a happy ending because she never says if the ritual brought her the mate she was seeking.

However, someone who posted a comment on the story said she made a list of desirable traits in a man, put it somewhere, then promptly forgot about it. A year later, she met a guy with the exact traits she listed and is now a believer in what is essentially the New Age creed known as the Law of Attraction – meaning you attract what you desire.

Even the most basic understanding of the occult can explain how incidents like this occur. The devil is more than capable of inspiring people to bury crystals and make lists full of wishes that he can then arrange to manifest. By doing so, he trains a person to turn away from reliance on God and toward reliance on self and/or occult powers in order to make their dreams come true. Once he has them where he wants them, he slowly begins to destroy them.

This age of poor catechesis, coupled with an extraordinary level of interest in the occult, creates the perfect conditions under which Satan can operate and do so while almost completely undetected. People believe it was the crystals, the energy, the list, the desire, that did the trick – when it was really the Evil One all along.

Something Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said in 2012 during an address to the Roman Curia came to mind as I was writing this blog:

“We live in an age rushing headlong into darkness, while it professes to be enlightened.”