Caroline Stewart is like any other teen her age.

She’s a sophomore, she plays on the lacrosse team, she loves thrifting, shopping and fashion. One more thing, Stewart likes crystals.

“I’ve been into it for 8 months or so and I was introduced by a friend who was also really into crystals,” Stewart said.

One of Stewart’s friends took her to her crystal shop one day when they were hanging out. They walked around together seeing all the bins of brightly colored gemstones.

“I had felt very low energy and heard crystals raise vibrations and I decided to start implementing them into my life,” Stewart said.

After her trip to the store, Stewart became more interested in crystals and started collecting her own, and began taking to social media to learn more.

“I saw them on Tik Tok and started following accounts that would talk about crystals,” Stewart. “I also started reading books about them,” Stewart said.

Stewart has also started going to the crystal store by herself. She goes now to pick up incense, add to her crystal collection and buy other interesting stuff she finds. Some of Stewart’s most used crystals include amethyst, rose quartz, tigers eye, citrine, jasper and selenite. The crystals Stewart uses promote feelings of tranquility like soothing anxiety, promoting self love and clear consciousness.

She has now even started bringing friends along for the adventure.

“I’ve gotten a lot of my friends into it but a lot of my friends have gotten into it,” she said. “It’s really fun because I can go to crystal shops with my friends. It’s just fun to share an interest with my friends because not a lot of people are into it.”

Her love for crystals is still just used to fuel a fun hobby.

“It’s comfortable and it’s more of a light-hearted hobby, but it does relax me,” said Stewart.

Stewart is one of the many members in a small but growing group of teens who have embarked on the spirituality trend.

Sheryl Baird, manager of the Silver Pyramid- a place not bound by limits like cutlet, religion or race. Silver Pyramid has been Dallas’s premiere metaphysical destinations offering crystals, jewelry, classes, and more. At the Silver Pyramid, Barid has seen people of all walks of life come into the store.

“We have people that some people would describe in a nice way as hippies. Some of the earth-loving people who wear their culture on their sleeve,” Baird said. “But at the same time, we have people who if you would look at them on the street they would look like a normal business person but they are seeking a spiritual connection.”

The Silver Pyramid has seen an increase of teens come through their doors as of recently.

“A lot of [new sales] is driven through Tik Tok and social media. We have had a large number of sales in tarot cards, oracle cards and crystals,” she said.

The crystal obsession has taken off in other grades as well. Freshman Ava Waskey has been into crystals ever since she was little.

“I got into crystals when I was little because I thought they looked pretty and I’ve never stopped liking them,” Waskey said.

In recent years she started to learn about the energies that her beloved crystals have. She likes how they bring in good energy to the room they are in.

“I use multiple types of crystals but my favorites are rose quartz and amethyst, and I like to put them around my room for their energy,” Waskey said.

While Waskey doesn’t go with her friends to crystal stores like Stewart, her friends are still into crystals, but they turn to Etsy stores for their supplies.

Different from the new customers at the Silver Pyramid, Waskey did not begin her crystal collection based on a need for spiritual guidance.

“I think crystals have changed my life because I am just more happy around them, and I do see crystals as a form of self care because they can help with anything,” she said.

Despite claims of supernatural powers in crystals, studies have concluded that their so-called powers might just lie in the minds of the beholder.

In a study, which has not been published, but was presented at the European Congress of Psychology in Rome in 2001, eighty people filled out a survey “designed to gauge their level of belief in ‘paranormal phenomena’”.

Later, the study team asked everyone to meditate for five minutes while holding either a real quartz crystal or a counterfeit crystal made of glass. After, the participants were given another questionnaire to rate their meditation. Both the real and fake crystals produced similar sensations. The people who tested high in the paranormal-belief questionnaire tended to experience greater sensations than those who scoffed at the paranormal.

“We found that lots of people claimed that they could feel odd sensations while holding the crystals, such as tingling, heat and vibrations, if we’d told them in advance that this is what might happen,” Christopher French, a professor of psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London said. “In other words, the effects reported were a result of the power of suggestion, not the power of the crystals.”

The human mind is a powerful thing, and it’s trickier to say flatly that crystals don’t work, if you define “work” as providing some benefit.

While Waskey and Stewart both surround themselves with people who enjoy crystals like them. They are still in the minority.

“I think where we live most people do not understand my interest in crystals and think they’re dumb,” Stewart said. “[People outside of my friend group] probably don’t believe in it. [I’ve never had to speak up for myself] because it’s a hobby,”

There is hope though for a future that further accepts spirituality. Baird has even seen a shift in her young audience.

“[Teens used to come in] it’s [seen as a] sort of been a novelty. Some people think we’re a witch shop. And people don’t want to come in to see witchy things or things they don’t understand,” Baird said.

In the past teens had visited her shop in hope of witchy things like tarot cards. But through the rise of Tik Tok they aren’t viewing her shop as a novelty and are coming around to understand crystals and their powers.

“I think that our generation probably has the most people using crystals because of social media and Tik Tok especially,” Stewart said. “So I do think and hope that people don’t look down on crystals as much as they used to.”