https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=XAP2HXzt87Y
Alright, so C.S. Stritzel asks, My wife recently became interested in pretty gems though. The New Age, spiritual movement, and other cultures seem to have an affinity for crystals, gems, and other rare stones. Sometimes the stones are perpated to have magical healing properties, the ability to channel negative energy away from positive energy towards a person or place, and many other special properties. I scoffed at these claims when I was a materialist. However, I am trying to break out of my materialist framework, and I recall a video you did on dwarves where you briefly mentioned rare stones. Is this idea of using raw or polished stones to affect the world of remnant of primitive technology? How do precious stones and gems fit into one’s home and into the Christian hierarchy in general? And so, for sure, precious stones are really important. They’re important in scripture, and they’re used meaningfully. They’re used in the, now my mind is blank, the vestment that the priest has. He had a square with stones in them, and that seems to be related to the casting of lots and to the divination practices which existed in the Old Testament. And so it’s not that material objects, especially precious ones, especially those that are light bearing, you could say. That’s one of the reasons why these stones are so fascinating to people, is that they’re stones but they shine. You see through them. They have a kind of subtlety which something like granite or the more opaque stones don’t have. So, for example, a really fascinating midrash that can help you understand the difference is that there are some Jewish midrash and traditions which talk about how when Moses received the stones from God at the outset, it was like a precious stone. It was like a translucent precious stone on which God wrote the commandments. And then Moses brought them down, but the world was not ready for them. The world could not accept it. There was no way to connect these stones with the world. So Moses broke them. And then when he wrote them himself on stones, then they were rougher stones like a marble or granite or sandstone or something. So it can kind of help you see that. It can also help you understand why the New Jerusalem is made out of these stones. Now, having said that, the problem with a lot of this New Age stuff is that it’s just made up. It’s just made up. People just make it up. Who knows where all this stuff comes from? It’s just kind of this thing. They give these properties to these stones. And I mean, whatever. I don’t know where it comes from. I don’t know what it is. And it’s also a kind of weird materialism. It’s not about meaning. It’s not about, let’s say, the idea that the king would have certain stones which would be attributed to him and that would kind of participate in his glory. That kind of thing where there would be the effect the stone would have would be related to meaning. It really is about these weird energies that people talk about. A lot of these New Age, when they talk about energies, they really mean it in a scientific way, like a wave particle that is kind of floating in the air and that you have to redirect or you have to focus or you have to do all this stuff. And so a lot of the New Age stuff is just materialist nonsense. And so when you join with that some weird idea about stones, it just ends up being, I think it just ends up being a lot of made up stuff. It doesn’t mean that it can’t sometimes work because belief is part of reality and placebos work. So if you have something which is kind of precious and which is beautiful and so maybe it can have an effect on you. But I definitely wouldn’t count on that stuff. It’s just most of it is just modern made up stuff in my opinion. So sorry, I don’t know if this is helpful.