When I was young and my family would go on camping trips or road trips, we would stop by national parks and their small shops or random stores along the highway and many would have large bins of raw roughly cut or polished tumbled stones. I remember always being drawn to them mesmerized by how beautiful they were, wanting to buy one of each. I’d dig my hand in there and just juggle the stones in my hand, especially loving how smooth the polished ones felt. I don’t recall my parents succumbing to my pleas to buy them often, but do recall being allowed to buy a pyrite one time, which is also referred to fool’s gold since it looks like gold.
It wasn’t until later in my adulthood that crystals came back into my life. About 10 years ago I began using a pink Himalayan salt lamp next to my office desk to help reduce electric and magnetic field (EMF) energy from my laptop and other computer related devices that is supposed to have negative effects on the body. I also received a pink Himalayan lighted Zen garden to put on my desk as a gift for the same purpose.
Then last year, when I hired the Feng shui consultant, she recommended I purchase black tourmaline to help negate the large amounts of EMF energy next to my bed generated from the HVAC unit and various electronics on my nightstand. After doing further research on EMF I decided to purchase several pieces of shungite since this stone is also known for its great effectiveness with neutralizing EMF energies. Also around that time, I noticed Tarot and Oracle readings videos on YouTube utilized various crystals for pick a pile readings. I slowly began understanding there is even deeper meanings to crystals by the brief descriptions that some readers would mention during their videos.
Now through my spiritual journey I am learning more and more about crystals because they are recommended to be used for strengthening and encouraging faster results for spiritual practices. I have purchased several different types of stones within the past couple months so that I can try them myself and plan to use them when doing various meditations by either holding them in my hands or placing them on specific chakras moving forward.
I hadn’t used them much yet because I was advised that they can only be used successfully if they are properly cleansed and only recently went through that process. I had been cleaning them through smudging with sage and palo santo and didn’t realize there were a couple more steps involved to truly prepare them for spiritual use that includes selenite (another crystal) and charging them through sound using tingsha bells and/or a full moon bath. You may view a video of the cleansing part of the process on my Why Crystals are in My Oven blog post. Since I have recently properly cleansed them, I am beginning to use them slowly.
I purchased a book called “The Book of Stones: Who They Are and What They Teach” by Robert Simmons & Naisha Ahsian. Many consider it the bible for stones because it is a very large book and has almost 500 pages. I don’t plan on reading the book cover to cover and rather will use it as a reference guide since each stone has at least a full dedicated page if not a few describing both its physical and metaphysical properties. I have started to read the introduction and general information about stones that is included at the front of the book and here are some general basics I am taking note of.
The book poses several questions that I myself wondered: “How can something inorganic like a stone affect a living organism, such as me, with an experience I would describe as ‘energy’? What is crystal energy anyway? How does the experience of stone energies relate to anything spiritual? Why can some people ‘feel’ crystals while others can’t?”
The book attempts to answer these questions by the following: “All solid matter is made up of atomic particles arranged in some definite organized crystalline structure, called a ‘lattice’. The crystal lattice structure…provides great stability of structure and regularity of flow of any electromagnetic energies that move through it. This is why silicon chips are used to provide memory in computers. It is also the reason Quartz crystals can be incorporated into watches and clocks to provide highly accurate measurements of time.” It goes on to give a few more examples of crystals used in radios and microphones, then continues with, “These examples demonstrate that certain crystals can act as resonators and transducers of electromagnetic energies. With this principle in mind, it is not too great a leap to imagine that they may be capable of transforming and/or amplifying other forms of energy which have not yet been detected by scientific instruments. It may also be true that the human body and/or human consciousness is capable of detecting, or ‘feeling’, these energies…”
Then there is a whole page that discusses how human DNA is a hexagonal crystal structure and that human bodies and other organisms are liquid crystals. This form is similar to solid crystals only are much more flexible and may explain why energy flow between humans and crystals may be received and perceived and how human intentions may be programmed into a crystal not unlike a computer chip.
I don’t have any of the scientific or biological expertise to dispute what is said in the book, but I can attest to feeling different energies from different stones simply by holding them in my hand. Some will feel heavy in my palm, almost as if it is dragging my arm down like a 5 lb dumbbell, which usually indicates to me that stone is not for me to use. Others will send a vibration or tingling sensation up my arm, which I take as a signal that it is something I can potentially benefit from. From those personal experiences alone, I do believe that crystals are animate objects that have powerful energies associated to them.
Crystal energy can used in several different ways. Here are some examples:
- Located in one’s environment, being placed in rooms or offices to provide an environmental energy.
- Holding or carrying it on the body to reduce negative and/or infuse positive energies in the body.
- Wearing as jewelry especially over chakras or channels in the body for targeted and specified energy at those specific locations
- Meditating with them held in hands to further enhance and amplify the results. This is where the most profound experiences with crystals may occur.
- Placing it on specific points of the body, usually for healing purposes.
- Combining crystals together or with essential oils to magnify energies.
Future blog posts in this series will review individual specific crystals that I purchase with basic information, my intended use and experiences with them.
GGibberish 