Tag Archives: crystal healing

Crystals

Context: I asked my grandmother, 75, white, lives in North Idaho, about crystals and her belief around them. All through my childhood they have been around, whether as gifts at Christmas or just around the house. I knew they were spiritual in some way but wanted to know the greater context. My grandmother works as a spiritual life coach, working to bring people’s lives into balance. She is in the herbalist community and learned a lot of what she knows through classes she took. She still operates in that community and shares knowledge with her friends. 

Grandma: “I believe there is, how do I say it? There’s an energy within them. And I don’t know if it’s a… conscious. So out there in the field, scientists are looking at what is conscious, consciousness, consciousness in animals, consciousness in plants, consciousness in rocks, in crystals. So they’re looking at it. So they’re just asking all these questions. So somehow, I believe, there is an energy that I can ask for and draw on. That’s pretty up here because I can’t, I can’t give you the right, the right words to come down for that. Um, But for example, there’s a, there’s a crystal and I’ve forgotten the name of it, and I may have even given your mom one. So it has 2 pointy ends on it. And the idea is that you can hold it and connect with it, and it’s the crystal doing the work, whether you’re channeling through something. It, you know, it’s it’s not me, but but I can take this crystal and I can take a pointy end and I can point that energy at my shoulder or at your shoulder. And with intent, So intention is coming through that. For those for healing, but healing is reminding the cells, what their job is.” 

Analysis: This is definitely non-traditional folk medicine that is going about healing in a different way than Western Medicine, removing all separation between body and soul. Instead relying on soul and on energy to heal people. It’s about a belief in a larger energy that connects us all and figuring out how to channel it. It makes sense that crystals are used for this purpose. Crystallization happens naturally, grows up from nature making it a perfect conduit back into that nature. They are also not as rare and expensive as other jewels are, allowing them to be accessible and cost effective, which might be why they are so commonly used as a conduit to the spiritual. It shows a belief in something bigger, but also doesn’t reject science (though I haven’t researched how true her claims are), just kinda collaborates with it which I think speaks a lot to non-traditional medicine.

Black Tourmaline Crystals

Main Piece:

SP: My black tourmaline piece… It actually is my first, like, large and most expensive crystal I bought in my collection— Black tourmaline is known to be, like, a protective stone. And I have like lots of little pieces that I kinda just carry around with me all the time. A lot of people use it with clear quartz cause clear quartz acts as like an amplifier, so it’s like amplified protection. I think of it as like cleaning my energy and my space. I have little pieces sometimes in my pocket, when I’m just going out, and I have one that I like tie to my bag, my everyday bag.

Context:

Performed over a FaceTime call. One of my roommates friends, a high school senior. She is in her bedroom in Alameda, California. She obtains crystals from the shop she works at and various crystal stores in the Bay Area and from online shopping.

Analysis:

Crystals have long since been used for cosmetic as well as medicinal practices. I know that one of the first few societies to use crystals as spiritual charms was Ancient Egypt. This practice has carried itself over to the West, and is also used in witchcraft and Paganism. I have often wondered if the younger generation has incorporated them into their beauty routines and self-healing just because they are aesthetically pleasing to look at. The informant houses a massive crystal collection in her home, and she says that this protection charm is one of the most common and is what got her into crystals. The fact that she carries around multiple of them in her everyday life really reflects how people and religions can attribute so much meaning to material objects. It’s quite beautiful.

Crystals

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Performance Date: 4/23
Primary Language: English

”There’s a lot of different rock formations from the Earth. I guess the crystals absorb energy from the earth and are supposed to have positive effects. I have a Himalayan pink salt crystal that’s supposed to clear out bad energy, make it drop down towards the floor. It’s supposedly good for allergies and things like that. Different crystals are supposed to affect your chakras. Blue crystals are for the throat chakra, and I think green are for the stomach. Quartz is supposed to amplify your existing characteristics. Tiger eye is supposed to help with lethargy.”

Many believe that crystals have metaphysical properties, and can aid in healing or even improve one’s spiritual wellbeing. The informant had her collection of crystals on hand as she spoke about them, and we examined each one in turn. Crystals are fascinating natural constructs to many people (my grandfather loved to collect and talk about them), and I find the idea that they can have some effect on a persons physical and mental state intriguing, to say the least. Some crystals do have the ability to emit electricity when put under pressure, so while I don’t necessarily know if I place full stock in their alleged abilities, I am also entirely open to entertaining the possibility.