Dr Ronald Louis (Ra) Bonewitz brought crystals and crystal healing to Europe in the late 1970s. He gave the first ever crystal courses in the UK, Holland, Belgium, France, and Finland. Further afield, he gave the first ever crystal courses in Australia, New Zealand, and India. His classic book Cosmic Crystals, written in 1980, was the first of its kind.  He was a self-taught lapidary by the age of 16, and went on to university to take a degree in geology. His professional work includes gem-mining, studies of crystal chemistry (some early studies on the properties of ruby for lasers), and advanced studies in the geochemistry of crystals. 

On this page you will find information about crystals and crystal healing, books written by Dr Bonewitz, personally collected crystals for sale, and a great deal of common sense about the crystal world.

 

NEW MATERIAL ADDED, JUNE 2009: AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE YOU WILL FIND A CHAPTER FROM RON'S BOOK NEW COSMIC CRYSTALS, 'COMMON CRYSTAL MYTHS'. THIS IS A LENGTHY SECTION, WHICH YOU MAY WISH TO DOWNLOAD AND PRINT FOR YOUR READING CONVENIENCE.

Crystal books by Dr Bonewitz are available by clicking the links at the bottom of this page, or you can go directly to the bookstores.

TO SEE RON'S BLOG - 'CRYSTAL SKULLS' CLICK HERE

 In his book New Cosmic Crystals, Dr Bonewitz states: 

Considerable time has passed since I wrote one of the very first crystal books thirty years ago - not measured in years, but in the proliferation of crystal healing books. Many of them suggest things about crystals which are physically impossible

 

Crystal healing is a specific application of crystals, separate and distinct from divination, gemstones, meditation, energizing plants, and the other uses to which crystals are put. It is true that crystals have mainly been used in healing, but there has been a problem - they have mostly been used within the paradigm of orthodox medicine, as if they are 'medicines' to be dispensed: take a citrine for an upset stomach, or amethyst for a headache....  Dispensing crystals on the basis of physical symptoms is working with them entirely from the wrong end. Physical manifestation - disease - is often the result of disturbances in the energy bodies, and any given physical manifestation can be the result of a number of different energetic causes. Thus the first principle of crystal healing must be: treat the cause, not the symptom.

 

One thing that is often totally misunderstood in 'esoteric' circles, is that because crystal are at the very foundation of the material universe, the laws of the physical universe are utterly and completely bound up in them. In the purest sense, they are the laws of physics and chemistry made manifest. Because this is so, there is no way that they can be used to violate the laws of physics and chemistry. Nor can they do so themselves. Nor, indeed, can they be made to do so, regardless of the supposed intentions of the user - although if the user purports to be 'spiritual', that is, in harmony with the nature of the universe, why would they wish to do so?

     The forces which tie a crystal together are in perfect balance and harmony. A crystal is in a perfect state of equilibrium - that is, in its resting state neither giving off energy nor taking it in. The evidence for this is quite simple - if it were taking in energy, it would be growing; if it were giving off energy, it would be shrinking. Thus crystals do not sit there giving off 'healing energy'. It is physically impossible. But when crystals are used in ‘crystal healing’, remission of symptoms often does take place. Something has happened. But is the crystal doing it? The crystal is merely a tool in the hands of the healer, as a hammer is a tool in the hands of the builder. Without the skill and input of the builder, the hammer drives no nails. Without the skill and input of the healer, and the receptivity of the patient, no healing takes place, even with the tool of the crystal. How of this happens will be the subject of further entries on this page, and is the subject of my book New Cosmic Crystals, available in the bookstore.

  

   ROCKS AND MINERALS

This is a definitive compact guide to rocks, minerals, crystals and gemstones - for every rockhound and emerging gemologist! From primeval origins to their astonishing modern-day uses and appeal, this is the ultimate portrait of Earth's buried treasures - rocks, minerals, crystals and gems - produced in association with the Smithsonian Institution. Learn how to identify more than 450 rock and mineral specimens through stunning photographs and detailed characteristics. Discover more about your finds through folklore and historical artifacts, and find out the fascinating stories behind the world's natural treasures; from the Hope diamond to the Great Mogul emerald. Plus, pick up practical advice on rock and mineral collecting, including how to cut, polish and display your finds.

TO ORDER OR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS BOOK, CLICK HERE

  

NEW COSMIC CRYSTALS, FIRST EDITION   

This book takes an informed, realistic look at crystals, at their properties and how best to use them, this book has become a bible for crystal users. The past three decades have seen a phenomenal rise in the use of crystals as instruments of healing and personal enlightenment. Yet many have been disappointed with the results. This book argues that what we need is a fundamental shift, not just in the ways we see crystals, but in our whole relationship to the world around us. The book includes a fascinating exploration of how crystals come into being, and looks at how their make-up makes them so perfect for energy work. It explores new ways they can be used for personal development, and how to work with them to tap into the powerful dimension of colour.

 A large portion of the book is dedicated to personal growth and development and contains numerous exercises using crystals to help the reader shift into a higher state of personal and spiritual awareness.

TO ORDER OR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THIS BOOK, CLICK HERE

  

    NEW COSMIC CRYSTALS, SECOND EDITION

This newly-released second edition of Ron Bonewitz' classic contains much new material as well as the solid information of the earlier edition. It is available as a PDF download, or on CD in PDF format.

  

TO ORDER OR FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE DOWNLOAD VERSION OFTHIS BOOK, CLICK HERE

COMMON MYTHS ABOUT CRYSTALS

FROM NEW COSMIC CRYSTALS, 2ND EDITION

copyright 1999, 2008

 

     This chapter on crystal myths is much longer than the chapter on crystal realities for the simple reason that there are more myths than realities taught about them. Not only that, the realities are simple, crystal clear, and exactly to the point - unlike most of the myths. Entire books based on misconceptions about crystals can be found. One thing that is often totally misunderstood in 'esoteric' circles, is that because crystal are at the very foundation of the material universe, the laws of the physical universe are utterly and completely bound up in them. In the purest sense, they are the laws of physics and chemistry made manifest. Because this is so, there is no way that they can be used to violate the laws of physics and chemistry. Nor can they do so themselves. Nor, indeed, can they be made to do so, regardless of the supposed intentions of the user - although if the user purports to be 'spiritual', that is, in harmony with the nature of the universe, why would they wish to do so? That this exact thing is observed time and time again in 'spiritual' groups and individuals suggest a lack understanding of the nature of reality, as made manifest in the crystal. The very purpose of this book is to suggest ways and means of moving closer to that inner reality, through the concrete reality of crystals. It is all from the same Source. So, let's take a look at some of the common misunderstandings about crystals.

 

The crystal sponge

     We begin by remembering our discussion of bonding in Chapter 2, and that the forces which tie a crystal together are in perfect balance and harmony. A crystal is in a perfect state of equilibrium - that is, in its resting state neither giving off energy nor taking it in. The evidence for this is quite simple - if it were taking in energy, it would be growing; if it were giving off energy, it would be shrinking. Thus crystals do not sit there giving off 'healing energy'. It is physically impossible. As it turns out, crystals absorb and emit energy constantly - principally light and heat - but they are doing so in perfect balance. That is, the amount of energy given off is exactly equal to the amount of energy taken in, and thus the crystal remains unchanged. (There is one group of crystals where this is not true - the crystals of radioactive elements. In this case, energy is being given off all the time, but the crystal does change.)

     The misunderstanding of their balanced energetic nature leads to the myth that crystals store energy.

     They can’t.

      A crystal by its nature is in perfect energy balance; every atom in that crystal is held very rigidly and very accurately in place by enormously well-balanced energies. If the atoms which make up the average crystal were the size of a football, then there is no way that you or I could place those football-sized atoms, even with the most accurate surveying instruments, as accurately and as precisely as they are placed inside the crystal.

      If any energy comes to that crystal, it either doesn’t absorb it at all, or if the energy does go into the crystal, then by its nature, it must immediately get rid of an equal amount of energy in order to keep itself in balance. So there is no way you can store energy in a crystal: the crystal is pictured as some sort of sponge into which vast quantities of electricity may be poured and stored and then squeezed out for use at some future time.

Once we understand the balance of energies that takes place within a crystal, we realise the utter impossibility of such a picture: a crystal gives off in another form exactly the amount of energy that is put in, and at virtually the same instant.

 

The piezoelectric effect

     The piezoelectric effect (pronounced pie-ay-zoh electric) is genuine property of certain crystals that is the foundation upon which this and many further misunderstandings are based. This effect is produced by the stripping of the electrons from the outer atomic shells when a crystal is subjected to stress. A crystal of quartz easily demonstrates this effect. If a quartz crystal is laid on its side and struck with a mallet, the structure is compressed momentarily. What we observe is a flash of visible light. What we do not see, unless we have special sensors, is that the crystal has also given off a burst of electricity. This effect of giving off visible light was well known to ancient man: quartz crystals are

often found in Native American camp sites, and usually well battered.

     We use this property today, but don't strike the crystal with a mallet: we prepare precisely-made slices of quartz crystal to compress mechanically; each slice is also connected to electronic measuring devices. In compressing the struc­ture (and we are talking about a compression so small as to be almost un-measurable), we are pushing the atoms slightly closer together and freeing the outer energy shell electrons from their necessity to bond quite so tightly. As we do this, electrons are freed from the outermost shell and move to the surface of the crystal. This transfer of electrons from one shell to another or, in this case, out of the shell entirely, is also connected with a quantum of light. So, we not only transfer free electrons, but we also release the amount of light that it takes to ‘hold’ it in its outer shell. The inner electron shells do not seem to be affected: all the effects discussed in this chapter only take place in the outermost shell.

     Remember that this effect only takes place while the crystal is being compressed, and only until all the available electrons have been released. Once the compression stops, if it is held at a certain level (like being squeezed in a vice), and once all the electrons at that level of energy have been released, there is no further discharge. As in the case of our mallet, once the pressure is released, the crystal springs back to its original dimensions, and replaces its lost electrons by either drawing them back from the surface of the crystal, or by drawing free electrons from the air (where there are plenty of them). The crystal also re-absorbs enough light to ‘glue’ the electrons back into their proper shell positions. Even in a dark room, there is sufficient light energy available to do this, even though there is not enough to register on the human eye.

      The amount of pressure you can put on a quartz crystal with your hand is so tiny that it would be difficult if not impossible, even with the most accurate instruments, to measure the amount of electricity being given off. And it is just electricity - you can get the same stuff out of your wall socket, so there is no need to squeeze a quartz crystal to get it! In fact, crystals are so incompressible that if we were to take a quartz crystal an inch long and about a half-an-inch in diameter, and we wanted to squeeze that crystal down to about half of its original thickness, we would have to stack on top of that crystal a weight equal to approximately 5,000 railway locomotives. You can imagine how hard you have squeeze quartz crystal to get anything out of it whatsoever!

      It is also possible to reverse this process. Rather than compress the crystal to give off electricity, we can put electricity (a flow of electrons) into the crystal to cause momentary expansion of the structure. What happens is that the influx of electrons momentarily overloads the outer shell, and the atoms drift slightly apart; but the electrons in these new positions are not stable and almost instantly break away to move on to the next plane of atoms. As they do so, the atoms that have been forced apart snap back into their original positions, until the next set of electrons comes along to repeat the cycle all over again. This alternating expansion and contraction of the crystal structure, then, is nothing more than vibration. If you had very sensitive fingers, you could feel the crystal vibrate physically. Or, if we put enough high energy electrons (higher amperage) into the crystal structure, we could actually blow it apart, but this is obviously not an experiment that many of us would be very happy to perform.

     This ability of the crystal to vibrate has some other interesting properties - for example, if plates of the same thickness are cut from two or more different crystals and the same amount of electrical energy is applied to each, the rate of vibration is exactly the

 same for each plate. This rate of vibration (called its frequency, because it is measured in vibrations per second) is a property that is widely employed in technology, particularly in quartz resonators for frequency control, in crystal pick-ups for gramophones, and in pressure gauges. Some readers will remember the old crystal radio sets, the crystal of which was nothing more than a slice of quartz crystal. In the earliest two-way radio sets, unless both sets had crystals of the same thickness (frequency) they were unable to ‘talk’ to one another.

     It is this same property that many of you will be making use of even as you read this book - in the workings of your quartz watch, which contains a tiny slice of synthetic quartz. The battery puts electricity into the quartz crystal. But because the quartz crystal will not absorb the energy, it has to give off an equal amount of energy to keep itself in balance; the energy it gives off is the mechanical energy of vibration. Because the atoms in crystals are so precisely placed, if you put the same electrical energy into two pieces of crystal which are exactly the same size, each crystal will give off exactly the same vibration. The rate at which a given crystal vibrates per minute is known.

     So, in your watch you have a little quartz crystal, a battery, and a computer that counts up the vibrations. The computer knows how many times the little piece of quartz will vibrate in a minute. When it's vibrated that many times it clicks over the minute counter; and when it's done that 60 times it clicks over the hour counter and so forth. But the energy is not being stored in the crystal; it's giving it off in another form.

Quartz and other electronics

      Another area of misunderstanding, in relation to quartz crystals in particular, is the role that they play in electronics. The fact that quartz resonators are used in radio transmit­ters and receivers and in amplifiers does not mean that they are amplifiers, transmitters, etc. It is purely their ability to control vibrational frequency that is made use of in electronics. But that is all that they are used for, and only make up a small part of the mechanism of the transmitter or amplifier. Thus, we are not likely to look backward in history and find cavemen, or Egyptian priests for that matter, sending one another radio messages on quartz crystals. Some writers seem to believe that you only have to stick a crystal in your ear and dial Peru!

      Nor do crystals store light (for the same reason that they cannot store electricity); nor do naturally occurring crystals convert light to electricity - a misunderstanding of the artificially grown crystals of silicon metal, which do not occur in nature and which seem to be frequently confused with quartz (quartz being made of silicon and oxygen).

 

The non-uniqueness of quartz

     You will hear all of these various qualities attributed to quartz, as if quartz were the only thing that does this! A lot of other minerals do exactly the same things that quartz does. Many of them do to some degree, but the mineral tourmaline does all of the electronic things that quartz does even better. The reason we don't have tourmaline watches, or that tourmaline is not used in most other electronic applications (it is used in a few by the way), is that tourmaline is not cheap. It is fifty to a hundred times more expensive than quartz. And also, at the moment, we don't know how to grow it synthetically. Almost all quartz that is used in electronics is synthetic, all grown in laboratory. Therefore it is relatively cheap and it does all these things well enough. But it doesn't do them as well as tourmaline.

The other minerals that do exactly the same thing as quartz are not commonly available either, nor are they as easy to grow the laboratory.

 

Pyroelectricity

     The next effect is that of the application of heat to crystals, the result of which is known as pyroelectricity. It has been known for centuries in India and Ceylon that tourmaline, when heated in the embers of a fire, first attracted ashes and then repelled them. This phenomenon is due to electrical charges accumulating on the surface and occurs in the same crystals that show piezoelectricity. It appears to be closely related to piezoelectricity, in that pyroelectric crystals, when heated and cooled, expand and contract and are in a state of strain. The separation of pyroelectric and piezoelectric effects is difficult, as there is a rather close link between the two. It appears that as the crystal is heated, distortion of the lattice takes place, possibly due to the number of electrons moving into higher energy shells as a result of the increased heat energy in the crystal. As in piezoelectricity, certain electrons are elevated enough in energy to break loose from the outer electron shells, and once again float to the surface of the crystal. There is an easy demonstration of this electrical property, once again by heating tourmaline. A clean, dry crystal of tourmaline is heated to about 200^o centigrade and then passed a few times through the flame of an alcohol lamp to dissipate the surface charges; it is then placed on a glass plate to cool. As it does so, a mixture of powdered red lead and sulphur is sifted over the crystal. The red lead goes to the negatively charged surfaces, and the sulphur to the positive areas. Again it is emphasised that as the crystal completely cools, it will re-absorb electrons into their proper structural position, and the crystal will go back to its original dimensions. When it has done so, the lead and sulphur powder will drop off.

 

Erroneous Conclusions

     Having looked at some of the basic misunderstandings about crystals, we should now look at some of the conclusions that have been drawn from these misconceptions.

 A direct outgrowth of the various misunderstandings about the behaviour of quartz crystals under compression leads to a whole new series of misunderstandings about how quartz-bearing rocks behave under compression. The example usually seen in most writings is the rock granite, which in some instances may contain up to 50% quartz. It is assumed that since quartz crystals give off a momentary electrical charge when they are rapidly compressed, then the quartz grains in granite must do the same. This ignores two very important factors. The first is that the energy properties of single crystals are highly directional in nature, and if forces are applied other than in very specific directions, nothing happens. Secondly, and most important, the quartz crystals in granite are not well formed and they are orientated almost at random, that is, the crystallising axes point in virtually all directions.

 

Pyramids

     In a piece of granite used in building construction, such as in the King’s Chamber and roof supports in the Great Pyramid, the compressive forces themselves are highly directional and relate to the amount of stone that is piled on top of them. It would be very surprising indeed if even 1 per cent of the quartz grains in granite (and remember these are not crystals) were aligned closely enough to the compressive direction to have any chance whatever of producing an electrical charge. And, once the compression stabilises, there is no further energy that can be given off. Once the energies have balanced (when the last block was put on the pyramid), nothing further happens. In various articles, the positioning of the ceiling blocks in the Great Pyramid are described as capacitors or rectifiers and were supposedly connected to copper wires or rods to the outside of the Pyramid. There is no archaeological or historical evidence of this whatever, nor would they have worked as such even if they were connected as supposed.

     Many writers propose energy properties that relate directly to the amount of stone that is piled on top of quartz-bearing rocks such as granite, when they are used in building construction. If such rocks do possess such incredible energy properties then why are we not looking at them in terms of the place where the greatest compressive load is being applied to them - the mountains themselves! Rather than perhaps a hundred feet or so of rock piled on top of the granite blocks in a pyramid, we sometimes have thousands of feet of rock piled on top of granite. According to the thesis of these writers, in this situation the quartz-bearing rocks should be producing bolts of electricity like a power station! Which, they certainly are not. They are giving off precisely - nothing. To be sure, the construction materials inside the Great Pyramid were very carefully chosen, but not for their ability to generate vast amounts of electrical energy.

 

Stone circles    

These supposed properties are also projected onto stone circles. Without a doubt the stones from which these were made were very carefully selected for their overall prop­erties, and they definitely cause localised disturbances or accumulations of various types of energy. But once again these effects are attributed to piezoelectricity, which is often claimed originates because the roots of the stones project into underground water flows. This encompasses two areas of massive misunder­standing - the nature of underground water flow in the first instance, and the nature of the hydrostatic effect (water pressure) in the second. There seems to be an assumption that underground water flow takes the nature of rivers or streams on the surface - that there are large volumes of water presumably flowing through cavities in the rocks below. Although this does happen on very rare occasions in cave systems, the likelihood of it ever happening anywhere near a stone circle, and particularly where the roots of the stones would protrude into the water flow, is almost non-existent. Almost all rocks are slightly porous, that is, they are rather like a sponge, in that they have minute air spaces between the various particles that make up the stone. These pore spaces are the largest in sedimentary rocks, a typical example of which would be sandstone. Flow also takes place in sands and gravels that have not yet been consolidated into rock. But porous space in these rocks seldom exceeds 10 to 15 per cent of the total volume, and the pore spaces themselves are rarely as large as half the size of a pinhead. Thus in underground water flow, we are not talking about a vast torrent but a slow oozing of water from one pore space to the next. Even in the relatively porous gravels of unconsolidated material, the rate of flow seldom exceeds a few feet per day. Hardly a raging torrent!

     Nor do such underground flows take on the characteristics of surface streams, that is, flowing in a very narrow, ribbon-like pattern. Underground water flows as broad sheets of water, sometimes miles wide, all seeping in the same direction. It is suggested that the roots of the stones buried in the ground are subjected to great pressures from these same underground waters. No one appears to have read the excavation reports on stone circles such as Stonehenge and Avebury. Only in few instances do the bases of the stones extend into the water table (the highest level to which underground waters rise) for any significant depth. Hydrostatic pressure increases with depth of water, and it would take depths of many feet to generate any significant amounts of pressure. You can demonstrate this for yourself the next time you are in a swimming pool - dive down to the bottom of the deep end, say about eight feet, and see if you are crushed by the pressure.

 

Other Quartz Myths

     Because a great deal of the misunderstandings involve quartz, let's look at a few more misconceptions about it. Perhaps the major myth about quartz is that it is somehow special. As we saw in the previous chapter, one particular belief is that it is the most abundant mineral in the Earth. The mantle makes up two-thirds of the Earth, therefore we would expect that any mineral prominent in the mantle would be a likely candidate to be the most abundant. And this is exactly true. There is no quartz in the mantle. The minerals in the mantle are very dense, and quartz is fairly light - if there ever has been any quartz in the mantle, it has long since been squeezed up to the Crust. But quartz is not even the most abundant mineral in the Crust. There are hundreds of times more feldspar in the Crust than quartz. There are 3000 different minerals - quartz is only one of them.

     Another myth is that quartz is used in computers. There is no quartz used in computers. Crystals of silicon metal are artificially grown and are the so-called ‘silicon chips’ that are used in computers. The confusion arises from three similar-sounding words: silica, silicon, and silicate. Quartz is the mineral name for the chemical silicon dioxide, silica; silicon is a metal, as noted, and silicates are a group of several hundred minerals - of which quartz is only one.

 

Other Misconceptions

     There are several other types of ‘crystals’ that should be mentioned, some of which will be useful to the user of crystals, and some which will not. Let me just briefly mention another use of the word `crystal', because there is a tremendous amount of confusion about this word. The word is often applied to a type of glass. Now the word `glass' is actually a very specific scientific word which has a very precise meaning. Glass is a liquid that is so solid it won't flow at ordinary temperatures. So window glass is actually a liquid; it is just very thick at normal temperatures. The writer met a glazier in Australia who told him that in removing glass from very old buildings, it was actually possible to measure the difference in thickness between the top and bottom of the pane - there had been that much flow over a century or so. The characteristic of a liquid is that its atoms are arranged in no patterns whatever; it's totally structure-less. So to use the word `crystal', which means totally and very precisely structured, and the word `glass', which means absolutely no structure, means we use words that have absolutely opposite meanings - rather like 'military intelligence'.

     If you had a bowl made of `crystal' in the year 1300, it was made from a piece of quartz crystal. If you had anything made from `crystal' before that time, it was made from quartz. When very colourless glass was made, glass that was as colour­less as natural crystal became called `crystal glass' to differen­tiate it from ordinary glass. In order to differentiate the natural stone, then, it became called `rock crystal', as opposed to `glass crystal' or `crystal glass'. These names came into common use around AD 1500. Because the properties of crystals are a consequence of their structures, structure-less 'crystal glass' has none of the properties of natural crystal - which doesn't mean that it can't be just enjoyed for its beauty.

     Liquid crystals are similarly of little immediate import­ance to the crystal user. These are semi-solids in which the molecules of the liquid are arranged in regular patterns. Many types of living tissue are composed of liquid crystal, and it is thought that much of the memory-storing capacity of the brain is made up of liquid crystals. These crystals are generally microscopic in size, and although of great importance generally, are of little use specifically in the terms in which we have been speaking of crystal usage.

Artificially grown crystals

     Many different types of crystals are grown artificially, and most of these take on the same forms and mundane energy characteristics of natural crystals. The aspect of these which makes them generally unusable, however, is that at a subtle level, the crystal takes on a great deal of the energy of its growth environment. The growing environ­ment of an artificial crystal is very clinical and sterile and far removed from any sort of natural environment.

      Other crystals are grown from materials, and in forms, that are not found naturally and which therefore violate the laws of natural matter. In other words, we have ‘forced’ these crystals to grow against their own nature. Obviously, crystals grown in such environ­ments are not likely to harmonise well with natural energies, and in particular crystals which are forcefully grown are most unlikely to be in harmony with the energies of the elemental of crystals.

     Several types of crystals are regularly grown in the laboratory, including quartz crystals for the electronics industry, ruby crystals for lasers, sapphires for bearings and substitute gems, emeralds for gems, diamonds for industrial use, and rutile, cubic zirconia, and garnet as a diamond substitute. In the latter case, the garnet grown is yttrium-aluminium garnet, which does not occur in nature, nor does cubic zirconia. They are colourless, have a high refractive index and two of the ‘forced’ crystals that were mentioned earlier.

     The Russians have successfully grown silicon crystals (ie: silicon metal) in an orbiting laboratory in zero-gravity conditions, which allows extremely pure crystals to form - if one can consider such forced growth as pure. This is not to suggest that laboratory-grown crystals are totally without use, however, since they can be beautiful and commercially important, properties which have value in their own right.

 

External forms

     The external forms of crystals are registered as significant by some. There is definitely a relationship between the shape of a crystal and static electricity, as static electricity tends to accumulate on the points and edges of crystals. Unfortunately for those who attempt to draw conclusions about this, static electric­ity also accumulates on the points and edges of everything else! Whether it is the point of a pencil, the tip of a cat’s tail, the peak of a house or church steeple, in each instance there will be a static electricity accumulation. This is very notice­able in drier climates, especially when two people walk across a room with a shag carpet to kiss one another - there is often a bolt of static electricity a quarter of an inch long or more as they get close to one another, and often from distinctly uncomfortable portions of the body!

     If the emphasis on outer shape is true, then we might also expect to carve quartz crystals (or at least the shape of quartz crystals) out of blocks of wood, and presumably that they would behave exactly as natural crystals. Obviously they do not, because in a crystal the outer form is a direct consequence of the inner form. When lumps of a mineral like rose quartz are cut into the shape of crystals - as almost all rose quartz 'crystals' offered for sale are - the shape has no effect on its properties. They might as well just stay lumps - there is nothing wrong with that. But let's not pretend that they are crystals.

 

Striations

     There is one other external property of quartz that has been made much of - striations. Striations are parallel lines running across the prism faces of quartz, which some have decided are like the bar-codes on packaging. Apparently these are messages from the past encoded on to quartz crystals by the ancients before they buried them hundreds of feet underground, and somehow fused them to the walls of veins. Leaving that part of the idea without further comment, striations are natural features created in the crystallisation process. It is the pull of forces within the crystal that creates them, as temperatures and pressures within the vein vary. At one set of conditions the crystal is producing prism faces; with slight changes, rhombohedron faces start to form. The 'striations' are, in fact, rhombohedron faces that haven't gone to completion. There is no mystery about them whatever.

 

Perfection

     Another myth is that crystals have to be `perfect' in order to be useful. The word `perfect' usually is taken to mean that they have to be transparent; that they don't have any chips on them, and they've grown in a really lovely form.

     Nonsense.

    They can be cloudy, they can be chipped, they can be battered and beaten and they are still perfectly useable. What makes crystals do what they can do is their atomic structure, their pattern, their inner nature.

      That sounds a bit like some of us, doesn't it? Some of us are a little more battered on the outside than others, some of us aren't quite as pretty on the outside as others, and yet inside we are all beautiful, we are all perfect, we are all whole, we are all in harmony in our deepest inner nature. And of course that's exactly the way a crystal is. If it wasn't perfect it wouldn't be a crystal. The question of 'perfection' comes up a lot in courses. My reply is:

      Who makes them in the first place?

     God makes them doesn't He?

      And does He make anything that is not perfect?

      An alternative reply is: We just have to remember that God doesn't make things as perfect as man does! Think about that for a little while: perfection is in the eye of the beholder. In the eye of the Creator of all things, everything is perfect. Maybe we need to learn how to see things that way, rather than to see the 'imperfections' resulting from our own judgement of things.

Double termination

     A crystal term you'll run into that is made much of is double termination. The word termination just means the point on a crystal, the pyramid shaped end of the crystal. In some quartz crystals (in fact you'll find it on all kinds of other crystals as well but, once again, it's usually applied to quartz), there is a point on both ends. The term for this is double terminated. There is an idea that those crystals develop both ends at the same time and are therefore something special!

    Sorry, it doesn't happen that way.

    Most of the double-terminated quartz crystals form when the crystal breaks off from the cavity in which it is forming and it just grows another point on the broken end. No big mystery about it at all.

Male and female

     Another term you'll run into is male crystals and female crystals. The origin of this comes out of Native-American mythology and was originally connected to turquoise. Mother Earth is seen as being green, connected to the green of growing things; and Father Sky is seen as being blue. Turquoise comes in green and blue and therefore the green turquoise was assumed to be feminine or Mother Earth turquoise; the blue turquoise was assumed to be masculine or Father Sky turquoise.

 If we ourselves embody a great deal of feminine energy we might well experience crystals 'giving off' those sort of' energies - if, indeed, crystals gave off energy, which they don't. They are only reflecting our own energy back to us.

     From a purely cynical standpoint, which also happens to be a very accurate one in this particular case, the term feminine is usually applied to quartz crystal - the milky, cloudy crystals. The crystal miners in Arkansas, Brazil, and most of the places where quartz is produced, had mountains of milky crystals around that they couldn't sell because nobody wanted them. Everyone wanted the very clear ones. Conveniently, the milky crystals are suddenly `female' and now they have a high market value. They couldn't give things away a few years ago. This doesn't mean that the milky ones aren't of value - they are still crystals, and therefore still perfect. But let's please stop our need for a lot of nonsensical terms to justify what is.

 

Birthstones  

There is more of this: the whole idea birthstones was cooked up by the Victorian jewellery industry to sell certain stones that were in abundance at that particular time. If any of you have looked into the lists of birthstones, you'll see that there are almost as many lists as birthstones, and they are all different! And isn't it interesting, if you trace the lists that have appeared at various times in about the last 80 - 90 years, the stones that appear on the list at any given time are the ones that just happened to be quite abundant at that time!

 

Other Myths and Misunderstandings

    Several publications have suggested that the Earth itself is a crystal, based on the geometric form of an icosahedron combined with a dodecahedron. Various purported positions of the intersection of faces and crystal edges are drawn on the Earth’s surface, and then these various positions are studied to try to find archaeological evidence of particular activity along these lines. Unfortunately for this theory the Earth is predomi­nantly covered with water and many of these lines and points tend to fall in and across various oceans. The various archaeological artefacts that are described as forming concentrations around certain points often cover as much as three to four hundred square miles on the ground surface. Not only that, the most fundamental aspects of crystals are completely ignored - that they have precise internal arrangement, and precise external sym­metry. A quick glance at a globe, or a map of the Earth, will soon inform the reader of exactly how symmetrical the Earth is. Even if we were to use other criteria, such as the size, shape, and distribution of continental plates, we would find once again that the Earth is anything but symmetrical.

 

Manifestation

     Several ‘teachers’ around the world are ‘manifesting’ various gems for their disciples, apparently out of thin air. In the first place, any halfway competent television magician (or more correctly, illusionist) can do the same thing. One such illusionist in Las Vegas was even ‘materialising’ live tigers on stage. The only difference is that these illusionists are not claiming to be spiritual masters. The second and most telling point concerns the ‘gems’ themselves. I have had an opportunity to examine some of these, and there are several curious things about them. One ‘messiah’s’ gems are almost all cut into the shape of famous diamonds - but they are not diamond. Such diamond replicas are easily obtained on the commercial market, but they are usually cut from quartz. These indeed appear to be quartz. One of the other ‘gems' is a replica of the Hope Diamond, which is blue. This one is cut from synthetic sapphire. Are they running out of the real thing on the Other Side?

 The Stone Cutting Process

     Not only is there a lack of understanding of geology and mineralogy but also of the most basic processes of the lapidary (gem cutter). This lends itself to some rather extraordinary interpretations of certain arte­facts from the past, and in particular artefacts with a high degree of emotional impact, such as the crystal skulls which have been found in Latin America. Such writers tend to view these skulls as isolated artefacts, and do not place them in the context of products of a civilisation vastly experienced in stone working and carving. The fact particularly overlooked is that these very same cultures which allegedly produced the skulls were producing intricate carvings in jade - equally as complex technically and even more difficult to execute. Even an amateur lapidary knows that jade is ten times more difficult to shape and carve than quartz crystal. The writers of these articles, and indeed the ‘scientists’ who have studied these skulls, seem to have the typical layman’s misunderstanding of the processes of gem cutting. This usually involves an image of a little old man sweating over a stone that he is about to cleave with a blade and a mallet, and then fainting dead away when the stone falls in two perfect pieces! In fact, this particular process is done very rarely, and almost always with large diamonds that would take months to saw. Virtually every other type of stone is simply sawn into the desired shape using a diamond impregnated saw blade, and then ground into final shape on lapping wheels.

     It is this misunderstanding that allows the researchers to be ‘amazed’ that the skulls bear no particular orientation to the crystallographic axes, which would be necessary had they been shaped by cleaving rather than by ordinary grinding methods. Quartz has no cleavage, and therefore will not shatter (as the researchers suggest) if the shaping process is not very precise. Truly, the only thing that would have been amazing is if the skulls had been oriented to the crystallographic axes.

     The researchers also conclude that since there were no marks present to suggest it, no metal tools were used. As a professional lapidary, I would be very interested in seeing what sort of marks one looks for as evidence of metal tools. If a piece is properly executed, there should be no evidence that any tools were used. From the lack of these marks, the researchers then conclude that these skulls were probably chiselled into shape using diamonds! Diamonds, although hard, are also quite brittle and shatter easily enough if subjected to sharp blows.

     Even if metals were not available (and they probably were not) sand drills were. The sand drill is a device commonly used by primitive people even today in various parts of the world for drilling holes in beads and ornaments. In this process a bow drill is used, and the drill ‘bit’ is often nothing more than a cactus spine which is fed a slurry of fine mud or sand at the point that it enters the rock. As quartz is quite easily ground away by this method, at least compared to jade, one can easily imagine tools of this type scaled up for grinding and shaping larger pieces. With certain types of hard woods and fire-hardened bamboo, metals are totally unnecessary.

     The rough forming of these skulls would have been partly accomplished by sawing or by cobbing, a process of chipping off small pieces until the rough shape is achieved. Cobbing was used to rough-shape quartz crystal balls in Japan until well into the 20th century. The tool that may have been used for sawing is a mud saw, which once again has a modern equivalent. In this tool a single strand of wire (or hemp fibre or fire-hardened bamboo in the ancient tool) is drawn back and forth across the stone, often with a bow for holding the wire taught, and fine mud is fed in along the cut. This process is used today, but with a large metal blade instead of a hempen fibre, for sawing large jade boulders in Alaska.

    Some conclude that it would have taken approximately 300 man-years to have made one of these skulls. It would be very surprising if it took two men more than two months. There are a great many lapidaries in the world today that could duplicate one of these skulls in approximately that amount of time, using techniques that would have been available 1000 years ago.

     Even more amazing to the writer than the crystal skulls are the cylinder seals that were produced in Mesopotamia several thousand years before these skulls were made, which are very intricately carved and need a magnifying glass to see all of the detail. Why is it so difficult for us to realise that so-called primitive man knew a thing or two about working stone?

     As to the actual uses of these skulls, one need only look again at the culture in which they were supposedly produced. Oracular devices, such as ‘talking’ idols, were not at all uncommon in these cultures, and usually consisted of nothing more than a hole bored through the idol at the location of the mouth. The priest then stood behind the idol (out of sight) and gave the idols ‘pronouncements’ to the assembled multitudes. As the one crystal skull that has a moving jawbone also has two small holes on either underside of the jaw bone where wires were clearly attached, there is no reason to suspect this skull was anything else. As the human skull was particularly held in respect, and even awe in these early civilisations (as it is even today in ours), then it is easy to imagine the effect of such a ‘talking’ skull, especially when lit from below, as this skull was apparently designed to be.

     There are a great many psychic phenomenon that are described by persons who have been in the presence of these skulls, and this is not surprising. Keep in mind that no matter what its shape, it is still a piece of quartz crystal, and therefore responsive to all of the various energy transformations of such crystals. Because the shape itself is highly emotive even in our ‘modern’ culture, a person in the presence of such an object will be generating signifi­cantly larger amounts of emotional energy, not to mention the reflection of his or her own expectations.

     There is one last point. Quartz crystal skulls were quite commonly manufactured in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Not one of the skulls 'from' Mesoamerica has ever been found in authenticated circumstances.

 

Channelling

     There is a huge amount of channelled information around these days, both about crystals and other things. There is an assumption that because something comes from a 'spirit' source, it is true. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of the material channelled about crystals, fully 90% of it is factually wrong. For example, I was approached at a festival by some very nice and very sincere people who had channelled information about crystals, and they were very anxious to share it with me. To step backwards in the middle of the story, the word 'crystal' comes from ancient Greece, and it originally meant 'ice'. It only referred to quartz, which was believed to be ice that had frozen so hard it couldn't melt.

     The very first words from their channelling were: 'Crystal is just ice that has frozen so hard it cannot melt'. They had got ahold of an old Greek somewhere, who was telling them the absolute truth about crystal - to the best of his knowledge. There is much channelling from many sincere and 'truthful' sources - and most of it is dead wrong.

 

'Extraterrestrial' minerals

     Mention must be made of what have been marketed as 'extraterrestrial' rocks - tektites. One of the more common varieties of tektites is moldavites, so named because they are found in and around Moldavia. Tektites are irregular blobs of glassy material, varying from green and transparent like the moldavites, to black and opaque, like those found in Thailand. At the time tektites were first discovered, the number of meteor impact craters know on the Earth was less than half a dozen. In recent years, literally hundreds have been recorded, including the Reas Crater in Bavaria. Fifteen kilometres across, this crater was driven deep into the sandstone underlying the impact area. The chemical composition of the moldavites is exactly the same as the sandstone underlying the crater, and Moldova is downrange from the impact. Doubt no longer remains that they are melted sandstone splashed out at impact. The crater that produced the Thai tektites has not been identified yet, but there are a number of possibilities. But what is certain is that they are not extraterrestrial. So does this give moldavites and other tektites mystical properties? The answer, perhaps, lies in the eye of the beholder.

 

The Origin of

Crystal Myths

     Why do myths happen? How do they get started?

     We know that things can have the appearance of doing one thing, when in fact something entirely different is happening. We are frequently deceived by appearances.

There are things that happen with crystals that appear to amplify, that appear to transmit, that appear to heal, that appear to do quite a few things. But what's really happening is at our own human ability to heal, our own human ability to amplify, to focus our own energies, is being reflected back to us more clearly through the use of crystals.

We can take any number of personal development courses and the one thing which we will learn in every single one of those courses is that clear intentions get clear results.

What greater reflection back to us of the most subtle and profound levels of our own inner clarity could there be than the very clearest expression of energy that exists in the universe: the crystal. When we hold crystals, when we use crystals, when we have them near us, we have reflections back to us at an intuitive level of our own inner clarity. When we form an intention coming from that most powerful level of clarity in ourselves, then we get clear results.

      And it looks as if somehow the crystal has done it.

      Crystals don't do anything except reflect. Just like everything else outside of yourself.

 People are powerful, people are healing, people are all of the things that we think crystals are. All the crystals do is reflect back to us. And, as such, they are immensely powerful tools for healing at a most subtle and deep level. But they are not doing the actual healing - this comes solely from inside ourselves.

     Because we are out of touch with our Inner Being, the source of our own healing, our own power, when we those things are reflected back to us in crystals, we don't recognise them as reflections because we don't recognise them in ourselves.

 We believe that the reflection is the reality.