Crystals have been used for thousands of years as a tool for healing. Everything on Earth holds – and fundamentally is – energy, and crystals are no different. With a molecular composition that has developed over millennia, they have their own vibrations, and, if they are struck or compressed, produce an electric charge at a distinct frequency. Since ancient times, sensitive people the world over have been able to feel this unique power.
It is said that when a crystal is held or placed on the body, our energy field can be affected. Simply positioning them next to where we work, relax, or sleep can have a myriad of positive effects! Crystals can bring about anything from peace and calm to positivity and energy, depending on your needs and intentions.
Intention is a big part of using crystals. While a degree of scepticism is perfectly healthy, embarking upon any endeavour when convinced of its ineffectiveness is a great way to ensure that you won’t benefit fully from what it has to offer. This is called cognitive bias, and has been demonstrated time and again in consumer research; our preconceived beliefs about different foods, for instance, have been shown to significantly affect how they taste! When you begin to use crystals, it is important that you keep both an open heart and an open mind.
Secondly, it is always best to approach the matter with a degree of care. Every part of the process, from choosing a crystal, to using it and looking after it is about fostering and maintaining a profound, personal connection. Allow yourself some quiet time to connect with your crystal; you’ll feel your mind quieten, and you may even feel a tingling in your hand or somewhere in the body as energy is transferred and a connection is made. For more information on this, check out my post ‘Connecting with Crystals’. For now, though, we are focusing on what they are and what they can do for our wellbeing.
Crystals are especially beneficial when used to help focus the mind, provide comfort, or as a kind of talisman for when you need support, strength, or protection. The psychology behind this is well-documented; when we ascribe status to an object, it has demonstrable positive effects on our performance or mental state. This could, of course, simply be the placebo effect at work. However, whilst this term has come to mean ‘something that doesn’t do anything’ in popular discourse, that idea couldn’t be farther from the truth! The placebo effect is actually a complex neurobiological reaction wherein something proves to be therapeutic for an unexpected – and perhaps unidentifiable – reason. If something makes us feel better, but we can’t show why using traditional scientific enquiry, does that make it any less valid?
Whatever it is that makes them work, they do. Personally speaking, I see crystals as a kind of power pack – like the ones we use to charge our phones; you can’t see the energy as it moves from one place to another, but you know it does. For instance, quartz is well-known and widely used for its ability to store energy, and it is also a fantastic conductor. When you hold a piece of quartz or certain other crystals, you can feel the energy transfer, drawing away the negative and helping you feel uplifted, calm, positive and well.