How Do Crystals Work?
Thank you for your interest in this topic. We will try our best to explain the inner workings of a crystal and how one can benefit from these gifts of the Earth.
What is a crystal?
The word crystal comes from the Greek word “krystallos”, meaning frozen light. Some ancients believed a crystal to be fossilized ice! Scientifically speaking, a crystal is generally considered to be a systematic, orderly and repetitious patterning of molecules or energies. Metaphysically speaking, a crystal represents the higher and more refined forms, in the mineral kingdom. Their molecular integrety literally translates to a mineral with great integrity!
Is it a stone or a crystal?
First thing to know is that crystals are not stones. As mentioned, the molecular arrangement of a crystal is very organized and it follows 1 of 7 lattice arrangements. Whereas a stone is a solid where the sum total of the molecules that makes up a stone are locked in strong bonds (ionic & covalent bonds) forcing these molecules to be tightly held together so the molecular arrangement in a stone is random. In a nutshell, a stone represents molecular chaos while a crystal represents molecular order (and constant repetition of that order).
Crystals enhance & magnify subtle energy
Now, to understand how crystals work, bear in mind the example of how a glass lens magnifies sunlight, sometimes enough to set a paper on fire. Notice that ordinarily sunlight doesn’t light the paper on fire but the lens magnifies the effect of the solar energy, creating enough heat to set the paper on fire. Crystals work in a similar way, with the exception that the energy they enhance is subtle or pranic or etheric in nature. This is where our current scientific understanding has to catch up. We as humanity are ready to accept the truths at a sub-atomic level, things that a common person is not in a position to validate themselves whilst, the topic of subtle energy somehow evades mass experiment and recognition. To avoid drifting onto another topic, I’ll leave this debate here, perhaps to be discussed another day. Coming back to the theme of this paragraph, in a nutshell, crystals enhance the subtle energies (also called pranic energy or etheric energy) that all living beings exude by just being.
How do crystals effect us?
Given that there are only 7 basic molecular arrangements that a crystal can follow, each crystal is different by the virtue of:
╚ What elements it is made of.
╚ What elements is placed on which exact site in the repeating crystal lattice structure.
╚ What elements it contains as impurities (Stuff that is not part of the repeating formula but is simply there in one area or another).
Think of a cube, now think that at each corner of the cube you had to place an element, just by understanding that we have 118 elements to place in the 8 corners of a cube, we can realize how it gives rise to different crystals and based on what they are made of they may have different effects while interacting with the subtle energy.
How do these different crystals interact with energy, differently?
The following example may assist to visualize the above point. Imagine seeing through 2 windows, one a clear glass window and the other red tinted glass window. The light coming through them will have one key difference, clear glass will send the light unhindered; While the red glass will absorb all other colors (but red) and send in red light. Glass is made of silicon and oxygen (formula: SiO2), to make it red we introduce ‘selenium oxide’ (formula: SeO2) into pure glass while the glass is molten. While this mixture cools and solidifies the 3 elements, silicon, selenium and oxygen rearrange their locations in the same lattice structure (as in clear glass) making it different than clear glass.
In a nutshell, even though clear and red glass have the same crystal lattice structure, the introduction of 1 extra element in the red glass gives it a different property and with it, the red glass interacts with visible light in a different way than clear glass.
To answer the key question of how do crystals effect us, let us summarize our understanding so far:
╚ Crystals represent molecular order,
╚ They differ in terms of the elements that they are made of,
╚ Crystals contains various elements as impurities (happy accidents) and,
╚ Other miscellaneous conditions (that we have not covered here).
The above illustrated differences, make each crystal unique and its reaction to the same energy, unique as well. Therefore different crystals serve the same subtle energy (that all living beings emanate by simply being alive) differently, much like the case of clear and coloured glass serves the same visible light differently.
You are welcome to leverage our research on crystals and their effects for your understanding.
Which crystal is good for which situation?
We learn by building on top of the learnings of our ancestors. Therefore, the effects these crystals have had on people since antiquity has been studied, utilised and pass down through generations. It would be wise on our part to use the collective works of our ancestral intuition as a baseline for our experiments and see for ourselves what works for us.
As an example let us look at humanity’s understanding and usage of herbs for medicinal purposes across ancient cultures. Generations have tested the knowledge of their peoples and used it based on their own experience; Crystals should be no different. What we hear as truths act our baseline, while what we have experienced to be true becomes our factual knowledge. This gives rise to the rule of thumb for working with crystals, read the information as gathered evidence of those who have used these crystals before us, work with them as guided by your own intuition and decipher how that crystal enhances the unique subtle energy that is emanated by you as an unique individual.
Our research and experience as to which crystal is good for which life situation is shared for your reference in hopes that it becomes the baseline to your own experiments and hypothesis!
We often hold informative sessions on crystals, their origins, usage, maintenance, programming and many other topics. Keep an eye out on our events page for the next upcoming session.
We hope to see you soon!