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Internet Book of Shadows, (Various Authors), [1999], at sacred-texts.com
The Care and Feeding of Crystals
by Matrika
co-sysop of PAN - the Psychic Awareness Network
Crystals have been in the lime-light ever since celebrities such as
Shirley Mcleane and Cher have come out of the closet and admitted they
were "New-Agers". However, along with this public scrutiny, has also
been a whole bunch of misconceptions. The most common of which is
that a person just wears a crystal like jewelry or carries it and it
works like some kind of instant stage-magic or prestidigitation.
This, of course, is not the case. To get the full effect of "Crystal
Power" in your life means, as with so much else, that you must put
into it what you take out of it. So here are a few simple guidelines
for those of you who plan on taking this subject seriously.
1. Selecting your Crystal
To select a Crystal is not all that much different from selecting a
pet or a work of art. When you go into the store to purchase your
crystal - or any other stone used in healing or Psychic work - just
pick the one that "calls" to you. Handle the various stones and place
them, one by one, in your receptive hand. (the one that is not your
dominant hand; if you are right-handed or ambi-dextrous, your
receptive hand is your left. If you are completely left-handed your
receptive hand is your right.) The stone that is right FOR YOU will
"pull" you to it. This may not be the stone that looks the clearest
or the most impressive, either. Our societies materialistic values
and our conditioning to accept them must not enter into our decision,
which is very hard for most of us at first. Our first tendency is to
judge the stone -as we always judge ourselves and everything else in a
constant stream of thoughts- by what we have been conditioned to
believe is "good" or "bad".
If the piece you are choosing is for a specific purpose; i.e. for
healing, or to enhance your psychic abilities, or for meditation; it
will help if you keep that purpose in mind while you are selecting the
stone. An interesting phenomena often happens to people who are just
going into the gem and mineral healing or psychic work. Most people
start off with clear quartz, because it has the most applications.
They go into a store or a gem show to purchase a clear quartz and find
themselves drawn to all kinds of other "rocks" (as the collectors call
them) too. Many times they bring a bag of various mineral specimens
home with them. Later they look up the stones in one of the many
reference books on this subject, only to find the stones they were
drawn to are exactly the ones they need to deal with issues or
illnesses that they need to work on.
The very first thing you need to do when you first get a crystal is to
"clear it" from the imbalanced energies of anyone else who has touched
it. Crystals "work" because of their piezoelectrical field.
Researchers in Kirlian photography and other subjects have long shown
us that the body is surrounded by a field of electro-magnetic
energies, which psychics call the AURA. People who have studied this
subject tell us that Crystals help us by attuning their
piezoelectrical charge to the charge of our auras. So we must first
remove the charges from the stone that come from other's handling of
it. This is done by leaving the stone in sea-salt (available at
almost any health-food store) for 3 days. The only time you will have
to use this technique - which is drastic - to cleanse the stone is
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when you first buy it. The reason I say the technique is drastic is
because it erases ALL of your energy from the stone too, so the stone
has to be rebonded. (explained later) This piezoelectrical effect of
the stone is the same reason that quartz is useful in making
computers, telephones, watches, and in other electronic devices.
2. the regular maintenance of your stone
The regular care and maintenance of your stone is really quite simple.
First of all a gentler method of clearing the piece should be used at
least once a week and after any uses in either physical or inner
(mental/emotional/spiritual) healing work. This can be done in
several ways. First of all, you can run it under COOL - no extremes
of temperature PLEASE - water in your sink for several minutes, while
visualizing (intensely imagining in vivid detail, from a meditative or
extremely relaxed state) all imbalanced energies leaving it. You can
also leave it in mugwort (an herb) for 2-3 days buried it in
carefully. You can also place it in a flowerpot with an african
violet plant, but you should know that if it has been used to heal any
severe conditions, the plant will die. The stones should also be
re-charged about once a month or after every use. For other stones,
direct sunlight is not such a good idea as it can fade the colors.
You can get the reflected energy of the sun by placing them in the
moonlight during the waxing of the moon. (from one day after the new
moon through the night of the full moon) They can also be charged by
surrounding them in a circle of quartz points that have been charged
by the sun, with the points of the crystals facing inward toward the
stones being charged. Another method is to purchase an amethyst or
quartz cluster and place the stones on it. A cluster is a specimen
with several individual crystals on it. Oh, and if you charge the
stone by a circle of crystals, be sure they have been cleared and
charged themselves before using them to charge anything else. The
circle should consist of at least 4 points, but 8 is best. These
stones used for charging do NOT have to be large at all.
3. Using your stones
Stones are tools in our psychic work and, as in any other object used,
work by focusing the mind's powers. To get the best use out of them,
more than just wearing them or carrying them is required. They should
be used from a state of meditation, while visualizing the goals we
wish to accomplish with them - such as healing, increased Psychic
perception, etc. A good way to do this for to help you focus and a
self-hypnosis tape that relates to your goals and use it. And if you
are using the crystals in healing, be aware that they are NOT meant to
replace the care of a competent health professional - but many people
find them a useful adjunct to it.
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