Crystal Healing
Crystal healing, in one form or another, has been recorded by all prominent past civilizations, from Vedic India to Nordic shaman. They all shared deeply rooted belief systems that supported holistic ideas of the world and everything in it. In other words, the vagaries of meaningless chance that blights the search for meaning in the modern world didn't exist. Everything had meaning. There was a purpose.
Without this cultural foundation, crystal healing or anything beyond the grasp of reductionist science, has largely become an area of faith and faith itself often cynically prefixed by "mere". You either believe crystal healing can be of benefit or you don't. Rational attempts of how crystal healing might work have largely been abandoned. But with the new wonders of quantum physics showing that things previously thought impossible really do happen, many people are again taking a more open-minded view of crystal healing and the wonderfully inconceivable universe in which we live. Here's just one famous example.
A pair of particles can be linked by the strange quantum property of entanglement. Although physically unconnected (one could be on the other side of the world), a measurement on one immediately influences the other.
Einstein coined the phrase "spooky action at a distance” in disbelief of the phenomenon, but the proponent of the apparent impossibility, Niels Bohr, eventually triumphed.
Let's be honest. At the side of that and many more equally strange proven anomalies, a crystal influencing something a few centimetres away is pretty tame.
“If it be true that there can be no metaphysics transcending human reason, it is no less true that there can be no empirical knowledge that is not already caught and limited by the a priori structure of cognition.” Carl Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Here we will briefly look at some aspects of this cultural foundation that previously helped us identify patterns in nature and ourselves that underpinned holistic ideas of crystal healing.
Crystal Healing and Numbers
The properties of numbers were one such cultural understanding. Numbers were not just for picking TV channels or working out a tax return, they meant something. For example, 1 wasn't just a single item but implied and embodied ideas of unity, connectedness, wholeness and the circle.
“Everything an Indian does is in a circle and that is because the power of the world always works in circles and everything tries to be round.” Black Elk (1863-1950)
The first number that springs to mind with crystal healing and certainly quartz is 6. Each and every crystal one has 6 sides and 6 faces. In cross-section, they are hexagonal, at the molecular level they are hexagonal. As science slowly abandons the idea of particles of substance, in favour of energy waves and patterns they are seen as hexagonal geometrised light-energy. So the idea that the number 6 has something to do with the crystal healing, may not be the first place we might have looked, but it's in line with an older, holistic way of thinking, of decoding the natural world and archetypes we are surrounded by.
“Our biggest failure is our failure to see patterns.” Marilyn Ferguson, American writer.
Crystal Healing and Archetypes
Ancient mystics and philosophers understood numbers and their qualities through arithmetic and geometric properties. They saw number and geometry archetypes everywhere, as we can today. They knew how to read this living book of nature, understanding how principles from what Plato called the plane of ideas, the causal plane of Vedic philosophy, manifest their patterns and qualities in the physical world and crystal healing. Living in the world without insight into the laws of nature is like not knowing the language of the country in which one was born. Numbers have now been reduced to mere indicators of quantity, weakening our ability to learn from the rich landscape of archetypes. The word archetype English usage dates back to the 1540s and derives from the Latin noun archetypum, which means "first-moulded". A compound of archē - "beginning, origin" and tupos - "pattern", "model," or "type." The word "pattern" comes from the Greek root "pater" - "father", so archetype can be understood as the principle pattern from which others are copied.
The number six was understood to indicate material perfection. Optimum efficiency in structure, function and order. Wherever we see the number 6, we can understand that at least an element of that perfection is being realized. For the bees hexagonal architecture, it is maximum storage volume using the minimum materials and space. Where crystal healing is concerned, perfection is an embodiment of the Golden Ratio which translates on an energetic level to a perfect frequency. A frequency that is intrinsically healing.
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” Nikola Tesla
Crystals provide one of the most fixed, rock solid healing frequencies known to man. These frequencies are quite literally set in stone.
Like a tuning forks sets the standard for musical notes, the steady vibration of crystals sets the standard for the pristine natural "notes" of this world and the human body. The introduction of any stronger vibration into an energy field, will have its influence, so how can crystal healing not affect the human energy system?
Technologically advanced societies are no longer interested in the wisdom of our "primitive" ancestors. The effect is not just having a few fewer mystics and yogis. Many people just can't see the point in a world reduced to random chemical combinations that got lucky. Misused technology may have brought the earth to the brink of ecological disaster and global warfare, but there are more apps and TV programmes about slimming.
“Who carved the nucleus, before it fell, into six horns of ice?” Johannes Kepler. 17th-century mathematician and astronomer.
Crystal Healing and Herbalism
The geometric and mathematical structure of crystals is the key "signature" that helps us understand how they can be used in crystal healing. Interestingly this practice of seeing the "signature" of plants was used by herbalists.
Although ridiculed as childish by the scientific establishment, the pharmaceutical industry found many of the observations based on a signature to be true through rigorous experimentation and tested the works of many reputed herbalists who employed this method. The doctrine of signature worked. The proof for the pharmaceutical companies was that most convincing of all evidence - money.
The patterns are there if we know how to look. See crystal healing with these eyes and we can begin to utilise the great gifts crystal frequencies offer.
For those wanting a simple, practical method of crystal healing see our chakra healing and chakra kit pages. For those wanting an even simpler method, see gemstone jewellery, all you have to do is wear natures little tuning forks!