Healing with Crystals
by Linda Johnson
5th August 2004
HOW CRYSTALS WORK IN HEALING
The universe works on vibrations or frequencies. Each different mineral has a different vibrational frequency. Our bodies are full of different vibrations too. However, a mineral has a stable cellular structure, which means that you could break off a piece from a large chunk of mineral and it would still exhibit the same properties as the original piece. The frequencies in our own soft bodies are not stable and will vary from organ to organ, and can change through different influences on the physical and subtle bodies.
Crystal healing is a form of vibrational healing. As such it works indirectly on the physical body through the etheric body. The etheric body is an energetic duplicate of the physical body and is receptive to the vibrations of the crystals more directly.Certain crystals are traditionally associated with different organs, energy centres (chakras) or subtle bodies (emotional, mental, intuitive, creative) as they correspond vibrationally with these organs or centres when in a state of health or balance. By keeping these crystals in close proximity, meditating with them, or using them directly as vibrational elixirs the etheric body can be helped to adjust back to a state of health, thereby helping the corresponding physical body to come into balance.
People should not simply read a one paragraph description of a crystals' properties and think by simply purchasing it they should be automatically healed. You need to connect and work with your crystals if you want to get the most out of them.
CHOOSING YOUR CRYSTALS
There are many good crystal books available that give metaphysical and healing properties of crystals - Love is in the Earth by Melody, and The Crystal Bible by Judy Hall would be the most comprehensive for descriptions. However, nothing beats using your own intuition in your choice if you are able to. By learning to ground yourself and connect to your own guidance using a pendulum or muscle testing you can ask whether you need a particular crystal at this time. Another way to select your crystals is to put them into a bag and choose them without looking.
If you already have a collection of crystals, you can lay them out in a semi-circle and use your pendulum to choose the one or ones you need at this time. If you don't have many in your collection and are purchasing more, concentrate on the pictures (we have a list of tumblestones on the site) and ask your pendulum whether you need each stone. Once you are more in tune with your crystals you can tune in to the mineral kingdom and ask whether you need a particular mineral.
So you can ask your guidance "What crystals am I in need of today?" and select some tumbled stones to carry around in your bag, or in a pouch, your pocket etc. Or put them on your desk at work, or on your bedside table.
Or if you feel you are in need of healing you can ask your guidance "What crystals do I need for my healing?". You can then carry them around, meditate with them, or make yourself some crystal water or an elixir.
It is important to keep your crystals regularly cleansed so they maintain their true vibration and remain charged. They will also need to be cleaned when you first get them. They will tend to pick up the vibration of the surrounding area and people, as well as emotional and painful vibrations when used for healing so they need to have these cleansed out. The article Ascending with Crystals gives you information on cleaning and blessing your crystals.
USING YOUR CRYSTALS FOR HEALING
Apart from carrying your crystals around, or putting them in close proximity you can work more directly with the crystals. The first thing you'll need to do is learn to ground your energy to the earth. Our Pendulum article gives you a grounding exercise which can be done fairly quickly and automatically once you've done it a few times. It is important to ground to the earth as this makes a conduit for your higher self to work with and through you and into the earth and gives a path for grounding out non-resonant energy.
MEDITATION:
You don't need to spend a long time preparing or hours sitting in uncomforable positions to meditate with your crystals. If you can make yourself a little meditation space in a corner of your room, or your garden. Try to find somewhere in nature, and away from electrical appliances like TVs, computers, microwaves and clock radios. Make it comfortable with chair or cushion (so you can sit up comfortably), add some incense and meditation background music, a little altar with your crystals etc. - whatever makes you happy and comfortable. If the place is already set up it will be easy to sit there any time you like without having to get everything out again.
Alternatively, if you are comfortable in nature, just take your crystals and accessories out in the garden and sit on the grass, or at the outdoor furniture. I recommend you also keep a little notebook and pencil with you for writing down impressions, visions and messages.
Do your grounding exercise, then pick up your cleansed crystal. Follow you intuition as to where to place it. You may want to put it on your forehead (third eye chakra), where you may get visual information from it. Don't expect to see things as clearly as a television - information may be quick impressions or dreamlike pictures. Just go with the flow and don't think about it too much. Talk to the crystal and ask questions and see if the images change.
You may feel guided to put it on your heart chakra. This may give you feelings from the crystal, or it may help release feelings out of you. Again, just go with the flow and let them flow. You may feel guided to place it on your throat chakra, allowing you to speak your truth. Healing is not just physical, and many destructive patterns can be released in other ways.
You may feel guided to move the crystal over other parts of the body allowing an exchange of energy to take place, or you may just want to hold it in your hands and allow the energy to channel in through the palms. If you feel at all spaced out or ungrounded while working with the crystal energy, try placing a hematite stone in the ground close to you.
Work with your crystals as often as you are guided. Write down your impressions and experiences in your crystal diary. Always thank the crystals and the mineral kingdom for working with you and cleanse your crystals when you finish.
CHAKRA BALANCING:
You can do this as part of your meditation, or separately. You'll need loose clothing and a comfortable place to lie down. As you'll probably do this alone, you'll need to select your crystals before you lie down. Concentrate on each of your seven bodily chakra points and as you ask your guidance which stones you need for each chakra. Choose them with intuition, pendulum or out of a bag.
If you are not sure which crystals to use, choose ones that correspond to the colours of the rainbow. If you are not sure where your chakras are:Crown Chakra - place on floor above head: Purple or Clear (ie: amethyst, clear quartz stone or point)
Third Eye Chakra - between the eyebrows: Indigo or Clear (ie: iolite, amethyst, apophyllite point)
Throat Chakra - throat area: Blue (ie: lapis lazuli, blue quartz, blue tourmaline, larimar, aquamarine)
Heart Chakra - heart region: Pink or Green (ie: rose quartz, mangano calcite, aventurine)
Third Chakra - diaphragm, base of rib cage: Yellow (ie: citrine, yellow calcite, aragonite)
Second Chakra - just under navel, or rest stone in navel: Orange (ie: tiger eye, red aventurine, carnelian, citrine)
Base Chakra - base of torso/pubic bone: Red (ie: red jasper)
The above stones are just suggestions, your guidance may choose something different for you, depending what needs balancing or energising. I also recommend adding a hematite stone just below your feet to help maintain grounding.
Put on your relaxing music and lie down with the stones within reach and place them on the chakra points. Ask your guidance to help energise, balance and align your chakras and just relax. Usually ten minutes should do it. You can visualise the different colours in the different areas if you like or just relax and go with the flow.
If you can use a pendulum you can ask your guidance to spin the pendulum to show you the energy flow of each chakra one at a time before you start your chakra balance, and again when you've finished your chakra balance. You should see a difference in the strength of the flow. You can also do this from time to time to see if your energy is depleted.
GRIDDING
You can also choose crystals to lay around your body in different patterns either separately or with the chakra balance if your guidance thinks you need it. For example you can lay out a five pointed star pattern either side of the legs, either side of the arms and above the head.
You could also grid around a room to balance and clear it.
You may also want to energetically seal your aura after balancing to stop all those good vibes being syphoned off by others. Visualise a lovely egg of energy around you with a nice firm shell that the bad vibes just bounce off.
If you enjoy this you may like to have an experienced crystal healer doing a bigger layout on you.
CRYSTAL WATER AND ELIXIRS
You can choose crystals with the help of your guidance (when grounded) to make yourself some medicine. Make sure the crystals are physically and energetically clean and choose from highly polished tumbled stones rather than rough pieces. You do not want to drink pieces of mineral, you just want the energy of the stone to go into the water.
Put the chosen crystal/s in a glass of clean drinking water. Leave them in the water in the sun for ten minutes, then take out the stones and drink.Note: Crystals with a name ending in 'ite' are soft minerals and may lose their shine in water - particularly calcite and selenite.
Try putting a clean, blessed and charged quartz crystal permanently in your water bottle in the fridge.
An elixir is a more permanent way of storing the vibrations of a stone. The stone is placed in very pure filtered or distilled water in a glass bowl and left in the sun for about three hours. If you can meditate with the elixir, the sun, earth and nature kingdoms so much the better.
The one on the left has been blessed with these kingdoms and out in the sun for over three hours. The oxygen from the water has attracted to the crystal covering it with tiny bubbles. The vibration of the stone has permeated the water.
Then clean and sterilise a new glass bottle and put about 20 percent brandy in it. Bless the brandy to remove all non resonant energies then pour the crystal water in. This will be your 'Mother Elixir'. From that you can make smaller stock bottles the same way with the pure water and seven drops of the mother elixir, then smaller dosage bottles with seven drops from the stock bottle. The vibration continues on and the elixir will last indefinately if stored properly.
This is probably more trouble than most people new to crystals want to go to. The elixir drops can be put directly under the tongue or into a glass of water and drunk and will affect the etheric body. They can also be dropped straight into a bath to soak in, or into water in a sprayer bottle for use as a room or aura spray. [We have a range of pre-made elixirs here].
You can use elixirs for chakra balancing and gridding instead of, or as well as using crystals. One advantage of using an elixir is that you don't have to buy rare and expensive crystals for your collection - you can use an elixir instead. Just use some small pieces of blotting paper or paper towel (or a clear quartz tumbled stone) with a drop of the elixir on it and place as you would for the crystal.
DIVINATION
You can make your own divination set by assigning certain meanings to different tumbled stones then pulling them out of a bag for guidance. The more you work with them the more you will tune in to the love, energy and messages of the crystals.
So there are various ways you can use tumbled stones. Larger crystal pieces can be used to decorate or beautify your home and garden, and clusters can display and recharge smaller crystals. Clean them regularly and let them dry in the sunshine. Don't leave amethyst or rose quartz permanently in the sun or on a window sill as the colour will fade. Don't leave clear quartz or crystal balls in the sun or window sill as they may concentrate the rays and start a fire. You can actually ask the crystals where they'd like to sit in your home.
I hope you enjoy working with the Mineral Kingdom and become a fellow crystal lover..
Linda :)