What is this - crystal power?

golok

golok

Joined
Oct 20, 2000
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In recent years, I noticed there has been a surge in shops selling crystals of all forms, shapes and sizes.

The prevalent claim is that a person if he or she wears the "right" crystal will be blessed with good fortune or enhanced well being.

Up till now, there is no conclusive proof that such a thing actually happens but those who have paid a substantial sum of money for shiny baubles are driven to the conclusion that they are indeed empowered by these crystals which have turbo-charged their auras - or something along those lines.

So who is actually wearing crystals?

Personally, I keep an open mind about this but I generally prefer jade - for sentimental reasons. :D :) ;)
 
"Jaded" is it?? :D :D

My father cuts and polishes amethysts for hobby, I find it hard to believe even after hearing all the possible reasons for wearing one, apparently it is a cure-for all.

A small piece of coloured quartz or silicon dioxide coloured with minute amounts of iron and manganese.

"There is a sucker born every minute" it must be faster!

TLM
 
Quite right. The "crystal power" thing has been resurgent since the big "new age" boom of the 70's. Probably based on mideaval notions.

All nonsense, of course. Quartz crystals do have a certain electric property. When stressed mechanically, they produce a tiny amount of current in proportion to the amount of stress. Thus, their use in such devices as strain guages. It's called the piezoelectric principal.

Other than this, there is no "energy" whatever to be obtained from crystals.
 
My Croatian/Gypsy sister in law does the crystal power stuff. She also does the Pendalling. She tries to sell her potions too. The only people that buy into it are the old immigrants that live around her part of Germany. She's whacked. My brother in law calls it "Gypsy Voodoo".
 
There's a basic law of nature that says that things tend toward the lowest energy state. And it doesn't just apply to springer spaniels, though they can be good examples of it at times. This law is why crystals form.

Contrary to the belief that crystals contain all sorts of energy, crystals contain the lowest amount of energy of any form of matter. If you want energy, don't wear a crystal, just breath. Gases are a much higher energy state of matter.

The crystal crowd are really idiots. Show them a piece of sparkly cut glass and the get all excited. Show them a hunk of steel and they're not ammused. Guess what? The glass is not a crystal, but the steel is. Despite the fact that we sometimes call it "crystal", glass isn't even solid, it's a very, very thick liquid and lacks any crystal structure. But because it's sparkly, the crystal crowd loves it.

If you want to carry a crystal, carry a knife. The blade is a big crystal.

There's no energy in crystals... Literally.
 
I am a rock and mineral collector from way back. I mean that I crawl around in old mines chisel them out and bring them home for cleaning. Some I trade with friends around the world others I keep.

A room in my basement rivals quite a few rock museums that I have seen. Some specimens weigh in at over 100 lbs. In there are large crystal specimens found in the US as well as some from all over the world (traded or purchased).

For some reason when I walk in there, I do not feel any different than I normally do.
If I am tired before I walk in there, I am just as tired when I am in there.

To each their own, but I totally agree with Chuck. No energy there, but they are beautiful things of nature that I enjoy collecting, trading and displaying on tables and shelves around the house.
 
The greatest concentration of these cultish "crystal crunchers", as they are called here, seem to live in Sedona, AZ. About 16 miles east of me.:barf:

Most of them immigrated here from California, and are looking for the "vortex".:eek: :confused:
 
I tend to be rather open minded. I realize one thing about where we are in the world, history, our development. We as a species are becoming quite arrogant by what we know. Many people look at things and say, if it hasn't been proven by now, then it must not exist. There are so many things we have left to discover, we would be and are fools to think otherwise.

To the crystal issue, does it have some form of power to help people have more energy or better well being? Absolutely! As long as you believe it. It doesn't matter whether science can prove it or not. It's called faith. I believe in God. Science hasn't proven His existence, but I still believe. It's all faith that there is something out their greater than us. And really, is there anything really wrong with it? If it gives them comfort.

Who am I or anyone else to tell people their crystals don't hold any special power for them? Until we have learned all there is to learn, I will hold off on tellling people their beliefs are wrong. I might tell them I am a bit sceptical about it, as their is no science behind it. I won't say they are wrong.
 
Dude, a crystal is just a rock.

Crystal power is the same thing as magnets. Bullhonkey. Anything that they actually do is purely placebo.

That said, if you think it makes you feel better, gives you energy, makes you smarter...and it does, then it does. It's all in your head, but if it works, then it works. I might argue with the validity of the methods, but you can't argue with results.
 
I did a bit of reading on the Wiccan (or Neo-Pagan) beliefs. I think all too many get caught up in the trappings of the trade without any soul searching or faith. That said, I have made medicine pouches for more than a few friends. All have been well recieved. Did they wear them only because I made them, or just because they thought it looked neat? Or did they get some kind of charge by wearing it? Maybe a little of each. Am I saying I can whip up an amulet to make all your problems go away? Of course not. But a token of friendship and a symbol of faith go a long way. In the end I think that all such jewelry is mearly a focus. At school I commented that I liked this guy's rosary. He said he had another in the car and offered it to me. I told him I wasn't able to give him any money for it. He said he didn't want any money, just for me to keep him in my prayers. Do I think that braided cord, wooden beads and a wooden crucifix have any inherant powers? No. But it's a powerful symbol of goodwill and generosity. And to this day it makes me smile when I hold it.

Frank
 
A nicely mounted crystal is a lot more attractive than many other amulets people often wear -- crucifixes, chais, blue beads -- and the others don't have any more inherent power than the crystals. But people don't think they have to die for their crystals.

Among the earliest physical evidence that our ancestors were becoming true humans, that is, had developed speech and culture, were the famous cave paintings. At the same time, they were also making the earliest jewelry.

Of course, long before that, they were making cutting tools. So if you really want to celebrate our power over this little corner of the universe, wear a knife!
 
Dirk, my answer to the "what harm can it do" argument for letting woo-woo beliefs lie is the same whether it's crystals, reiki, or homeopathics: it's taking money from unknowning people under false pretenses. Not all of the people buying these things are healthy, nubile 20 year old females with whacky ideas about the universe. Some of them are older people who are in chronic pain and grasping at any straw that might offer relief from the pain. Some of them are living on disability or other fixed incomes, and spending money that would be better spent on evidence-based medicine on trinkets and snake oil. In the first nine months of 2003, one French herbal and homeopathic company reported sales of a quarter billion dollars. Can you think of no better way to spend a quarter billion dollars than snake oil?
 
Dirk said:
We as a species are becoming quite arrogant by what we know. Many people look at things and say, if it hasn't been proven by now, then it must not exist.
Click to expand...


The idea that the scientific community is a good ol' boys' club that's hostile to anything that doesn't fit with its dogma is a common misconception among the neo-pagans and Biblical literalists I've heard from. Scientists rewrite their basic assumptions about the universe pretty frequently these days. New discoveries come almost faster than we can keep up.

The real arrogance is clinging to the conclusions that you learned in childhood, and refusing to admit evidence that contradicts it.

Dirk said:
To the crystal issue, does it have some form of power to help people have more energy or better well being? Absolutely! As long as you believe it. It doesn't matter whether science can prove it or not. It's called faith. I believe in God.
Click to expand...

The placebo effect is well understood, actually.


Dirk said:
Science hasn't proven His existence, but I still believe. It's all faith that there is something out their greater than us. And really, is there anything really wrong with it? If it gives them comfort.

Who am I or anyone else to tell people their crystals don't hold any special power for them? Until we have learned all there is to learn, I will hold off on tellling people their beliefs are wrong. I might tell them I am a bit sceptical about it, as their is no science behind it. I won't say they are wrong.
Click to expand...

Meh. Without Pasteur telling the surgical community they were wrong, doctors wouldn't have started washing their hands before operations. How do we move forward as a species if we can't let go of our past mistakes?

If an adult human being can't handle being told that his crystal isn't really an Energizer, the problem's with _him_, not the skeptic who tells him so.
 
With the exception of glass, all solid, inorganic materials (minerals) are crystalline. Glasses are quenched from melted minerals and contain fragments of crystal lattices in a super cooled liquid matrix. Crystalline structures form in stable thermodynamic states for the conditions present.

There may be different states (called phases) that are stable in different conditions, which is why we are able to harden steel. The different forms of the FeC system are responses to conditions we manipulate by changing the crystal lattice parameters.

Many people would rather believe some BS, that requires little or no understanding of how things work, than put the effort into gaining knowledge of the universe and themselves. It is why religions are so successful. It is all so much easier when someone can tell you what to believe.
 
I think the jury is still out.

Sometime in the middle ages or shortly there after the human body was viewed as a series of pulleys, chain drives and etc.

Later then the body became a collections of chemicals, you have probably often heard that the human body was "$5 worth of chemicals".

Then the body was viewed as a structure of billions of cooperating cells, DNA, hormones, and etc.

What the future will bring is hard to say.
 
you have probably often heard that the human body was "$5 worth of chemicals".
Click to expand...

The commodity value of the human body depends on what level you look at the chemicals at.

Broken down to the atomic level, the body is worth a few cents. It's mostly carbon. But even carbon depends on what form you put it in. There's a company that will take your dead body, burn it down to a few ounces of carbon. A few ounces of carbon is worth only a few cents. But they don't stop there. They heat and compress the carbon to form about 3C of diamond. And now you can have a diamond ring made from grandma.

But the real value in the human body comes when you leave things at higher levels. An ounce of human growth hormone is made of a couple of penny's worth of elemental components (again, mostly carbon). But an ounce of pure HGH is worth a fortune.

Most of the high-dollar stuff in your body is proteins. A protein gets its value from it's chemical composition, but also from its shape. When you finish making a protein molecule, it spontaneously folds up into a very specific shape. When your body makes proteins, they almost always fold correctly. When scientists try to make proteins in the laboratory, the vast majority of the product fails to properly fold. Nobody's quite sure, at this time, why this is or how to fix it. There's a committee in Sweden with a handsome medal waiting for the person who figures it out. As a result, to make an ounce of it, you might have to make up a hundred pounds of the molecule and then see if any of it folds correctly. The resulting product is very expensive. So, what you have in your body ends up being very valuable.

And if you can leave it at even a higher level, it starts to become priceless. What's a working, healthy kidney worth to someone whose own have failed?

So, the value of the human body depends on how far you take it apart.

It's a lot like a car. A good car may be worth $20,000. Wreck it and the salvage yard will give you a good price for it. They're gonna pull out what major parts they can and sell those. But, take the same car and run it through a shreader and reduce it to scrap metal and it's now it's only worth a few bucks for recycling.
 
yeah, my point was, which you so ably demonstrated, that it all depends on how and at what level you look at the body. :)
 
If wearing or carrying a crystal (or any other type of "amulet") helps give a person peace of mind, then it has served it's purpose. To each his own.

Paul
 
Foxholeathiest - Many of the people who turn to this type of cure, have already tried the available remedies, or can't afford what is available. Most people go to crystals or other types of cures of their own free will. I have yet to hear of a door to door crystal salesman, trying to con people out of their money. My girlfriend was into this for quite a while. In all that time and with all the get togethers, not once did these people say you should forsake modern medicine. There were some fringe people who did. However, they were very much in the minority.


Grover Cephus - Placebo effect is well understood. That's my point.

The real arrogance is clinging to the conclusions that you learned in childhood, and refusing to admit evidence that contradicts it. - I would call it ignorance, not arrogance. And the scientific community suffers from this as well. They are humans and suffer from the same weaknesses as any other person, regardless of their intellect.

Most of the people who are into crystals are trying to find something to help them in their daily lives, they aren't trying to become doctors or scientists. So, why should I or anyone else tell them they are wrong for believing something, even if there is no evidence to support what they belief. In some cases where what they are doing is harmful to them or someone else, I could see that. However, doing this to someone who isn't causing harm serves no purpose.
 
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