Crystals: How to Use Crystals and Their Energy to Enhance Your Life (Hay House Basics) - Judy Hall 2015

Nature’s paintbox
Crystal Foundations

Some crystals are found in one colour only, others come in several. Colour subtly alters the way they work. Generally, ’hot’-coloured stones — red, orange and yellow ones — stimulate and activate, while ’cool’ colours — blue, green and violet — calm, and dark colours ground and transmute.

The colours are created by minerals and trace elements in the mix distorting the crystals’ light-refracting properties. Some crystals may also be colour-infused or dyed and heat amended. ’Citrine’ produced from heat-treated Amethyst or Smoky Quartz often lacks the dynamic potency of natural Citrine, although it looks brighter. Other crystals, such as Aura Quartzes, are alchemically created.

The magic of light

Colour is a property of light. When light is split by hitting a solid object, it is refracted into the colour spectrum. Colour is produced when a portion of the light is absorbed and the remainder reflected. White results from total reflection, black from total absorption.

Our bodies are extremely sensitive to light. As Sue and Simon Lilly explain in Healing with Crystals and Chakra Energies:

’What we perceive as colour is simply the brain’s way of recognizing the many different energy qualities of light. Every frequency of visible light, each colour, creates changes in us at many different levels, physically, emotionally and mentally. Learning to recognize and use colour with awareness can bring positive and powerful changes into our lives.’

The light-refracting minerals and trace elements in the chemical mix are what give a crystal its light-reflecting properties, its colour — and its specific properties. Many black crystals, such as Smoky Quartz, have a structure which captures energy as the light is absorbed. This means that the crystal holds onto detrimental energies such as electromagnetic ’smog’, or negative thoughts, and transmutes their toxic effect.

In the eye of the beholder

A miniscule amount of an ’alien’ substance within the otherwise perfect arrangement of atoms distorts the crystal lattice sufficiently to create colour in the eye of the beholder. When Haematite is present, the crystals may appear red or silvered. Hematite is deep blood-red when raw but magically transforms into silver when polished. Rutile (titanium) turns Quartz pink to create Rose Quartz, but Rutile is also the golden or green threads in Rutilated Quartz and the brilliant blue of Sapphire. Iron also colours Sapphire and stains crystals yellow or pink, Chlorite turns them green and so on.

Colours have general and specific properties, and chakra links and associations through which healing is facilitated (see Chapter 9), but colour is not necessarily the only indicator of how a crystal’s energy functions. Basic crystals such as Quartz can also be amended by ultraviolet rays from the sun, gamma rays from space or natural Earth radioactivity from uranium, which forms Smoky Quartz. Inclusions and fractures in the crystal lattice also create plays of colour, but these can be replicated artificially.

Artificial colouration

Some crystals are dyed to give an attractive appearance that adds little to the properties of the crystal. Garishly coloured Agate slices have been dyed, as has blue Howlite. Deep black Smoky Quartz has been artificially irradiated, bright yellow Citrine heat-treated. Other crystals are colour-infused, which subtly amps up their properties, and others are alchemicalized to a whole new vibration.

Alchemical crystals

There is a long history of chemical alchemy, rooted in the search to turn base metal into gold. Some of these experiments produced surprising results. Sparkling Goldstone, for instance, is not a natural stone but is created from glass and copper. It is used to attract abundance.

Other alchemical finishes are created by electrostatically adhering gold, indium, titanium and other metals onto the surface of Quartz and similar crystals to create a shimmering effect. Such alchemical crystals, which combine the healing properties of the crystal and the metal, are potent healers. Crystals that have been dyed or artificially amended to have the same appearance are not.

Case history: The effect of dyeing

When my thyroid ceased working I turned to Tanzine Aura Quartz, alchemicalized from gold and indium, to revive it. Which it did, very successfully. So I recommended it to a friend. After a few days she rang me to say her neck was swollen and lumpy and she felt as though she was being poisoned. Her partner, who owned a crystal shop, enquired of the supplier what could be wrong. ’There must be a problem with the dye’ was the answer. Instead of gold and indium being electrostatically bonded, the crystal had been dipped in a vat of purple dye. When my friend obtained a genuine Tanzine Aura, her thyroid too regenerated.

The crystal rainbow

Colour is essentially a vibration of light, and the human body is innately responsive to a whole rainbow of colour and light. The properties of the colours are as follows:

✵ Silver-grey: Metallic with alchemical properties of transmutation. Traditionally imparts invisibility, creating excellent journeying crystals.

✵ Black: Strongly protective and grounding. Entraps and transmutes negative energies. An excellent detoxifier.

✵ Brown: Resonates with the Earth Star chakra. Strongly cleansing and purifying. Grounding and protecting. Absorbs toxic emanations and negative energies and induces stability and centredness.

✵ Pink: Exceedingly gentle, carrying the essence of unconditional love. Provides comfort and alleviates anxiety. Excellent ’first aid’ emotional healer. Overcomes loss, dispels trauma and promotes forgiveness and attunement to universal love.

✵ Peach: Gently energizing. Unites the heart and sacral chakras, combining love with action.

✵ Red: Resonates with the base and sacral chakras. Energizes and activates, strengthening the libido and stimulating creativity. Draws off or generates energy as required. Traditionally treats the blood, haemorrhages and inflammation.

✵ Orange: Resonates with the sacral chakra. Brings vibrant vitality, stimulates creativity and assertiveness. Grounds projects in the physical world.

✵ Yellow: Resonates with the solar plexus and the mind. Instils clarity. Balances emotions and intellect. Golden crystals have long been associated with wealth and abundance.

✵ Green: Resonates with the heart chakra. Provides emotional healing and activates compassion. Calming and cleansing, instils tranquillity.

✵ Green-blue and turquoise: Activates the third eye, uniting heart and intuition. Induces profound peace and relaxation. Resonates with higher levels of being, stimulates spiritual awareness and metaphysical abilities, drawing higher consciousness down to Earth and anchoring it.

✵ Blue: Resonates with the throat and third eye chakras. Stimulates self-expression, assists communication, links to the highest states of consciousness. Stimulates intuition and metaphysical abilities, bringing about mystical perception.

✵ Lavender/Lilac/Purple: Resonates with the higher chakras and multi-dimensional realities. Draws spiritual energy into the material plane and opens metaphysical abilities. Encourages service to others.

✵ White: Resonates with the higher chakras and highest realms of being.

✵ Clear: A powerful energizer, it purifies and heals the aura and the physical body. Radiates energy out into the environment. Carries the vibration of pure light and higher consciousness.

✵ Combination and bi-coloured crystals: Create exciting possibilities. Synergizing the qualities of their component colours or crystals and enabling them to work holistically, they are often more effective than the individual parts, with the vibrations being raised to a higher energetic frequency.

Exercise: Sensing colour

You need one crystal of each colour for this exercise.

✵ Cleanse your crystals (see Exercise: Cleansing a crystal).

✵ Lay the crystals out in a rainbow arc of colour, starting with black and brown at one end and finishing with white and silvery at the other.

✵ Open your palm chakras (see Exercise: Opening the palm chakras).

✵ With your right palm facing down, run it along the arc, starting with the black. Then run your left palm along the arc to ascertain your more sensitive hand. Your palm may tingle or feel hot or cold as it passes through the different energies.

✵ Run your more receptive hand along the arc of colour again. Let yourself feel the energy change as you move from one colour to the next. (Do this with your hand rather than your mind, although you can tell yourself ’This is what black feels like, this is how blue feels,’ and so on.)

✵ When you have done this a few times, close your eyes, do it again and let yourself sense which colour you have touched. Open your eyes to check.

✵ Now mix up the colours into a swirl and then run your hand over them with your eyes closed.

✵ Pick up a crystal and sense which colour it is before you open your eyes to check.

✵ Record your results for future reference.

Variations on a Quartz theme

The following crystals are all members of the Quartz family, but their energetic properties are somewhat different due to variations in mineral content and the way in which they were formed. They can be experienced in an exercise that combines shape and colour to develop your sensitivity to crystal energy.

Amethyst

Colour: Lavender to deep purple

Vibration: High to extremely high according to type

Extremely powerful and protective with a high spiritual vibration and strong healing and cleansing powers. Guards against ill-wishing or psychic attack, transmuting the energy. A natural tranquillizer, it blocks geopathic stress and transmutes negative environmental energies. Enhances higher states of consciousness and spiritual awareness.

Anandalite^TM

Colour: White with rainbow iridescence

Vibration: Exceedingly high

This stone strips you to the bare bones of your soul and rebuilds your energy patterns to accommodate a massive consciousness shift. It deconstructs detrimental energy structures and restructures appropriately. Taking you into the interconnectedness of all life for a quantum uplift, it introduces the limitless possibilities of multi-dimensional being. Generating massive bioscalar waves, it activates the psychic and physical immune systems. Purifying and aligning the whole chakra system to higher frequencies, it prepares the central nervous system for the vibrational shift. (Non-trademarked Anandalite is available as Aurora Quartz.)

Aqua Aura Quartz

Colour: Iridescent dark to light blue (Aura Quartzes are available in other colours)

Vibration: Medium high

Aqua Aura has an intense energy reflecting the alchemical process that bonds gold onto pure Quartz. This Aura Quartz frees you from limitations and creates space for something new. It heals, cleanses and calms the aura, releasing stress and healing ’holes’. It activates the chakras, especially at the throat, where it encourages communication from the heart and strengthens intuitive abilities.

Citrine

Colour: Yellow to greenish yellow (bright yellow is usually heat-treated Amethyst)

Vibration: High

A stone of prosperity. A ’feel-good’ abundance crystal. A vibrant energizer, powerful cleanser and regenerator. Warming and highly creative. Absorbs, transmutes and dissipates toxic energy or conflict. Protective for the environment. Raises self-esteem. Natural Citrine has more kick than the heat-amended variety. Kundalini Quartz, natural Citrine from the Congo, activates powerful energies in the body.

Chlorite Quartz

Colour: Green or green pyramids within clear Quartz

Vibration: Earthy

An excellent cleanser and absorber of negative energy. Protects against stress. A useful detoxifier on all levels and extremely beneficial for the environment.

Clear Quartz

Colour: Translucent to water-clear

Vibration: High according to type

An extremely effective energy enhancer and powerful healer. Repairs and replenishes the aura. Radiates energy into the environment or the body. Stimulates the immune system. Regulates physical and mental energy. A deep cleanser on the physical and soul levels. Dissolves karmic seeds. Amplifies intuition. Soothes and protects.

Rose Quartz

Colour: Pale pink

Vibration: High

Gentle and loving, the perfect heart healer and emotional nourisher. Excellent for de-stressing, soothing and stabilizing. Purifies and supports forgiveness. Teaches you how to love and value yourself.

Smoky Quartz

Colour: Brownish grey to blackish (dark black has been artificially irradiated)

Vibration: Earthy to high according to type

An efficient grounding and cleansing crystal. Protective, blocks geopathic stress and electromagnetic smog, assists elimination and detoxification. Teaches how to leave behind anything that no longer serves.

Snow Quartz

Colour: Opaque white

Vibration: Earthy

Gently healing, purifying, revitalizing, calming. Energizes the soul and connects you to your true self. An essential component of ancient stone circles, tombs and megalithic portals that connect to the stars and circulate universal energy. Enhances psychic abilities and calms the mind.

Exercise: Compare and contrast

✵ Choose shaped or raw stones, stones with points and tumbled crystals in different colours from one crystal family such as Quartz (see above).

✵ Lay out the cleansed crystals (see Exercise: Cleansing a crystal) in two separate columns on a neutral background, the tumbled on the left and the points, raw or shaped stones on the right, pointing towards you, about two fingers’ width apart.

✵ Open the chakras in your palms and your Earth Star chakra (see Exercise: Opening the Earth Star chakra).

✵ With your palm facing down, run each hand in turn down the left-hand column to ascertain your more receptive hand. Your palm may tingle or feel hot or cold.

✵ Now with your eyes closed, run your receptive hand down the column again, letting yourself feel the energy radiating from the crystals. Don’t try to do anything with your mind, just allow yourself to feel the energy through your hands.

✵ Then look at and feel the energy of each crystal in turn, telling yourself, ’This is what Snow Quartz feels like,’ and so on. With a little practice you’ll soon be able to feel how the basic Quartz energy changes according to the specific type. Snow Quartz has a much slower frequency, for instance, than Clear Quartz or Citrine, which positively fizzes.

✵ Once you’ve become familiar with the tumbled crystals, turn your attention to the points or other shapes.

✵ A point focuses energy towards you when it is facing you, and channels it away when it is facing outwards. Put each point in turn on your receptive hand first, pointing it up your arm and then down to your fingers. Notice the difference this makes.

✵ You can move on to putting the point above your head, point down first and then point up.

✵ And below your feet.

✵ Record your experience for future reference.

SUMMARY

✵ Crystals may be formed in one colour or several.

✵ Colour subtly alters the way crystals work.

✵ Colour is created by minerals and trace elements within the mix distorting the crystal’s light-refracting properties.

✵ Crystals may be colour-infused or dyed and heat amended.

✵ Each colour is associated with a chakra in modern crystal healing and has a specific purpose.