The Ultimate Guide to Crystals & Stones: A Practical Path to Personal Power, Self-Development, and Healing - Uma Silbey 2016
Science and Stones—There Are Many Ways of Knowing
Basic Crystal and Stone Information
Just as science should not dismiss intuitive, metaphysical, or other ways of knowing, it behooves us to pay attention to what science has to say about stones and crystals. First, it is important to understand the elemental forces that are also part of the vibrational makeup of the stones and crystals, because these forces not only affect us, but they can also be harnessed in our work. Science teaches us about the tremendous geologic forces that occur in order to form the rocks, minerals, and even the planet itself. The metaphysician, and possibly even the scientist, will go further to explain that because the results of these forces helped form the crystals and stones, these geologic energies are still part of, or vibrationally contained in, every one of them. Not only, then, do quartz crystals help us connect with the higher, lighter realms, but they also help us connect down to the center of the earth. This balance between the earth energies and the higher subtle plains is the perfect balance we need, not only in our crystal work, but also in our life.
What quantum science has to say about reality is also very interesting for it so closely resembles what has been said in so many of the ancient spiritual texts. Science and spirituality are getting much closer in what they say about reality, even though they arrive at their understandings from different directions—one more intellectually scientific and the other more intuitive. Basically, from the perspective of my layman’s understanding, here is what science is saying, along with some of my observations from a spiritual/metaphysical perspective.
Modern physics and quantum mechanics have affirmed that physical form consists, in essence, not of matter, but of energy, which is intrinsically dynamic, in process. Physical form might seem to be still in outer appearance, but in essence, no form is really still and unmoving. Vastly simplifying the scientific thought in his 1995 article, “Quantum Mechanics and Reality” (www.integralscience.org), Thomas McFarlane describes matter as existing only as potential, that it has no definite form or existence in the ordinary sense, no particular position in space and time, and that its determinate qualities, or form, only seem so in appearance to our physical senses. Continuing this line of quantum thought, electrons, photons, protons, neutrons, and any other subatomic particles do not exist as localized particles in space when we are not observing them, but only as waves of probability that suggest their potential. It is our observation serving as a type of measurement that localizes or fixes what is only potential, creating form to emerge from a pure state of probability. If so, matter exists only as a function of observation, or mind, a truth expressed in Buddhist and other spiritual thought for centuries. From a crystal worker’s point of view, then, if we visualize a certain result, thereby “noticing” it, that result would tend to become real in the physical world. In other words, with the use of our stones, then, we are focusing our intention so that the natural results of that occur as the creation of new forms.
DOES SOMETHING EXIST IF THERE IS NO ONE TO OBSERVE IT?
ONLY THROUGH LOGIC CAN WE SAY THAT IT DOES.
Quantum science, then, is suggesting what mystics, spiritualists, and philosophers have long taught: All appearances, existing as an external manifestation of an initial energy form, are simply a product of the mind, and due to the ever-changing nature of our mind, they are similarly transitory. More often than not, scientists debunk the notion that their findings in any way explain or support the efficacy of metaphysical work, using such dismissive words as pseudoscience, yet one has only to refer to past debunked scientific “knowledge,” such as the world being flat and the Earth as the center of the solar system, to understand that science has no lock on what is true or not. Nonetheless, no matter how their understandings are derived, both the metaphysician and the physicist have come to the same conclusion: that the objects in our world are neither permanent nor have any fixed reality. Without fixed reality, then the creation of new form (change) is not only possible, but is the rule. With our stones helping us to focus, we are able to provide a new direction for the change.
THERE ARE MANY WAYS OF KNOWING.
As science and the metaphysician will both attest, nothing exists in a vacuum. Instead, all that exists does so in a dynamic cause-and-effect relationship with everything else. This is true from a subatomic to a physical level. A molecule bonds with another based on mutual attraction. A full moon creates high tides. Striking a bell creates a tone. A ball can only be caught when it is thrown. A person’s actions create reactions in another. Thought creates emotion, and so on. On some level, then, the metaphysician would go a step further and assert that stones and humans, too, are joined together in this vast cosmic dance, or cause-and-effect relationship.
Not only does everything in the macro- and micro-universe exist in a cause-and-effect relationship with everything else, everything in existence is, in essence, vibration. Whether as a wave, a particle, sound, color, thought, emotion, or an object, everything vibrates. Not only is everything in manifestation essentially vibration, but everything vibrates at a different rate. (Some would include the unmanifest in this statement.) Because of the principle of cause-and-effect relationships, a change in the vibratory rate of a particular form in one location creates a corresponding change in the vibrations of other forms in other related locations, which affect other forms, which affect still more forms, etc. This simple cause-and-effect mechanism is analogous to the example of a stone dropped into a still pond, which, in turn, causes ripples of water to spread out in ever-increasing concentric circles around the original impulse.
These are not merely interesting facts to ponder, but even more importantly they impact and inform our crystal and stone work in the following ways. One way, as explained earlier, is to think of our focused intention as being a type of observation or measurement through which particles fulfill their potential to become form. The second way is to understand the implications that everything is vibratory in nature. Through the use of the crystal or stone, we can strengthen our concentrated focus to change things vibrationally in order to create changes mentally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually. Focus, or intention, being a function of mind and thought, creates a certain vibratory rate, which can cause other vibratory rates it comes into contact with to change. We use our stones to help us do this.
OUR WORLD IS AS WE IMAGINE IT TO BE. IF WE VISUALIZE IT DIFFERENTLY WITH ENOUGH FOCUS, OUR WORLD WILL CHANGE.