New Age claims made for attributes of crystals inhealing may be rather sweeping, but they are not so unreasonable as theymight seem at first sight. Or rather, it would be more correct to say thathow sweeping you think the claims actually are, depends almost entirelyon your concept of reality and the extent to which you are tolerant ofthe tendency of established twentieth century science to be very selectiveabout accepting evidence of ideas it doesn't like.

    Let me start by defining one or two points. Manythings around us, from snowflakes to sugar, from laptop computer displaysto blood cells, have a crystalline structure, but this paper will be restrictedto minerals: to gems and semi-precious stones. Another point is that thestudy of the properties of crystals and gems goes back many centuries.Hildegarde von Bingham was a writer and composer of note at the turn ofthe 10th century - and she wrote at length on the healing properties ofcrystals - and she followed the teachings of the ancients. However, thepresent paper deals only with more recent claims. Some of these, it mustbe admitted, are repetitions of ancient claims, but much of the informationcirculating now has been 'channelled' by New Age thinkers.

    The distribution of elements in the mineral worldis sometimes surprising and by far the most common element is quartz, orsilicon dioxide. Carbon is, of course, more common in total, but not asa mineral. Silicon dioxide represents about 40% of all minerals makingup the earth, and comes in the form of sand and sandstones, as well asquartz crystals. and has some interesting and scientifically establishedproperties. As long ago as the 1890s the Curies discovered that pressureon quartz causes a small electric current to flow - hit it and you getelectricity! (The reverse is also true: give it an electric charge anda piece of quartz will expand slightly.) Quartz responds to minute changesin the electromagnetic field around it, and vibrates 32,768 times a secondwith a reliability which lies behind its use in clocks and watches.

    From these properties one can see that, though someof the claims made for crystals may at first sight test credibility, yetthere is scope in some of the attributes for a possible methodology behindthese claims.

    The scientific uses of crystals, apart from thosein clocks, include electrical measuring instruments, semiconductors madeof pure silicon and used in computers and as a part of electronic circuits.Other common uses include silicon solar cells, for generating electricityfrom light, piezzoelectricity, crystal diodes and lasers (using mainlysynthetic rubies) and applications using the hardness of diamonds, [Itis worth noting that crystals appear on a scale of hardness from 1 to 10,each material able to scratch the next lower on the scale. Diamonds at10 represent the hardest substance and Quartz has a hardness of 7 on thisscale.

    Beyond the scientific uses, there are a group ofattributions relating to health, to emotions and to psionics. Some of theseare self-evidently genuine. For example, in the New Age canon, the semi-preciousstone Carnelian gives courage, while Rose Quartz makes the wearer morelovable. It is believed that carrying the appropriate stone encouragesthe emotion. If one believes firmly in the effectiveness of crystals andcaries a piece of Carnelian, one is likely to believe oneself braver -which is, of curse, to be braver. Likewise, having a piece of RoseQuartz and believing in its efficacy in making the bearer more lovablewill probably make one behave in ways that encourage love.
The next group of applications may work through what mainstream medicalscience refers to as the 'placebo effect'. In the testing of modern drugs,up to 60% or more of the effectiveness can be due to this 'placebo effect'.Mainstream medical studies have failed to explain why it occurs - givingit a name does not explain it - but they have shown a bewildering arrayof factors which affect it: the status of the person prescribing the drug;the time the drug is given and even the colour of the placebo pill andother factors, all make a huge difference to the effectiveness of a scientificallyneutral substance, like sugar or salt. There is a certain amount of evidencethat this phenomenon may be related to what is called 'vibrational medicine',though much of mainstream medicine does not like this idea.

To sum up:

                           a) Some attributes of crystals are bound to be effective by theirvery nature;
                               b) Some attributes may be due to the actions of vibrational medicine or the placebo effect;
                              c) Some scientific properties exist, from which we can hypothesize whyothers may be justified;
                              d) A few claims do not seem to relate in any obvious way to groups to (a),(b) or (c).

    I need, perhaps to explain briefly the term 'vibrationalmedicine'. This is related to our conception of reality. If you turn ona radio & a TV set at the same time, you receive two different programmes,the different tuning of the receivers decoding two different signals whichexist in the same space. It is a fact so blindingly obvious that we donot think about it, that 'things' - and radio and TV transmission signalscan be thought of as things for this purpose - can exist in the same spaceas each other without conflict, providing their vibratory rates are different.If one bombards the area occupied by the human body electronically andthen photographs it, the etheric body becomes dimly visible. This auraor 'Kirlian' photography (after the Russian who discovered it thirty orforty years ago) is freely available at the Festival of Mind, Body andSpirit and the Alternative Medicine Fair. There are a number of other electronicdevices, as well as some psionic ones, from which the etheric body canbe inferred. It appears to occupy the same space as the physical body,but at a different vibratory level. Let me quote:

                             "We live in an ocean of frequencies, as a fish lives in water. The fishis unaware of the many
                              possibilities of the medium in which it moves. So man has been totallyunaware of the pos-
                              sibilities of vast ocean of frequencies in which he lives. The many energyfrequencies move
                              in geometric patterns. When he geometric patterns are altered, their manifestationis alter-
                              ed. Crystals are those substances which alter the geomet-ric pattern offrequencies..." ⁰

    I need also, for the benefit of those who did nothear a paper I delivered last year about the subject to both Metropolitanand Michael Penrose Colleges, to define 'psionics'. This is the name givento mind machines, though not all mind machines are psionic. I have, forinstance, a mind lab, consisting of a flashing strobe and matching beepingsound which prompts ones brain waves to follow preset patterns to achieveeffects like relaxation or self hypnosis: that is certainly a mind machine,but not really psionic. The term covers things like the psionic black boxfor vibrational healing or overlooking and the crystal healing rod, likethose shown.

    It was in the area of psionics and vibrational effectsthat we undertook some experiments at Metropolitan Study Group in Januarythis year. For the purposes of those experiments group (a) were ignored,though some New Age channelled information is on display today, along withsome examples of scientific and psionic applications. Group (b) attributeswere felt to need larger numbers, longer periods and greater resourcesthan were available to the Study Group. However, falling into group (d)were a couple of frequently made claims we did test. It is widely claimedthat a piece of quartz in the soil makes a pot plant makes it grow betterand that a piece of quartz in the water makes cut flowers last longer.One of my daughters swears (anecdotally) that both are true and the floristfrom whom I bought the cut flowers for the experiment also took it as amatter of established fact.

    In November I bought two sets of three plants ofthe same type and about equal development. Three were marked 'A', 'B' and'C' and Peter Dudley, the Secretary of the Study Group, placed a pieceof quartz in one of them, made a note of the letter of the pot and sealedthe note in an envelope marked 'experiment 1 . Next the second threepots were marked 'M', 'N' and 'O'. One of the three he then watered withtreated water for two months - I'll go into details in a moment

    In January I bought three identical bunches of cutflower and placed them in three identical vases, marked 'X', 'Y' and 'Z'.Into one of them Peter Dudley placed a piece of quartz, made a note ofwhich vase and sealed the note in an envelope marked ' experiment 3 '.

    Turning to the water for experiment 2, water hassome interesting, if scientifically controversial properties, used in Homeopathy,Bach's Flower Remedies and Gem Essences. The continual dilution of homeopathicmedicine until no molecules of the original substance remain can only mean- assuming that homeopathy works - that the effect lies in the field ofvibrational medicine and that water itself can be imprinted with a vibrational'memory' of what was there. Evidence for this comes from experiments intothe effects of spiritual healers on water. This is not the time or placeto raise this as an issue, but I did try treating the water myself witha crystal and it was this water used in the second experiment.

    The pot plants and cut flowers were left in StansfieldHall Library, which was neither warm enough nor light enough for any plantto do well. They were watered regularly by Peter Dudley, using tap waterexcept for one pot watered with treated water. In January the Study Groupconsidered this paper and my experiments (and an another, to which I willrefer to in a moment.) Each person was asked to vote as to which of thethree plants in each group was 'best developed' or 'best preserved'.

    There were 17 people present: 4 did not vote - meas organiser, Chairman Ron Pike, Secretary Peter Dudley and Senior SubstituteMagus, Andrew Stevenson. That left 13 votes. A choice of three subjectsand the answer 'all about equal' (4 answers in all) means that a chancescore would be 13 divided by 4 correct votes and that, to be significant,the score would need to be higher than 4 or less than 3. Can I also stressthat no results from these experiments could be considered as having provedanything, one way or another, in scientific terms.

Voting was as follows:

Experiment 1 - Crystal in the soil

Pot A__ 1 ___ Pot B__ 9 ___Pot C___ 0 __About Equal___ 3 ___

The correct pot was Pot. B ( The result was very significant statistically)
 

Experiment 2 - Watered with treated water

Pot M___ 2 __Pot N___ 2 __Pot O___ 5 __About Equal___4___

The correct pot was Pot O ( The result was just bewyondthe limits of chance)
 

Experiment 3 - Cut flowers - crystal in the water

Vase X__ 7 ___Vase Y__ 2 __Vase Z___ 2 ___About Equal___ 2 _

Correct vase, Vase X (The result was stastcally significant)
 

    Before spelling out my reservations and possiblereasons for the results, let me deal with the other experiment. For thistwo volunteer dowsed with a pendulum, trying to identify which of 5 identicalESP cards covered a coin. Each tried first dowsing the uncovered coin,which was then concealed when they had left the room. Each volunteer triedonce whilst wearing a crystal headband and once without. Everything wasdone in full view of the group and there was no voting - the dowser selectedone of the 5 cards in his own time.

    There were no cases of the dowser choosing the correctcard, though it is interesting that those near to the table agreed witheach other that , in the cases involving a headband, the pendulum had actuallymoved more over the correct one than the one chosen, Can I add that, onceagain, the sample was too small to mean anything scientifically.

    I want to consider now some of the uncontrolled factorswhich could have impacted on the results and why there might have beengenuinely positive trends some of the time.

    To take the first point, there are a number of factorsto consider. While the Stanford Research Institute findings, taken overmany years for the CIA and American military, suggest that psychic powersare latent in most people, it is clear that the degree of natural talent,spontaneously available without training, varies widely from person toperson. The potential for abnormal findings are further increased becausesome members of the SRIA have developed those latent talents in one directionor another. The experiments involving dowsing called for 'random' volunteers- but it was hardly a random group from which they were drawn. It willbe obvious that wearing a crystal headband may not make much differenceto someone either very talented already or whose talents have been developedby say, meditation. Nor will it make much difference, of course, to somewith little and undeveloped talent in that direction. Incidentally, I chargedthe water in the second experiment myself. I have no training or trackrecord in spiritual healing, so the llow level of success in that trialis possibly impacted by that fact.

    As to why experiments in group (c) applications mightwork, we need to consider the paper on the holographic universe which Idelivered to the Metropolitan Study Group in January last year. I drew attention to the fact that the negative of a hologram is nota picture, but consists only of interference patterns and that every partof the negative contains every part of the image, unlike the negative ofan ordinary photograph. I mentioned Professor Karl Pribram's experimentsestablished that we remember holographically - that no matter what whatpart or how much of a rat's brain he removed, it remembered all it had learned. Professor of Quantum Physics, David Bohm, on the otherhand, argued that the whole of reality could be considered as a holographicprojection from a higher level. In practice, since the universe is dynamicand changes from moment to moment, we need to imagine a holographic videotape,in which past, present and future can be viewed at random, like the randomaccess memory of a computer, from level of interference patterns, but onlythe present is visible from the perspective of the projection.

    If reality is a holographic projection, then we areourselves part of that projection. But every part of the hologram containsthe whole image, albeit faintly. This would explain the concept '...asabove, so below...' It would also explain why dowsing, precognition andremote viewing work - we already have that knowledge of the whole of realitywithin ourselves and need only to find a way of accessing that knowledge.

    At another level, and turning more specifically tothe role of quartz crystals in telepathy and remote viewing, we know thatquartz responds to the most minute changes in electromagnetic fields Weknow that brain waves can be measured on an EEG. Therefore, we can be surethat quartz would respond to brain waves, if it were placed closely enough.Now we come to an area of speculation. Four hypothetical steps:

                           (i)   Brain waves are on the same electromagnetic spectrum asradio and light waves, and
                           (ii)  Our brains are not us - we reside somewhere outsideour physical bodies, and
                           (iii) We must be in touch with our bodies and, since every other contactis in the form of
                                  waves on the same spectrum, this is probably true of 'thought waves', and
                           (iv)  Quartz responds to virtually every other wave in the spectrum,so it probably responds
                                   to these waves as well .

This is, let me emphasise, a series of hypotheses. It is not provedas fact. I do not claim it as fact. I set it out as a possible mechanismby way of which quartz may help telepathic communication - and we didn'tprove that it did, though there were signs that further experiments mightbe more conclusive.

To enlarge the field of reasoning and hypothesising, let me continuewith the earlier quotation:

                       "Crystals are those substances which alter the geometric pattern of frequencies. We must realise these
                         frequencies are moreor less stable, but crystals because of their strengthof geometrical pattern can
                         modify and reform the frequency pattern. In sodoing, energy can be releasedand directed to man's purposes.
                         Crystals are orderly arranged molecularly and magnetshave an orderly arrangementof molecules which
                         makes possible magnetic lines of force. The magnet represents the mostorderlyof what we may call 'matter
                         polarity': the crystal represents the most orderly focus of what we maycall 'spirit polarity'. The orderly
                         focus of molecules in a magnet produces amagnetic field: the orderly focuso f molecules in a crystal prod-
                         uces an etheric field. The etheric field is similar to a magnetic Fieldof force. Just as the magnetic field is the
                         key to electricityso the etheric field is the key to magnetoelectricityor di-electricenergy." ¹

    Di-electric or magnetoelectricity (ME for short)is difficult concept to explain, and an explanation doesn't belong here,except to say that it is related to negative matter and Einstein's formulathat E=mc ² / 1 - v ² /c ² . The idea of negativematter is fascinating I might pursue it on another occasion. For now itis enough to point out that crystals do convert energy of one vibratorylength (light) to another (electricity) as in solar cells and that thereare other, equally scientific examples of this facility.

    All in all, it looks as if both New Age claims andancient teachings on the powers of crystals and gems are not without foundation,sweeping as they might seem.

There are only the two direct quotes, but information in this paperis based on:
 

Ahsian, Naisha; Crystal Ally Cards - The Crystral Pathto Self Knowledge ; Heaven & Earth, Vermont; 1995

Cunningham, Scott; Crystal, Gem & Metal Magic ;Llewellyn, St. Paul Minnesota; 1996

Gerber, Dr. Richard (MD); Vibrational Medicine ;Bear & Co, New Mexico; 1988/1996

Melody; Love is in the Earth ; Earth Love Publishing,Colorado; 1995

Simpson, Liz; The Book of Crystal Healing ; GaiaBooks, London; 1997

Symes, Dr. R.F. & Harding, Dr. R.R.; Crystal &Gems (Eyewitness Guyides Series) ; Dorling Kindersley, London, 1997
 
 

Also:
 
 

A course and notes taken by the writer at the NaturalHistory Museum, London

Experiments done at the Metropolitan Study Group of theSRIA, Saturday 16th January 1999.
 
 

Specific Quotes:
 
 

1. Through the Curtain; V. Neal & S. Karagulla;California, De Vorss & Co; 1983; pp171-2 (Quoted in VibrationalMedicine qv above)

2. ibid. (Italics added in: Vibrational Medice qv above)
 

 

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