By Mo Davies……
The Crazy Crone……..
Before I go on to talk about individual crystals, I thought I’d mention a few books I’ve found useful. On the whole I’m not a great one for reading a description of a crystal in a book and then deciding on one that seems to fit your need. For instance, if I’m looking for crystals on eBay, I’ll just browse until one catches my attention, regardless of what it is. If someone’s already bid, I move on as I figure they’ve got first dibs.
I think it’s far better to scout around and find which crystal attracts your attention, because that’s the one that’s going to resonate with your needs rather than one picked out by your head. But what you do find often is that when you check out a crystal after picking one, often it will accord with the descriptions in crystal books and perhaps give you a great insight into why that stone attracted you.
I’m going to start with Love Is In the Earth, by Melody, published in 1992, because this is a classic publication. Melody is a scientist living in Colorado who holds a Bachelor of Science & Masters Degree in Mathematics. She was among those in the 1960s who started working with crystals and gathering information about their use and qualities, with her 1992 publication being a summary of her work until then.
The book is an amazingly detailed description of the esoteric qualities of many thousands of crystals along with information about techniques for crystal healing. I’ll be honest and say that some of her descriptions are incredibly convoluted and my eyes cross a bit when I’m reading a lot of her material, but it’s an extensive publication and, as I said, a classic in the field of crystal healing. The only drawback is that you have to know the crystal for which you’re seeking information as there are no pictures to help with identification. Also many new crystals have surfaced since this was first published and so are not included in this 1992 publication.
However, if you want a book with pictures, I’d highly recommend “Book of Stones” by Robert Simmons and Naisha Ahsian, with contributions from the UK crystal practitioner, Hazel Raven. It’s a more recent publication, covers a huge range of crystals – well-known and more rare – along with extremely good quality photos which help with identification if you don’t know the name of a crystal. The information on crystal qualities and healing is extensive and I highly recommend this book. It is quite expensive, however, and pretty large to lug around, but I understand a smaller, pocket version has now been produced for those who are happy to work with a less extensive index.
The next book I’d suggest for those who want easy access to a book on crystals at a reasonable price is The Crystal Bible by Judy Hall who’s from the UK. Judy has worked extensively with crystals and this book covers common and more rare crystals in a more condensed, cheaper format than the above two books. It’s handy if you want a quick reference book which is compact and isn’t too expensive. Although I’ve mentioned The Crystal Bible, Judy’s written other books on crystals which you can find on Amazon or The Book Depository, in printed and e-book format.
I’ve saved this last book until the end as it’s very rare these days and costs the earth to buy a copy as it’s out of print and copies only surface from time to time.
I was lucky and managed to pick up a copy of Crystal Journey on Amazon at a relatively low price, $65, which might sound a lot but it’s worth it as Ms Dow was a real pioneer in the field of crystal healing. She is, sadly, deceased now but her work with Melody and Katrina Raphaell (another well-known crystal worker and author of books on crystal healing) in the 1960s is again pioneering and quite fascinating. Ms Dow has a quite unique way of working with crystals which may not suit everyone, but her descriptions of various crystals and their qualities is quite extraordinary.
There’s a particular crystal form which is named after this crystal worker, a Dow, which was first discovered in the pioneering work of the 1960’s and Melody coined the name “Dow” after JaneAnn Dow. Naturally terminated crystals have six faces and, in the Dow crystal, they form a perfect combination of 3 seven sided faces interspersed with 3 three-sided faces. In numerology, if you add the three 3-sided crystal faces together you get 9 which relates to wisdom, universal compassion humanitarianism. If you add the 3 x 7-sided faces together you get 21 = 2 + 1 = 3. If you add the 9 and 21 you get 30 which, reduced in numerology terms, comes to 3 + 0 = 3. Both 7 and 3 are considered spiritual numbers, 3 representing the Trinity, mind/body/spirit and communication, while 7 relates to wisdom, spiritual ritual, birth and rebirth, and contemplation. Which has probably left your eyes whirling but you can always Google numbers to find out their deeper meaning.
There are three more books you might consider purchasing if you want to look in more depth at crystal healing and they are a series of three by Katrina Raphaell, another pioneer in the early days of crystal healing work in the 1960s. These are also available as e-books. I did have these books at one stage and somehow they’ve disappeared in my various travels from Australia to the UK, back to Australia and four different addresses in Western Australia, New South Wales and Victoria.
I hope the information above is useful to you. In my next post I’ll look at what the term “healing” means in relation to “curing”, and start talking about various clear quartz formation, as these are what you might call a general dogsbody when it comes to crystal healing.
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