Crystals and Gemstones: The Light Trapped in Stone
For as long as human beings have had hands capable of picking up a shining stone from the earth, they have understood that something in the crystalline structure of minerals participates in a beauty that is not merely aesthetic. The ancient Egyptians buried their dead with lapis lazuli scarabs. The Sumerians inscribed seals in carnelian. Medieval physicians prescribed powdered precious stones as medicine. The Vedic tradition assigned each planet a gemstone that could concentrate its influence. The shamanic traditions of every inhabited continent used crystals as tools of vision and diagnosis. What all of these traditions intuited — that the geometry of crystalline structure encodes something real about the organization of natural forces — finds its modern counterpart in the use of quartz oscillators in every electronic clock and most electronic circuits on the planet. The crystal is a technology. The question is only which technology you are using it for. Amethyst q...