Crystal Healing

Crystal power is a belief that crystals have healing, mystical and paranormal powers. It is popular in the New Age movement, but regarded as baseless by skeptics and the general scientific community.

Crystal healers claim that every living organism has a “vibrational energy system,” which includes chakras, subtle bodies and meridians. By using the appropriate crystals one can allegedly “tune” an energy system or rebalance energies, thus improving well being.

The earliest records of crystal healing come from ancient Egypt. The Ebers papyrus states the medicinal uses of many different gems. Healing with crystals is also recorded in India's Ayurvedic records and in traditional Chinese medicine from around five thousand years ago.

Below are a few commonly known crystals and their apparent benefits:

Amethyst: Cures headaches, toothache, gout, neuralgia, and nerve troubles.
Aquamarine: Prevents stomach and liver troubles. Cures toothache.
Carnelian: Protects against fever, indigestion, and all stomach troubles. White carnelians protect against rheumatism and neuralgia.
Diamond: Protects against the plague.
Emerald: Protects against eye diseases, faintness, and loss of memory. Eases pain in childbirth. Cures epilepsy, dysentery, and fits. Negates the effects of snakebite. Touching an emerald helps sufferers of blindness. Relieves eyestrain and eye inflammation. Is a remedy for sores and ulcers.
Jade: Prevents nightmares and eye troubles. It is a remedy for spleen, kidney, and digestive ailments. Makes men potent. Averts epilepsy. Cures animal bites.
Malachite: Protects against rheumatism and cholera.
Ruby: Prevents stomachache. Is an antidote against snake poison. Heals wounds.
Sapphire: Preserves sight and helps draw foreign bodies from the eyeball. Strengthens and stimulates the heart.

Most scientists, health professionals, skeptics and others consider crystal healing to be a pseudoscientific quack therapy, since there is no scientific evidence that healing can be achieved by it or that the claimed “energies” even exist. The placebo effect is a possible explanation for any healing that occurs in the presence of a healing crystal.