Hello my friends, and I hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day, and I hope everyone got all their Full Moon manifestations working, if you had anything in the pipeline for that. I have had a hell of a couple weeks, and I didn’t plan a goddamn thing. And you know what, that’s fine. Sometimes the best thing you can do to recognize the Full Moon is realize that you need to rest and honor that.
We are not machines, you know. The moon waxes and wanes, and so do we. Oh, and you know what, I made a note because I haven’t mentioned it in a while and there are some new witches listening these days, so I wanted to just say that I am available by email, it’s eli@middleagedwitch.com, and you can always message me on Facebook or Instagram @middleagedwitch. If you have any questions or concerns or if you just want to say hey or something, I am here for all of it.
It’s easy to be misunderstood, and I don’t always communicate everything I mean to say as perfectly or as clearly as I would like, so if I ever say something that doesn’t make sense, or you disagree with, or if you just want to let me know that witches go to hell after they die, eli@middleagedwitch.com. I have gotten a couple messages like that from religious folks, and I do appreciate their concern for my immortal soul. I don’t know why they’re listening to this podcast, and I won’t do a damn thing differently, but thanks for the concern anyway.
So today I want to talk about crystal magick. Crystals are big business these days, and witches have always hoarded stones and crystals that speak to us, so I thought we could spend a little time discussing them. We are also going to talk about different metals too, because they can also have a lot of significance and power and we shouldn’t overlook them.
Stones, crystals, and metals are powerful carriers of and tools for earth magick. These materials sit in and under the ground, they have absorbed earth’s energies for billions of years before being brought to the surface. They really do vibrate at different frequencies, as much as that is such a New Age trope, but it’s actually scientifically true.
And that’s how crystals are able to assist us in our magick. We have a desire, we have a goal, or an intention, and we choose a stone or a crystal with sympathetic vibrational frequencies to help us attract whatever it is that we need or want. And crystals aren’t always attracting things toward them, they also radiate, so if there is some attribute we are trying to convey, like confidence, or beauty, the right crystals and stones will help us to do that as well.
In terms of books that are useful for mineral magick, I like Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem & Metal Magic by Scott Cunningham and of course, my go-to for any sort of information about magickal correspondences is Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Correspondences by Susan Kynes and I will be posting both of those in the show notes.
But when we get a new stone or crystal, the first thing we need to do is first to cleanse it, and then charge it. There are several ways to cleanse your stones, and we’ve talked about them before in different episodes, but to recap, placing them in a dish of salt is simple and effective, and you can leave them in the sun for the day, you can also use water to cleanse them, but I will reiterate the warning that I gave back in the Water Magick episode:
Many crystals, gems, and metals that are NOT safe to mix with water. Obviously, many metals will corrode and rust in water, so unless you’re certain that it’s pure gold or stainless steel, I don’t recommend submerging it. Minerals and crystals that are common, but not safe to put in water are: just about any stone whose name ends in ITE, like selenite, malachite, apatite, pyrite, etc are not water safe, and in fact can become very corrosive and contain heavy metals and carcinogens that are bad for you. Just stay on the safe side and keep them dry. Opal, black tourmaline, turquoise, gypsum, lapis lazuli, ruby, and moonstone are a few others that are very popular, but have no business in water.
Another way to cleanse them is to use smoke, this is one I use frequently. I will light some incense or sage, and pass the stones through the smoke as it rises to get any old funky energy off of it before I then charge it. There are several ways to charge your stones as well. And the purpose of this is to get the stone or crystal ready for whatever work it is about to do. Stones have several properties, not just one, so for example if you have a citrine that you are going to use for some purpose, you need to tell the stone, essentially, whether it’s going to be using it’s abilities for abundance, or to create harmony in your marriage, or to enhance your psychic visions, you know what I mean?
So we gotta charge it. Now, the most basic way to do this is to hold the stone in your dominant hand, and while visualizing your magical intention, pour out your own energy into the stone. And now it’s ready to use. We also use the term “charging crystals” to describe what we do once we have been using a stone for a while and we feel like it’s been a bit depleted. So we want to recharge its magical battery. And usually this is done by either charging it under the full moon, or you can place your crystal with either selenite or copper.
Selenite is one of the rare minerals that is in fact self-charging. It never needs to be recharged, and it can in fact charge other stones. Selenite is pretty inexpensive and it can be found in all kinds of shapes, including bowls. The same is true for copper. If you have a copper dish, or goblet or just a decent sized piece of copper, you can place your stones on or inside it, and they will recharge their energy stores so that they can be used again. The selenite and copper method are helpful if you need to recharge your stone but you’re still a few weeks out from the next full moon, as we are now. And as far as knowing when your stones need to be recharged, you just have to feel it. Use your intuition.
And now I am going to go through different magical intentions and give you corresponding crystals, stones, minerals, and metals that can amplify your work, so maybe get a pen so you can jot some things down, and be ready to hit pause.
So for money magick, there are a lot of metals that attract money, you can use brass, copper, tin, and of course silver and gold. Stones and crystals that are helpful are pyrite, moss agate, green calcite, green jasper, green tourmaline, malachite, jade, are you detecting the green theme here? And also bloodstone, which is green and red.
For health and healing, the metals you will want are bornite, brass, copper, iron, silver, and steel. Stones and crystals that you’ll find useful are tourmaline, sunstone, aquamarine, carnelian, moldovite (if you can find it and if you can afford it), and just as a brief tangent, there are a lot of frauds out there selling fake moldovite, so if you DO buy some, make sure it’s legit, salt, which is a mineral and which is very purifying, and turquoise.
For love matters, of course rose quartz is the OG, amethyst, pink sapphire, red tourmaline or watermelon tourmaline, which I think is so gorgeous and I have been trying to talk myself into buying some, but god, I have so many crystals, and also labradorite, lapiz lazuli, coral and gold.
For overcoming obstacles, and I like to use this kind of magic because it can be combined with others, depending on what specifically you’re trying to overcome, you want cat’s eye, garnet, hematite, red jasper, and copper. For amplifying psychic ability, try angelite, opal, moonstone, smoky quartz, clear quartz, jet, azurite, tiger’s eye, moldovite again, iron, or silver.
For protection, peridot, lodestone, apache tears, jade, petrified wood, peridot, onyx, obsidian, serpentine, black tourmaline, pearl, iron, lead, silver, or steel. For psychic protection, calcite, carnelian, and of course, as ALWAYS, salt. Salt, salt, salt.
For motivation, determination, and self-discipline, tanzanite, sunstone, onyx, black opal, emerald, amber, fluorite, mother-of-pearl, and silver. But there are going to be stones that aren’t identifiable at all, and that still feel important or magical. These are the stones you just find and take home. For whatever reason, for a lot of us witches, sometimes we see a really cool stone and we just gotta bring it home. We don’t even know why. But for whatever reason, those stones chose us, and we can still use them for magick.
The best way that you’re going to figure out how this stone wants to be used is to sit with it for a while. And I mean set it on your nightstand for a few days or a week, and just pick it up every day and handle it for a few minutes, and see what it says to you. I have a stone I found at the beach years ago and it likes to sit on the windowsill in my room. It soaks up all the sun’s energy all day, and then it radiates out while I sleep to help me rest peacefully and keep nightmares away. This is not an especially beautiful stone, I don’t even remember why I thought it needed to come home with me, but it’s part of the family now, and I find it very helpful.
And all that info is well and good, but how can we best use crystals. minerals, metals, and stones? Honestly, there are all kinds of ways. Aside from using them in larger spells, there are many, many ways to incorporate them into daily life that don’t require a whole ton of forethought.
It’s not always practical to write up a whole spell, or put together a mojo bag or something when you’re really just trying to get through the workday without strangling your boss. So let’s cover those. When you’re just trying to use a stone’s natural abilities to confer protection, peace, abundance, general health, etc, there are many low-effort ways to do that.
The most obvious is of course jewelry. Choosing a stone to wear for the day is a simple and subtle way to practice your craft. Rings, earrings, necklaces, and of course, there’s the time honored witch tradition of just keeping a crystal in your bra. I would love to have a dollar for every time I’ve come home after a long day at work to change clothes, and then had to fish around under the bed for the stone that just flew out of my bra.
Placing a stone under your pillow or under your bed, depending on your intention, is another really great way to use its power in a very passive way. The same can be said for just placing it on your altar. And of course, we should regularly be handling and changing and using our altars, but this is reality, and sometimes life gets in the way and we just don’t have the energy, but for those times, placing a specific stone in a prominent power position on your altar is going to be helpful anyway.
Along those same lines, keeping a stone like green calcite in your wallet with your money is a great way to call more money in. Keeping a cat’s eye or quartz in the car is very protective. Keeping a selenite on or with your tarot cards keeps their energy fresh, and keeping them with a moonstone will help you to better connect with them intuitively. A black tourmaline in your work space will discourage negativity, and in fact I keep a small vial of black salt at my desk to banish negativity as well.
Carrying a power stone like carnelian with you to a job interview can help to boost your confidence, if you have a presentation or a speech to give, kyanite is a really good one for helping you to communicate clearly and make yourself understood to others.
There are just so many ways to use your crystals daily that don’t require a lot of fuss, and when you do this, it helps you to connect with them and to attune with their energies in a really personalized way. Of course there are very complicated spells that use crystals, and you can definitely try crystal gridding if that is something that appeals to you, but while that is important and it has its place, I think that the more beneficial use of crystals is the one you use every day.
Now on the topic of crystal grids. There are a lot of established crystal grid patterns: the Metatron cube, flower of life, etcetera. But the purpose of doing that is that crystals can be used in combination, and they can be oriented in such a way as to magnify their energies. That’s the basic intention of a crystal grid cloth or wooden crystal grid is to help you to orient the crystals in a formation, usually using sacred geometry, that will make it easier to achieve that.
It’s a cool way to use your crystals, and it is very powerful. But it requires a lot of crystals and it is a very visual method, so I’m not going to go much deeper than that basic explanation. There are a ton of images online and YouTube tutorials that can walk you through different grids and the best combinations of crystals to use for your specific intent.
And along that vein, the shape of a crystal can be significant as well. In general, no it doesn’t affect a crystal’s overall attributes, but certain shapes and formations can make it easier to wield a crystal more effectively. Tumbled stones have a smoother, calmer energy, whereas raw stones are stronger and a tad more not unpredictable, but more free spirited, cubes are generally very grounding, spheres are excellent for scrying, hello crystal balls, pyramids are really good for focusing all that energy and especially for clearing blockages according to what the crystal is.
And by that I mean that an obsidian pyramid will clear blockages related to mental stress and tension for example, whereas a pyrite pyramid will help to clear emotional or intellectual blockages. Crystal points are basically magic wands, you can wield them and direct the energy where you want it, double-terminated points, which just means that both ends of the crystal are pointy, can draw energy in and then emit energy back out. So just keep that in mind when you’re choosing a crystal, that in addition to the actual crystal or stone itself, the shape might matter depending on how you intend to use it. But again, that properties of the crystal are the properties of the crystal no matter what it looks like.
And my final thought on crystals is this: don’t go broke buying crystals. A few crystals that you use all the time are going to be worth more to you than a pile of crystals that you never use and can’t even remember what they are. And if you’re wondering if I am a huge crystal nerd, the answer is yes the hell I am. So I’m going to post part of my crystal collection on Facebook and Instagram so you can see how ridiculously anal I am about labeling them. It looks like I’m super organized but the god’s honest truth is that I constantly forget which crystal is which and I am sick of taking them to my local witch shop to have the experts there help me to re-identify them. It’s embarrassing.
So there you go. I thank you for listening today, and I hope you come back next week. My name is Eli Ro, and this has been the Middle-Aged Witch podcast.
Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem & Metal Magic by Scott Cunningham
Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Correspondences by Susan Kynes
