The reality of healing crystals

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Hedgehog1

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Years ago before I was catholic I got into the alternative medicine. Later I started to become more religious but still held on to my practice with healing crystals, later I then found Catholicism and still used my crystal healing methods. Eventually I found out that using crystals to heal was controversial and lots of catholics are against it and have good arguments and quit the practice altogether but I still have questions.

I’m not trying to prove the existence of the healing properties of crystals but I feel like I have had experiences that are convincing to me personally, I am posting this to hopefully gain clarification of the catholic understanding of this.

One of the arguments is “no scientific proof/not real therefore it is superstition which we should not get involved in”

What if it is real? If it is real, would it then be okay for people to get involved in?

Another argument is “demons are using these to fool you and you allow demons to have power over you by using the crystals”

So if it is real we would have to think about if we did have objective evidence that this phenomenon did exist, is it of God or is it not? I think there has to be proof that it leads to demonic possession, using medicinal plants is real and before there was a scientific explanation people said it was demonic at least some people did. Actually when you look at history there were hundreds of things that existed yet no scientific explanation people dismissed as being demonic. I don’t think no scientific explanation = demonic, just like the existence of aliens or other cryptids = demonic. And you have to think about cases like mine, I was a protestant just like every other protestants, then I converted to Catholicism just like any other convert. It was actually the study of healing crystals that opened the gateway and led me to becoming more religious and eventually converting to Catholicism, my personal opinion is that it just seems counter productive if the study of healing crystals is demonic.

Another argument is “crystals invoke a supernatural force other than God to help you spiritually, this is idolatry and occultism”

I think new agers adopted crystal healing techniques and made it into something its not, I don’t believe crystals are a supernatural force, just like herbal remedies aren’t. And I don’t think they help you in any other way than a plant would. I think there’s alot of crazy ideas about rocks just like at some point in time people thought northern lights were spirits, that herbal remedies were magic, dead bodies that get swollen and and continue to grow finger nails in controlled climates were vampiers, lightning and thunder were the gods and now people think the benefits of healing crystals is a supernatural force that helps us spiritually but in reality its just a natural occurrence of your bio magnetic field reacting to the magnetic field of the stone (just a hypothesis)

I’ve read the arguments people had against healing crystals and these are my questions and responses regarding them, can’t make up my mind on what I officially think yet.

What do you think?
 
If someone could point to a peer reviewed study showing any Crystal has any ability to improve health other than the placebo effect, I would be interested in reading it.

I agree with @Freddy…they are pretty rocks.
 
Crystals don’t heal by themselves (if anyone gets healed) and anyone who works with crystals don’t heal by himself. Actually it cannot be real healing since only God can heal for real (and God doesn’t heal through rocks), any healings from sources that aren’t God are illusion (Reiki, bioenergy etc.)
Healing crystals aren’t scientific method at all.
It is connected with New Age which is condemned by Catholic Church and not compatible with teaching of Catholic Church.
Crystals: are reckoned to vibrate at significant frequencies. Hence they are useful in self-transformation. They are used in various therapies and in meditation, visualisation, ‘astral travel’ or as lucky charms. From the outside looking in, they have no intrinsic power, but are simply beautiful.
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You can read more about it here
Jesus Christ The Bearer of the water of life
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Hedgehog1 said:
Another argument is “demons are using these to fool you and you allow demons to have power over you by using the crystals”
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This isn’t completely untrue, I myself know a woman who is deeply involved in occultism, from former group I’ve been involved in for years, who uses crystals but not only as some natural healing rocks but uses illusionary positive powers to make them useful. She invokes spirits to actively “do” something.
It is possible that demons can be involved but that isn’t something that you can find in every corner. In best case it is fraud, waste of time and money, in worst case it is sin and spiritual slavery since one sin brings another in this kind of “spirituality”.
 
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Crystals are very pretty, and you could make the argument that the sight of pretty things raises your quality of life, which decreases stress, which makes you healthier, etc.

But wearing them as jewelry or admiring them in a display doesn’t heal you the way the practitioners claim.
 
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Hedgehog1 said:
What if it is real? If it is real, would it then be okay for people to get involved in?
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No it’s not real. It’s a scam to get you to buy crystals. A rock out of your back yard is equally effective in healing you, that is to say: not at all.

“Healing crystals” are not medicine. They are an aspect of New Age religious practices.

Demons are real, for example, and it’s not ok to get involved with them. There are many things that are “real” that aren’t OK to get involved with.

So, no, if crystals were “real” they would still be connected to religious practices, because crystals on their own are pretty to look at but are just rocks.
Hedgehog1 said:
is it of God or is it not?
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It is not God. The Church already tells us what we need to know.

Stay away from crystals.
 
@Hedgehog1

Keeping a crystal collection and reading up about them might be a nice hobby, but there’s isn’t reason to believe that they are a healing remedy:


I don’t doubt your sincerity that you’ve experienced some positive results after using them, but a change in attitude/confidence level can be very powerful and that is why medical studies so heavily rely on using placebos.

Peace.
 
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All scientific tests I have ever heard of about the alleged healing effects of crystals used externally show that they are no better than placebo. I.e. anything you could induce the patient to accept as ‘treatment’ would work as well.

Placebos are effective. They work by inducing the brain to generate chemical that make us feel better. This is shown in an elegant experiment in which an antidote to those chemicals is given. The placebo effect stops. But by its nature the placebo effect is useful only for things that respond to us feeling better. Not much use for COVID-19 or bleeding for example.

And crystals are very effective is they are of the right sort and dissolved in our body fluids or prior to administration - everything from sugar for treating low glycemic events to salt for help in rehydration to many chemicals used in advanced treatment of serious illness come in a crystalline form.

The accounts of crystal healing are essentially accounts of miracles - that is, healings that depend on no material interaction but on ‘spiritual’ or ‘energy’ interactions that cannot be measured or even observed.

Belief in such miracles is very widespread across many cultures and religions and there are many threads on CAF about specifically Catholic beliefs in miracles. If your confidence in crystals is based on belief rather than science including the exclusion of fraud, wishful thinking and coincidence there is nothing I can say that will change your belief. This is true also of other beliefs similarly based.

I like crystals and the scientific stories about their geological origins. They contribute to the sense of awe we non-believers have about the material world and its forces. I guess a good dose of awe is healing for me - but its the geological forces rather than the crystal itself doing the awe-ing.
 
I was very different in my teen years, I was dealing with mental and physical issues during the time and thats why the “crystal therapy” stuff appealed to me. That being said, carrying aground an amethyst to reduce anxiety levels is something I learned and my teenage self really did think it was helping me. Maybe it was a placebo I don’t doubt it, however it did have a positive effect regardless.

But I feel like if crystals were demonic and Satan was trying to harm me I wouldn’t be in a good spot, why am I okay now? And why am I better mentally physically and spiritually after using them?
 
@Hedgehog1

Only you can say what your intentions were when you were using them. It seems like you were young, anxious, and looking for something/anything to give you a much-needed boost. Searching around for opinions might not be helpful because they could either be overzealous or they might encourage you to keep using something that cannot help you.

I would talk to your Confessor about it and he can give you spiritual direction. Remember: he is trained to help you, not to judge you.

Peace.
 
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Hedgehog1 said:
What do you think?
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I think the mind is capable of performing amazing feats that we don’t yet comprehend, and if a person is convinced that an object has healing powers, then it’s possible that the person will be healed. Doesn’t matter if it’s a crystal or an umbrella.
 
Hedgehog1 said:
What do you think?
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If it involves the supernatural or an attempt to use the supernatural then it’s problematic.

If it involves some natural property of crystals there’s no problem with it, but if that were true it would be demonstrable through testing. It’s not (not at all), and furthermore the mechanisms that are proposed for how it works are totally invalid - they’re just pseudo-scientific nonsense.

One possibility that you didn’t mention is that the convincing experiences you’ve had are just the result of cognitive bias. We’re are notoriously susceptible to convincing ourselves of things that aren’t so, which is why it requires so much care to run good experiments and interpret the data correctly. This is by far the most probable reason for your experiences.
 
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so healing crystals are a good thing then?

Placebo can be a good thing if it gets rid of things like anxiety. The crystals would technically just be a reference point to use your minds natural ability to do that (placebo)
 
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Pattylt said:
If someone could point to a peer reviewed study showing any Crystal has any ability to improve health other than the placebo effect, I would be interested in reading it.
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A small aside: I’m not going to talk up the crystals or any other placebo, but I do find it interesting that brain scans do show powerful responses to placebos. So the phrase “just a placebo” may need to be reconsidered. Of course, giving yourself a placebo defeats the purpose, lol!
 
blackforest said:
A small aside: I’m not going to talk up the crystals or any other placebo, but I do find it interesting that brain scans do show powerful responses to placebos. So the phrase “just a placebo” may need to be reconsidered. Of course, giving yourself a placebo defeats the purpose, lol!
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Well see thats the new question. Most of us agree that crystal effects are placebos. The article that @FiveLinden sent suggests that the a placebo doesn’t mean failure of success.

So my question now is, since placebos are a natural phenomenon, if using a fake pill to trigger the placebo effect isn’t wrong, what would be inherently wrong with using rocks?
 
Hedgehog1 said:
if using a fake pill to trigger the placebo effect isn’t wrong, what would be inherently wrong with using rocks?
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We don’t sell the placebo pills as a treatment nor should we sell crystals as a treatment. A placebo only works if the patient believes it will. Selling a rock as a treatment for any illness with the disclaimer that it only works if you think it will, isn’t a great marketing ploy. Claiming anything else, however, is false advertising and quackery.
 
Hedgehog1 said:
So my question now is, since placebos are a natural phenomenon, if using a fake pill to trigger the placebo effect isn’t wrong, what would be inherently wrong with using rocks?
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Weird. I posted the same article immediately before s/he did.

To answer your question about using rocks as a placebo: You’d either have to try to deceive yourself with placebo self-treatment, (impossible), or try to deceive someone else and charge them for it, (unethical).
 
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