The Modern Guide to Witchcraft (17 page)

Long before people began prizing gems for their monetary value, they used them as magick charms. In early societies, only rulers, members of royal families, priests, and religious leaders wore gems. The ancient Egyptians used stones for healing, protection, and other purposes, both physical and spiritual. According to Nancy Schiffer, author of
The Power of Jewelry
, our ancestors believed gemstones were “capable of human feelings and passions so that they could express jealousy and shock.”

Many researchers believe crystals may have been sources of power and magick on the lost continents of Atlantis and Lemuria, and that crystals were used in building the pyramids and Stonehenge.

Today, we wear precious and semiprecious gems mostly because they’re so pretty. Witches, however, realize that crystals and gemstones can also be used for spellworking, divination, shamanic journeying, meditation, and dowsing. Stones also play important roles in healing, and although witches connect some stones with longevity, none of them holds the elixir of life like the fabled Philosopher’s Stone.

Birthstones resonate with the qualities of the zodiac signs to which they correspond. Originally people wore birthstones to enhance, balance, or moderate their own personal characteristics. By the way, you should look at your birth sign, not the month of your birth, to discover your true birthstone. If you’re an Aquarian, for example, your birthstone is garnet, regardless of whether you were born in January or February.

You can include crystals or gemstones in virtually any spell to increase, focus, stabilize, or fine-tune your spell’s potency. Here are some suggestions:

• Wear them to enhance your own personal energy field.
  
• Put them in amulets or talismans.
  
• Set them near the windows and doors of your home to provide protection.
  
• Meditate with them.
  
• Infuse magick potions with them.
  
• Dowse with a gemstone or crystal pendulum.
  
• Display them on your altar to attract positive energy.
  
• Offer them to deities or nature spirits in return for assistance.
  
• Gaze into them to see the past or future.
  

Like plants, crystals and gemstones are living entities, although they resonate at a slow rate that most people can’t perceive. However, their slow, concentrated energy enables them to keep working their magick for a long period of time.

As you might suspect, different stones possess different qualities and serve different functions in spellworking. A general rule of thumb is that clear stones are best for mental and spiritual issues, translucent or milky stones for emotional situations, and opaque stones for physical matters. You can use gems alone or in combination with other substances to produce the results you desire.

A stone’s color or pattern, too, can provide clues to its abilities. Pink gems, such as rose quartz and morganite, are perfect for love spells. Jade, aventurine, and other green stones can benefit money spells. Since ancient times, people have valued stones with eyelike markings as protection charms against the “evil eye” and all sorts of misfortune.

The following guidelines for stones and their magickal properties are simply a place to begin. In time, you’ll develop your own ideas about which stones to use for which spells:

• Agate: A grounding stone, agate helps stabilize situations. Add it to a money mojo if you’re having trouble holding on to money. Use it when you need extra strength or determination. Agates come in lots of colors, and the color influences the stone’s powers. Green moss agate, for instance, has healing and calming qualities. Like all green stones, it works well in prosperity spells and also attunes you to nature spirits.
  
• Amber: Although it’s not really a stone—it’s fossilized pine sap—amber is highly prized by witches. Lore tells us that amber came from the tears of a setting sun, and as such it’s still considered a solar/fire stone. A powerful protection gem, you can wear it or place it in an amulet to protect your home, car, business, etc.
  
• Amethyst: A purple quartz, this spiritual gem helps you to deepen meditation, remember dreams, and improve psychic ability. Want to attract divine assistance? Offer a favorite deity a pretty amethyst in return for her help.
  
• Aquamarine: A gift of the sea goddess, this lovely blue stone stimulates imagination and creativity. It can also increase intuitive awareness, mental clarity, and connection with your higher self. Use it when you want to work with the spirit world.
  
• Aventurine: This green stone with gold flecks in it is ideal for attracting wealth or abundance.
  
• Bloodstone: A green opaque stone with flecks of red, witches associate it with health (especially of the blood) and physical protection. You can also use it in spells for good luck, success, and courage.
  
• Calcite: Calcite comes in lots of colors, giving it a variety of potential magickal applications. Witches consider it a stone of purification and healing—use it to detoxify a situation. It also encourages spiritual growth, calms the mind, and aids intellectual processes.
  
• Carnelian: This milky red-orange stone is linked with success. It can also stimulate passion, sexual energy, courage, and initiative.
  
• Chrysocolla: In relationships and domestic situations, chrysocolla helps remove disruptive energies and restore stability. It can also help you deal with changes and heal emotional pain.
  
• Citrine: A yellow variety of quartz, citrine is a great stone for banishing nightmares and improving psychic abilities. Because it’s also known for its cleansing properties, you can use it to clean your other stones and magick tools, or to clear the air after an argument or disturbance.
  
• Diamond: A popular stone for engagement rings, a diamond deepens commitment and trust, especially in a love relationship. It also enhances strength and bravery, and attracts victory.
  
• Emerald: Emeralds promote clairvoyance and can be used for divination. Witches also connect them with emotional healing, growth, love, and resourcefulness.
  
• Fluorite: Available in various colors, fluorite helps remove stress and negative energy. When things seem confused or disorganized, use fluorite to restore order. It also improves concentration, intuition, and mental clarity.
  
• Garnet: During the Middle Ages people wore garnets to drive away demons. Witches still consider garnet a stone of protection. It also increases love and passion, courage, and hope.
  
• Hematite: A dark silvery-colored stone, hematite is often used to ground unbalanced energy and to stabilize a spell. The stone also deflects negativity and is thus associated with defense, healing, and justice.
  
• Jade: A popular stone for prosperity magick, jade can also be used in spells to enhance beauty, increase fertility, and inspire love. Witches connect it with health and longevity, too.
  
• Jasper: Jasper comes in various colors and patterns, and each has its own distinctive properties. Use red jasper in love spells to stir up passion. Brown jasper aids physical healing; poppy jasper breaks up blockages that prevent energy from circulating harmoniously.
  
• Lapis lazuli: The most coveted lapis is a deep bluish hue, with almost no white flecks in it. Use it to increase your psychic ability and attract magickal insights. It’s also a good stone to hold while meditating to deepen your focus. Some of the best lapis comes from Chile, where it’s often carved into animal figures. Shamans there use it in their spiritual practices.
  
• Malachite: This green stone is popular for prosperity magick. Long considered a stone of protection, it wards off evil and lets you sense forthcoming dangers or problems. It strengthens your connection to nature, and green witches use it for earth healing.
  
• Moldavite: This greenish stone came to us as a result of a meteor collision with the earth nearly 15 million years ago. A high-energy stone, it improves your ability to communicate with spirits, deities, and extraterrestrials. Use it to gain insight into your purpose in this lifetime.
  
• Moonstone: Ruled by the moon, this milky stone comes in various pastel colors and has long been used to aid dream recall. It also calms emotions, increases intuition, and benefits all sorts of female health conditions.
  
• Obsidian: Sacred to Hecate, the patroness of witches, obsidian is a favorite stone for scrying mirrors. Most likely, that’s what the wicked queen in
  Snow White
  gazed into when she asked, “Who’s the fairest of them all?” Obsidian also boosts strength—physically and emotionally—and can help break down blockages. Use snowflake obsidian—a black stone with whitish spots—for protection.
  
• Onyx: Use this black stone to banish negative energy and ground magick spells. It encourages self-confidence and determination. Onyx also helps you break deeply ingrained habits, whether physical or emotional. Wear onyx when facing adversaries in figurative or literal battles.
  
• Opal: This milky whitish stone encourages psychic ability and visions. Witches also use it in spells for love and seduction. In shamanic magick, it keeps potential enemies from seeing you. Opals can aid female health conditions too.
  
• Pearl: Ruled by the moon, pearls were considered sacred to the goddesses Isis and Freya. Use pearls in spells for love, happiness, and emotional balance. They can also aid intuition, fertility, and creativity.
  
• Peridot: Believed to repel evil and malevolent magick in earlier times, peridot is still used as a stone of protection. It can also help to neutralize toxins, physically and emotionally.
  
• Ruby: Rubies stimulate the emotions, passion, love, and sexuality. They also open your heart to divine love. Wear rubies for courage or to aid blood disorders. Folklore says they protect against vampires.
  
• Sapphire: Linked with Neptune, the sea god, this stone increases spiritual knowledge and connection with the Divine. Witches use it in spells for wisdom, insight, and prophetic vision; it also deepens meditation and can help you understand omens and signs. Star sapphires bring hope and clarity of purpose.
  
• Tiger’s eye: A glossy, satiny, brown stone with bands of gold, tiger’s eye is used for strength, courage, good fortune, and prosperity. Early Roman soldiers carried these into battle to keep them safe. The stone boosts self-confidence and gives you the freedom to follow your own path.
  
• Tourmaline: This stone comes in a variety of colors, including green, black, pinkish, and watermelon (a combination of red and green). The colors influence the stone’s properties. Tourmaline clears negative energies and brings balance. Put one near your computer to dissolve electromagnetic fields. Green tourmaline aligns you with nature spirits; pink harmonizes the emotions; watermelon attracts love and friendship.
  
• Turquoise: A powerful stone of protection, turquoise is especially good for keeping you safe while traveling. Witches also use it for prosperity. Its healing properties help ease mental tension and emotional anxiety. Native Americans consider turquoise a sacred stone.
  

If you wish, you can combine several stones to address various aspects of a spell. Let’s say your goal is to find a job that pays well and brings you into contact with interesting people—aventurine plus watermelon tourmaline should do the trick. In a love spell, you might seek both passion and affection, in which case you’d choose rose quartz and carnelian. After a while, you’ll start to intuit which stones are right for your intentions. Stones play such an important role in magick that you’ll probably want to spend time familiarizing yourself with their many properties. Judy Hall’s books provide extensive information about how to use stones for a wide range of purposes.

Quartz crystals are the most versatile of all stones. Actually, many of the stones we’ve already talked about are mainly quartz with other minerals mixed in, such as the iron in aquamarine that turns it blue. If you only want to work with one stone, a beautiful clear quartz crystal can do it all. Crystal balls, in particular, are one of the most famous magick tools. You’ve seen crystal balls on TV and in movies, maybe even in real life, and you know witches use them to predict the future, a practice known as scrying. It is possible to view stuff you couldn’t see otherwise by gazing into a crystal ball. But crystals can do oh so much more.

Quartz crystals are a combination of silica and water formed under certain conditions of pressure, temperature, and energy. These crystals possess amazing abilities to retain information, amplify energy, and transmit vibrations. That’s why they’re often used in watches, computers, laser tools, television and radio equipment, and many other familiar objects. Their properties also make crystals ideal for healing, storing knowledge, sending energy and thought patterns, and increasing the power of any substance they come in contact with. People who work with crystals believe they are actually unique life forms that possess innate intelligence and many diverse powers.

Quartz crystals come in various colors and shapes, both of which affect the crystal’s characteristics and abilities. Let’s take a look at some of the most common ones witches use.

Clear quartz crystals will probably become one of your go-to magick tools—and one of your favorites. An easily obtained stone, it looks like ice. Many have small inclusions that add to the crystal’s properties. For example, those little silvery “plates” you see in some crystals are like tiny tablets where you mentally “write” your wishes. Those fine lines that look like sparkly threads, called rutiles, give the crystal a speedy quality that helps spells work faster.

You can wear crystals, put them in amulets and talismans, affix them to other magick tools, meditate with them, focus them in certain areas to promote healing, keep one in your glove compartment for protection, and on and on. Basically, they work in three ways:

1. They boost the powers of other substances. Let’s say you’re making a money talisman. You might put some dried mint leaves and an aventurine in a silk pouch, and then add a small clear quartz crystal to kick the power up a notch.
   
2. They hold on to thoughts, information, vibrations, energies, etc., for a long time. Many witches use clear quartz as protection amulets. You can “program” your crystal by either thinking or whispering your intention into it—tell it to keep you safe at all times and in all situations. Then wear it or carry it with you for safety.
   
3. They focus and direct energy. Want to send healing vibes to someone? First program a crystal with healing thoughts, then aim its pointed end toward that person. You can also draw power from the heavens by aiming the point at the sky and envisioning a beam of energy flowing down and into your crystal.