Michael Gienger - Gemstone Healing: How to choose and use the right crystal and healing technique

Michael Gienger

Gemstone Healing

How to choose and use
the right crystal and
healing technique

Legal notice

First edition 2014

Gemstone Healing

Michael Gienger

Photography: Ines Blersch, www.inesblersch.de

Stylist: Ines Blersch and Ada Lang

Make-up: Martina Bauer

Models: Immo Lang, Heike Kohler, Linda Rapp, Verena Frank

94 photographs: 1 by Kazimieras Mizgiris ); all others by Ines Blersch/Kosmos; also 7 graphics by Wolfgang Lang/Kosmos

This English edition 2014 Earthdancer GmbH

English translation and editing: JMS Books LLP, www.jmswords.com

Original title published in German as Heilsteine

World copyright 2013, Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co KG,
Stuttgart

All rights reserved

Cover design by estudio calamar using 2 photos by Ines Blersch/ Kosmos

Typesetting: Dragon Design UK. Set in Proforma

Graphic design: solutioncube Reutlingen

Entire production: Midas Printing. Printed and bound in China

ISBN 978-1-84409-646-6

Published by Earthdancer GmbH, an imprint of: Findhorn Press, 117-121 High Street, Forres, IV36 1AB, Scotland www.earthdancerbooks.com, www.findhornpress.com

The author and publishers accept no liability for the recipes and methods described in this book. Neither the author nor the publishers shall be liable for any damages that may arise from using the tips and advice set out in the book. Consult your doctor or alternative practitioner in the event of any health concerns. The methods described do not represent an alternative to therapeutic or medicinal treatment.

CONTENTS

36 gemstones: from agate to tourmaline

Characteristics, effects and applications

Front flap:

Feeling the rhythm of body, mind and spirit

Working with the body clock

Back flap:

Helpful healing crystals for a good nights sleep

Working with sleep cycles

Cleansing your aura

USING HEALING POWERS

Gemstones have been our constant companions for millennia. Their beauty enhances our jewellery and ornaments, their shapes and colours inspire science and art and their hidden powers bring healing and protection. Modern studies have shown that the healing powers of crystals follow simple principles and are easy to apply as well as being suitable for use in both naturopathic healing and your own health regime.

WEARING HEALING JEWELLERY

TRUSTING YOUR OWN FEELINGS

Gemstones can sometimes seem to have a mind of their own there are some items of jewellery that at times are just impossible to wear. Even though a particular stone may suit an outfit perfectly, you may still feel that it just isnt right and you cannot possibly wear that combination of stone and outfit that day. On other days it is the exact opposite: a particular stone draws you in magically and you absolutely have to put it on, irrespective of how it looks. Who hasnt experienced this? It is a sign that you are feeling the power and influence of gemstones, which is how the healing powers of crystals were discovered as far back as the Stone Age. Archaeological finds and observations of the lives of primitive peoples have revealed that healing with crystals is as old as mankind itself. Those living in close contact with nature need acute senses and keen awareness to survive; they are also more sensitive to and aware of their own bodies: they sense, for example, that amber creates a feeling of ease if they have a stomach ache, that serpentine brings inner peace when they feel scared or threatened and that obsidian can reduce pain. Crystals have thus been worn as protective amulets or applied to the body to bring healing for millennia.

Amber brings joy and well-being.

CRYSTAL COLOUR: EMOTIONAL BALANCE COUNTS

When choosing jewellery, we often unconsciously select the exact gemstones that provide us with emotional balance: if tense or very emotional, we choose green stones, but if we lack drive and vigour, we choose red stones instead. If we feel we need to cool down (in the literal as well as the emotional sense) we are drawn to blue stones, but if we need warmth, only orange ones will do. If we want to brighten our mood, stones with yellow the brightest colour are the most effective, whereas if we are in a reflective mood, thinking deeply or in need of some soul searching, violet the darkest colour is the one to choose. The colours of crystals are associated with certain properties; this simple correlation between colour and characteristic has a deep-rooted and universal effect. This even applies to the colours black and white: white, which reflects all light, helps us to think without prejudice, i.e. to see things as they really are. On the other hand, black, which absorbs all light, offers good protection as it soaks up and has a neutralising effect. Whether a particular stone is wearable or not, whether it feels right or instead provokes a never in a million years response, is often connected with the characteristics of the colour and has nothing to do with whether the shade suits us or matches our clothes. Its effect on our emotional balance is the key factor.

Black stones provide protection.

CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS:
HOW THE BODY REACTS

The effects of gemstone colour are by no means limited to the emotions, their characteristics are experienced physically as well: red excites tension, green provides relaxation, orange generates warmth, blue cools, yellow stimulates activity, violet calms, white opens, black closes. But it is not just the colour of crystals that is responsible for these effects; some gemstones of similar colours often turn out to elicit very different responses.

Green emeralds reduce inflammation, green malachite relieves cramps, green olivine detoxifies, green serpentine relaxes and green amazonite strengthens the liver. These varying effects are a result of their constituent elements: emerald contains chromium, malachite copper, olivine magnesium and iron, serpentine magnesium and amazonite lead. The healing properties of these elements have been known for many years in medicinal practices such as homeopathy and become apparent when the appropriate stone is worn on the body.

Wearing a stone externally has the advantage that any toxic effects from taking them internally are avoided some of these substances would not be beneficial if ingested. Magnesium and iron are among the essential (i.e. absolutely necessary) minerals for our bodies, but we require chromium, copper and lead only as trace elements; if we absorb too much, they become harmful the toxic effect is in the dose. When worn externally, the dose is not relevant since it is the information and not the actual substance of the crystals that has the effect.