Cassandra Eason - Cassandra Easons Illustrated Directory of Healing Crystals

An Illustrated Guide to 150
Crystals and Gemstones

COLLINS & BROWN

The Illustrated Directory of Healing Crystals is unique in that it offers detailed, accessible information on more than 150 crystals. Beginning with their mythology and folklore, each entry explores how the crystals can be used for healing, magic, divination and for psychic development. The associated flowers, herbs, oils, incenses, planet, element, star sign, guardian angel and related chakra is presented in a box for each crystal, to allow quick and easy reference.

Crystals can help to bring harmony and joy to your life: each entry describes how to use each crystal for protection and to attract love, success, prosperity, self-confidence, health and happiness. The entries give examples of rituals, layouts and altars to further your spiritual and psychic development and explains which crystals are most suited to healing children and animals. Finally, the book describes, for beginners and crystal experts alike, methods of crystal healing, colour wisdom, ways of working with the chakras and aura, and the basics of crystal divination and magic.

Divided into sections by colour, the illustrations allow instant identification of individual crystals among the bewildering range available. This book is not only a comprehensive reference work, it is also an essential workbook, whether you use crystals to bring peace to your home or are a crystal healer looking for new ideas.

According to the Ancient Greek philosopher Plato, crystals are formed from the stars and planets. The Australian Aboriginals and the Native North Americans consider crystals the bones of mother earth herself.

Crystals and gems were very important to the Ancient Egyptians as amulets. Lapis lazuli and red jasper were dedicated to the goddess Isis.

We know that the crystals we now enjoy and use were created in the womb of the earth over millions of years by the action of water, wind and volcanic fire. We know that they carry the life force and healing powers from earth and sky.

Their healing properties were recorded more than 3,500 years ago by the Ancient Egyptians, and by cultures in China and India. Indeed, crystals have always been part of the folk wisdom of ordinary men, women and children. Give any child a bag of crystals and he or she will instantly choose the correct crystal to relieve a headache or sore throat.

This book records the myths and the mystical and astrological associations of more than 150 crystals. Some of these stones have been used for thousands of years and enjoy a rich history and mythology. Others are more recent discoveries, cast up by the earth mother to heal modern ills and the pollution of earth, sea and sky caused by careless humankind.

Above all, The Illustrated Directory of Healing Crystals forms a personal resource and workbook. It will be appropriate for both the complete beginner to crystal healing and for more experienced practitioners, who may welcome the new ideas and approaches they will discover here.

Ultimately, however, we are all crystal experts if we trust our intuitive powers: in our crystal work we can access a universal well of crystal wisdom, passed through our genetic heritage. By allowing each crystal to speak directly to our hearts and work, its healing energies will amplify our own innate healing powers to bring peace and spiritual harmony to people, animals and places.

You will need two or three round or oval crystals the size of a large coin for healing and for spiritual development. If you already have personal crystals, you can use those, as they are endowed with your personal magic and energies. If you do not have any crystals, a small piece of tumbled or rough amethyst, citrine and clear quartz would make a good initial purchase.

You can gradually build up your crystal collection, so that you have crystals in all the main colours for healing, divination and ritual. Some people prefer to have a separate set of healing crystals, but others feel, as I now do, that by using the same crystals for all their work, the crystals become very powerful and personalized. You may also decide to buy a .

A clear crystal pendulum is a very useful purchase. You can use it to cleanse and charge other .

Your pendulum can also help you to find lost objects, to identify ley energies the psychic power lines within the earth and to pick up on ghostly presences. The spontaneous positive swing will affirm a yes response when questions are asked, indicate that energies are flowing freely within you and that you are on the right track if you are following a trail. The direction of this swing can be identified by thinking of a happy event in your life while holding the pendulum. It is often, but not always, a clockwise circling. Think of a sad event to see the spontaneous negative response, usually an anticlockwise movement. It may indicate a blockage in the energy system or that you have moved away from the correct path physically.

You can deliberately circle your pendulum clockwise over your body to energize your system. If you circle it anticlockwise it will unblock a stagnant area in your body or remove pain or sickness.

An amethyst or rose quartz crystal will cleanse gentler crystals, and both are good for clearing negative earth energies in the home.

Each of the 150 crystals in this directory is assigned to the chakra that it will most effectively cleanse and energize. Each chakra is associated with an area of the body and an emotional state. Chakras are swirling psychic energy centres within the body, interconnecting points for thousands of tiny energy channels. Apply a crystal a few inches above a chakra point, rotating it anticlockwise to unblock, cleanse and calm if the energies are too intense and then clockwise to energize. Let your hand and intuition guide your actions. You can also lie with the appropriate chakra crystal on each chakra point to rebalance the whole system.

Colour: Red.

Location for healing: The base of the spine, the perineum or the soles of the feet (the feet chakras are ruled by the root chakra).

Areas of influence: Legs, feet and skeleton (including the teeth), bowel and large intestine. The root chakra relates to material comfort and awareness of reality. It is the source of the kundalini (or serpent energy) that provides the driving power for the chakra system.

Imbalances: Pain and tension in the body parts it controls, constipation or an irritable bowel. A lack of energy and an inability to relax: the flight-or-fight mechanism in over-drive. Irritability, anger or paralyzing fear.

Colour: Orange.

Location for healing: The centre of the sacrum/lower abdomen, around the reproductive system.