For centuries, ancient cultures referred to crystals as the veins of the earth, frozen liquid, and frozen light. Uma Silbey unlocks the secrets of these remarkable storehouses for earth’s energy to reveal their remarkable effects on personal power, self-enhancement, and healing. In this ultimate guide, she describes how you can channel the subtle forces within a crystal to empower your meditations, direct your thoughts, energize your body, and unleash a lifelong flow of creative and physical energy. From selecting the right crystal and “programming” it for your personal use to special techniques and exercises to heighten your abilities, Silbey guides you on the path to self-mastery.In The Ultimate Guide to Crystals and Stones, Silbey provides information colors, shapes, and properties of quartz crystals and stonesHow to wear crystals and stones to take advantage of their protective powersHow to heighten your crystal experience through visualization and meditationInsights into crystal gazing and crystal ball readingHow crystals facilitate night dreaming and astral projectionCrystal and stone techniques that can be used for healing physically, mentally, and emotionallyAnd more!
I had hoped that this would be a solid reference book for crystal associations, and it was very much not that. It focused a lot on color associations and intuition, which I could have already done quite easily. Of course, my experience of color is not as central to my experience of things, since I am color blind, so the constant focus on color and its associations wasn't as appealing to me. There was some interesting information about forming basic crystal grids and methods of crystal healing, which was of some interest. When I started the book, I was really excited about how the author was incorporating the crystal structure in her understanding of crystals, but that didn't really carry through past the introduction, unfortunately. This book is more about the practice of crystal healing, and relatively little of it is spent on teaching you about the crystals, themselves.
I've been interested in crystals because I think they're very pretty. This made me curious as to why people think they are mysticaly important. I tried, but I found this book unreadable. I try to keep an open mind but I couldn't open it wide enough for this.
Without an index I found this too difficult to use as a reference. I don’t want to read it cover to cover. I’m probably too new to crystals and not ready for this book yet.
This book is so authoritative, I earnestly recommend it to anyone curious about crystal practice. Uma Silbey is obviously knowledgeable about her subject, as evidenced by her biography. She references quantum physics when appropriate, as well as admonishing readers to have fun but not annoy others. Also, even though she easily could, she doesn't begin with some version of "step one, go to my personal Website and buy thousands of dollars of crystals from me." In fact, she includes a section on working with ordinary stones that you find anywhere out in nature. Her only self promotion is the inclusion of a handful of photos of jewelry she has made (not for sale, just for example of what can be done). This atmosphere is what really made me respect her. This is a dense book; she covers a lot of ground. Some sections are quite slow going, not because they are poorly written, but because they are weighty topics that need consideration. If I have one complaint, and I probably only do have one, it is that this book lacks an index. The table of contents is highly detailed, which helps. This one is a keeper for my personal library, and I know I'll be referring to it a lot in the future! This book will also satisfy the Watauga County Public Library 2022 Reading Challenge (ending 6/30/2022) category A Book About a Hobby. I received this book for free through Goodreads Giveaways.