cleansing - serious or silly?

I have a lot of natural crystal chunk bracelets and necklaces which I wear for their various properties. I do cleanse them, because from my own experience, I find that if I don't the energy gets sort of blocked and stagnant. I don't feel that sparkly flow that I do when they're clean.

I cleanse them in a variety of ways, as there are some that should not be placed directly in salt due to their composition.

I've found the most benign method for cleaning anything crystalline (or other types of jewelery one wears often), is to place it in a dish on the top of the toilet tank, of all places. The magnetic quality of water draws the psychic schmutz down and out when you flush your loo, and cleanses your objects!

Instead of starting a new thread on cleansing, I thought I'd bump this old poll of Fudugazi's.

Yes, I cleanse my crystals, when new unless I intuit that they don't need it, and when they are getting "tired", "stressed", whatever you want to call it. Some crystals are self-cleansing, like citrine and selenite, but most accumulate energy and it can cause what resembles confusion. Clear quartz and smoky quartz go cloudy, fluorite and amethyst fade. Some others go dull. I've seen lots of crystals, notably smoky quartz and fluorite, which crack and fracture when used for healing. This, I am told, means that they have "done their job". My teacher says to bury the small piece that breaks off and go on using the rest of the crystal.

To cleanse mine, again I use intuition. Most of mine are hard crystals, mostly quartz derived, and so are fine with water (running, not still) and salt, which you throw out when it's done it's job. I wouldn't bury it as it's not good for plants, but chucking it (reverently, of course!) in the ocean would be brilliant if you have easy access to the water! Moonlight and sunlight are also often used, although I don't use them myself, as amethyst and heat treated citrine are photosensitive and I don't know which of my other ones are as well, and here in Perth we don't get all that much moonlight as it's always cloudy. If I could, I would.

I also cleanse some smaller crystals, usually the tumbled ones for some reason . . has something to do with facets . . by bonding with them. I sit with them and stroke them and kind of go on a journey with them to realign our purposes. I wouldn't try this with my bigger, natural faceted ones.

Btw, selenite hates water, if you do feel the need to cleanse it. It is really soft and disintegrates. You can wipe it with wet hands, but don't immerse it or leave it to soak, and dry it straight away. It also reacts readily with sweat, so find a way of meditating with it that doesn't have it bathing in your sweaty hand!

DarkElectric said:

I have a lot of natural crystal chunk bracelets and necklaces which I wear for their various properties. I do cleanse them, because from my own experience, I find that if I don't the energy gets sort of blocked and stagnant. I don't feel that sparkly flow that I do when they're clean.

I cleanse them in a variety of ways, as there are some that should not be placed directly in salt due to their composition.

I've found the most benign method for cleaning anything crystalline (or other types of jewelery one wears often), is to place it in a dish on the top of the toilet tank, of all places. The magnetic quality of water draws the psychic schmutz down and out when you flush your loo, and cleanses your objects!

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For the record, I love DarkElectric's idea of the toilet! That is one of the most brilliant ideas I've heard in a long while . . . now, if only I could get into my toilet . . .

Okay, time to shut up now.

\m/ Kat

I voted "other"

When I think about cleansing crystals, I don't think about moonlight/sunlight/salt water/fresh water or any physical cleansing.

I do not soak in any kind of solution (or any kind of light) because I think that this is probably BS.

But I do a sort of ritual sometimes where I push power into the stones and suck power out of the stones. I'm not sure I would call it cleansing. It is a meditation technique more than anything else. I'm not sure that I believe that the effects of this exercise are any more than placebo, but the placebo seems to have benefit for me, as it makes my meditations more intense than they are without using the technique.

-tb

I always cleanse my stones after using them for healing (either with Reiki, sacred symbols, sage smudge, or leaving them in brown rice or my amethyst geode) but its more out of mindless habit than anything. The way I was taught is that sickness and dis-ease can linger on the stones after use, so if you heal someone who has the flu with your quartz wand, for example, and don't cleanse it afterwards...then the next person you work on with the quartz could get the flu.

But, that is what I was taught. I'm not sure if I believe it, but I'm supersitious/doubtful enough that for the all-of-3-minutes it takes to reenergize and cleanse the crystals, even a lot of them...its probably worth it. Besides, I think the crystals work better if they're pampered anyways. Happy crystals equals happy people, in my experience.

Good poll question Fudugazi!

I have cleansed crystals and usually cleanse them when I first acquire them. I do believe it makes a difference that first time I cleanse them after first acquiring them but after that, I really dont think it does make a difference. Having said that though, sometimes I do get a bit doubtful and think I should be cleansing them, but I still dont.

I smudge my crystals... the main one that need cleaning is the amythist under my pillow.. it goes black after a while.... and I know to cleanse it when the loopy nightmares start again... (fun!)

Other:
I cleanse by using my Shamballa healing energy. I also have a selenite candle holder and I put things into the hole or on the stone.

Sophie said:

Ok, I'm going to throw a stone in the pond here. I'm not talking about cleaning gritty or otherwise dirty crystals. I'm talking about the habit of leaving stones in water, in salt, in the moonlight, in the sunlight, with other crystals, etc. etc.

Are these seriously useful methods, or just woo-woo? I've always done it - since I acquired my first crystals about 8 or 9 years ago - but I am beginning to wonder if it's useful, or if it's just reassurance for my mind. It works because I think it does.

So - for everyone, here's a poll. I'm interested in your experience over a period of time - so please, no one-offs. How have the stones shown to be more effective if cleansed? How have they shown to be less effective when not cleansed? Which cleansing methods do you consider effective, and which do you see as woo-woo or otherwise useless. Crystals are meant to work thanks to their energy waves. I have used them successfully for years - so I am not putting in doubt the value of crystals themselves: just the cleansing and the various methods. Why, for instance, would exposing a stone to the full moon or leaving it in water "cleanse" its energy?

I'd be grateful if you could explain your poll choices in your posts.

Thanks!

Helvetica,
going through one of her periodical crises of doubt

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I've been asking myself the same question for a few months now, and now I didn't cleansed my stones for two and half months and I don't see the difference except I need to clean dust from them. Also, I see that many people use different method of cleansing and some feel the difference. I guess I'm not so sensitive to crystal energy but I feel it in the air. A couple of times i had a feeling that constant cleansing damage their energy and vibration. Just imagine, when you buy crystal in shop they were never cleansed or charged or anything and they all look so shiny and refreshed, full of energy.

Now I'm thinking how to cleanse them all with incense to spare some time because I have a big collection, and cleansing one by one is taking too much time. So, if someone knows how to do method of cleansing bunch of crystals with incense feel free to tell me

I do believe in giving stones a cleanse now and then, especially if they get a lot of use.

My preferred methods for doing this are via either breath or sound. I have access to at least one, possibly both of those tools anytime, anywhere, and neither one puts my stones at risk of damage.

I have both tuning forks and chimes, but I'm more likely to use the former in a set pattern that I've described in the "On cleansing with sound..." thread. Breath, meanwhile, is something that I learned from reading Uma Silbey's crystal book. It involves blowing "through" the crystal along each axis: length, width, and height. We rotate the crystal accordingly so that each axis in turn is facing us, then blow "through" it. This is the same method we can use to program a crystal, BTW; in that case, we let our breath be the carrier of our intention and let the breath fill the crystal with our intent.

There are some theories that I don't ascribe to, with regards to energizing stones. First, I never use water and/or salt on my stones. I know that some stones are damaged by them, and I don't have a comprehensive mental list as to which stones would fare poorly. So I play it safe and don't use water or salt on ANY stones.

I have also seen some people write, with regard to their scrying tools (including crystal spheres or obsidian mirrors), "Never let sunlight touch your tools! Only use moonlight/candlelight" and "Only scry at night during [insert lunar phase here]". Well, I don't restrict myself by any of those rules. I don't mind if sunlight touches my tools, I don't wait until a particular moon phase, and I don't wait for a particular time of day. If I need to use a tool, I use the tool when it's convenient for me. Period. Besides -- moonlight is just reflected sunlight, is it not? So letting moonlight touch my quartz sphere IS letting sunlight touch my quartz sphere, when you get right down to it.

I just cleanse mine with a selenite wand - I prop the stones up on them after use. Then I put them in a wooden bowl - handcrafted - filled with double terminated quartz points, to recharge them.

I cleanse the quartz points in sunlight occasionally.

I only cleanse my stones when I can feel I have really drained them. I don't have nay hard and fast rules, I just go by instinct and feeling...