CRYSTALS - A HISTORICAL 'POT-POURRI'
Crystals were not only used by the Ancients in their natural forms, but they were also
refined and utilised as part of a greater technological complex, elements of which have
survived in the Orient and elsewhere in the world, up until relatively recent times.
French explorer Captain V.D. Auvergne, reporting in the "Bihar and Orissa Research
Journal" (vol. 26, part 2) near the turn of the century, told this story of his
encounter in Tibet of the use of crystals and sound to produce light.
"Upon entering the gates at the mouth of the cave, we had daylight with us for 30 or
40 yards. Then, turning a bend, I observed a gallery in utter darkness. At the entrance,
the Che-sho priest reached down to the ground and picked up a nine-inch diameter metal
gong and an attracted wooden hammer.
The gong appeared to be polished bronze through which ran a highly ornamental decorative
tracery of thin silver thread. The che-so priest raised the mallet and struck the gong
once. I was startled to see half a dozen lights of a strange green colour slowly come into
vision. They shone dimly at first, but within a minute, the lights had grown in intensity,
perhaps attaining some five hundred candle power each. The lights were situated twenty
feet apart along the gallery walls and hung from a kind of wooden bracket about five feet
above the ground.
"When I approached one of the lights, I found that it was only a lump of common stone
crystal about four inches in diameter placed on a plate of stone of some kind of gray
metal, about half an inch thick and one foot in diameter. All of the foregoing were hung
by bronze wire loops, extending from an arm at right angles, mounted on a wooden upright.
Over and around the plate ran an ornamental tracing of thin lines of gold hieroglyphs
resembling the character of cave writing.
"The Che-so priest willingly informed me that the sound of the gong penetrated the
metal plate from which a vibrating force emanated. He said that it had the effect of
infusing to the crystal particles of bright luminous glow, gradually growing to a certain
intensity in accordance with the volume of vibratory sound. According to the priest, had
the gong been struck with a metal hammer, however, the glow would have been so great that
the human eye could not stand it without a head covering the thick cloth. Still, neither
the crystal nor the plate produced a particle of heat."
Crystals, too, are an important means of transmitting radio waves, as any child with a
simple toy crystal set will tell you. Today, our own civilisation has just begun to
discover the value of crystals as resonators and oscillators, transmitting and controlling
frequencies for radio and telecommunications. It is said that radio was one of the secrets
of ancient mystical societies, used as a form of communications between remote sanctuaries
and lodges, even as late in history as the medieval Rosicrucians.
Priests of many societies and brotherhoods, as keepers and preservers of lost prehistoric
wisdom, often wore bejeweled amulets and plates, which acted as "oracles" and
"voicepieces" from which advice was obtained. The Urim and Thummin stones of the
Hebrew high priests were a prime example. Not only radio, but images were transmitted over
distances as well.
John L. Stephens in his classic work on the Mayan civilisation, "Incidents of Travel
in Central America, Chiapas and Yucatan", tells how in one small Mayan temple he
discovered 'a pedestal formed of a shining substance resembling glass' around which he was
told the ancient priests gathered and consulted pictures created in the 'black,
transparent stone.'
Fellow Central American researcher, the Abbee Brasseur de Bourbourg, noted the same
stories among Mayan descendants.
He wrote, 'A native informed me that their ancestors had known the gift of the vision
stone, when his people were instructed in the arts of civilisation.' In Peru, Spanish
chroniclers recorded that when they invaded the Incan Empire and captured the King, the
Queen and priests immediately fled to the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco, where they
communicated with other regents of the land, and decided what was to be done, by gazing
into the 'black mirror' situated at the Temple's center.
Significantly, the Incan Temple of the Sun, and the pyramid complexes of the Mayas, were
all located on Earth energy lines. There is thus reason to believe that the Ancients
possessed the ability of transmitting images along these lines, and crystal lenses or
screens were used at specific centers to transform the images into pictures, much like a
modern television set.
When we examine what modern research is uncovering regarding the full spectrum of the
properties of crystals, and compare this with the Ancient knowledge, we discover we are
touching upon only the very beginnings of a vast forgotten technology. Crystals, at their
simplest functional level, can store light and discharge it, or convert sunlight directly
into electricity. A step beyond, the crystalline form can also store information in vast
quantities. A cut sliver of crystal can pick up a specified vibratory pattern; the silver
can then be 'frozen' and subsequently 'unfrozen' later to playback the pattern.
Recently, Stuart Collins of Ohio State University, M.T. Fatehi of the University of
Technology in Teheran, and K.C. Wasmundt of the University of Denver, announced a new
revolution in computer design called the optical-digital computer. Its memory is based
entirely on the use of light beams, crystal prisms and lenses.
A complex sandwich of liquid crystal layers and mirrors act as light valves to create
closed loops of light and moonlight signals, which correspond to a two alphabet system of
information storage. By such means, information can be stored with a density of 2,500-fold
over that of conventional electrical-digital computers. The first working model of the
light and crystal computer is scheduled to be operational within a very short time. But
one wonders if someone else, long ago, developed such a system before us. Could there be
banks and libraries of knowledge stored in the crystals of standing stones, stone circles
and other monuments around the world, just waiting, silently, for modern man to tap into
them and learn the wisdom hidden within?
Not only knowledge, but the actual consciousness and emotional energies
of psychic individuals from past ages may still reside in many ancient crystal forms.
Several researchers have used crystals to capture the life force, or the vibratory pattern
of a person at death.
Other experiments being conducted are said to have successfully captured a human thought
within a crystal and retransmitted it back as an image. Author George Hunt Williamson, who
believes that crystals played a significant role in past civilisations, expressed his
opinion that crystals can think, and many standing stones have an 'intelligence within
them". Masses of crystal flakes encased in a single stone may act as individual
neurons passing along information from one flake to another and organise it, like a large
crystal brain.
Certain individual crystals, in particular diamonds and other precious stones, can hold
conscious emotional energies from a bygone era, which may be triggered from time to time,
affecting their owners.
The best classic case of this is the famous Hope Diamond, and the mysterious curse
attached to it. The Hope was originally part of a much larger gem called the Great Blue,
later the French Blue, stolen from the temple of Rama site in India by Frenchman Jean
Baptiste Tavernier in 1668. In revenge, the priests of the temple, along with the Mogul
Emperor Aurangzeb, held a special rite and infused the gem with a negative consciousness
or emotional pattern. Since that time, every owner of the gem, or even those who have
handled it, have been subject to misfortune, tragedy or violent death. Even after the
original Great Blue was cut into pieces, the Hope remaining as the largest, the curse has
followed every piece, even to the present.
Interestingly, tests have shown that the Hope Diamond and its sister stones are the only
blue diamonds in the world which glow like red-hot coals when exposed to ultraviolet
light, and can conduct an inordinate amount of electricity.
As Joseph Goodavage queried concerning the Hope, "Is the Hope Diamond radiating some
strange, undiscovered kind of energy, something apart from the electromagnetic spectrum as
we know it?" Dr. George Switzer, chief mineralogist for the Smithsonian Institute
commented, "All life is carbon based, and diamonds are the hardest, purest, most
densely compacted form of carbon. They also conduct electricity, so there may be some kind
of energy exchange between a human being and a diamond. I don't say there is but we're
just beginning to learn new things about radiation and magnetism. Who can predict how far
this knowledge will take us?"
Cursed gems are the exception to the rule, however, for in most respects, gems and
crystals are generally looked upon favorably, having properties for good luck, for
healing, and in aiding in psychic abilities. The positive magical quality of crystals
impressed themselves upon humankind far back in antiquity, for we find among Neanderthal
remains dating back to 70,000 B.C. collections of quartz stones and stone balls made of
quartz crystals. Pieces of crystal have also been found in megalithic cairns, and at New
Grange in southern Ireland, tiny pebbles of white granite quartz cover the entire mound
above the energy-chamber.
The Druids called certain coloured crystal forms ovus anguinum or glein neidr -- 'serpent
eggs' -- who believed were created by etheric serpents of energy beneath the earth and
conjugated together at the time of the midsummer sunrise. Such stones, worn about the
neck, had the power of projecting one's auric field to favorably influence the aura and
mind of anyone else who came within range.
Similarly, they understood that wearing crystals over certain acupuncture points of the
body aided in the healthy flow of physical and psychic energies. The Emperor Tsin Shi, who
reigned from 259-210 B.C., is said to have possessed at his palace at Hein-Yang in Shensi
a mirror-like stone of crystal which 'illuminated the bones of the body' when a person
stepped behind it. It was rectangular in shape, measuring four feet by five feet nine
inches, and glowed on both sides. The placing of the hand over the heart somehow activated
the stone, whereby the patient's inner parts were clearly portrayed, and diagnosis of
illness could be obtained.
Two hundred and fifty years earlier, the Hindu sage Jivaka also had a large 'jewel' which
'illuminated the body like a lamp lights up a house,' and from which nothing within could
be hidden by any intervening obstacle. In like fashion, the medicine men of the Hopi
Indians of the American Southwest use crystals to observe the energy centres of the body,
and can tell when physical currents are impeded, causing ill health. These crystals, too,
have the power, when concentrated upon, to be energizers in influencing events, including
forestalling bad weather.
A third of a world away, on the Isle of Skye near Ireland, is a chapel dedicated to St.
Columbus, and on the altar is a round crystalline blue stone held sacred to weather and
health. Local fishermen, to appease contrary winds, bathe this stone with water and claim
good results. The stone has also been applied to peoples' sides to relieve cramps.
A third of the world away more, among the Australian aborigines of north Queensland on the
Prosperine River, quarts crystals are used by the shamans to cause rain to fall. At other
times, in special initiation ceremonies the aboriginal shamans are sprinkled with quartz
beads mixed with water, and are thus able to see and speak briefly with spirit beings,
exercise telepathy, and cure maladies.
The Ancients appear to have possessed sophisticated methods of growing and shaping
crystals, in order to produce gems with specific magical properties. There are three major
axis of crystal growth which can develop into any one of seven geometric systems, with
lattices and facets in different ratios, producing 230 groups and variations, each one
specializing in organising, redirecting, separating, concentrating or converting applied
energies.
In gem cutting, odd number facets aid in healing, while even number facets create the best
energizers. In colour, red, yellow, and orange stones produce energy; clear and aquamarine
stones are healers; and lavender and blue-violet stones create tranquil, relaxing effects.
In crystal growth, combinations of light intensity, light colour, electric current, sound,
the direction of these, plus the shape and size (frequency pattern) of the container or
room, will all affect the final characteristics and energy potentials of a desired stone.
Recent experiments, for example, have shown that crystals grow five times faster when
their supersaturated solution is subjected to frequencies of 10 to 100 cycles a second.
Manly P. Hall and other students of esoteric wisdom have also noted that many ancient
crystals were produced by 'zodiacal formulae' grown at specific times, when the sun, moon
and planets were in special heavenly positions. During the growth process, crystals are
also highly susceptible to consciousness imprinting, whereby the meditations,
through-patterns, healing energy or bioelectric field identity of the grower may be
enjoined within the crystalline structure and memory.
Writer and researcher A.H. Fry tells of his experience with a woman who produced a special
copper alloy by alchemically subjecting the ore to solutions of carbon and electric
current, and then grew a crystal from the results. The crystal, Fry reported, possessed
electrical resistance factors quite different from ordinary copper, and seemed to have
tiny microscopic 'wires' embedded within it. When he attached an electrometer to the
crystal, he was surprised to find it was also alive; it produced a pattern similar to that
of a living plant, and reacted to outside physical and mental disturbances in the same way
as Cleve Backster's experiments using a polygraph.
Fry, commenting on the Ancients' use of crystals in general, stated: "Legends
occasionally mention crystals that could render invisibility (such as the one Apollonius
of Tyana used before the Roman Emperor) and even cause weightlessness. They even used
crystals to discover how to enter and escape time by negotiating a ninety degree angle
phase shift. Was it all in the size and shape? Or did it involve mental forces and special
'live' qualities within the crystal?'
Fry also made this interesting observation, which relates the use of crystals to the
Crystal of the Earth itself, and to ourselves, whose bodies are also made of crystalline
forms: 'It is a literal fact that most of our planet is made up of crystals of specific
shapes. The present energy problems will be a thing of the past when we start using the
wondrous potential of these shapes. Even the food we eat must be converted to tiny
crystalline shapes before it can pass through the tissue walls. The ancient Central
American word for blood was chalchuihatl, and it literally meant, 'water of precious
stones'.