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Crystal healing is a Pseudoscience alternative-medicine practice that uses Gemstone and crystals such as quartz, agate, amethyst or opal. Despite the common use of the term "crystal", many popular stones used in crystal healing, such as obsidian, are not technically crystals. Adherents of the practice claim that these have healing powers, but there is no scientific basis for this claim.Regal, Brian. (2009). Pseudoscience: A Critical Encyclopedia. Greenwood. p. 51. Practitioners of crystal healing believe they can boost low energy, prevent bad energy, release blocked energy, and transform a body's aura. There is no evidence that crystal healing has any greater effect upon the body than any other placebo.
While the practice is popular, it fosters commercial demand for crystals, which can result in environmental damage and exploitative Child labour to mine the crystals. Several popular crystals used by believers such as shungite frequently contain heavy metals and present toxicity risks to those handling them for extended periods or ingesting substances which were in contact with the crystals.
The Ancient Greeks assigned many properties to crystals. The word 'crystal' is derived from the Greek word "krýstallos" which translates to "ice". The Ancient Greeks believed that clear quartz crystals were a water that had frozen to the point where it would remain in its solid form.
Precious stones have been thought of as objects that can aid in healing—in a practice known as lapidary medicine—by various cultures. (2025). 9781845456726, Berghahn Books. ISBN 9781845456726 The Hopi Native Americans of Arizona use quartz crystals to assist in diagnosing illnesses. The alleged medicinal properties of precious stones, as well as other powers they were believed to hold, were collected in texts known as lapidaries.
India, China, Brazil, and Madagascar are the main producers of crystals. In Madagascar, one of the sources of crystals, most crystals are mined in Mining accident, with parents and children working together to dig crystals from pits and tunnels they dig with shovels. The miners are usually paid between 17 and 23 cents per kilogram for Quartz (≈ 8 - 11 cents per pound). The miner's income may be just 0.1% of the final retail price. Some people in the industry say that the low pay for miners is because customers in developed countries want low retail prices; others say that it is due to shops in developed countries wanting to be more profitable.
In 1999, researchers French and Williams conducted a study to investigate the power of crystals compared with a placebo. Eighty volunteers were asked to meditate with either a quartz crystal or a placebo stone, which was indistinguishable from quartz. Many participants reported feeling typical "crystal effects"; however, this was irrespective of whether the crystals were real or a placebo. In 2001 Christopher French, head of the anomalistic psychology research unit at the University of London and colleagues from Goldsmiths College outlined their study of crystal healing at the British Psychological Society Centenary Annual Conference, concluding: "There is no evidence that crystal healing works over and above a placebo effect."
Crystal healing effects could also be attributed to confirmation bias (which occurs when the believers want the practice to be true and see only things that back up that desire).
Crystal healing techniques are also practiced on animals, although some veterinary organizations, such as the British Veterinary Association, have warned that these methods are not scientifically proven and state that people should seek the advice of a vet before using alternative techniques.
Crystal healing proponents and 5G conspiracy theorists have falsely claimed that shungite may promote health by absorbing 5G radiation.
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