I was listening to the conversation between two people at the office a while back: the lady was explaining how good she felt after a session at a crystal healer she goes to while the other was politely listening to her.
She went on explaining that she bought a few crystals that she displayed, and how powerful some can be, for instance how putting one in a bottle will really purify the water in it, blah blah blah…
Like any pseudo-science, there is a pattern of beliefs in the crystal-healing lovers that is never associated with strong science and evidence but always sided on alternative thinking and faith-based belief systems:
- claiming new age values or, on the contrary, traditional wisdom as reference;
- not being able to cite reputable scientific sources for their finding;
- thinking that their beliefs are too ‘cutting edge’ or ‘dangerous’ for the ’scientific establishment’
- making really outlandish claims;
- proposing no rational explanation for the supposed powers of crystals, relying on even more outlandish unnatural phenomena instead;
- making unverified and untested claims ();
- making claims that defy anything testable (”helps tune your vibration”, whatever that is);
- attributing importance to the wrong properties, such as deriving healing benefits based on the name rather than chemical or physical properties, like believing that bloodstone (a type of quartz with iron impurities that make it reddish) being good for your heart and blood system, just because it is red…
If you’ are making claims that some unknown, invisible power, has a physical effect on a physical object or person, then you’re making a scientifically testable claim and you have to provide evidence that what you claim is so.
If a car salesman tells you that the car he’s trying to sell you can actually fly, you’ll ask for a proof before you part with your cash.
Unfortunately, too many people don’t have the same healthy skepticism when it comes to more important things, like their health, and are ready to accept something as absurd as putting a piece of crystal near their computer to protect them against its ‘harmful effects’.
How’s that supposed to work? How those claiming this manage to get that knowledge?
It’s often harmless, but the problem is that believing in the wrong things can damage your health and delay proper treatment, in some cases, until it’s actually too late.
So when someone tells you that putting a crystal of quartz in your water helps purify it, you have to ask them the question: what does it mean?
And if they don’t quite understand the question, make it more explicit: what does it really do? How does it work? Does it kill bacteria? Does it remove dangerous chemicals? What are the limits of the efficacy of the crystal? Does the shape of the crystal, its size, its provenance, its chemical composition, its crystalline structure, its impurities, it colour, influence the treatment? How fast does it act, how long does it last? What does ‘purify’ mean? Will it clean water from your toilet? Will it kill viruses?
In the end, you have to wonder why such miraculous crystals are not already solving the problem of clean water for half the population of the world who lack access to it…
