Crystals by Rachelle Charman

Having spent many years workling at a New Age bookstore, you can imagine that my house is full of crystals. I love the things.

My connection to them runs even deeper than that. My grandfather was a keen amateur geologist and lapidarist, and he travelled all over Australia finding rare and beautiful stones which he would bring home and polish. Many of these are in my collection as well, creating a deeper familial connection to thse special gems. And, as Australian author Rachelle Charman would suggest, my connections with crystals may go back even further - all the way back to past loves.

In the past decades crystal skulls, too, have been discovered across South America that have had quite an impact on the popular imagination, and they are said to possess the most extraordinary healing and spiritual properties.  These objects have intrigued me since I was a child, when someone gave me a book of the supernatural which contained a page about them. Of course, much scandal surrounds their authenticity, but this only makes them all the more wonderful for me. In Cambodia, a country I have spending quite a bit of time in recently, I discovered really fine small sculptures of the Buddha  rendered in local quartz that were exceptionally beautiful and, to me at least, magnetic.





Crystals: Understand and Connect to the Medicine and Healing of Crystals is an exquisitely illustrated new book from Rockpool Publishing, and I think it has already become the most beautiful guide to the use and meanings of crystals. The perspective of its author is also unique. Rachelle Charman was once a marketing professional in the New Age world, but she felt called to explore her connection with crystals, finally establishing her own  Academy of Crystal Awakening. This book is the distillation of her work teaching about the metaphysical properties of crystals and how they can best be prepared, kept and used in order to strengthen their healing energy.

Now, you can be as cynical as you want, but there's no denying that crystals, gems and precious stones draw us in, even if it is only because of their simple beauty. And as Charman points out, crystals do have a scientific and technical application, so to wonder if perhaps their vibrational capcaities mightn't be applied more broadly is not entirely without basis. As in all these matters, I remain an enchanted agnostic. I know that I am ineluctably drawn to certain stones, and am willing to concede that perhaps there is a mysterious reason for this that goes beyond simple aesthetics. For the record, those stones are Tiger's Eye, Rose Quartz Moonstone and Turquoise - just in case you had your Christmas gift list handy. Here's what the book has to say about Tiger's Eye, items of which I seek out wherever I am in the world:






The book contains a full illustrated guide to crystals and their properties as well as case studies of people who swear to the efficacy of crystal therapy. 

Details: Crystals: Understand and Connect to the Medicine and Healing of Crystals by Rachelle Charman, published by Rockpool Publishing

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