◈Crystals & Stones

Pliny says it was named after the river Achates in Sicily, where it was first found. Banded “eye” agates were worn against the evil eye throughout the ancient world.

Good for

Protection, Grounding, Focus & study

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Brightly coloured agates are usually dyed.

Named after the Amazon river, though no amazonite is known to come from there. The ancient Egyptians carved it into beads and amulets, and it appears in the jewellery buried with Tutankhamun.

Modern association · Called the “gambler’s stone” in modern books, and linked to the heart and throat chakras.

Good for

Luck, Calm, Prosperity

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Splits along its cleavage if knocked; a quick rinse is fine, but do not soak it.

The Greeks called it elektron; rubbed, it attracts straw and dust — the origin of our word “electricity”. Myth made it the tears of the sisters of Phaethon, and Baltic amber was traded across Europe for thousands of years.

Good for

Protection, Calm, Luck

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water

Its Greek name, a-methystos, means “not drunk”: it was believed to prevent drunkenness, and wine cups were carved from it. Medieval bishops wore amethyst rings as a sign of sober piety.

Modern association · Crown and third-eye chakras.

Good for

Calm, Sleep & dreams, Intuition & divination

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt

Whitby legend says St Hilda turned the snakes of the place to stone — and local carvers obliged by adding snakes' heads to the fossils. In Nepal and India, black ammonites from the Gandaki river (shaligrams) are worshipped as forms of Vishnu.

Good for

Grounding, Protection, Luck

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Its name is Latin for “sea water”. Sailors carried it as a charm against storms and drowning.

Good for

Calm, Protection, Focus & study

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Ground for centuries as a blue pigment in European painting, a cheaper blue than ultramarine made from lapis lazuli. As it weathers it slowly turns into green malachite, and the two are often found together.

Modern association · Linked in modern books to the third-eye chakra.

Good for

Intuition & divination, Focus & study

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Warmed tourmaline becomes electrically charged and attracts ash; Dutch traders called it aschentrekker, “ash-puller”, and used it to clean their pipes.

Good for

Protection, Grounding

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

Pliny's heliotrope, “sun-turner”: dropped in water, it was said to turn the Sun's reflection red, and with the herb heliotrope to make its wearer invisible. Christians later saw its red spots as drops of Christ's blood.

Good for

Courage & energy, Protection

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Carved into seals and amulets since ancient Egypt. Romans favoured it for signet rings because sealing wax does not stick to it.

Modern association · Sacral chakra.

Good for

Courage & energy, Protection

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Named from the Latin caelestis, “heavenly”, for its pale sky-blue. It is the chief ore of strontium, the element that colours fireworks red.

Modern association · Popular in modern practice as an “angel stone”.

Good for

Calm, Sleep & dreams, Intuition & divination

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight

Apple-green chalcedony, coloured by a trace of nickel. Frederick the Great of Prussia loved it and used it to decorate his palace of Sanssouci.

Good for

Love & friendship, Luck, Calm

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water

Its colour can fade in strong sun or heat.

Named from the French citron, “lemon”. Natural citrine is rare: most citrine on sale is amethyst or smoky quartz that has been heated until it turns yellow-orange.

Modern association · Solar plexus chakra.

Good for

Prosperity, Courage & energy, Focus & study

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water

The Greeks called it krystallos, “ice”, and Pliny believed it was water frozen so hard that it could never melt. Agrippa gives crystal to the Moon. Crystal spheres were prized for scrying — John Dee and Edward Kelley used a crystal “shew-stone” in the 1580s, and Victorian crystal gazing revived the art.

Modern association · Called the “master healer” in modern crystal books; linked with every chakra.

Good for

Focus & study, Intuition & divination, Protection

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

Pliny says branches of coral were hung round babies' necks as an amulet. Italian horn-shaped coral charms are still worn against the evil eye.

Good for

Protection, Love & friendship

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight

In India

Red coral is the gem of Mars (Maṅgala) in the navaratna.

From Greek adamas, “unconquerable”. Pliny claimed it could be broken only after soaking in warm goat's blood. Before the 15th century diamonds were rarely cut, and were valued for their hardness more than their sparkle.

Good for

Courage & energy, Protection, Focus & study

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

In India

The gem of Venus (Śukra) in the navaratna.

Pliny wrote that nothing is greener, and that gazing at emeralds rests tired eyes; the emperor Nero is said to have watched the gladiators in a polished emerald. Egypt's ancient emerald mines lay in the desert near the Red Sea.

Good for

Love & friendship, Intuition & divination

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

In India

The gem of Mercury (Budha) in the navaratna.

Most emeralds are treated with oil — don't soak them.

Struck against iron, it gives fire. Neolithic flint arrowheads turned up by the plough were called “elf-shot” in Scotland and Ireland, blamed for sudden illness in cattle — and kept as amulets against it.

Good for

Protection, Courage & energy

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

It gave its name to fluorescence, the glow some minerals show under ultraviolet light. Derbyshire's banded Blue John has been carved into vases and bowls since the 18th century.

Good for

Focus & study, Calm

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water

Soft and splits easily.

Named from the Latin granatum, “pomegranate”, for its seed-like red crystals. Many “carbuncles” of the old texts were garnets; travellers wore them for protection, and the Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire Hoard glitters with thousands of them.

Good for

Courage & energy, Protection, Love & friendship

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

In India

Its kin, the hessonite garnet, is the gem of Rāhu, the Moon's rising node, in the navaratna.

Named after aventurine glass (goldstone), said to have been discovered a ventura — by chance — in a Venetian glassworks.

Good for

Luck, Prosperity, Calm

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water

Found on beaches and riverbeds. Hung on a bedpost or stable door, it kept away witches and nightmares — horses ridden by night-hags were said to be found sweating in their stalls. Looking through the hole was said to reveal fairies.

Good for

Protection, Intuition & divination, Sleep & dreams

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

From Greek haima, “blood”: it leaves a red streak, and ground to red ochre it is among the oldest pigments, used in cave paintings and burials. Ancient lapidaries prescribed it to stop bleeding.

Good for

Grounding, Courage & energy, Protection

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Most shiny, magnetic “hematite” beads are a man-made material (hematine).

Named after Henry How, the Nova Scotia chemist and geologist who described it in 1868. It takes dye easily, so a good deal of the “turquoise” sold today is dyed howlite.

Good for

Calm, Sleep & dreams

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Porous and soft; dyed pieces may bleed colour when wet.

Clear calcite doubles everything seen through it. Experiments suggest it could have been the Vikings' “sunstone” for finding the Sun through cloud — and a piece was found among the navigation gear of a 16th-century English shipwreck off Alderney.

Good for

Focus & study, Intuition & divination

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Soft and splits easily; dissolves in acids, even vinegar.

Revered in China for thousands of years as the stone of virtue and long life. The name comes from Spanish piedra de ijada, “stone of the loin”, believed to cure kidney pain. The Māori carve nephrite (pounamu) into treasured heirlooms.

Good for

Love & friendship, Luck, Calm, Protection

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Found on the Yorkshire coast at Whitby and worked since the Bronze Age. Pliny says burning jet drove away serpents. After Prince Albert's death in 1861, Queen Victoria's mourning made Whitby jet the height of fashion.

Good for

Protection, Grounding

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Soft — store it apart from harder stones. Much “jet” is black glass (“French jet”) or plastic.

Named in 1903 after George Frederick Kunz, Tiffany's gem expert and author of The Curious Lore of Precious Stones. Its colour fades in sunlight, so it is called the “evening stone”.

Good for

Love & friendship, Calm

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water

Named after Labrador in Canada, where Moravian missionaries found it around 1770. Its flashes of blue, green and gold — labradorescence — come from light scattering between thin layers inside the crystal.

Good for

Intuition & divination, Protection

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Mined in Afghanistan for over 6,000 years and treasured in Egypt and Mesopotamia — Tutankhamun's mask is inlaid with it. Ground, it made ultramarine, the painters' blue that cost more than gold. Pliny's “sapphire”, “sprinkled with gold”, was this stone.

Modern association · Throat and third-eye chakras.

Good for

Intuition & divination, Focus & study

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

The natural magnet. Medieval lapidaries said it could reconcile husbands and wives and reveal an unfaithful spouse. In American hoodoo, lodestones are kept in pairs and “fed” with iron filings to draw love or money.

Good for

Love & friendship, Prosperity, Luck

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Keep it dry: it rusts.

Ground to make the green eye-paint of ancient Egypt. In Russia the malachite of the Urals panelled whole rooms, such as the Malachite Room of the Winter Palace.

Good for

Protection, Love & friendship

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Natural glass formed when a meteorite struck what is now southern Germany about 15 million years ago, throwing molten rock into Bohemia and Moravia. Its fame as a “stone of transformation” is recent.

Good for

Intuition & divination, Focus & study

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Its floating, milky light was thought to wax and wane with the Moon. In India it is a sacred stone and a traditional gift between lovers.

Modern association · Linked with the sacral and crown chakras and with women's cycles.

Good for

Intuition & divination, Love & friendship, Sleep & dreams

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Polished obsidian made the mirrors of the Aztec god Tezcatlipoca, “Smoking Mirror”. The black mirror John Dee used for scrying, now in the British Museum, is Aztec obsidian.

Good for

Protection, Grounding, Intuition & divination

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

Its name is Greek for “fingernail”. Medieval lapidaries warned that onyx brought melancholy, quarrels and bad dreams — Saturn's stone indeed.

Good for

Protection, Grounding

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Most black “onyx” sold is dyed chalcedony.

Pliny admired it for showing the fire of the carbuncle, the purple of amethyst and the green of emerald at once. Its 19th-century reputation for bad luck came largely from Walter Scott's novel Anne of Geierstein (1829).

Good for

Intuition & divination, Luck, Love & friendship

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water

Pliny tells how Cleopatra won a wager by dissolving a priceless pearl in vinegar and drinking it. Some ancient writers believed pearls formed from dew and moonlight — the Moon's own gem.

Good for

Love & friendship, Calm, Intuition & divination

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight

In India

The gem of the Moon (Chandra) in the navaratna.

Mined for over 3,000 years on Zabargad, St John's Island, in the Red Sea. The “chrysolite” of old texts was often peridot; set in gold, it was said to drive away terrors of the night.

Good for

Protection, Prosperity, Calm

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Its name comes from Greek pyr, “fire”, because it strikes sparks against steel or flint. The Aztecs and Maya polished it into mirrors.

Good for

Prosperity, Protection, Courage & energy

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Jasper was set in the high priest's breastplate and is the first foundation stone of the heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation 21. Egyptian “knot of Isis” amulets were often carved from red jasper.

Good for

Courage & energy, Grounding, Protection

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

Its name is Greek for “rose-coloured”. The banded pink stone from Argentina is sold as “Inca rose”, and rhodochrosite is that country's national gemstone.

Modern association · Linked in modern books to the heart chakra.

Good for

Love & friendship, Calm

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

From the Greek rhodon, “rose”. Mined in the Ural Mountains, it was prized in imperial Russia for carved bowls, vases and ornaments.

Modern association · Linked in modern books to the heart chakra.

Good for

Love & friendship, Calm, Grounding

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Pink quartz has been carved since antiquity, but its reputation as the stone of love is mostly a 20th-century association, drawn from its gentle colour — a good example of how correspondences grow.

Modern association · Heart chakra.

Good for

Love & friendship, Calm

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water

In Sanskrit ratnaraj, “king of gems”. Kunz records that Burmese warriors set rubies under their skin to make themselves invulnerable.

Good for

Courage & energy, Love & friendship, Protection

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

In India

The gem of the Sun (Sūrya) in the navaratna, the Hindu set of nine, and the one set at its centre.

Medieval lapidaries made it the stone of chastity, peace and piety, and it was set in bishops' rings. The ancients' “sapphire”, though, was mostly lapis lazuli.

Good for

Focus & study, Intuition & divination, Protection

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt, an hour of morning sun

In India

Blue sapphire is the gem of Saturn (Śani) in the navaratna, and yellow sapphire is Jupiter's (Guru).

Named after Selene, the Moon. It is the same mineral as plaster of Paris, and forms the giant crystals of the Naica caves in Mexico.

Good for

Calm, Focus & study, Sleep & dreams

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, an hour of morning sun

Dissolves in water and scratches with a fingernail — keep it dry.

Its smoke comes from natural radiation in the surrounding rock. In Scotland it is the cairngorm, set in the brooches and dirks of Highland dress.

Modern association · Root chakra.

Good for

Grounding, Protection, Calm

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, resting on dry salt

Named in 1811 for the sodium it contains. It is often mistaken for lapis lazuli, but it lacks lapis's golden flecks of pyrite and leaves a white streak where lapis leaves a blue one.

Modern association · Modern crystal books link it to the throat chakra and to logic.

Good for

Focus & study, Calm, Intuition & divination

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Its crystals naturally grow in crosses. Legends from Virginia call them “fairy stones”: the tears of fairies on hearing of Christ's death, turned to stone crosses. They are carried as charms for good luck.

Good for

Protection, Luck

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Its glitter comes from tiny plates of copper or haematite. The Vikings' “sunstone”, used to find the Sun through cloud, was probably not this stone but clear Iceland spar.

Good for

Courage & energy, Luck, Prosperity

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Its rolling band of light (chatoyancy, from the French for “cat's eye”) made it a natural charm against the evil eye — an eye that watches back.

Modern association · Solar plexus chakra.

Good for

Courage & energy, Protection, Prosperity, Focus & study

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Pliny's topazos came from an island in the Red Sea and was probably peridot. Medieval writers said topaz could cool boiling water and calm anger.

Good for

Courage & energy, Focus & study, Calm

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight, a rinse in running water, an hour of morning sun

Its name means “Turkish stone”, after the trade route that brought it to Europe from Persia. It was said to change colour when its wearer was ill or in danger, and is sacred to many peoples of the American Southwest.

Good for

Protection, Luck

Cleanse with

incense smoke, moonlight