54 crystals and stones with their planets, history and lore from Pliny to the Victorians, magical uses, care (water, salt, sunlight) and safety — with a stone of the day, your birthstone, when to charge each one, the hardness scale, and your own collection with its gaps and storage advice. The stones that belong to the Hindu navaratna say which planet they serve. Every stone is set on the Mohs scale of hardness, with a scratch test between any two, and a quartz crystal can be turned in the hand and coloured as each of the quartz family, from rock crystal to flint.
Quartz (purple, coloured by iron) · hardness 7 · ♃ Jupiter · Air / Fire · February birthstone
Calm, sober judgement, meditation and dreams; kept under the pillow for restful sleep.
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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
Water: rinse OKSalt: OKSunlight: fades
Lapis lazuli
Handle with care
A rock of lazurite, calcite and pyrite · hardness 5–5.5 · ♃ Jupiter · Air / Fire · December birthstone
Wisdom, truth, royalty and speaking well.
Caution: Porous: no soaking or salt. Do not use in gem waters (it contains pyrite).
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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
Water: keep drySalt: avoidSunlight: fine
Sapphire
Easy to handle
Corundum (coloured by iron and titanium) · hardness 9 · ♃ Jupiter · Air / Fire · September birthstone
Wisdom, truth, devotion and calm authority.
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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).
Water: rinse OKSalt: OKSunlight: fine
Sodalite
Easy to handle
Sodalite (sodium aluminium silicate with chlorine) · hardness 5.5–6 · ♃ Jupiter · Air / Fire
Calm, orderly thinking, clear speech and study.
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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
Water: rinse OKSalt: avoidSunlight: fine
Turquoise
Handle with care
Hydrated copper aluminium phosphate · hardness 5–6 · ♃ Jupiter · Air / Fire · December birthstone
Protection on journeys, luck and friendship.
Caution: Porous: oils, perfume and sunlight change its colour. A copper mineral — not for gem waters. Dyed howlite and plastic are common imitations.
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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
Water: keep drySalt: avoidSunlight: fades
How hard is each stone?
In 1812 Friedrich Mohs ranked minerals by which will scratch which, from talc at 1 to diamond at 10. A stone scratches anything softer than itself, which is why soft stones are kept apart from hard ones. Every stone in the library is set on the scale below.
Rest on a dot to see the stone; tap it to look it up.
THE SCRATCH TEST
Amethyst scratches Malachite, and not the other way: keep malachite in its own pouch.
Glass and a steel knife are about 5.5, so any stone softer than that can be marked by a jar, a blade or the dust of quartz. ★ marks the stones in your collection. Test only on a hidden spot, or better, don't: the scale is for keeping stones safe, not for marking them.
One mineral, many stones
Quartz is silicon dioxide, grown as a six-sided crystal with a point. Where the crystals are big enough to see, it gives rock crystal, amethyst, citrine, smoky and rose quartz; where they are too fine to see, chalcedony: agate, carnelian, jasper and flint. Turn the crystal, and choose a stone.
CRYSTALS YOU CAN SEE
TOO FINE TO SEE: CHALCEDONY
Rock crystal: pure silicon dioxide, clear as Pliny's 'eternal ice'.
SETS OF STONES IN OTHER TRADITIONS
The Hindu navaratna
Nine gems, one for each of the nine grahas.
Ruby is for the Sun, pearl the Moon, red coral Mars, emerald Mercury, yellow sapphire Jupiter, diamond Venus, blue sapphire Saturn, hessonite Rāhu and cat's eye Ketu.
They are set with the ruby in the centre. Sources give the outer order differently.
Sanskrit gem-lore is old: Varāhamihira's Bṛhat Saṃhitā, of the 6th century, has a chapter on gems. The planetary set is taught in the later astrological texts.
The stone is chosen from the birth chart, not by month.
WHERE IT DIFFERS The tool follows the planets of the West. Rāhu and Ketu, the Moon's nodes, have gems of their own.
Sources: Skyjems, “Hindu navaratna”
Safety. Stones are symbols and focuses for magic, not medicine. Never put toxic minerals — malachite, turquoise, lapis, pyrite and other metal ores — into water you will drink; keep small stones away from children and pets; and wear a mask if you ever cut or polish stone.
Lore from Pliny's Natural History (77 CE), the medieval lapidaries and G.F. Kunz's Curious Lore of Precious Stones (1913); “modern association” marks 20th-century ideas such as the chakra links. Planets follow the Correspondences tables. Learn more in Stones & Metals.
PRACTISE WITH IT
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A few things to do with this tool, from a first try to a habit. Each one you tick counts as practice for the day, towards your streak and milestones.
Kept in this browser. Notes you send to the journal are kept there as well.