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.
Luck, easing worry, and good fortune in money and play.
More ▾Less ▴
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
Water: rinse OKSalt: avoidSunlight: fine
Splits along its cleavage if knocked; a quick rinse is fine, but do not soak it.
Caution: Contains copper: never put it in drinking water or make elixirs with it, and do not breathe its dust.
More ▾Less ▴
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.
Beryl (coloured by chromium) · hardness 7.5–8 · ♀ Venus · Water / Earth · May birthstone
Love, loyalty and foresight; the stone of Venus.
More ▾Less ▴
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.
Water: keep drySalt: avoidSunlight: fine
Most emeralds are treated with oil — don't soak them.
Green aventurine
Easy to handle
Quartz with flakes of fuchsite mica · hardness 6.5–7 · ♀ Venus · Water / Earth
Luck, opportunity and growth; in modern practice a gambler's and gardener's stone.
More ▾Less ▴
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
Water: rinse OKSalt: avoidSunlight: fades
Jade
Easy to handle
Nephrite or jadeite · hardness 6–7 · ♀ Venus · Water / Earth
Harmony, long life, good fortune and friendship.
More ▾Less ▴
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
Water: rinse OKSalt: avoidSunlight: fine
Kunzite
Easy to handle
Spodumene (pink to lilac) · hardness 6.5–7 · ♀ Venus · Water / Earth
Gentle love, compassion and calm.
More ▾Less ▴
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
Venusian magic: love, beauty, growth and protection.
Caution: A toxic copper mineral: never use it in gem waters, and never sand, cut or polish it — the dust is harmful. Wash your hands after handling raw pieces.
More ▾Less ▴
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.
Caution: Soft and dissolves in acids, even vinegar; keep it dry and do not use it in elixirs.
More ▾Less ▴
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.
Self-love, friendship, reconciliation and a calm heart.
More ▾Less ▴
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
Water: rinse OKSalt: 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
0 of 4 done
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.