Another Healie-Feelie Book

The recent flood in my basement ruined a perfectly good book. Actually, the book was perfectly awful: it is Healing Crystals and Gemstones: From Amethyst to Zircon by Flora Peschek-Böhmer and Gisela Schreiber. (I won't say how it came to be in my basement, but I will say that I don't own it.)

This book is typical of the "healing crystal" literature: a lack of understanding of basic geology and chemistry, combined with healing claims that are not substantiated in any way, resulting in dangerous advice for people with serious health conditions.

The book is littered with errors. Even the very first sentence is incorrect, when it claims that all gemstones originate from hot magma. (Opal, for example, can be sedimentary.) The authors claim "jasper ... always has a trigonal structure", when in fact jasper essentially doesn't form crystals at all. On page 150, the authors claim that fluorite is "also known as feldspar", when in fact feldspar is an entirely different mineral. On page 75, the authors confuse native antimony with the mineral stibnite, which is actually antimony sulfide. On page 85 the authors claim that that aragonite is silicon dioxide, not calcium carbonate. The mineral Charoite is consistently misspelled as "Chaorite". They claim that the crystal structure of Herkimer diamonds is similar to that of real diamond, when in fact they crystallize in completely different systems. They claim that kunzite is "aluminum acetate-lithium", when in fact it is a lithium aluminum silicate; no acetate at all is contained in it. They claim that Magnesite "consists almost entirely of pure magnesium", when in fact it is just magnesium carbonate. They claim that Magnesite "was first discovered in Africa", when in fact its co-type localities are in Greece and Italy.

The authors recommend the use of various minerals without noting health problems associated with them. For example, the authors recommend actinolite to stimulate "the inner organs such as the liver and the kidneys", but fail to note that the tiny fibers of actinolite have been associated with severe and potentially life-threatening respiratory disorders. They recommend using orpiment "externally as a powder to treat sexual disorders", but this is not a good idea, as orpiment is arsenic sulfide.

But the most serious problem with the book is the repeated and unsubstantiated health claims, all made without a single reference to any study in support of them. Someone with serious health problems might be persuaded to use the entirely ineffective remedies suggested in this book instead of seeking effective medical treatment. Cancer is unlikely to be helped by toumaline, sugilite, or lapis lazuli. High blood pressure cannot be improved with sodalite, lapis, or chrysoprase. Diabetes sufferers will find no relief with citrine or pyrite. Kidney ailments will not be improved with jade. For ulcers you should see your family doctor, not wear jasper or topaz.

Ahh, well, I doubt any of this will convince the healie-feelie crowd. When they're done with this, they can move on to the other immortal works of Flora Peschek-Böhmer, such as Urine Therapy: Nature's Elixir for Good Health. Urine therapy, in case you didn't know, consists of drinking your own urine. Great idea! You can use it to wash down some crystals of orpiment.

Debunking Crystal Healing

In a previous post on this blog, I discussed one of the main texts about crystal healing --- Melody's Love is In the Earth --- and showed that some of the advice presented there was actually dangerous.

Today, I'll discuss the evidence against crystal healing.

Crystal healers allege that crystals have "energy" that can be sensed. They report sensations such as warmth or tingling when a crystal is held in the hand, and that crystals can interact with energy in the body, with resultant medical effects. For example, this web page qujotes Marcel Vogel as saying "The crystal is a neutral object whose inner structure exhibits a state of perfection and balance. … Like a laser, it radiates energy in a coherent, highly concentrated form, and this energy may be transmitted into objects or people at will. … With proper training, a healer using a crystal can release negative thoughtforms which have taken shape as disease patterns."

Is there any actual evidence for this view? Although crystal healers like to call their practice "scientific", they never cite any controlled scientific studies supporting their claims. (Indeed, Melody reports that many of her claims were "channeled".)

The only scientific studies I have been able to find on the topic of crystal healing are by Christopher French and his colleagues at Goldsmiths College, University of London. These studies do not seem to be available on the web, although there is a news article here. Since they do not seem to be well known, I summarize the results here.

In a 1999 paper presented at the Sixth European Congress of Psychology in Rome, French and Lynn Williams gave a paper entitled "Crystal clear: paranormal powers, placebo, or priming?" In this paper they explored the possibility that the sensations that crystal practitioners report may be due, in part, to "priming"; that is, expecting certain sensations after being told or reading about them in reference books. They used 80 volunteers, half of which were male. The volunteers included customers from a New Age store, as well as undergraduates and non-students. Participants were given either a natural quartz crystal to hold, or a fake crystal made of glass. They were asked to report sensations such as tingling, heat, relaxation, and mood change. Those who had been "primed" to expect certain sensations reported these sensations more frequently (p = .008) than those who had not been primed. However, there was no difference in effects reported between those who handled the real crystal and those who handled the fake crystal.

French repeated the study with Hayley O'Donnell and Williams in a paper presented to the British Psychological Society Centary Annual Conference in Glasgow in 2001. Part of the motivation for the replication was that the original study was not double-blind, as the experimenter (Wiliams) was aware of which crystals were real and fake. The 2001 study was double-blind. This time, the "priming" did not have a significant effect, but once again, there was no difference in effects reported between real and fake crystals. The study concludes "...the fact that the same effects were found with both genuine and fake crystals undermines any claims that crystals have the mysterious powers which they are claimed to have. Instead, the power of suggestion, either explicit or implicit, seems to be the not-so-mysterious power that may convince many that crystals have the potential to work miracles".

I doubt these studies will convince crystal healers, any more than Emily Rosa's debunking of therapeutic touch has affected that practice.