What’s the difference if we work with manmade crystals or all-natural ones?
Although I can tell you what I prefer, I’d like to inform you of what the facts are, then empower you to experiment for yourself and then make your own decision. But be forewarned: this is an opinion piece because I often get asked what I think on this subject.
So, let’s start with the very definition of a crystal is (then we’ll get more into the manmade crystals):
a solid substance whose molecules are arranged in a highly ordered repeating pattern.
I’ll take that definition further to say that there are very specific vibrations that hold the molecules in that highly ordered pattern —
OR is it that the highly-ordered pattern is essentially “radiating” these very specific vibrations? Hmmm? Chicken or the egg paradox there.
Cymatics Rabbithole
Either way, we can prove those very specific vibrations do indeed exist… for at least certain circumstances… because we can measure their frequencies.
Ever heard of the science of Cymatics? Rather than try to verbally explain this I think it’s always best to just best to witness it. (This was one of my FAVORITE demos’ I used to do in my science classroom. Major nerd-out moment here!!):
Cool stuff, right?!? Super-important to note in that demo:
Did you notice how the geometric complexity increases as the frequency increases?
So, Cymatics visually shows us how energy naturally expresses itself through harmonics, frequencies, and wavelengths while organically embodying geometry as it’s building blueprint for matter (as in crystals!)
Energy is Programmed into Crystals
OK, so, energy is programmed into our crystals through the very vibrations influencing the order of their molecules. As well as the outward expression of the visible crystals.
This whole concept gets me thinking about how important the energy of the growth environment is to a crystal.
Since almost the beginning of time, for about 4.4 of its 4.6 billion years of existence, Mama Earth’s been very busy cooking up crystals in her enchanting and magical kitchen.
Earth with global network. Global Information Grid. World communication. Earth map from public domain visibleearth.nasa.gov. Render in 3ds max
And with all that time to perfect the crystal-growing process, I personally prefer to leave it up to Mother Earth to do her thing.
SIDE NOTE: Oh, how I would love it if we were somehow able to go back in time… way back and insert a camera probe into just one of Earth’s mystical crystal caves and SUPER fast-forward the entire process with time-lapse photography — what may take millions of years, to show us crystal growth in action! How cool would that be?
MY OPINION [because I know you’ll ask]: No, I don’t think human scientists can do a better job with manmade crystals. I think our planet’s pretty much got this process down pat.
Are Lab-Created Crystals Dead?
To me, most if not all, lab-created specimens are energetically dead.
Yep. I said it.
I mean — the Earth’s been doing her mostly underground “crystal culinary work” in a protected environment; influenced by organic Source Energy, natural vibrations, and geological pulsations — totally void of human interference and synthetic manipulation of any sort. This is an ancient system that’s been refined over multi-millennia.
Well, not so any longer.
Before I go any further…
Please note: I’m not saying that anything man-made won’t work. And these devices/crystals might work GREAT! I just prefer a Mother Earth crystal or stone if there’s one that I can use in a practical easy way that can achieve the same or better results.
All sorts of crystals are now grown in labs; some to mimic natural minerals and some to create completely new species. Although some of these crystals do look strikingly beautiful, I think you’ve gathered by now that I always prefer a totally unaltered 100% Mother Earth crystal or stone to work with. I get a completely different and so much more powerful energy from an all-natural crystal.
A real true-blue non-lab-created crystal has been organically programmed, not by some scientist in a lab with synthetic frequencies, but by the aged naturally encoded vibrations of Earth, and ultimately by Source Energy itself.
I have a huge appreciation for all the synchro-mysticisms that need to take place: the necessary conditions and the precise environment required for natural crystal growth. The more ideal the environment, the more perfect the crystal growth. If one little thing gets messed up, that can greatly affect the kind of crystals you get.
I feel there’s an essential magical spark inherent when this happens on its own in nature that cannot be replicated.
So obviously, I prefer the all-natural crystals and choose not to collect or work with lab-created or man-altered varieties. Yes, that means even the gorgeously iridescent aura crystals are off my list.
Rock On with Your Bad Self
Please remember, as I always say; if you choose to work with manmade crystals + you enjoy them, that’s just fine. If it’s been working for you…“keep on ‘truckin’”. Don’t change a thing!
I just wanted to share WHY lab-created or altered crystals are so different from natural — then you’re informed and can make up your own mind whether to work with them or not.
If you didn’t already know this stuff, now you’re armed with a bit more info.
How do you feel about lab-created crystals? How do they compare for you with all-natural crystals? I’d love to hear in the comments below!
Crystal Blessings,
I am with you on this. I am not drawn to lab created stones, I do have some aura quartz, but only because I think they are pretty, I do not use them for any other reason than they are pretty. I agree, they for me have no energetic feels for me. Thank – you always for your info, always appreciate it. much love.
Those aura crystals can be really hard to resist!
Question: If lab crystals are created with the same material, essentially, would it help if they spent time in the ground or programed with sound?
Hey Carole, I feel that the process that the Earth goes through is so potent that it can’t be matched, however I like your ideas here. Certainly can’t hurt!
Yep couldn’t agree more with you, lab made really seems it would be nature’s frequencies interrupted, redirected, and generally just in wrong direction from a path that is already destined.
What are your thoughts on Opalite then? It is widely used and accepted in the crystal, meditating and natural healing community. I know there are natural varieties but they are much different than the beautiful white stone I know and love.
I compare crystals with wine. Mother Nature made crystals are like fine wine, well aged in the perfect conditions to add subtlety, nuances and to find the balance and harmony that a truly fine wine has. Man-made crystals are like wine in a box, technically still wine but without all the components and influences that allow it to transcend its mere chemistry to find a life of its own.
Ha! Ann!! That’s a great analogy. Perfect way to explain it!!!
I love this Ann. Great analogy indeed! Pretty much the essence of natural crystals are different than that of the lab grown. Natural crystals have a soul while the lab created ones do not. Just my take on this…
I do prefer to work with natural stones, and I lucked out, my brother and sister-in-law are both geologists, and are always there to help me make my crystal selections. However, I do own quite a few man made crystals, mostly of the “Aura” variety because I really love the look of them around my place. I think they really are visually beautiful. Though I don’t actually work with them the way I do my natural stones, they still bring me joy and happiness, which in turn raises my vibration. So in that sense…they do “work”, just in a completely different way.
No all fakes and Auras I keep away from. All natural for me. Thank you because I learned this from you.
I’m on your team, Margie. 🙂
Natalie, wow you lucked out there. Thanksgiving must be a geo-party!! ♥
I have done powerful energetic work with diamonds. At some point I contemplated the Buddhist Diamond Sutra which takes significant reflection. This sutra holds wisdom about the energetic nature of all things. The diamond itself not only expresses this at the crystal level – which is a form of life – but also traps within it very ancient energy. Diamonds can be three billion years old. The vibrations from ancient earth are very sacred. This makes diamonds and other gemstones very special and each one is unique, as is its potential with an individual. Many gems are worn by one person through a lifetime to help his or her soul. If one is conscious of it, it can be very powerful. A lab created stone has none of these properties.
I find it slightly irritating to call synthetic stones “lab” created. Makes them sound like some kind of mad scientist experiment, when a lot of the gem-quality synthetics are made industrially. It gets me wondering if this difference in feel (I’m not crystal-sensitive enough to feel, myself) has less to do with the fact that their growth didn’t happen deep in the earth than the fact that their “parents” aren’t “raising” them with love. Quartz, at least, can be grown in a typical ceramics kiln. If we can influence the shapes of snowflakes by meditating on the water they’re frozen from, what kind of quartz could come out of a “garden” tended in a loving environment?
“when a lot of the gem-quality synthetics are made industrially” True Wendy and some are made in a back warehouse and some indeed in a high tech lab. Just depends on what it’s for. But being a blog depends on the search engines and bots for people to find my info I have to use the keywords they’re using to locate this info. 😉 “has less to do with the fact that their growth didn’t happen deep in the earth than the fact that their “parents” aren’t “raising” them with love.” I love how you explain that!!
In my experience, natural crystals have a life and a consciousness. I talk about each of my crystals having a personality and people assume I’m joking but I’m really not. I can tell the difference in the energy given off by my natural amethyst point and another person’s. When it comes to manmade crystals I totally agree in your assessment that they are dead. They don’t have that life or consciousness, they’re just objects. Sure, everything has energy, but it’s not the same.
I totally agree Sara! ????%
OMG That video had me in tears. I’m still crying.
Yep, AMAZING. Right, Margie? ♥
Man made crystals fade in a relatively short time. You can feel the difference just holding them. They may be very pretty but that’s where it stops.
Mother made is the only way for me to go.
Some natural crystals do this too though. I have a blog post here on that:https://hibiscusmoon.com/crystals-fade-sunlight/ But you’re right about that, Fiona. 🙂
The only man-made crystals I use are the 12inh Quartz points which are attached to my Trinfinity 8
remote Therapy machine. I find they are amazing conduits for the programmes and Salfreggio tones
transferred through them….as an extra layer I play the process over my lovely 8kilo Natural Quartz.
The wonderful thing is that i am able to help my little grandson with his teething in Australia whilst
being all the way over here in the U.K.!
Well, that sounds very interesting, Marilyn!
it’s all comparative to me. i adore natural crystals, though we should understand where they’ve been sourced from, also, if we’re going down the puritan route. just sayin… a witch jeweler in my parts, described beautifully the blue lakes that a particular quartz came from for her latest ring, renowned & heavily popular, from Arkansas, & i just have to question this. it’s a stunner to be sure, & ok, it’s all about protection & divinity, looking through the mirror etc… but when a crystal comes from such a loathsomely reputed place of racially historic slave genocide, i just can’t see past that into a healing crystal. not changing the subject just stressing that this subject is HUGE & has many more layers to explore. in ethics & values, also. i have the rawest quartz from the beaches of a stunning remote island we visit here in NZ, stunning teeny ones from under natural hot springs, & also fossilized Amber from our ancient native Kauri trees… i don’t think any shop-pretty crystals, natural or man-made, compares one iota with those we can naturally harvest ourselves, from incredibly beautiful places of p e a c e. & speaking of man-made, whilst i get the arguments against, i beg to differ as far as my Rose Aura goes. she sings pretty beautifully actually, brightens my day with her beauty, & makes me feel the Angel connections of this year, & lifting our frequencies bc of that is healing in of itself. i believe crystals should be cleansed BY us, with our own sound, singing from the inside, to co-create, connect. alchemy is such a stunning example/metaphor of transmutation, together with the metals that have their own frequencies. so i see all arguments, but for me they need to dig deeper down in ;our’ soul connections with them, the whole picture.
Great points Liana, but if it’s a natural crystal, it was there long before any negative human interference from above. And, unfortunately, just about our entire planet’s surface has been host to negative human interference throughout our entire history, 🙁
Very good reply. The love of mother terra (Gaia) is embedded in the natural crystals matrix. Negative karmic balance catalysts have happened all over the planet. I would think any negative attachments could be cleared from the gem when clearing and charging the gem.
I buy my crystals from energy muse, healing crystals, and ravenandcrone website. I do buy from several Etsy sellers but I really read reviews before buying. I don’t like man made. I don’t think I own a man made crystal. My mom does have one man made goldstone necklace but that’s about it.
Feeling confident about who you’re buying from is the key. 🙂
I agree with you….I don’t feel any connection from manmade/lab created/ gems. The aura crystals feel dirty to me, like they are just coated with something that I need to wash away so I totally avoid those. And most of the other man made crystals are just off to me and I have never been able to connect to them or work with them.
I feel ya, Dianna!! ♥
Kate King crystal jewellery is man made and fantastic, I have no problem using both
Thanks for the scientific support of the metaphysical. That’s what I love about your approach to crystal healing. I have a very few pieces of lab-created gem jewelry, strictly for entertainment purposes. I’d never use lab-created/altered crystals for energy works. Not only are they virtually dead (I have felt some rather unpleasant vibrations in fake crystals before, akin to low-grade radioactivity) but they are also surprisingly fragile. It’s very upsetting to be pouring energy into programming a crystal only to see it’s color fade and the very crystal structure begin to break down. As for those lovely Auras, well, I used to blow glass. And fuming silver onto glass to make shimmering, ghostly rainbows was a lot of fun. But glass is not a crystal, and has no fire of its own. Have you ever looked really close at those Aura Crystals. In many of the specimens I’ve seen, the artist chose to fume over some truly gorgeous natural rainbows. All that power and light smothered. What a loss!
I LOVE that resonance experiment. It was cool to see that the patterns were always ordered, but became more intricate as the hz increased. I prefer raw crystals but work with tumbled stones if that’s the form they’re available in. As far as crystal formations, If a crystal was polished into a generator, I won’t choose that as a generator but would work with it for its other properties because I don’t know how the crystal’s lattice was originally organized before it was polished into that shape, so I prefer natural crystal formations if I want to work with certain configurations. Thanks for giving us a different perspective on crystal energy. I loved this post 🙂
I just wanted to say thank you for your dedication and hard work and bring us this information. Shedding light on this topic, I am sure has its challenges! I hope to do the certification course with you in the future!
INM,
XO
Laura
Pls madam how to get it raw material ?
and procedure ? tnx
I think manmade or tumbled crystals are ok to work with if you use a raw clear crystal generator to amplify the energy of the stone. Some of these stones and crystals are too expensive and if you can not afford the organic kind, manmade will due. If you are drawn to a crystal it doesn’t matter ,use what you think will work for you.because part of the energetic vibrations comes from the person intentions for the crystal..However i usually prefer organic unless a manmade one is too beautiful to resist or in my price range.
I’m a beginner with crystals and I came across this post searching for info in regards to man made vs natural. Even just starting out I already am of the same thought process of you. I want to make sure I’m getting natural crystals. But how do I know the difference? Are there ways to tell the difference before buying? I’ve gotten some from live sales on Instagram that seem to have great energy but I’m afraid I’ll come across man made ones
In defence of man-made crystals, the mining industry is horrifically exploitative, meaning that synthetic crystals would be morally clean. Also, if you consider them to be energetically dead, couldn’t you charge them yourself, perhaps like a battery, in which you could have a closer connection with the crystal?
Where is a safe website/online shop where one can buy natural crystals? Any recommendations?
I do agree with you, however, I often ruminate on this subject, myself, because I appreciate Lab-grown crystals for NOT being a “blood diamond” source (at least, not yet.) Also, it hasn’t been dug up the land, which mines and mining do. I feel a strong moral outrage at the idea of stones, lovely/powerful or not, being dug and pilched out of mother earth, where they were at home. Yes, we use them in a healing way, but why not try to find how to tap into their powers from afar rather than digging them up and…well, stealing them from Earth. It also seems to upset the balance of the earth. And their true, strongest powers would be when they are in the ground–the most natural state that they can be in. (I compare it to us taking animals for our own use, either because they are useful for lab research, zoo animals for us to stare at, circus animals for our delight, or simply because they are cute and we want to hug them and possess them. (And yes, maybe cause we want to benefit from their powers.) Why is this ok with rocks but not with animals? (Don’t tell me because animals are alive but rocks are not; I somehow feel that the rocks have a spirit; I believe they have some sense of aliveness, but they are different. I believe all of Earth has some sort of an aliveness, but we just don’t tap into knowing/sensing that yet. (We’re not quite there…))
So, I figure that lab-created can alleviate some of that. Not that they will be as powerful (that seems akin to the synthesized vitamins/supplements versus naturally-derived vitamins/supplements. I believe the synthetic ones are not as powerful. But–if they work for whatever scientific uses great! That, plus less digging up the Earth, and less “blood diamonds” fighting and stealing all seems like a great benefit of lab-created stones and crystals. (And as for the lab-created stones/crystals not having as much power (or whatever the special properties are that so help in our healing and in sounds,) maybe mankind can learn more about that and improve on their man-making processes. I don’t hold out much hope, since it always seems like man-made vs. natural always, always comes out lacking. 😉 ) But IF it benefits the Earth to only use man-made stones/crystals, and NOT dig them up from Earth (again, IF) then that’s a reason to at least try working with the lab-created ones, and see how to improve them, including how to develop our own senses to enrich the healing properties through symbiotic harmony between us and “our” stones.
Just a thought…
Where do you typically buy your crystals to ensure authenticity?
you took real measurable naturally occurring phenomena and mixed them in with unscientific claims of a mystical as if they were indisputably causally linked. I understand it’s your opinion, but cymatics won’t care if you’re using sand, salt, flour, or water, you’re still going to be able to see the patterns that are made by “vibrations” (which most of us just call “sounds” when they’re in within specific ranges our ears can detect).
They are already difficult enough for most people to understand as real measurable repeatable occurrences in the natural world linked instrinsically to the shapes of invisible sound waves without encouraging them to also ascribe supernatural qualities to them. I will absolutely grant you that some vibrations may truly have healing properties. As a matter of fact there have been some very interesting recent peer reviewed studies into feline purring that you may find intellectually stimulating. (There are not so many that have passed muster regarding the effects of having pretty rocks in your vicinity).
What I do believe in is the power we each have to help each other, not tied in to any stone or power higher than ourselves, not related with any auras or chakras, but just through caring and trying however we can, and, on both the part of the carer and the patient, nonverbally agreeing to genuinely have faith what we are trying to do will have a positive impact. That belief, the positive thinking, is a mandatory step and is not yet scientifically measurable given our current understanding of neuroscience. That being said, you don’t have to be a Reiki master, focus on a beautiful stone, drink a potion made with eye of newt, or perform any sort of silly ritual if you don’t feel the internal need to make you think you have “done” something. Relying on those things as crutches only places limits on the true power within yourself, even if they seem like they’re enabling your belief.
I love the idea of lab grown crystals. Kind of like blank slates that you can bond with, without any baggage attached.
I like knowing that no one had to suffer for me to have a crystal/stone. Not being able to mine them myself, a lab grown crystal is guaranteed to be free of horror.
Lab grown gemstones are 100% real gemstones they have the same chemical and optical properties an natural gemstones I have a genuine lab grown alexandrite! is it energecally useless???
I normally avoid man made or altered crystals but I have one in my possession. It was a black kyanite blade attached to an antique magical looking mirror as a handle. The mirror was ornate and pretty to decorate my vanity. The handle of the mirror was unfortunately aura treated black kyanite. It’s lovely but I felt like the treatment weakened and smothered the black kyanite’s power considerably. I began charging and healing it and held a ritual to heal the trauma the kyanite endured. The kyanite slowly began to come back to life and feel a lot more like how black kyanite should feel like. I called the crystal healing angels and devas to help support this crystal. Originally this would’ve been a powerful stone. The clearings and healings I’ve given to the stone have helped. Now this crystal is with the other crystals moon and gentle sun charged in the south side of the home, surrounded by plants and a beautiful view outside.
In some cultures, the religious will create a statue (a man made object) of a deity, sometimes made out of very “not sacred” materials, like plaster and paint. And then they perform worship of the statue with great love and focused intention. And it is a common experience from practitioners that these statures begin to radiate a sacred, living presence and energy.
I think we have the power as human beings to imbue lab grown crystals—or anything else—with healing energy and divine presence. I think we can do this because, at the end of the day, the entire universe is God’s sacred creation. The only problem is that we humans get confused and usually lose the ability to see this before we’ve even hit puberty.