Stones, minerals, crystals

Rituals, spells, prayer, meditation and magical acts.
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Cerastes
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Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Cerastes »

Enough theory now, let’s talk about practice.

Stones have always been a central part of my ritualistic work, not only due to their high symbolic meaning but also for their property to store information of different kind. Personally the only place to for esoteric practice is the forest because the inside of a house just doesn't seem to be energetically suitable for me. Therefore I use a lot of material from nature rather than daggers, tarot cards, chalices ect. I bring a new stone every time I go to the forest, which is almost every day. Meanwhile there are different stones, from different places of the world and each and everyone has a different meaning. They have play a major part in every ritual.
I also made a necklace with a beautiful carved stone once but my sociopathic cat stole it. (I know it was her, she is pure evil)

Do you use stones, minerals or crystals in your occult practice? What meaning do they have for you?

PS: I’m not sure if this topic is accurately placed, if not so, fell free to move it to another forum.
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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Heith
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Re: Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Heith »

Some members of the fraternity, myself included, have a specified stone/gem for every week day. These are in the form of rings. I have found thus far three rings, so four are still missing, although one of them -which possibly is also/or my aspect ring- will be made by our very talented fraternity smith.
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Smaragd
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Re: Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Smaragd »

For a month or so I've been getting in to the idea of acquiring a stone for my altar. The place it comes from has to be meaningful I think. Stones are a bit like old trees that have been in certain surroundings for very long times, only they are usually even prehistoric. I don't know how people usually work with them, but I think my dark stone slab would work as a new base for the candles etc. Flame over a rock is calming, water on a rock is well.. calming. I guess such stones work as grounding elements.

I don't have much experience of other minerals, but I like amethysts and scrying into a black crystal ball sounds like an interesting method of work.
Heith wrote: Mon Dec 17, 2018 7:16 pm Some members of the fraternity, myself included, have a specified stone/gem for every week day.
Interesting, even as something to visualize during daily practice if not actually finding such magical objects.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Cerastes
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Re: Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Cerastes »

Smaragd wrote: Mon Dec 17, 2018 7:33 pm The place it comes from has to be meaningful I think. Stones are a bit like old trees that have been in certain surroundings for very long times, only they are usually even prehistoric. I don't know how people usually work with them, but I think my dark stone slab would work as a new base for the candles etc. Flame over a rock is calming, water on a rock is well.. calming. I guess such stones work as grounding elements.
I too have no idea how people usually work with them. But if you are interested I can tell you what exatly I do with the stones in spiritual praxis. I can't assure if it is helpful beause those practices have grown out of intuitive processes and are therfore very personized. I’m usually a bit private about those things but if you are interested, I can write you a more precise description of the stones and their exact meaning for my work and what I conctretly do with them.They helped me a lot. ;)
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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Smaragd
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Re: Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Smaragd »

Red Bird wrote: Mon Dec 17, 2018 10:23 pm I too have no idea how people usually work with them. But if you are interested I can tell you what exatly I do with the stones in spiritual praxis. I can't assure if it is helpful beause those practices have grown out of intuitive processes and are therfore very personized. I’m usually a bit private about those things but if you are interested, I can write you a more precise description of the stones and their exact meaning for my work and what I conctretly do with them.They helped me a lot. ;)
I'm all ears. I believe I can adapt and infuse some of that knowledge to form my own relationship with the mineral worlds.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Cerastes
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Re: Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Cerastes »

Smaragd wrote: Mon Dec 17, 2018 11:05 pm
Red Bird wrote: Mon Dec 17, 2018 10:23 pm I too have no idea how people usually work with them. But if you are interested I can tell you what exatly I do with the stones in spiritual praxis. I can't assure if it is helpful beause those practices have grown out of intuitive processes and are therfore very personized. I’m usually a bit private about those things but if you are interested, I can write you a more precise description of the stones and their exact meaning for my work and what I conctretly do with them.They helped me a lot. ;)
I'm all ears. I believe I can adapt and infuse some of that knowledge to form my own relationship with the mineral worlds.
I just noticed that I’m actually a little shy about my occult work although I’m usually a very outspoken person.
Never mind, I will try to explain it anyway. Let’s see if I manage to make sense :D

First, I see the stone as a mainly passive element, that stores different information/energies, like it stores heat (in a sauna e.g.) It does not consume or process them in a way trees do, it swallows information and keeps it until nature ask for it back. (For example stones mineralize water, so life can involve) Sedimentary stones include a wonderful variety of different particles from different places and different times. In my opinion the pure chemical composition is by far not the only information a stone can keep.

Maybe the way Schelling puts it, comes closest to what I think. There is a connection aka Kopula between everything and this connection is always a transmitter of information, meaning that one part has an influence on the other and nothing in the world is out of this Weltseele. (What’s the English word for Weltseele? World soul? no...World spirit?) However, this panentheistic view plays a role in how I use stone in esoteric practice. I collect stones from different places in the world and I bring them to my “altar” in the forest. Each and every stone does have a different energetic value, meaning it is taken out of a certain environment (long-term information) and/or a certain emotion/situation (short-time information) is connected to it. You could compare them to a personalized version of tarot cards but with less emphasis on pictorially information.

Let me give you an example. I did a tour through the Alps with some very good runners. Everyone was clearly much more advanced than me so it was very difficult to keep the speed but I was too stubborn to ask them to go slower. So, of course, I was completely exhausted and snapping for air when we reached the final point. I took a stone from this point and brought it home to my altar. This stone symbolized tenacity, adventure, success but also wrong pride and stubbornness as well as the powerful and ancient energy of the Alps that may have influenced me in this situation. (->Kopula) So, again, it is a storage of long- and short time information.

Stones can be used in the same way as tarot cards. Moreover, I use them to invoke an archetype, entity e.g. by using certain stones that symbolize whatever is attached to the said archetype/entity.
I think I’m a little more extroverted than some other occultist so it is good for me to involve internal information to the work. Also I had problems with the passivity that is required for meditation ect. so a passive element is better than say, the flame of a candle.
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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Smaragd
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Re: Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Smaragd »

Thank you for sharing Red Bird. I wrote down some thoughts rising from your message, but fell down to the rigid and infernal levels of dense material, that is stone. It was too metaphysical for this topic anyway. A reminder that even such elements that may be grounding are something else when isolated from the whole. Coming back to your panentheistic point of view on the other hand was grounding and healing after such isolating meditation.

Now waiting for Spring to come and defrost the ground. I've got some places in mind for this sort of work.
"Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets”, Numbers 11:29 as echoed by William Blake
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Cerastes
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Re: Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Cerastes »

Smaragd wrote: Wed Dec 19, 2018 1:09 am Thank you for sharing Red Bird. I wrote down some thoughts rising from your message, but fell down to the rigid and infernal levels of dense material, that is stone. It was too metaphysical for this topic anyway. A reminder that even such elements that may be grounding are something else when isolated from the whole. Coming back to your panentheistic point of view on the other hand was grounding and healing after such isolating meditation.

Now waiting for Spring to come and defrost the ground. I've got some places in mind for this sort of work.
You chose Smaragd to be your fraternity name so minerals may have been part of a previous thinking process. ;)
I hope you will find the work with stones to be profitable. It's requires a little patience because it is many-layered and the information can not be found right at the surface. But according to your former comments I don't think you have a problem with many-layered content.
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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Nefastos
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Re: Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Nefastos »

Stones hold a special place in my heart. My favourite places are those where water meets stone – where the elements come together – and the art form I enjoy the most are stone sculptures and old stone architechture. My Sun sign (Taurus the materialist) seems to enjoy immensely of everything that is solidified into seeming immortality and changelessness of stone, if at the same time it holds in itself the eternal otherworldliness of either nature or, even better, exquisite human art.

In many of the most important memories I have in my childhood the stones are already present. When I was seven years old, I found my soul stone, half buried in our backyard. It is a large rock of spectrolite (black Finnish labradorite with mostly blue rainbow hues). Our geologist friend said that it's pretty impossible that such a stone could be found where it was. I still consider it as my closest treasure.

I consider my stone ritual objects – altar, cup, crystal ball – as extremely "grounding" in the meaning that in this way the magic flows through the whole system. Such a grounding does not lost the power, but keeps it.

I use daily Blavatsky's "protection by the correspondence ring" practice that Heith mentioned (see Fosforos footnote 256).

When we were visiting Venice, I tried to follow Koot Hoomi's request to Sinnett to find to him three stones, black, red and white one, as near as possible to the Bridge of Sighs. Interestingly, this proved to be almost impossible a task: no stones can be found from the shores of Venice, where even the few unbuilt shores consist of sea shells and fragments of them rather than rock-sand. So I had to make a compromise and collected a black, red and white sea shell for the guru, a symbolic link of sorts to the colour aspects.
Faust: "Lo contempla. / Ei muove in tortuosa spire / e s'avvicina lento alla nostra volta. / Oh! se non erro, / orme di foco imprime al suol!"
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Cerastes
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Re: Stones, minerals, crystals

Post by Cerastes »

Nefastos wrote: Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:03 pm In many of the most important memories I have in my childhood the stones are already present. When I was seven years old, I found my soul stone, half buried in our backyard. It is a large rock of spectrolite (black Finnish labradorite with mostly blue rainbow hues). Our geologist friend said that it's pretty impossible that such a stone could be found where it was. I still consider it as my closest treasure.
This is amazing.
A beautiful piece of the whole found at a place where it should not be.
What a wonderful symbol, it almost invites to form more analogies out of it. The most precious ritual ocjects are still the ones are found, not made.
Nefastos wrote: Mon Dec 31, 2018 3:03 pm Stones hold a special place in my heart. My favourite places are those where water meets stone – where the elements come together – and the art form I enjoy the most are stone sculptures and old stone architechture. My Sun sign (Taurus the materialist) seems to enjoy immensely of everything that is solidified into seeming immortality and changelessness of stone, if at the same time it holds in itself the eternal otherworldliness of either nature or, even better, exquisite human art.


Agreed.
This is pretty much what I feel about this element too, you just found the better words to describe this.
The most fascinating places are the ones where mountains rise directly at the sea.
“Granny Weatherwax was not lost. She wasn't the kind of person who ever became lost. It was just that, at the moment, while she knew exactly where SHE was, she didn't know the position of anywhere else.”
(Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters)
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