One day at work, I found out a work friend actually believed the whole “crystal energy” thing.
Since she was the first person I had ever met who actually admitted to that, I wanted to know more about what her specific beliefs about them were.
At first she was super bubbly about it, on par with her personality. But then as I asked a couple common sense questions about why science doesnt find anything measurable, and first she got hostile and mad that I would dare question another person’s beliefs, but when I explained I was genuinely curious and had no interest in changing her beliefs she just kind of broke down because nobody ever takes her seriously or believes her about her “personal healing journey”
The way I see it, it’s for adults who like pretty rocks, but can’t come to terms with the fact that they like something “childish” (because for some reason a lot of adults call a rock collection cringe or childish or dumb, but clearly they’ve never met a geologist) so instead of having a pretty rock and mineral collection, they have “healing crystals”, and eventually it just becomes kind of like part of their identity the way a religion is.
I will however, 100% giggle at their expense with my wife, later. Because anyone who buys $50 polished selenite
drink coaster“charging plate”, and a $200 brass pyramid to “recharge” their $50 “healing quartz wand” while refusing to listen to real science deserves to be giggled at.I will however, 100% giggle at their expense with my wife, later. Because anyone who buys $50 polished selenite drink coaster “charging plate”, and a $200 brass pyramid to “recharge” their $50 “healing quartz wand” while refusing to listen to real science deserves to be giggled at.
I mean, humans do all sorts of wierd, irrational, ritualistic things. IMO, whatever floats your boat.
Did you buy your wife a diamond ring? Or at least gold? :P
humans do all sorts of weird, irrational, ritualistic things
lil private giggles about it seem fairly unobjectionable
Wonder if they had a big wedding that cost quite a bit more than 200$
No, because large weddings are a waste of money and stress, neither of which I make enough money to afford.
I think this is the perfect response haha. Ppl find comfort where they can in the world, even if it looks a little whacky. So long as it’s not hurting anyone, let them have their whacky
No, I made the ring from sapphire (birth stone) and silver. Jewelry is easier than you might think when you’ve been doing small metalwork for knife handles, pommels, and guards.
Birth stones huh? More magical woo. No for real that’s awesome.
Lol at least she just thinks they’re pretty instead of thinking it’ll balance her energies.
In many circumstances the placebo effect is superior to common medical environments. I was completely dismissive of homeopathy until I came to understand its actual appeal. Obviously there is no proven physical mechanism of the substance itself; the water is just part of the ritual. The ritual of being cared for and being paid special attention to by another person who cares that you get better and can do nothing for you but give you that attention you need is 100% placebo oriented medicine and 0% drug.
I was dismissive about crystals as well, but the reality is that if you are aware of them they are in some way altering your awareness by being present. The way they alter your awareness could be as simple as noticing an interesting looking stone, a reminder that there is a vast unknown and many others trying to find their way as you are, or a meditation weight and focus. I don’t know about crystal effects on vibrations other than to know that mass is literally energy and different compositions of molecular structures could have effects on the immediate environment beyond our ability to yet measure. I’m most comfortable saying that crystals definitely have some effect, definitely have assisted others in their healing journeys in some form or another, and beyond that I do not know many specifics.
I mean crystals definitely have gravity pulling you towards them.
I understand your reasoning and even the appeal, however I personally just wonder if all of these effects wouldn’t be possible by any other means. Why does it need to be crystals, intentionally overpriced at that. Marketed by capitalistic interests to exploit you. Theoretically, couldn’t you just go out into nature, find a rock you like, and it could have the same effect?
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Wait, so you’re telling that to not feel ashamed of liking rocks for how they look, they believe silly things about them?
That appears to be their hypothesis
I suspect they’re just credulous, and believe in magic
in a young girl’s heart?
How the music can free her whenever it starts
And it’s magic if the music is groovy
It makes you feel happy like an old-time movie
The premise is flawed. The LHC is looking for specific things, and it takes forever-and-a-day just to look much less decide whether the-thing-being-searched-for is there.
The premise here is that the LHC found All That Is, and it didn’t find [magical-rock-mystery-waves] so pfffttthh stupid hippies.
Until we figure out just what dark energy and dark matter is, we can’t throw out there being a fifth force that the LHC isn’t even designed to detect in the first place but if you think that humans are affected by things we only tend to notice on the astronomical scale, you’re putting the cart way before the horse. The whole reason we can’t detect them is because they don’t interact with us.
Yes but how do we know that.
Exactly. LHC also didn’t find that breathing air is good for you. I’m still not going to stop.
Good plan!
The person with the crystals has already concluded, by faith or by doing large logical leaps, that those contain new energy.
The scientists behind the LHC have to meticulously find evidence along the way before they can make a conclusion.
They are not the same.
People will shit on crystals believers in one breath and tell people to ‘respect other’s religion’ in another or gloat about their MBTI assessment. The cognitive dissonance is unreal.
I don’t believe in either but at least I’m consistent. If you’re not, then you’re just finding an excuse to hate on a hobby that primarily attracts women.
This is the same thing that happens to anything that women likes: pumpkin spice lattes, uggs, horoscopes, tarot cards, rose, etc. It’s seen as trivial and stupid no matter how banal the average person’s interest are regardless of gender.
Respecting others’ religions and crystals - I’d only recommend not using the fact they believe in things that don’t exist against them. No need to indulge them. No need to do things differently for their benefit.
MBTI - in the workplace it’s pretty low value and low predictive power. Testing is unreliable. It’s easy to hit whatever set of letters you think are desired in your workplace with a little practice. In groups of MBTI fans it seems more useful, but those groups try very hard to place themselves into correct categories, and it does predict useful dynamics in interactions between people of different MBTI types.
Hobbies that attract women - I don’t think that’s pertinent, where you see more women into crystals you see men more likely to believe in magic devices for cars.
Belief in magic is pretty even between the genders and pretty common
Belief in magic is pretty even between the genders and pretty common
I was interested and looked up some studies. There is a gender gap in spiritual believe and women tend to be more spiritual, including believing in magic. So OPs statement in that regards holds.
Just to be clear, I’m not saying everything that op wrote is correct or that I agree, but the starting point they used, that women tend to belive in magical stuff more often, seems to be true.
Pro tip: the difference between faith healers and organized religions and belief systems is that, by and large, priests do not seek out people who are vulnerable, charge them three figures per psychic session, and then try to upsell crystals that do nothing on top of it. You’ll never hear someone say “respect their religion” in regards to Scientology.
Also
anything that women like
Bro, have you seen how much people shit on sports, beer, and other stereotypically masculine interests? People shit on basic things because they’re basic and some people use them as a substitute for a personality, not because women like them.
is that, by and large, priests do not seek out people who are vulnerable
What are you talking about, every organized religion does this. If people weren’t vulnerable to being deceived, there wouldn’t be any religious institutions. And I’ll spare you the longwinded rant about the pressure to tithe other than to say that it exists and it’s extremely aggressive.
Also, you’re very much proving their point unintentionally. Quote from the first sentence in the wikipedia article for the slang term ‘basic’ :
Basic is a slang term in American popular culture used pejoratively to describe middle class white people, especially women, who are perceived to prefer mainstream products, trends, and music.
You’re using a gendered insult to dismiss their claims of bias based on gender lines. I usually try to be more constructive than this but wow are you off the mark here.
is that, by and large, priests do not seek out people who are vulnerable
What are you talking about, every organized religion does this.
As an aside, the Jewish religion specifically discourages this.
Religion panders to the vulnerable, that I’ll grant you. But no major organized religion I’m aware of, apart from scientology, actively tries to soak people. (And before you say it, the collection plate does not count.) We respect people’s beliefs as long as the people who tell them to believe them aren’t doing so because they know the things they’re peddling are total bunk and just want vulnerable people’s money.
Second of all, I wasn’t even aware that “basic” was a gendered insult. What I meant was that people make fun of mainstream things because they’re mainstream, and have since time immemorial, and that people who follow whatever the mainstream believes in lieu of having a personality deserve to be mocked.
But no major organized religion I’m aware of, apart from scientology, actively tries to soak people. (And before you say it, the collection plate does not count.)
We used to call them “tv preachers”. They’d be on all the time with a phone number on the screen to call and donate money. Over time they became “mainstream” that millions now follow and now they’re loosely called “Evangelicals”. They’re nominally “Christian”, functionally “Protestant” but most do not follow a particular established denomination.
Make no mistake, the “soaking” is central to that form of “Christianity”.
And I would not ask anyone to “respect the beliefs” of someone whose only religion comes in the form of televangelism. There is a big difference between a religious leader and a charlatan, and it is our duty as friends and family members to try to help get people out from under the thumb of the latter.
Wait shiny rocks have a gender now?
In a lot of the Romance languages. ;)
Have you considered that there’s more than one person on the internet? One person can say one thing and another person say the opposite and no one has been a hypocrite.
Anyway, I’d say we should respect people’s right to practice what they want, but we can still make fun of it. I probably would say don’t do it to their face, but that’s up to you.
I don’t think standing by and letting people get scammed is the right move either
I’m pretty sure the anti matter “crystals” it produces can alter one’s “frequencies” quite well. If we had enough of the stuff. In the mean time eating bananas is a good substitute.
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@[email protected] Ty, both. :)
I’m having a hard time with this. We don’t know what we don’t know and it takes a lot of undeserved confidence to say anything is for sure. Fermilab never found the god particle and we’re pretty sure that exists. I’m not saying it’s true, but you guys are being a little over confident. Think about all of the theories and hypothesis that have been altered or completely changed over time.
Fermilab never found the god particle and we’re pretty sure that exists.
The “God particle” is the Higgs boson. They found it with the LHC.
Think about all of the theories and hypothesis that have been altered or completely changed over time.
This tells me you don’t just not know how science works; you don’t understand what science is.
The “God particle” is the Higgs boson. They found it with the LHC.
Right, the fermi lab peeps were skeptical about ever finding it. LHC proved it. You’re making my case.
This tells me you don’t just not know how science works; you don’t understand what science is.
Do you? It’s a process of finding out. Have you proven that stones don’t have an energy that we don’t have the equipment to measure? The black and white in this thread is now becoming funny while spouting that you believe in the process.
If you know it’s a process, then why would you criticize science for changing theories in response to new evidence?
If you know it’s a process, then why would you criticize science for changing theories in response to new evidence?
Why aren’t you open to not knowing everything and that our knowledge could change?
Your making some really weird—and wrong—assumptions about me.
Well this is kind of funny that this came up soon after our convo:
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a61937459/scientists-found-dark-electrons-in-solid-matter/
Don’t be fooled by CERN, LHC’s true purpose is time travel. El Psy Kongroo.
I mean if not then wtf is even the point?!
I thought it was contacting Amanda*.
* I meant to write aliens, but gboard gave them a name. Gboard, Amanda thanks you for your respect.
Oh yeah?
I and a lot of other people use crystal bracelet to help us sync up with other people. Even if we’re apart for days, we can show up exactly at the same place at the same moment if our crystals are vibrating at the same frequency.
How do you explain that?
Piezoelectricity?
Dunno what that is, sounds fake.
Is that frequency something you can control or measure? Do you agree on a shared “let’s meet” frequency you set it to, and if the other happens to have it set to that as well, you end up meeting? Or is it more of a random chance thing, like running into each other in places you both frequent at coincidentally matching times and deciding it must be the bracelets’ doing?
Or am I falling for a joke?
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I think they mean a watch
I wasn’t entirely sure if that’s what they mean, but I considered the possibility. I opted to give a serious response just in case, accepting the possibility I’d be wooooshed.
I did.
I wasn’t trying to add on to any whooshing, just trying to help
All good, I appreciate your intention. Thank you for taking the time!
I don’t really know, I only know the basics of how to use it. But twice a year when the planet reaches a certain position in the solar system, you have to calibrate it 1/24th of an earth rotation, and then do it again after a certain time. I don’t understand why, but everyone is doing it. The crystal draws energy from a silver pendant the size of a coin.
A watch. I knew it. Nice one.
Tides come in, tides go out. Can’t explain that
I forget the YouTube channel name now, but I recall someone testing some of the cleansing bracelets, with “energy” and “healing” powers…
It turned out that the energy was mostly in the form of radioactive materials, and the only thing you would be healed from by wearing it, was your continued life.
Crystals, on the other hand, are mostly just inert and harmless. So if someone wants to keep a “healing” crystal or whatever on them or put it in their office or something, okay sure. It won’t do what it claims to, but it won’t hurt you.
But if I see someone wearing a cleansing bracelet, I’m going to reach for my Hazmat suit (since I don’t own one, I’m just going to keep a safe distance from the person willingly carrying around what is very likely to be radioactive material), and reevaluate my association with anyone willing to buy such nonsense with absolutely no understanding that it’s probably harmful.
I forget the radioactive material used. From what I recall, it’s not “drop and run” dangerous, but prolonged exposure is probably going to have some unpleasant side effects… Kind of like radon (it wasn’t radon… Radon is a gas with an extremely short half life IIRC, but it can be dangerous to have long term exposure - many years, and it’s in most homes… Buy a radon sensor folks, they’re not much more expensive than a good smoke detector).
Maybe it was “The Thought Emporium”? He made two vids on it, one being a follow-up
I looked and that seems right. I watched two videos on it, IIRC, and it was interesting and concerning.
At the end of the day, I’m not sure how much sympathy I can muster for people who are so superstitious that they’ll buy that snake oil, but at the same time, the manufacturer is being incredibly deceptive. So I’m a bit split on the issue. At the end of the day, one thing I’m not uncertain about is that consumer protection should be stronger for such things.
Crystals maybe help in the same way placebos do. That’s the most I would admit about such stuff.
Placebos don’t work. It’s a common misconception. Placebo effect is the error in measuring not any actual effect. It’s literally the barrier we use to define effective and non effective.
Anyone claiming they have something that provides a placebo effect to help is fraudulent or ignorant.
In the UK it is illegal to proscribe placebos. Because they don’t work.
And its been proven that placebos work.
So as long as you define life changing energy as a subtle psychological buff…
I agree. Placebos can help too.
Fact is, for it to work as a placebo, you need to believe it will work.
I’ve had a few coworkers who had stuff like crystals on their desk because their partner believed in it. I understand why that stuff happens, the believer who (supposedly) cares about your well-being, gets benefit from it, and wants you to have the same or similar benefits from the same. But since they’re doing it to placate their partner and don’t personally believe, it’s just a rock on their desk.
Fact is, for it to work as a placebo, you need to believe it will work.
What’s even wilder is you don’t have to consciously believe it, you can unconsciously believe it and it will still work! Doctors will routinely prescribe placebos and be very open about the fact that it’s just a placebo, that there is no chemical compound in the medication.
And yet, the act of taking a pill from a bottle seems to trigger something. Recent research has actually identified part of this mechanism in rat brains. There really is a part of the brain that can be tricked into releasing a set of chemicals that relieve pain, reduce inflammation and create better moods. Someday we might have a placebo pill that actually has medication in it. Wildly convoluted how the brain works.
Placebos is measurement error, not effectiveness. People that believe something works are more likely to report improvements when taking that medication irrespective of its effectiveness. Placebo effect is just misreporting, noise or unaccounted phenomena. It’s literally how we define something doesn’t work.
Where it gets dangerous, is giving up actual real working medication in place of a placebo.
slapping…
therapy…
the only thing you would be healed from by wearing it
not actually definitely true! look up ‘radiation hormesis’
I mean, it’s not what they’re advertising, and I don’t think we know for sure that it’s a thing, but it might be, and this would make it fucking hilarious.
Honestly though?
At least it keeps the gullible from causing real trouble elsewhere.
I dunno if it does.
A lot of these people go around smashing random rocks to uncover stuff they clearly plan to sell.
To sell them, they’ll likely promote crystal healing and such and anti science, and of course be anti vax
I see where you are coming from, but if we lived in a world that literally had no scammers, grifters, or corruption, those people might find a hobby that actually helps society as a whole rather than spinning in place.
I’m talking only about the folks that have a belief in “energy work”, nothing else.
Nothing exists in a vacuum. Once someone believes one thing without evidence, they are likely to believe more things without evidence and people act on their beliefs. That’s the fundamental problem, believing things without evidence. Once you are comfortable with having that door open, it doesn’t stop at one thing and nothing else.
Then you might as well write off anyone with any religious beliefs at all. Which is fine by me, but I think it important to note that there’s no fundamental difference between the energy working “spiritual” folks and any other belief in the unprovable.
And, by that metric, I agree that such thinking opens the door to other forms of non empiric beliefs and practices, including the scammy ones. Religious folks will buy into whatever line of bunkum that’s linked to their religion of choice, same as the crystal power and herbs-are-magic crowd.
If anything, the woowoo spiritual folks tend to be way less invasive with their snake oil, so I mind them less by this criteria.
Not that everyone professing to only rely on empirical evidence for their decisions actually does. There’s plenty of faith about “science” as some kind of immutable thing that can be taken at face value. Doesn’t much matter what the information is, if the person just accepts something as truth because it is a published paper saying so, it’s the same end result, just with a lower chance of the information being completely imaginary as opposed to just wrong.
No, but seriously, you can use galena to make a radio that’s powered by the radio waves themselves!
Attracts badgers, you say?
Pondering my blue apatite rn
The irony of it being a choking hazard, lmao
Top tier shitpost
I see nothing wrong with this nutritional chart
Old Gum is my jam!
Protection against other crystals lol
Speak for yourself. My JO crystal is so supercharged I can levitate up to 6 cm from the ground and yell louder than a police siren.
I have won several fights by blinding my opponent with the flash of the JO crystal as I crank my hog with one hand and swing my crystal with the other.
My seed has become so powerful, I’m banned from donating semen in 17 countries, including Papua New Guinea and the Pharoe Island.
I have channeled the unholy energies from my magnetic wristbands and wooden bracelets to erect a dark labyrinth to contain me so I won’t accidentally break reality apart when I crank my hawg too hard.
Do not underestimate the power of crystals.
There is scientific evidence that backs crystals, it’s called the placebo effect.
So, you’re wrong.
Science doesn’t back the crystals, it backs the placebo effect.
“Science doesn’t back medical injections, it backs the body’s immune response.”
