Charging your crystals

Today I met a very interesting woman who is deeply into tarot and crystals. We started talking about crystals and their properties when suddenly she asked if I charged my crystals for them to work for me. I told her that isnt it the same as cleansing with rock salt or white light or sun/moon energy? She then told me that cleansing is completely different to charging but didnt tell me how to charge a crystal as she had to leave. How does one charge a crystal to work for you? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated as Im quite confused now.

I think you sit your crystals on the window under the sun to charge them... or use putting the crystal in with citrine.. (hang on....)

I dont charge mine... i only cleansed them.

It's possible she was meaning programming - as in to program or charge your crystal with a set of instructions for it to work for you in a specified manner.

crystalwoman said:

It's possible she was meaning programming - as in to program or charge your crystal with a set of instructions for it to work for you in a specified manner.

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Yes. That's what she meant. She told me that I should talk to my crystals and give them a name and then meditate on them and tell them to help you in whichever area of your life you want. And when I asked her to give me details about this, she hurried off. So now how do I go about this?

Crystals can be charged by just being close to each other, or setting them on a quartz cluster.

I find crystals and other stones charge more by me using them (which isn't often recently). When I first pick up a crystal it can feel cold until my intent changes and I 'use' it. Then the energy comes through.

As with most things, they work better, or at least seem to, if you have regular use of them.

I usually program my crystals during a ritual, a_shikhs. It can be the entire reason for the ritual or just part of a larger ritual. You are programming the stone with your magical intent.

Let's say I wanted to program some blue lace agate for healing of a friend who had requested healing magic. I would do a healing ritual for my friend, visualizing him/her as healthy and pain-free. During the ritual, I would ask the Gods to empower the stone with the same healing energy I was directing my friend's way. After the ritual, I would gift my friend with the stone. (I often do this with stones made into necklaces or bracelets for female friends.)

a_shikhs said:

Yes. That's what she meant. She told me that I should talk to my crystals and give them a name and then meditate on them and tell them to help you in whichever area of your life you want. And when I asked her to give me details about this, she hurried off. So now how do I go about this?

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I personally don't believe in programming crystals because it's my experience that crystals have living, sapient spirits inside of them. They have mind's of their own so I don't try to impose my will upon them. When I bring a new crystal home I do meditate with it to make acquaintance with the crystal spirit, to let it tell me it's name (if it has a name and wants me to know it) and to show me what it looks like (if it so chooses). During the meditation the crystal becomes aware of my own needs and I know that the crystal will do for me what it considers to be in my own best interests. Usually during that initial meditation the crystal will let me know what it's own best functions are and makes me aware of what are the best ways for me to utilize the crystal.

There have been certain times when I have asked a crystal to help me with something. When I need the assistance of a crystal I will hold it to my third eye area and tell it what I need help with and ask it to help me, but I don't tell the crystal how I want that done or try to give it any directions. I know that the crystal will do what it can to the best of it's capabilities and in it's own way. There are times when a crystal will let me know that it can't help me with a certain task, and then it will direct me to a different crystal that would be more capable or more suitable to perform that task.

I always let the crystals decide for themselves how, where, when, why, what they wish to perform. I think that's one of the reasons why crystals work so well WITH me, rather than FOR me. We all have a good understanding of each other.

i completely agree with all of crystalwoman's beliefs and comments. i do cleanse, however do not charge or program, as like crystalwoman said, they are their own spirit, and they come to us to help us in their way. not the way we may 'place' upon them. if i need help or assistance in an area, i will meditate with a crystal that i feel either drawn too, or that has the properties i would like help from.

I thought I'd pipe in here an talk about the difference between charging, cleansing and programing, as I understand it.

1. Charging a crystal deals with giving it basic energy. Even crystals can get "worn down" and ineffective if used too frequently. Think of them as a re-chargeable battery. They go sort of "blah" and don't do much. Charging can be done by putting the crystals in the sun or moon light, grouping them with other crystals or simply by not using them for a while. They will recover quite well on their own. Charging in sunlight is the quickest method. Moonlight gives a different quality to the charge is and particularly good for the blue and white stones. You can also charge in running water or wind. The effects of water are particularly noticeable if you have any river rocks. Rocks from the desert tend to be wind-charged.

2. Cleansing is well... cleansing. Getting rid of negative stuff, whether physical or metaphysical. There are lots of threads in this forum that discuss various types of cleansing.

3. Programming, which others on this thread described. Just be aware that when you program a crystal you are limiting its usefullness and will need to recharge more frequently.

Charging crystals

About charging and/or programing, a story ... a very true story, thank the Good Goddess.

Last year when I was doing our income taxes, right on the line of the filing date, of course, I couldn't find two extremely important papers. I could have gleaned the information the papers held from our checkbook, but the accountant said, "No, the IRS won't accept that."

I went on filling out the rest of the IRS material while I tried to figure out what to do. A friend dropped by. When I told her my troubles, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a lumpy, small (less than an inch square), kind of blue green stone. "Here's an emerald," she said. "It's good to get rid of confusion."

About that time I gave up for the day. The next morning I was back at my desk. I happened to see the emerald, picked it up and looked at it. In my mind I thought, "Here's what I'd like you to do, little friend. Help me to find
those friggin' papers."

Within 20 minutes, there they were. The missing papers. At that moment they were more welcome than a winning lottery ticket.

This year when I did the income tax, I brought the emerald downstairs, set it in the middle of the table before I dragged out all the papers. I said something to it like, "Please, little friend. Can you help me to get this task over with, with as little confusion as possible. Actually, no confusion at all would be very nice."

I didn't sail right through, but I did get the IRS papers filled out with very little grief. The most surprising was that after we took the whole thing to the accountant, he did the formal stuff the IRS demands, then called me in a few days for us to go sign the papers so he could file them electronically.

This is the first year he hasn't called to tell me two or three things I had done wrong, or hadn't filled out properly.

That emerald's a demure little thing. No lady of fashion would have it made into a ring. But I find it extremely valuable. No lady of fashion will ever get it out of my hot little hands.