EMERALD: For intelligence, prophecy, business success, emotional stability and understanding. Promotes love and is believed to be a link with divine forces. Used in healing for eye troubles, skin ulcers, insomnia, epilepsy, colds, headaches, asthma and the pains of childbirth. Colour: From bright, clear or mossy green (depending of quality of stone).

FLUORITE: For encouraging positivity, balancing the energies, opening chakras and strengthening bone tissue. Colour: usually clear or purple shades.

GARNET: Believed to help in the development of clairvoyance and to help the mind to be pure, hopeful, cheerful, confident, honest, frank, faithful and sincere. Stimulates the imagination, calms the mind and helps depression and laziness. Believed also to aid skin problems and strengthen the base of spine (when worn as beads of carried in the pocket, is said to calm, over-activity and restlessness, especially in the young). Used as a symbol of remembrance between parting friends. Colour: deep claret red.

HELIODORE: For spiritual illumination and for the heart and circulation.

HEMATITE: For courage and endurance, strengthening heart, regulating pulse, and for ulcers, cramps and blood disorders, i.e., anaemia, plus inflammation of joints, fatigue and melancholy (especially during pregnancy). Colour: metallic silver grey.

JADE: Believed to be a lucky charm. Used for warding off spirits, safe journeys, wisdom and long life and for slowing down ageing. Brings peace and serenity and is a good for high blood pressure, heart and circulation problems, diabetes and kidney and bladder problems. Colour: Green - shades of green vary according to type of jade, (nephrite jade tends to be a mossy olive green).  Some is dyed other colours.

JASPER: Believed to have magical properties and protect against the evil; eye, witchcraft and phantasms.  Encourages the person to do good deeds. Also used for improving the sense of smell, calming emotional problems and guilt feelings, lowering blood pressure and helping kidney, stomach and bladder complaints, biliousness, and epilepsy. Has the power to console. Colour: can vary, usually yellow/orange.

JET: General magical and healing properties. For quietening fears, aiding the grieving process (hence its popularity in the mourning jewellery of the Victorian period) and protecting from violence and illness.  Used for headaches, toothache, glandular swelling, stomach pains, epilepsy and hysteria. Considered in the past to be a powerful magical talisman to ward off negative influences. Colour: black.

LAPIS LAZULI: Said to help in the development of psychic abilities.  Aids depression, builds hope and self confidence and improves health. Believed to encourage fidelity in love. Helps one to find the inner truth and elevates consciousness. In healing used for heart, spleen, blood and digestive problems and brain diseases such as epilepsy. An “emotional sanctuary” Colour: Deep blue, sometimes with tiny metallic flecks of silica.

MAGNETITE: (lodestone) for honesty, wisdom, and integrity. Used to help postural imbalances, (of spine and related headaches, rheumatics, neuralgia, liver and eye diseases.  Colour: grey/black.

MALACHITE: For raising the spirits, increasing hope, health and happiness, attracting prosperity and removing blocks to spiritual growth. The copper in malachite is said to help irregular menstruation and this stone is also valued for toothache, asthma, eyesight problems and rheumatism. Colour: green, banded.

MARBLE: For protection against witchcraft.

MEXICAN ONYX: To aid sleep.

MOONSTONE: For success, inspiration and calmness, for reconciling parted lovers, uplifting and balancing emotions and attracting good things, (believed to ensure a good crop if hung from a fruit tree). A good stone for travellers. In India this was regarded to be a lucky gem if given to a bride by her groom. Helpful for dropsy and water retention.  Peach, for comfort, white for balance, the blue variety is considered best: Colour: white, peach/pink, pale blue.

MOSS AGATE: Attunement with nature and growing things

MOSS OPALITE: Calms temper and nerves, enhances, psychic powers, but brings luck only to the pure in heart as it reflects one’s own thoughts back.

MOTHER OF PEARL: For self confidence and attracting friendship. Also believed to enhance the appearance of the skin.

OPAL: Similar effect to moss opalite. Believed fortunate for Librans, also helpful for lung conditions: Colour: varies (multi).

OBSIDIAN: Can be used for removing blocks to the healing process. Good for divination. Reflects flaws in one’s own nature and reveals subconscious, hidden truths, sharpening external and internal vision, helping stomach and improving muscle tone. Colour:black or black with white blotches. (snowflake).

ONYX: Aids thinking, imagination and decision- making. Also said to promote fidelity and attract fortune: Colour: usually green, brown or black.

PEARL: For endurance and emotional stability and to benefit the lungs.

PERIDOT: Believed to be favoured by the inhabitants of Atlantis. Said to help psychic vision and protect from delusions, to help the timid, balance and uplift the mind and encourage serenity and trust. Aids muscle function, counteracts some of the effects of alcohol and is useful for stomach acidity, digestive problems and calcification: Colour: Golden green.

POPPY JASPER: For happiness and positivity.

RHODOCROSITE: For integrating physical emotional and mental fields, reducing depression and retarding ageing. Inspires forgiveness and helps owner face reality and new situations.

RHODONITE: Helps lessen worry, depression irritability, confusion and inconsistency, eases foreboding and disturbing etheric influences. Ideal for mediums. Helps thyroid function, central nervous system, digestion and muscles and when worn on third finger of left hand is believed to induce compassion and sensitivity to higher values. Colour: orange

ROSE QUARTZ: The pink colour is due to the manganese. This stone is used for enlivening the imagination and calming emotions. Promotes love, friendship and an appreciation for beauty, hastens recovery, gladdens the heart and brings inner peace. Believed to ward off harmful vibrations by absorbing them, helpful for aching bones and bruises and for encouraging recovery from illness. Colour: Soft rose pink.

RUBY: A Buddhist stone, believed to being intuition and initiative, loyalty and courage and to protect against loss, unfaithfulness of partner, envy or nightmares. Forewarns of danger. For pains, spasms & fevers. Rasputin was said to have used a ruby to heal the Tzar’s son who had haemophilia.

RUTILE QUARTZ: Rebalances the different levels of consciousness and also the endocrine glands. Increases tissue regeneration. Good for bronchial sufferers. Used as an aid to mental and psychic activity. Colour: clear with gold threads or  fibres throughout.

SAPPHIRE: Symbol of truth, associated with saints, yogis, mystics and healers.  Stimulates imagination and brings devotion, faith and peace, curbs impulsiveness and encourages sympathy.  If soaked in water, makes healing eye lotion, also helpful for nervous complaints and asthma.  Colour: blue.

SMOKEY QUARTZ: Purifies energy centres and has stabilising effect, especially in material matters where it encourages frugality. Heals and lifts depression and is used to aid psychic ability and meditation. Said to benefit the abdominal areas, kidneys, pancreas and sexual organs. Colour: transparent Smokey brown.

SODALITE: For courage, endurance, open-mindedness, logic and rationality and for bringing light-heartedness, youth and freshness. Used to lower blood pressure and fever. This stone is believed to have a healing effect on animals if placed near their domain. Colour: Dark blue

SERPENTINE: To protect from snake bites, also for ulcers, swelling and rheumatism.

SELENITE: For clarifying thoughts and expanding mental powers.

SPINEL: Used to strengthen character, brings idealism and harmony and decrease stress. Also to promote nerve and muscle function and aid stomach acidity and depression.  Good for spine. A stone favoured by musicians as it is said to inspire them. Colour: red

SUGILITE: Uplifts and brings energy, absorbs garbage.

SUNSTONE: For contemplation, helps in remembering dreams.

TANZANITE: helps with change, uplifts the heart

TIGERS EYE: For good luck and protection against witchcraft and the evil eye.  Brings insight into one’s own faults and guides seekers towards right path.  Used to help hypochondria and asthma. Colour: Golden brown, in bands or stripes of varying shades. Has translucent sheen associated with the cat’s eye, hence the name.

TOPAZ: Believed to bring happiness, wealth and honour, improve intellect, calm the mind and aid psychic development. For mental balance, for strengthening the blood vessels, helping circulation, varicose veins, menstrual pains, liver problems, nervousness, insomnia and for improving appetite. Colour: Golden yellow or aqua blue.

TOURMALINE: Green - helps balance and healing, best for males. Pink, helps balance and protection, best for females. Used in meditation. Possesses many healing properties. For cheerfulness and reconciliation, intuition, protection form enemies, negative vibrations and misfortune. Allays nervousness and brings confidence and calm. Helps clear the chakras. Used for lymphatic problems, anaemia, indigestion, neuritis, weight problems and for helping muscles and nerves.  A stone favoured, by artists, musicians, authors and those in showbusiness. A lucky stone.  Colour: Comes in many shades.

TURQUOISE: (Turkish stone). A lucky stone associated with the Buddha.  Also beloved by the American Indians. Brings wisdom and protection against misfortune or harm. Considered fortunate for horses and their riders.  Reminds us of our spiritual nature and of earthly beauty.  Used in meditation and for  helping intuition.  Good for throat chakra, higher abdomen, muscle weakness, eyes, headaches, fevers, foot and leg problems. Encourages positivity. Regarded as a powerful talisman. Colour: Turquoise, in clear or mottled (matrix) varieties.

UNAKITE: Balances body and emotions

ZIRCON: Promotes development of higher mind and prophecy and reduces melancholia.  In healing, used for lungs, liver, brain, venereal diseases and skin problems. Colour: clear or white.

(Please ask if there are any stones not listed here that you are interested in)

Crystals and Healing

To gain the full benefit of gemstones for healing, some training and knowledge is recommended.  However, you can experiment with the healing effects of gemstones by testing them out for yourselves.  Some people are more sensitive to their properties than others, and a stone which has a strong effect on one person may not do so for another.  For this reason it is often a good idea to choose your gemstones for yourself.  When purchasing, try holding different rocks and gems in your hands and notice whether you feel tingling, or just a sense of peace and calm.  According to your own individual needs, the stones will vibrate differently with your energy field and you will feel intuitively drawn to certain ones. Crystal therapy can be used in a variety of ways.  You may meditate, lying down with the crystal placed on the appropriate chakra or energy centre of the body, or you may place the gemstone in a clear glass container in purified water and leave in sunlight for a day (check with your crystal therapist which gems are OK for this).  The water will then be infused with the properties of the gemstone and can be drunk for its healing effects.  You may also wear gemstones of the appropriate colour for their benefits.  Try to wear colours of the corresponding chakra, for example: purples and blues, in the upper part of the body, as earrings, necklaces etc., yellows and greens towards the centre of the body and the oranges and deeper reds, lower down on the body or as rings, in belts and bracelets or carried in the pockets (although gemstones are best worn next to the skin where possible).  Periodically ‘cleanse’ your gems and crystals by packing in sea salt overnight and  then rinsing in fresh running water for 90 seconds.