What Should You Do When You Get a New Crystal?

(Apart from rejoice)

Congrats! You got a new crystal ally in your life!

So now what?

Crystals can be confusing. There’s a lot of contradictory information out there. But you got your crystal from me, and I’ve got your back!

Below is a cheat sheet I put together full of the things to do when you get a new crystal. You’ll find initial instructions and information on:

  • Cleansing

  • Dedicating

  • Aligning

  • Charging

Many people don’t do anything to their crystals and enjoy them. But if you got a crystal from me, chances are you’re planning on using your crystal to help you with healing, magic, or some kind of energy work and I want to help you get the most out of it.

Some of these contain visualizations but if you have difficulty visualizing, due to aphantasia or the like, don’t sweat it. Focus on what the visualization feels like. Visualizing is meant to make it easier to feel energy, so just focus on feeling the energy.

Here’s are the things I suggest you do with a new crystal:

Cleansing:

Your crystals are cleansed when you get them, but you should know how to cleanse them yourself. There are a lot of ways to cleanse crystals, and you should try a few and see what works best for you. But I think most ways of cleansing are inconvenient. Leaving them in the sun doesn’t account for the fact many crystals, like amethyst, lose color with repeated sun exposure. Leaving them in a full moon means you have to wait for a full moon. Rinsing them in water can’t be done to crystals that get damaged in water. Burying them in the earth is a pain in the ass if you have a bunch of crystals to cleanse.

Here are my 2 favorite ways to cleanse:

Energy Cleansing: Hold the crystal in your hands in front of your heart. Envision a violet flame emanating from your heart. See the violet flame flow from your heart into your arms and through your fingers into the crystal. See the crystal light up, surrounded by the flame. Watch the flame burn away any energies that do not belong with the crystal. Then pull the flame back through your arms and into your heart. To do this for a room full of crystals, instead of holding the crystals, hold your hands out in front of you, palms up, and project the flame out throughout the room.

Sound Cleansing: This is a great way to cleanse a room full of crystals. You can do this with anything that makes a room filling sound, particularly a bell, singing bowl, or tuning fork. If you don’t have any of these then clapping your hands, holding a low hum, or repeating a mantra work well. Start this the same way as the energy cleansing above, except bring the violet flame into whatever you’re using to make sound with. Make the sound and see the flame flow out as the sound fills the room. Do this as many times as needed.

Dedicating:

Dedicating a crystal is essentially aligning with the stone’s energy. You can also look at this as a form of consecration. If you have an altar or a place you meditate or any other sacred space, do this there.

Hold the crystal and invite the consciousness of the stone to join you in the sacred space. When you feel a connection, recite a dedication or consecration mantra or affirmation if you have one you already use. If not then state something like, “May this crystal be used only for the highest good. May it hold resonance with my higher purpose.” Hold the crystal near your heart and visualize it filling with white light. If you’re dedicating the stone to a spirit, this is a good time to do so. When finished, thank the stone for joining energies with you.

Aligning:

Spend some time getting to know your crystal. Take some time to look it over and reflect on it. Look at it in different lights and from different angles. You’ll likely notice something new every time you do this.

Place the crystal in or near your bed when you go to sleep. If the crystal isn’t too big, I like to place it under my pillow but within the pillow case, so it won’t fall off the bed. Otherwise, I place it on my nightstand. Before you sleep, ask the consciousness of the crystal to communicate with you in your dream state, or on the astral plane. Notice how you feel when you wake up and whether you had any dreams or interactions you can remember

Charging:

Stones do not have batteries. Charging isn’t about replenishing a stone’s energy, it’s augmenting a stone’s energy. So if you charge a stone in the sun, it will take on aspects of solar energy. Likewise with the moon, burying it in soil, or running water over it. If you want to charge it with the energy of a place or person, then leave it with the place or person for a bit.

The key is to state the intention of charging to the consciousness of the stone before you charge it. Great times to charge a stone are solstices, equinoxes, full and new moons, noon, midnight, sunrise, sunset. Great places to charge a stone are beaches, anywhere in nature, any place that is a sacred space to you.

A Few More Tips:

  • All stones are actually self-cleansing! But they tend to shed disharmonious energies on slower timelines than we want them to, since they work in life spans of millions of years instead of decades like us. So you don’t have to stress cleansing stones frequently unless…

  • If you’re using the crystal for healing or for work with other people, it will need to be cleansed much more often, likely after every use. This is less for the stone and more for the integrity and accuracy of your work.

  • If you’re using the crystal for magical purposes, have a dedicated space for it. Ideally you should have a space that is exclusively for magical tools.

  • If the crystal is to be used exclusively for solo rites or meditation, then store it away from other people’s eyes. It will be more potent for solo practices if it’s only tied to your energy.

  • Not all stones do well in the sun or in water. Check and see if your stone will get damaged before exposing it to the elements.

  • If you’re storing different types of stones together, be aware of their respective hardness. Harder stones will scratch, or potentially chip, softer ones. Check the crystal’s rating on the Mohs scale of hardness.

  • The Mohs scale is a bit weird. It’s not linear or logarithmic, it’s comparative. Diamond, the hardest stone, is 10 and it is 4 times harder than corundum (rubies/sapphires) which is 9. And Topaz, which is 8, is only half as hard as corundum. The difference in relative hardness gets less the lower you go, so the difference between a hardness level 2 and 3 is much less than the difference between 9 and 10.

Want more? I drop a lot of crystal info and showcase new crystals on Instagram.

Have Fun!