
The murky business of crystal mining - laurex
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/jun/16/are-crystals-the-new-blood-diamonds-the-truth-about-muky-business-of-healing-stones
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colechristensen
>He never planned to make much money from selling them and still, today,
spends much of his time advising customers on, “say, which stones are best for
anxiety, or which are best for blood disorders.”

Jeez, this guy is openly admitting to practicing medicine here. Somebody
should actually call the FDA/AMA/police.

~~~
ggg2
you also believe people selling mid life crisis people sports car fall in the
same category?

~~~
serf
sports cars provide their claims (fun, performance, image, etc), healing
crystals don't.

No one buys a sports car to remediate a physical illness. ( well, maybe
depression or other related psych problems? )

The car salesman's hyperbole _will not_ kill me, in most cases.

A person telling me to use a gem to heal cancer is, in effect, harming me by
prompting me to waste my precious time on ineffective treatments with no basis
in reality.

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tonetheman
We have "mined" crystals in Arkansas before. Which really consisted of my kids
and I digging around in the dirt until we found something.

It was fun though. And they look cool.

~~~
salmo
We just did this over Memorial Day weekend and it was a blast. My 7 year old
daughter starting coming home with "cool" rocks in her pocket last year and we
just encouraged the interest, went to a local geology show, and got hooked.
Now I'm in the back yard cleaning 50 lbs of quartz, clay, and rock in various
sizes.

I don't know how ethically we mined (dug in dirt), however, since I heavily
relied on my daughters as underage and super-distracted workers.

Oh and I had to raise my voice at my wife (not normally super-nerdy) to tell
her to stop, that we had to take the truck back . But she was hooked, and the
story has entered family lore.

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logfromblammo
I first learned about this stuff from the game manual of Conquests of the
Longbow. Knowing the spiritual properties of different minerals and gems got
me past the guard at the swamp monastery. And I haven't found it useful since.

I bet someone could make some money by inventing a process to "re-naturalize"
synthetic mineral crystals to make them look more like naturally-formed mined
crystals. It would be unethical lucre, of course, but I might still be able to
live with myself if I rationalized it as undercutting Goop, rather than just
hoodwinking regular people.

The only ailment you can't cure with bunkum is stupidity.

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bredren
Anecdotally, I've noticed a rise in interest in collecting crystals and
various rocks as a hobby in some of my social circles. In some part, it is
because they may have some powers. Or it is fun to imagine it--like a lottery
ticket.

But they are also often quite beautiful, and for what it's worth a relatively
inexpensive hobby.

~~~
eximius
> In some part, it is because they may have some powers.

What.

I will shamelessly admit to being an ardent fantasy fan, reading lots of silly
things for the fun of it, imagining other silly scenarios for fun.

But this sort of... mass delusion that spirituality and feelings trump reality
is baffling and concerning.

~~~
kazinator
Crystals do have power: piezoelectricity.

Hug a crystal, get a shock.

~~~
flukus
Do they still sell those DIY crystal radio set kits? Getting kids to build
these again and realize the crystal properties are well understood and not
magic might solve some of the crazy.

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ncmncm
At least they're mostly harmless. To the mark who buys them.

But don't put malachite in your mouth. Or... other places.

~~~
ncmncm
Back in the '80s the same crowd was chasing channelers and "spirit guides".
They were the reason ST:TNG had a Ship's Channeler, er, "Counselor".

~~~
serf
that's an interesting thought, ST:TNG without woo.

Without Whoopi and the Counselor and their magic episodes it'd cut the library
down like 20 or 30 percent I bet.

Personally I think the ST woo started way before TNG -- but I do think that it
was presented and turned into viable story the best in TNG. That said,
pseudoscience/magic/woo was around _and plentiful_ around the world during the
production of the original ST too, maybe that content was also prompted by the
popularity.

Speaking of space-magic, if anyone reading is into space+scifi/fantasy and you
enjoy Star Trek, check out UFO and Space:1999, or really any Gerry Anderson.
Lots of similar topics, and its fun to determine which series did which
subplot first.

~~~
logfromblammo
At least the holodeck cut down on the amount of inexplicable time travel,
theme planets, or theater-loving superbeings in order to get to the alt-
history episodes. That excised a big source of random woo, and replaced it
with one frequently malfunctioning plot device.

If the writers of the original series wanted to set something in Victorian
England, they had to invent an Victorian England planet, and then they could
only use it once. The next generation writers could decide Data liked Sherlock
Holmes, and have that be his recreational holodeck thing, just like Captain
Picard had the hardboiled-detective noir novels.

I thought the position of ship's counselor made sense, but not as a psychic
bridge officer. That seat seemed more suited to a crisis negotiator type of
person--the kind you'd ask to talk the aliens into powering down disruptors
and releasing a hostage. Instead, it was "I sense anger and frustration,
Captain."

And Guinan trod perilously close to the "magical negro" trope at times, and
definitely embodied the "the bartender" trope.

~~~
ncmncm
TNG really had terrible, terrible writers. Any interesting idea was certain to
be trivialized before it reached the soundstage.

------
blunte
If you do buy crystals, be sure to check youtube on how to "cleanse" and
"align" your crystals; otherwise you might not get the results out of them
that you expect.

