It’s a shiny rock, what’s not to like?

I fucking adore amethysts. I don’t care what their “meaning” is…magpie brain like pretty purple rock. Adorn self with rocks. Be cute.

Hee hee hoo hoo shiny rock

Honestly I do like knowing the ‘meanings’ of gemstones but I think of them as less a thing they ‘do’ and more like you know. The meanings of flowers. Like, amethyst means peace and calm. Having one isn’t going to magically heal my anxiety sure that’d just be silly but I like that I can give a pretty purple rock to a friend as a way of saying ‘I hope you have a nice chill time today’ just like you would with flower language. Especially since saying the same thing with flower language would use lavender and a lot of people I know are allergic to that so here have a purple rock instead

the only medicinal properties crystals have is “I did not previously own a shiny rock but now I do :)”

Unless it is specifically rock salt. Then you can also add ‘mmm tastey’ to the list.

Then a distant shuffling was born in the heavy silence. It turned out to belong to a very old woman who appeared, at first sight, to be as dusty as the rocks she, presumably, sold. Vimes had his doubts even about that. Shops like this one often looked upon the selling of merchandise as, in some way, a betrayal of a sacred trust. As if to underline this, she was carrying a club with a nail in it.

When she was close enough for conversation, Vimes said: “I’ve come here to—”“Do you believe in the healing power of crystals, young man?”snapped the woman, raising the club threateningly.

“What? What healing power?”said Vimes. The old woman gave him a cracked smile, and dropped the club.

“Good,”she said. “We like our customers to take their geology seriously. We’ve got some trollite in this week.”

-Terry Pratchett, “Thud!”

So I wanted to know what kind of crystal could go in a wizard staff, right? so I googled “big crystal,” as one does, and got an Etsy ad for This

And as you all know I Am currently taking a geology class, so I am probably more emotionally invested in minerals than usual. But that is...very obviously not a natural crystal.

So I did some looking around on Etsy.

Now, these shops all seem to advertise to the “witchy”/“spiritual healing” type of person. And there are a lot of them. Crystals are a Big Thing on Etsy. And ALMOST ALL of them are obviously artificially cut into the same sort of prism with a triangular pyramid top, regardless of the actual sort of crystal it is supposed to be.

Even like, fucking, obsidian. Obsidian is volcanic glass, it doesn’t form crystals at all, it is not a crystal

I’m not throwing any shade at people who are into crystals for like witchy reasons, but it really seems like if crystals are spiritually important to you, you should know what a crystal is...right...?

So there I am. Caught in the helpless anger and distaste of looking at geologically inaccurate Etsy crystals.

And as I scroll, I start to see items in...interesting shapes:

“Oh,” I think to myself. “Oh no.”

But it is too late. I have heard the siren’s song, singing to me of knowledge that will destroy me, but that I cannot help but seek.

These...elongated objects are almost always ambiguously described as “massage wands,” “crystal healing wands,” and other such innocuous things. The egg-shaped objects are, um, “yoni eggs.”

...Right. Okay.

Maintain the youthfulness of my sacred organ.

IT’S A SEX TOY. SAY IT. BITCH, IT’S A SEX TOY, IT’S OKAY, SERIOUSLY, THERE’S NO SHAME IN IT, SAY IT WITH PRIDE, SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST,

OKAY.

Okay. I’m good. I’m fine.

Actually, you know what, never mind. There is shame in this and I want it to be never acknowledged again.

Additionally, I am not fine.

Why the fuck are there so many of these—

At this point I stop and start googling.

Now, Selenite is the crystalline form of gypsum. It is also known as satin spar. Selenite is brittle and breaks easily, and has a Mohs hardness scale of 2.

For those unfamiliar with the Mohs hardness scale, a mineral with a hardness of 2 is soft enough that it can be easily scratched with a fingernail. It also is dissolved by moisture.

NO. DON’T PUT THAT IN YOUR BODY???? DON’T PUT THE GYPSUM, WHICH HAS A MOHS HARDNESS SCALE OF 2, IS BRITTLE AND BREAKS EASILY, AND IS WATER SOLUBLE, INSIDE YOUR LITERAL ACTUAL VAGINA??????????

I try to reassure myself with the fact that these things are probably not actually selenite, because making a dildo out of such a soft mineral in the first place would be very difficult. Having seen fluorite before, I feel pretty certain that the fluorite yoni eggs are probably actually just glass.

I google fluorite.

Okay.

Further exploring online shows me that fluorite is soluble in various strong acids.

Some guys on a forum in 2004 have strong contradictory opinions on this.

(I google the pH of the vagina.)

I don’t understand how pH works. I give up on the solubility question and google the toxicity of fluorite:

I now know at least one orifice fluorite does not go inside.

Science.

No, dear followers, my journey did not end here.

I have opened Pandora’s box, except Pandora’s box is filled with minerals God did not intend to be anywhere near the vagina carved into the shape of dildos. Etsy is advertising me sex toys I wish I could forget.

And vaginal steam herbs.

It seems that there is potentially a correlation between wanting to steam your vagina and wanting to put rocks in it. I know, groundbreaking discovery.

Okay, so we’re talking therapy substitute therapy substitute.

(I begin to think about how desperately we need universal health care. Maybe I just need someone, something, to blame.)

At this point, I realize that I haven’t done any googling on whether dildos made of rocks are a good idea at all. So, very tentatively, as if typing it more slowly will make it any less observed by the FBI, I google whether quartz should be used...internally.

First result that pops up:

That’s, uh. That’s reassuring.

I decide I’m incapable of unpacking this particular suitcase.

There are, of course, a small handful of articles debating the safety of rose quartz sex toys. But I’m getting the feeling that this is not a normal question to have in the first place. I close the tab with little relief.

Etsy is still enthusiastically recommending me things that hurt me psychologically.

...pleasure chalk?

How can I describe the fear that this image struck in me, reader?

Pleasure Chalk? What could that be?

Is knowing worse, or is not knowing? I scarcely have a choice:

I check in with my emotions.

Is this relief? Am I relieved that they are eating the dirt instead of fucking it? One review complains about the taste. I don’t know what they expected.

I try in vain to struggle against the tide, to return to the relatively normal side of Etsy. I begin to resent, no, hate, these deceptively aesthetically pleasing hippie shops eagerly spreading medical misinformation and things as yet unknown.

This, unlike the other “crystals” I have shown, appears to show naturally grown crystals. They are, of course, quartz crystals, and $45 comes off as extremely overpriced. I have a quartz crystal I got for a dollar at an Eastern Kentucky rock festival, about the size and quality of the ones in the photo.

Quartz is the most common mineral in the Earth’s crust. But at least this is regular levels of annoying.

Then I see this:

Well, I see the photo and the price, and I think, that looks like a regular quartz crystal. There’s no way a regular quartz crystal is $1,347.

I read the description:

I am crying. I don’t want to google any of this. I am beyond googling. I no longer desire knowledge.

THATS A QUARTZ CRYSTAL. MOTHERFUCKER THAT’S QUARTZ. SIO2, MOST COMMON MINERAL IN THE EARTH’S CRUST. ITS FUCKING QUARTZ IM—

I click on a malachite.

The malachite promises to protect me from emails. And at this, darkest hour, I want to be protected.

I have been broken. I have been lured to my demise.

Big Brother: loved.

Geology lab I’m supposed to be doing: incomplete.

God: unmerciful.

This post has everything. Price gouging quartz, eating dirt, and fucking poisonous rocks.

Please don't fuck or eat anything that you don't 1000% know is safe, for fucks sake

This was one hell of a ride

:facepalm:

So much quackery that we’re probably at a Daffy Duck costume contest.

Are we gonna talk about uteruses only being around for 2000 years or is it just getting lost in the general rock fucking?

Sounds like somebody’s forgotten the legacy of the malachite stalagmite.

You’ve heard of healing crystals

now get ready for Danger Rocks

Please do not lick any of these

1. Chrysotile

aka Asbestos! It heals lung cancer! heals it from 0HP to full health! it causes cancer do not touch do not lick

okay but this is a cool danger rock, it’s a physical carcinogen. As in, it doesn’t poison you into having cancer, it just has little needle-y bits that LITERALLY STIR UP your DNA and break it, and when the cells try to repair their DNA they get it wrong and you get cancer

2. Torbenite

A super pretty danger rock! it’s a uranium ore and releases radon gas for Extra Poison!

3. Hutchinsonite - (Tl,Pb)2As5S9

This danger rock has it all! Lead! arsenic! Thallium! All super toxic! Will legit kill you

seriously don’t lick this one, i’m looking at you, fellow geologists

thallium doesn’t taste like anything so you’re not even getting data, just poisoned

4. Cinnabar (Mercury sulfide)

Can be a very pretty red color! so it was used to make paint. The paint was super toxic.

In addition to being dangerous to your health, it’s also morally dangerous! someone had to mine it (v dangerous) so even owning it feels unethical

5. Stibnite (Antimony sulfide)

people used to make spoons and makeup and shit out of this, the spoons poisoned people who ate with them. It’s kinda pretty but not worth dying over

6. Orpiment  (an arsenic sulfide)

Look how pretty it is!!

“Incorrect handling” WILL poison you, that’s fucking arsenic

Honorable mentions:

Malachite, if eaten or… you know ;) (warning: nsfw, THat Post) Galena (lead sulfide), don’t eat it or break the rock and you’ll probably be ok, the dust is the main danger

x

If various minerals really did “absorb negative energies” or whatever then you’d expect geologists to be just like the calmest most focused people ever. and yet,

I was a geology major for like two years and this post made me collapse into helpless laughter.

I mean, for a certain value of focused … yeah.

(That value of focus is “have to start field trips by directing the student riding shotgun that they must grab the wheel whenever the van drives through a rock cut or canyon because the professor will be busy ogling the rock formation out the driver’s-side window” but it technically counts as “focused.”)

Calm?

These are people who throw things across their classroom when a volcano movie gets something wrong, and pour liquid nitrogen under the door to their colleagues’ offices as a prank.

They are not calm.

Theory: minerals do “absorb negative energies,” but then they gotta put it somewhere. and that somewhere is “geologists.”

Essarai Ceramics on Etsy

See our #Etsy or #Ceramics tags

watercolor Stardew Valley minerals: Prismatic Shard

I wish I could swim in this crystal. 💎💙

Crystals for banishing someone:

Any of em if you throw em hard enough

This here’s my banishin’ rock. 

i wonder how many bros it takes to charge this bad boy

Crystal Mobile by BlueLotusDesignsShop

As a follow up to this post, I made a few new designs and then added these stickers to my Etsy shop!

Thought I might as well make some crystal stickers while I’m at it too!

The skulls are of a Chinese water deer, red fox, stag, bearded dragon, tiger and a Griffon vulture.

A5 prints of each individual skull as well as a A4 / A5  group shot and crystal print are available also! It’s free UK shipping and international postage is available :D

Guys please get this out there. I don’t know if anyone’s posted about this yet, but DO NOT try and make those diy crystals!