Crystals for Beginners

If you are only just discovering the wonderful possibilities of crystals, consider this your handy guide to working with crystals for beginners.

Stones have been used by people since ancient times – but never before have they been so accessible and easy to get your hands on. You can purchase crystals in many physical stores as well as online. In other words, there is nothing stopping you from starting your crystal collection and start building your knowledge of the various crystals and their unique energetic frequencies and uses today.

Crystals are powerful energy tools that can be used for a vast variety of different applications. Crystals, on their own, are unlikely to turn a dark or difficult situation completely on its head, as they serve more of a supportive, fortifying and ampliying function. When used with intention and understanding, though, crystals can be instrumental in everything from energy healing, manifestation, attracting love and positive energy, and repelling and warding off negative energy and influences.

Crystals can be used by anyone, for a wide variety of purposes, and they require no specialist knowledge or training. Keep reading for everything you need to know about crystals for beginners.

What are crystals used for?

Different crystals serve different purposes. There is, quite literally, a crystal for any occasion.

When choosing which crystal to use for a particular purpose, it is important to pick a crystal whose vibration and meaning fits the function you want it to serve.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of common crystal uses and applications:

Spiritual practice and self-development work

Many use crystals to enhance, amplify or direct the energies of their spiritual practice – whatever the practice is.

Crystals can serve a whole range of spiritual functions including enhancing meditation, aiding lucid dreaming, carving out sacred space for ritual, charging spiritual tools and divination tools (such as Tarot cards, oracle cards or runes), energy clearing, energy healing, amplifying mental focus and clarity, and aiding intuition and spiritual development.

Physical, emotional and spiritual healing

Because of their healing powers, crystal healing is an important component in many alternative therapy and healing practices.

Different crystals have different properties and can be used to help and support either physical, emotional, mental or energetic (aura) healing in different ways.

Certain crystals are considered to aid various bodily functions, such as digestion or blood pressure, while others are tied to a particular organ, such as the liver or the heart. Wearing an amulet comprised of the relevant crystal, or holding the crystal against the parts of the body that needs healing can aid and support the body’s natural healing abilities.

Just as there are crystals that are associated with different aspects of the physical body, there are crystals that correspond with the frequencies of the mind. Some crystals can help instil emotional stability, ease anxiety or mental health issues.

Some crystals, including clear quartz, are more generalised healing crystals and can be used for healing of a variety of issues, whether physical, emotional, mental or spiritual.

For the most powerful crystal healing, combine a potent general healing crystal with whatever crystal specifically addresses the issue at hand.

Physical, emotional and spiritual protection and defence

Another common use of crystals is protection and defence.

Just like there are crystals that are able to aid and support physical, emotional, mental and spiritual healing, there are crystals that offer physical, emotional, mental and spiritual protection against negative vibes, people and influences.

Some crystals, including black tourmaline, help repel negative energy while others form an energetic shield around the aura, making it less susceptible to picking up on negative emotions and energies in the environment.

What are the best crystals for beginners?

So, what crystals should you start with?

When you are just dipping into and exploring the magical realm of crystals, it can all seem a little overwhelming and the choices can seem endless. It can be difficult to know where and how to begin.

Start your own crystal collection small and simple, and build from there. All you really need are a few versatile and powerful crystals that each bring something different to the table. Start with just a handful of crystals, or just a few. Learn as much as you can about them, get to know them, and then add some more. Expand your collection along with your knowledge, building and adding bit by bit.

As a rule of thumb, it is a good idea to start with a small handful of stones that have very different frequencies – you don’t need five healing crystals, if five are all the crystals you have.

Pick the ones that appeal to you, that you vibe with and feel drawn to, but keep it practical. A collection of crystals for beginners should include: A healing crystal, a protection crystal, a grounding and stabilising crystal, an intuition amplification crystal, an energy amplification crystal and a purification crystal. If you choose your spiritual tools well, you may find that you never need a great, big arsenal of crystals but prefer to keep it simple, as you have all of your bases covered, crystal-wise, with your small collection.

Here is a rundown of some of the best crystals for beginners, selected for their potency, versatility, and the relative ease with which you will be able to get your hands on them.

Clear quartz

Clear quartz is a must-have crystal for beginners. Known as the master healer, clear quartz deflects negative energies while transmitting positive vibes.

Clear quartz is one of the most potent and versatile crystals in any crystal collector’s stable – it can be used for protection as easily as for energy clearing or healing.

When you are first getting to know your crystals, it is a good idea to simply hold them in your hands and look at them – the crystal’s appearance and feel is going to tell you a lot about what the crystal is good for, even before you read anything about it. In the case of clear quartz, it looks almost like it is made from ice. Typically, the quartz crystal is fully transparent and clear, its shape composed of hexagonal prisms, terminating with a six-sided prism at either end.

Just holding a piece of transparent uartz in the palm of your hand and taking it in visually is going to give you a sense of mental clarity and focus.

Rose quartz

Rose quartz is one of the most potent and vital healing crystals for beginners.

Rose quartz resinates with the frequency of unconditional love and emits powerful divine feminine energy. You would be hard pressed to find a healing stone as potent and universally applicable as rose quartz.

More than a healing stone, rose quartz helps inspire and attract love, romance, constructive communication and nurturing relationships. Rose quartz can help heal and soothe interpersonal conflicts, arguments and animosity.

Amethyst

Amethyst crystal is one of the best crystals for beginners. It is undefeated when it comes to regulating, soothing and stabilising emotions.

Amethyst is often used as a stone for emotional healing, and for soothing and alleviating negative emotions such as fear, anxiety and stress during difficult times.

Amethyst’s mystical purple color connects it to the the crown chakra, the chakra responsible for the flow of spiritual energy. This makes amethyst uniquely suited as as crystal for helping you tape into your intuition, including any latent psychic abilities.

Amethyst is one of the best crystals to use for vision work, or to aid and encourage lucid dreaming.

Citrine

Citrine is one of the most positive and high-vibe crystals for beginners. It’s frequency is one of abundance, joy and optimism, as evidenced by its semi-transparent bright yellow color.

Citrine vibrates with the frequency of monetary abundance, expansion, bold optimism and quiet simply, good luck. This makes citrine a great stone for mood boosting, manifestation and attracting more wealth into your life.

Because of its positive energy, citrine can help alleviate low moods or even depression.

Jade

Jade is a beautiful, banded green stone and is one of the best crystals for beginners. It is also one of the most suitable crystals for beginners.

Jade’s green color ties it to the heart chakra and helps attract positive emotions, friendship, compassion and protection from harm and accidents.

Jade has a positive effect on its wearer’s mood, by instilling and supporting a positive sense of self-esteem, and encouraging a good work ethic and the pursuit of dreams and desires.

Garnet

Garnet is a deep, sometimes blood red stone, tied to the root chakra. Garnet stimulates the survival instinct by encouraging courage, boldness and hope.

Garnet is a stone all crystal beginners should have in their collection because of its unique ability to generate self-love, compassion, passion and devotion in its wearer.

Lapis lazuli

Lapis lazuli is one of the best crystals for beginners when it comes to inspiring mental clarity, focus and personal truth and conviction.

Lapis lazuli is blue in color, tying it to the throat chakra, which stands for communication, truth, and self-expression. Lapis lazuli is also one of the best healing stones, said to alleviate sore throats and fevers.

Lapis lazuli helps its wearer cut through confusion, distortion, gaslighting or uncertainty in order to get to the core of their personal truth. Lapis stone gives its wearer the clarity and courage to speak their truth loud and clear. Because this stone also stimulates the intellect, it is a particularly useful stone to keep close at hand when you are studying for an exam, writing a book, or putting a business plan together.

Hematite

Hematite is one of the most important crystals for beginners to add to their collection, as Hematite is known to aid and instil balance and harmony between mind, body and spirit.

Hematite repel bad vibes overall, and is also one of the best crystals for protection against the electromagnetic fields and frequencies emitted by electronics like computers and smartphones.

Hematite plugs you into your survival instincts and boosts confidence and self-belief, making it a particularly good stone for anyone struggling to assert themselves and stand their ground.

Tiger’s eye

Tiger’s eye is a vital crystal for beginners. Associated with the third eye chakra, this amber-golden crystal offers powerful psychic protection, while connecting you with higher vibrations, sharpening intuition and imagination.

Other special properties linked to the tiger-striped stone include mental focus and clarity, dispelling fear and anxiety, and easing psychosomatic illnesses.

Turquoise

Turquoise crystal takes its name from its vivid, turquoise color.

Holding and looking at a piece of turquoise is like holding a solidified piece of a calming ocean in your hand. The crystal instantly floods you with calm, soothing and reassuring energies.

Turquoise is one of the best healing stones to keep near you if you are suffering from depression or burnout. Slowly but surely, the gentle energy of the turquoise crystal will refill your depleted energetic resources, assist you in creative problem solving and alleviate such disturbances as anxiety and panic attacks.

Carnelian

Carnelian is one of the absolute must-have crystals for beginners, as it stimulates energy, vitality and creativity.

Carnelian is orange-red in color, connecting it to the sacral chakra, making this the right crystal to use when you want to infuse your daily life with more excitement, energy and creativity.

If you are feeling lethargic or demotivated, carnelian is beyond a doubt the right stone to reach for.

Smoky quartz

No stone collector’s collection is complete without a smoky, sometimes called phantom, quartz. It is similar in appearance to its clear counterpart, but the smoky version of this powerful and versatile stone is cloudy and hazy-grey in color.

Phantom quartz inspires mental focus, clarity of thought and intention, and inspires positive life choices.

Black obsidian

Black obsidian is considered one of the most powerful shielding and protection crystals in existence.

Obsidian draws in and absorbs negative vibes and harmful frequencies, protecting its wearer from getting hit by negativity.

Black obsidian is one of the best stones to keep near you when you are navigating toxic environments or situations where a lot of negative emotion is present.

What to do when you first get crystals

So what should you do when you first get crystals?

Follow these simple steps, and your new stones are guaranteed to serve you well for a long time to come.

Cleansing

The first thing to do when you have brought a new crystal home is to cleanse it before introducing it into your environment. Cleansing your crystal is the metaphysical equivalent of restoring it to factory settings.

No matter where you purchased your stone from, it is safe to assume that other people have touched it and potentially imprinted it with some of their energy.

There are a number of different ways to cleanse your stone. I absolutely love the simplicity of just holding it under running water, while visualising any bad energies and vibes being washed away and disappearing down the drain.

Charging

Once your new crystal is clean, the next step is to charge it up with energy. I like to place my crystals in sunlight or the light of the nearest full moon, allowing them to drink in all the cosmic energy they could possibly need.

Bonding

The third and final step before taking your stone into use is to bond with it. If you found and purchased your stone in a store, chances are, you have already got a feel for its particular energy before you paid for it and brought it home. If you have already formed an impression, a bond, with the newest addition to your crystal collection, feel free to ignore this step.

Placement

Deciding where to place and position your new stone is an important part of getting it to work for you as you hope it will.

Just as selecting the right crystal for the purpose is important, it is vital that you put it in the place where it is is needed.

Let us say, for example that you want to use your new black tourmaline to minimise the harmful vibes and frequencies that you are always surrounded by at work. Placing your black tourmaline on your office desk is a good move, while leaving it in your car isn’t. Similarly, if you want to bring the good vibes and healing power of rose quartz into your marriage, placing a large chunk of it in the bedroom is a great idea, while keeping it in a drawer in your home office is bound to be less effective.

Caring for your crystals

An important but often overlooked step in harnessing the full power and potential of your stones is taking great care of them.

Caring for your crystals involves cleansing them as and when needed, recharging them as necessary, and storing them in such a way that they don’t become lost or broken.

The best crystals for sleep that is the best crystal to sleep with?

What is the best crystal to sleep with?

Just like most crystals, the answer is multi-faceted. The easy answer is amethyst, as this stone is naturally tied to the crown chakra and to the mystic realm of sleep.

Amethyst inspires vivid and lucid dreams, while alleviating and repelling nightmares, night terrors and insomnia at the same time.

Other crystals that are conductive for healthy sleep: Rose quartz, green calcite and fluorite.

Where you should place crystals in your home

You can place your crystals anywhere you want in your home, office or car, but here are a few ideas that might inspire you.

A typical place is the dining table or coffee table, where people gather and communicate. For this placement, choose a stone that inspires love, humour and constructive communication.

Another good placement is the entrance, next to the door. Here, you might want to place a stone that absorbs and deflects any negative energy trying to come through the door.

Windowsill make great locations for crystal grids, or just a singular, well-chosen stone. A windowsill is also potentially a good place to recharge a stone that has become energetically deflated. Choose a windowsill where the sunlight or moonlight is going to fully bathe your crystals.

Bedside tables are wonderful locations for keeping crystals. Sitting here, your soothing amethyst or gently uplifting citrine is going to be the last thing you see before you drift off to sleep.

How to use crystals in your spiritual practice

There are a number of different ways in which you can incorporate stones into your spiritual practice. Here are a few examples of how stones can be used for different spiritual and ritualistic purposes.

Meditation

Meditating with your crystals is a great way of drawing on their positive energy and healing properties.

The simplest way is simply holding them in your hands and letting their energy bring peace as well as infuse and inspire you while you meditate.

Ritual or prayer

If you have a spiritual practice that entails any kind of ritual or even just prayer, adding a stone in the right place can help boost your practice.

You might want to place a stonel on your altar to continually cleanse and purify the energies, or you might use a citrine to amplify the positive energy of your abundance affirmations. A shard of black tourmaline or hematite can be used to carve out sacred space to great effect.