Amethyst
Description: Amethyst is a variety of quartz, its color ranging from deep purple to pale lavender.
Location: The deepest hues of amethyst coloration are found in crystals from Uruguay, Siberia, Africa, and Colorado. The most common type, medium purple in color, comes from Brazil. The deep purple color of amethyst is found in some double terminated crystals from South Africa, and the very pale lavender variety of amethyst has been found in Oregon. It is found throughout the world in places as diverse as Bolivia, Argentina, Madagascar, India and Sri Lanka.
Spiritual Uses: The purple color of amethyst marks it as a crown chakra opening and enhancing crystal. When placed under a pillow, amethyst is said to ward off insomnia and nightmares, producing peaceful sleep and possibly healing, prophetic dreams. Amethyst is often worn during psychic or divinatory acts, and being a stone of wisdom, it allows the information received through the psychic vision to be utilized in the physical world. Amethyst facilitates transmutation of lower energies into higher frequencies of the spiritual realms. It can be used to protect against psychic attacks because of its transmuting qualities; it takes the “bad” energy and transforms it into positive, loving energy.
Physical Uses: Amethyst is a stone of peace, with no negative side effects. It is also known as a “stone of spirituality and contentment.” It serves many purposes, including: calming fears, raising hope, lifting the spirits, and enhancing thoughts of the spiritual realms. It facilitates balance within one’s physical, mental, and emotional bodies, and also between the physical and spiritual worlds. An interesting use of amethyst is in the situation of a debate, with the advantage going to the amethyst holder, because it helps one attain spiritual insight to be blended with intellectual reasoning. Among its other uses are: treatment of hearing disorders, reinforcement of one’s posture, stimulation of the nervous system and endocrine glands, treatment of disorders of the nervous system, heart, stomach, skin, teeth, and digestive tract, re-adjustment and re-alignment of cellular disorders to eliminate distressful conditions, treatment of insomnia, and relief of pain from headaches or other disorders, stabilization of mental disorders, and when used as an elixir, the treatment of arthritis. Amethyst has, since ancient times, also been used to bring about sobriety, supporting and encouraging the one who is trying to free oneself of addiction.
History: Amethyst is a stone with much ancient magic usage, and was used two thousand years ago. In ancient Greece and Roman times, it was worn as a charm against evil, and magical cups were carved from amethyst to banish sorrow and evil from all who drank.
Different Types: “Rutilated” amethyst is a rare form of amethyst that combines the qualities of amethyst with the qualities of goethite. Cacoxenite is also combined with amethyst at times, bringing the qualities of the two together, and providing for a very powerful energy. Chevron amethyst exhibits one of the deepest purple colors of any amethyst, and along with possessing all the properties of amethyst as described above, the Chevron amethyst is a well-known “third-eye stone” that can help one have visions of unknown realms lying both in exterior worlds and within oneself.
Eliminating Negativity With Amethyst
This exercise comes from Scott Cunningham’s Crystal, Gem, And Metal Magic (1987). Be prepared to let go of whatever amethyst crystal you choose to use for this exercise, for it is about letting go.
When emotionally upset, jilted by a lover, ending a relationship, failure or disappointment, stressed to the point of severe mental problems, or when in any unstable condition, go to a place outside where you can be alone. Hold an amethyst in your left hand (or right, if left-handed). Pour out all your feelings, your emotions, from your body through your arm, out your palm, and into the stone.
Feel every pain, every emotional low, every hurt. Send it all into the stone with the strong force of your innate magical abilities. When the stone is nearly bursting with negativity, throw it with as much force as you can muster. Throw it into the woods, the desert, a canyon, a lake, a sea, scream, howl, choke out a shout as your throw the stone. As your hand releases the amethyst, release the hurt as well. Know that it is in the stone, that it is outside you, that it is now alien to you.
Calm down, breathe deeply, meditate for a few moments. Thank the earth for its help, then turn around and leave your problems behind you. The earth will absorb the hurt, leaving the stone free, but never bring that stone into your life again. Wherever it landed, the earth will cleanse it. If anyone finds it, they will not be affected by your released negativity, for it will be cleared.
"Pearls and other jewels, as well as metals and plants, applied directly to the human skin, exercise an electromagnetic influence over the physical cells. Man's body contains carbon and various metallic elements that are present also in plants, metals, and jewels. The discoveries of the rishis [illumined sages] in these fields will doubtless receive confirmation some day from physiologists. Man's sensitive body, with its electrical life currents, is a centre of many mysteries as yet unexplored."—Autobiography of a Yogi, Sri Paramahansa Yogananda