Debunking new age 'crystal power'. Anyone?

[miss djax]

Hi,

I'm active in my city's slow food convivium. Last nite was our monthly food fest.

Inevitably, at these dinners, there is some new age whacko touting the benefits of crystals and their healing powers. Last nite the guy was hawking something called 'Circles of Life' which he said was designed by physicists and 'proven' to help all kinds of things.

Today I started research for info debunking the healing power of crystals. I have a hard time believing crystals have healing powers. :rolleyes:

I'm not having much luck. I started on James Randi's site, but couldnt find much. Can anyone help?

Thanks,

Ms D

[Toto]

Crystal Power from skeptics dictionary (http://www.skepdic.com/crystals.html)

People tend to try crystals and find they don't work. They are so ineffective very few people bother debunking them.

[liquid]

Crystals simply don't have healing powers, at least in the manner being claimed.

But you have a problem in the way you have framed the dilemma. Firstly, you may have heard the quote 'You can't prove a negative'.

In this case, it's impossible to prove that crystal cannot contribute to healing in any circumstance, because you can't consider every circumstance. For instance, there is a dragon in my garage, but it's an invisible, slient, ethereal and undetectable dragon - you can't disprove that by definition, but then any sane person would realise it's a stupid thing to believe. There is simply no evidence, despite the fact that it cannot be disproven as an admittedly unlikely theory.

Similarly it is the sensible position to not believe that crystals heal unless they are actually shown to do so, preferably in a controlled double-blind clinical trial. Challenge for evidence and explanatory theories & mechanisms.

If you get any more specific claims, then you can address those with a bit more precision. If they channel energy, what energy? If the resonate, what frequency? If they heal, what clinical studies? You'll be lucky to get these however, because I suspect people who believe this stuff know deep down they will get blown out of the water if they ever actually attempt to clarify it.

[Viti]

Challenge for evidence and explanatory theories & mechanisms

Yes! This is the easiest way to call bullshit, simply ask the mechanism by which this healing takes place. No doubt you'll hear some nonsense about vibrations.

[miss djax]

excellent!!!! thanks everyone....

i am not looking to be confrontational with the crystal wavers, but at the same time i want to be able to speaking articulately next time i run into one of the ranting and raving about how wearing rose quartz cured someone's mom's diabetes.......

again, thanks for the link and commentary....

ms d, grateful for the minds at iidb :)

[AtheistSalmon]

Geez, and I thought crystal idiots went out with the nineties. :rolleyes:

Quartz, especially amethysts are nothing but pretty stones, i.e. decorations, something you smile about when exploring rocky crevasses and finding cool rocks.

<Sarcasm>
Ask them if they grind them up and mix them in "holy water lite, only 0.1 calorie!" if it will cure credulous superstitions and charlatans. :D
</Sarcasm>

[MzNeko]

When my best friend was a teenager into crystals, her dad, a very down-to-earth skeptic, managed to get her good.

She was talking about the properties of Lapis, and he said "Lapis is a very powerful stone."

Hearing him of all people going wide-eyed and mystical over crystals is somewhat like finding a stream flowing uphill. Considerably startled, she said "What?"

Straight-faced, he said "Especially if you have 42 of them."


"You put them into a sock, and then you hit someone over the head with it..."

"Daaaaaad!"

:D

[Plognark]

"You put them into a sock, and then you hit someone over the head with it..."

ROFL... :D

[Betenoire]

Originally posted by MzNeko
Straight-faced, he said "Especially if you have 42 of them."


So was it written by Douglas Adams, so shall it be...

For me to start believing in them, you'd have to be able to
- detect a force (electromagnetism, strong nuclear, whatever) generated by crystals and then recreate that field and have it duplicate the results.
- run a double-blind experiment that recreates the results.

Until then, you might as well bust out a bottle of aspirin and say, "This does whatever those crystals do, and more! (because it actually DOES help headaches)"

[Clutch]

Originally posted by miss djax
excellent!!!! thanks everyone....

i am not looking to be confrontational with the crystal wavers, but at the same time i want to be able to speaking articulately next time i run into one of the ranting and raving about how wearing rose quartz cured someone's mom's diabetes....... Never a better moment for the old (and good) saying: The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'.

Ask: Have you ever made a note of how many people who've started feeling better (w.r.t. some condition) have been wearing the same socks they wore the day before? "Evidence" of this sort for the healing power of crystals will be vastly stronger for the healing power of unwashed socks! And it will be just as worthless. Because, first, of all the people who start feeling better for whatever reason, more will be wearing unwashed socks than will be wearing crystals; and second, because in both cases we're avoiding measuring the number of sock and crystal devotees who are not healed.

That's why we have controlled, double-blind studies to sort out the genuine correlations from the spurious correlations that depend on trimming the data to fit the hypothesis. Show me the double-blind and replicable studies establishing a correlation between crystals and healing, and I'll believe you. What could be fairer or more forthright? But tell me stories about crystals and I'll tell you stories about unwashed socks.

[Infidelettante]

Symbolism dears, symbolism. Yes, there are some who confuse the subject with the object and so think the power is in the stone when it is first and always in themselves.

I have a collection of crystals which never fail to sooth or energize me depending on what use I put to them.

They nestle in little drawers or sit among the other sacred objects that make up the symbolic landscape of my altar. Sacred because they recall moments and places and persons who touch me deeply. They bring up strong emotional contexts in which I can, for a time, relive that moment, or that place, or that person.

But they are more than mementos and keepsakes. They are not souvenirs. They are tools in a life long work of self discovery. Each is a symbol for a part of me that I must face and know.

Each is a key to some recess I may, or may not want to reach into. But I will reach, again and again until that recess is as familiar to me as the stone that stands for it. It may be no less dark and no less fearful but it will be known.

In the realm of the symbolic crystals can and do contain worlds. Worlds that challenge us to explore and discover and learn. It is so that with a candle and a crystal I can make worlds dance upon my fingertips. Don’t dismiss so surly those of us who do such things. A few have been known to put some thought into it.

JT

[Clutch]

Originally posted by Infidelettante
Symbolism dears, symbolism. Yes, there are some who confuse the subject with the object and so think the power is in the stone when it is first and always in themselves. ... Don’t dismiss so surly those of us who do such things. A few have been known to put some thought into it.
If you are not claiming that the crystal qua crystal has some healing effect, then nobody here has dismissed any of your practices, whether in a surly tone or otherwise.

So the patient tone, dear, is uncalled for. Manifestly this thread is addressing those who claim a healing effect from the crystal itself.

[PickyEater]

One of my best friends is pagan and believes very strongly in the power of crystals. She spends, I kid you not, several hundred dollars on ONE freaking ROCK. Because she "feels it's energy." That is the hardest thing to debunk for me, because how can I tell her she doesn't feel anything? I'm not in her head, you know?

But we've had conversations about it. I've asked her to demonstrate for me the power of crystals. But, of course, "It doesn't work that way." Whatever!

Anyway, she and I just agree to disagree on crystals. And ghosts. And "energy."

[Clutch]

Originally posted by PickyEater
how can I tell her she doesn't feel anything? I'm not in her head, you know? Well, you can't tell her that, because that's probably false.

Of course she feels something; if anyone's the authority on that, it's she.

The point to make, therefore, is that she's not an authority on the significance of what she feels. People taking placebos routinely report feeling the effects. They're not lying; they really do feel something.

But what they feel does not license the conclusion that it's the pills that are having the effect. The same goes for similar phenomena, like crystals. That the feeling is more than a placebo effect cannot be verified by the feeling itself. For that, you need proper statistical correlations.

[Jesse]

Originally posted by PickyEater
One of my best friends is pagan and believes very strongly in the power of crystals. She spends, I kid you not, several hundred dollars on ONE freaking ROCK. Because she "feels it's energy." That is the hardest thing to debunk for me, because how can I tell her she doesn't feel anything? I'm not in her head, you know? Well, you could hide the rock under a cup or a box or something, then have some similar cups/boxes with nothing under them, and see if she could tell which one it's under by feeling the energy from the rock. I guess she could always claim that cardboard or plastic blocks the energy, though (but if so, you could ask her to close her eyes and then you could pass various objects above her hand, and see if she could tell when you passed the rock over it).

[Infidelettante]

Originally posted by Clutch
If you are not claiming that the crystal qua crystal has some healing effect, then nobody here has dismissed any of your practices, whether in a surly tone or otherwise.

So the patient tone, dear, is uncalled for. Manifestly this thread is addressing those who claim a healing effect from the crystal itself.

Forgive me, I left the 'e' out of surely. :o I would never call you surly Clutch.

JT

[Clutch]

Originally posted by Infidelettante
Forgive me, I left the 'e' out of surely. :o I would never call you surly Clutch.

JT Hmm, well, I may have been surly when I wrote my reply. Though not surely.

Anyhoo. The point was, I don't think anybody's been concerned -- surely or otherwise -- to reject the symbolic use of crystals. Or the symbolic use of anything, for that matter.

[Deacon Doubtmonger]

Originally posted by Jesse
Well, you could hide the rock under a cup or a box or something, then have some similar cups/boxes with nothing under them, and see if she could tell which one it's under by feeling the energy from the rock.... you could ask her to close her eyes and then you could pass various objects above her hand, and see if she could tell when you passed the rock over it.
Two more elements are needed to ensure accuracy: (1) You'd have to ensure the subject is truly and uncheatably blindfolded. Any magician's textbook on mentalism will reveal ways to defeat a blindfold. Do a search on Randi's site with the words "reading" and "blindfolded" (no quote marks) for some examples.

(2) You'd have to do the test double-blind -- that is, you also would not know which the objects you pass over her hand was the "active" rock.

[Deacon Doubtmonger]

Originally posted by miss djax
I started on James Randi's site, but couldn't find much.
Put just the word "quartz" (no quotes) into his search engine; this will reveal some useful examples.

[Jet Black]

crystals can heal. If your girlfriend or wife is miserable, then give her a diamond and that will heal her depression right away.

[Karalora]

Jet Black, did you learn nothing from the Miscellaneous thread about diamonds a few weeks ago?

[Jet Black]

did I take part in that? I shall have to look it up.

[lpetrich]

A related subject is pyramid power; any run-ins with believers in pyramid power recently?

As Carl Sagan once noted, it's belief in things like a razor blade staying sharper inside a cardboard pyramid than inside a cardboard cube.

[ten to the eleventh]

Originally posted by Deacon Doubtmonger
Two more elements are needed to ensure accuracy: (1) You'd have to ensure the subject is truly and uncheatably blindfolded. Any magician's textbook on mentalism will reveal ways to defeat a blindfold. Do a search on Randi's site with the words "reading" and "blindfolded" (no quote marks) for some examples.

(2) You'd have to do the test double-blind -- that is, you also would not know which the objects you pass over her hand was the "active" rock.

You forget: the tester's negative "vibes" can destroy the good "vibes" from the crystal. This is how we keep things untestable. I'd love to see MzNeko run a double-blind test of her friend's beliefs, but she should remember that when it comes to people protecting their cherished bullshit, they can be slicker than something that is very slick.

[MzNeko]

Originally posted by ten to the eleventh
I'd love to see MzNeko run a double-blind test of her friend's beliefs, but she should remember that when it comes to people protecting their cherished bullshit, they can be slicker than something that is very slick.

Not much point these days. That's ancient history now - back in the far-away care-free days of high school. She's rather more skeptical these days.

That's one of my favorite stories about her dad. He was a very down-to-earth guy. I think "What a crock!" was one of his favorite phrases.

Anytime I hear stuff about crystals, I think about that incident and smile.

[sourdough]

since no doctor has yet proved under controled conditions healing power of crystals,its probably just as much effective as the power of prayer..

still.... I understand that crystals absorb electric or is it magnetic energy such as radio waves,(anyone remember crystal radios?)

and since human body has certain electrical currents flowing thru who knows if it might have some kind of influence on it?

www.midnightscience.com/howxtal.html

[Betenoire]

Originally posted by ten to the eleventh
You forget: the tester's negative "vibes" can destroy the good "vibes" from the crystal. This is how we keep things untestable. I'd love to see MzNeko run a double-blind test of her friend's beliefs, but she should remember that when it comes to people protecting their cherished bullshit, they can be slicker than something that is very slick.

"As slick as this cold, icy marble."

Quote contest!