The moment I no longer thought crystals were bullshit.*

It was 2009 in sunny, affordable-to-live Los Angeles.

I was fresh off a breakup from my first long term (ish) relationship in many years. I’d been dating this girl a year, discovered she hooked up with some random guy at whale camp, and swiftly had her move out of where we lived.

A week or two after that, I was on a downer and a friend often affectionately referred to as a hippie within our group invited me over.

A fancy pink crystal known as “Rose Quartz”

My hippie friend (shorthanded as “T”) starts making some things for us to snack on and we end up talking about whoever she’s been dating and what it’s like to live in a castle on the top of a hill (she lived in an actual castle on top of a hill) with all the characters that can bring. I regret not taking pictures.

After about 20 minutes, we got on to the subject of why I felt like total crap. I awkwardly stumble through the story I could form together of my ex pouncing a fella she met at Whale camp. At the end of the story, she stares at me for a moment with a look that says “I’ve got just the thing for you.” T gets up, walks to a drawer and pulls out a large shiny transparent pink rock.

She says, “Lie down. Put it on your chest.”

At this point, I’m numb and mentally checked out. I say “Fuck it. What’s the worst that can happen?”

So I place the rock on my chest. Turns out, after a little bit of a warm up, the rock started sending soothing feelings into my chest, and I started feeling my emotions. I was understandably impressed and surprised.

I don’t remember what happened next, but I’m pretty sure I lay there longer and tranced out briefly.

When I returned to a more conscious state, I notice I feel lighter and more rested. Did this rock just do reiki on me?

So T and I hung out a bit longer and eventually I left, confused yet aware and impressed that a pretty pink rock somehow helped me feel better than any cannabis joint or glass of wine could at that time.

Two shiny black balls, aka the Shungite Orbs of EMF relief

About a decade later, I was shaking-off another breakup. This time, an 8 year marriage. I now had a piece of Rose Quartz that helped soothe me a little, but I needed one the size of a tank for this round of healing relief.

Unfortunately, I knew no soul who would possess such a piece. Instead, I felt a pull to travel and Mount Shasta was the first destination I headed to. Armed with no winter clothes, some savings and a willingness to sleep in my car, I found myself in the tiny village of stores and healers and did some exploring.

I find a healer duet; one long-haired fella with a Sanskrit name (Mr Sanskritname shall be his shorthand name for the rest of this tale), and a lady called Deborah Stellamaris.

This would be the first time I had two healers working on me simultaneously. I was very open-minded at this point being as my marriage was to a lady performing exorcisms for a living. However, trusting healers I didn’t know was a new edge for me.

These two turned out to be great, and without telling them much of anything, they identified that I worked heavily in the tech world and saw that I was completely saturated in “EMF energy”. My only experience with that being a problematic thing, was the character arc for Jimmy McGill/Saul’s brother in Better Call Saul; an eccentric yet brilliant character who hid in his home to avoid EMF exposure, as it brought him physical pain.

So yeah - EMF saturation. As Mr Sanskritname waved his hand by my shin during the session, I felt my body gain a sudden 80 lbs of weight and I fell. I was dazed and surprised. He didn’t touch me. I wasn’t feeling queasy or anything that would telegraph me collapsing.

He told me what he’d performed was the removal of an energetic density in my calves which prevented me from connecting to the energy circuit of the Earth. He said the saturation of EMF in my body was so dense, that clearing this density is what led to the sudden fall. I was curious but not fully convinced. He recommended I walk up to a nearby crystal shop and ask for a Shungite orb.

Taking on this videogame style mission, I ventured to a place called, “Shasta Rainbow Angels”. If I had seen the actual name, I may have been less likely to enter. However, the store itself was peaceful and had a gentle warmth and safety to it. It was small and I noticed how relaxed and friendly the lady in the back of the store was t another customer.

I walked in. "Uh… do you have shungite orbs?”

She did! And I told her what happened and she guided me to a picture of an alien and told me to do a certain posture and breathe a certain way.

I was once again, open to absolutely anything at this point. I held the large and shiny black balls and breathed as instructed with zero preparation for what was to come next.

I promise you, dear reader, that these orbs were somehow sucking what felt like a prickly density of energy out of my forearms. It was impressive, relieving and seemed to assist me in feeling more relaxed and sensitive and aware to my surroundings.

If I could conclude in this moment what EMF saturation had deprived me of, it was sensitivity to the world around me and my own inner workings. Sensitivity being clearer, I remembered I could sense subtle forces of energy, including unseen emotional shifts in another with zero effort.

I feel it’s important to illustrate why the EMF saturation on my part was so rich. I worked in video games for 25 years with the last 5 years being in VR, meaning I had a TV on my face for hours in a single day. Or rather two cell-phone screens over each eye, in a sweaty headset, for hours a day, for 5 years.

In essence, I was mainlining EMF for 5 years straight and my body was finally getting a chance to purge it.

Anyway - that was the day I firmly lost all doubt about crystals having utility to those beyond the sensitive, but as with all things, certain ones will give no value to a first timer, so choose carefully when you introduce less open-minded friends to your world of magick and shiny rocks.

*technically, it was two moments.