Crystals for Protection: How to Choose Your Stone

Start with tourmaline, lapis lazuli, or quartz. Choose by meaning and everyday use.

At my card table in South Tucson, the beads rest on a faded beach towel. I start with what protection means to you.

First comes the meaning of protection, then the stones, the boundaries, and your choice.

What protection means

Historical passages are adapted from George Frederick Kunz’s 1915 The Magic of Jewels and Charms.

Jewels, gems, stones, superstitions and astrological lore are all so interwoven in history that to treat of either of them alone would mean to break the chain of association linking them one with the other.

While the precious and semi-precious stones were often worn as amulets or talismans, the belief in the magic quality of mineral substances was not confined to them, but was also held in regard to large stone masses of peculiar form, or having strange markings or indentations. Moreover, many small stones, possessing neither worth nor beauty, were thought to exert a certain magical influence upon natural phenomena.

An occult power of this sort was also attributed by tradition to some mythical stones, the origin of this fancy being frequently explicable by the quality really inherent in some known mineral bearing a designation closely similar to that bestowed upon the imaginary stone.

For me, protection means space before I answer. I still set the boundary.

Whereas a gem might be prized for its beauty by a single individual owner, a stone of curious and suggestive form sometimes claimed the reverence of an entire tribe, since it was thought to be the abode or the chosen instrument of some spirit or genius.

Beauty of color or lustre in a stone or some quaint form attracts the eye of the beholder, and his choice of material for ornament or adornment is also conditioned by the toughness of some stones as compared with the facility with which others can be chipped or polished. I check both.

Common protective stones

The comparison starts with dark tourmaline, blue lapis, and pale quartz.

### Black tourmaline: a dark boundary reminder

I would choose black tourmaline for a boundary reminder. Kunz describes its wider family:

No single gem-mineral can be said to equal tourmaline in this respect, more especially, however, in the combination of several colors sometimes disposed in bands, at other times in concentric circles in the same crystal.

Black tourmaline (schorl) crystals from Erongo Mountain, Namibia; one of the three protection-stone choices discussed. — Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0

These most attractive stones are to be found in widely separated regions on the earth’s surface, as fine examples have been discovered in the State of Minas Geraes, Brazil, and in Maine and California especially. Where the color is homogeneous we may have the splendid red or rose-colored variety called rubellite, from its resemblance to the ruby, or the blue tourmaline gem named indicolite.

The first chance observation of the attractive qualities of tourmalines is said to have been made in Amsterdam by a group of Dutch children whose attention had been attracted by a number of tourmaline crystals brought from the Orient, and who were puzzled to see bits of ash and straw attracted to the stones. This came to the knowledge of some Dutch lapidaries, who for a time called the stone Aschentrekker, or “Ash-Attractor.” Our name tourmaline is derived from _turmali_, the name given the stone by the natives of Ceylon.

GIA describes its electrical response to heat and pressure. This is a physical property.

For a pause before speaking, I consider blue.

### Lapis lazuli: blue for a deliberate pause

GIA identifies lapis as a rock containing several minerals. Lazurite gives the blue; pyrite can give gold-colored flecks.

Lapis lazuli from Sar-e-Sang, Afghanistan: blue lazurite, white calcite and brassy pyrite. — James St. John

A large mass of lapis lazuli was found in one of the Inca graves of Peru by Señor Emilio Montés. It was exhibited by him in the Centennial Exhibition of 1913. With the exception of one corner that has been chipped off, the block is of symmetrical form, the dimensions being, in inches, 24 × 14 × 9, and the weight 312 pounds. The smoothed surface gives evidence of careful and fairly successful polishing by the native lapidaries.

Kunz records this specimen in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

Evidently in ancient Peru as in the Old World the “celestial hue” of lapis lazuli was thought to render it most appropriate for use as a memorial offering to the dead or as a talisman by the aid of which their heavenward journey might be made easier. My blue beads can hold another meaning.

Perhaps you prefer a pale stone.

Rock-crystal quartz from East Coleman Mine, Jessieville, Arkansas; a modern specimen, not the Stone of the Banner. — Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com – CC-BY-SA-3.0

### Quartz: a simple stone with an amulet history

A famous Scotch amulet was a polished globular mass of white quartz, an inch and three-quarters in diameter, owned by the chiefs of Clan Donnachaidh and known as the “Stone of the Banner.” It had been accidentally found by a chief of this clan, who, on his way to join Robert Bruce in 1315, before the battle of Bannockburn, noted a glittering stone embedded in a clod of earth that had become attached to his flagstaff. It was looked upon as a powerful talisman in battle.

In Yucatan quartz crystals were not only used for divining, but also to ensure the success of the crops. The fact that such crystals have been found in the Indian mounds of Arkansas, North Carolina, and elsewhere, may warrant the supposition that they had been worn as talismans and then interred with the deceased persons as a most intimate part of their property.

The region about Hot Springs, Arkansas, has furnished some of the finest rock-crystal found in the United States. Some of the crystals from this locality had on one side a green coating of chlorite, and when this was not removed, the effect was as though one saw a green moss growing beneath a pool of water. I choose a smooth piece.

My choices: dark tourmaline for boundaries; blue lapis for a pause; pale quartz to hold.

Setting clear boundaries

My Catholic childhood and later sitting group leave room for that wish. Kunz writes:

Just as the appeal to higher powers for present help in pressing emergencies preceded the development of a formal religious faith, so this never-failing need of protectors or healers eventually led to the attribution of powers of protection to the spirits of men and women who had led holy lives and about whose history legend had woven a web of pious imaginations at a time when poetic fancy reigned instead of historic record.

Kunz still holds that true sentiment, the antithesis of superstitious dread, is good for all mankind—sentiment meaning optimism as truly as superstition stands for pessimism—and that even the fancies generated by sentiment are helpful to us and make us happier.

I would keep one sentence: “I can listen without saying yes.” Touch the stone before making a promise.

Ask for time. End the call. Leave a request until morning. Give the intention an action you can take.

At all times and in all periods there have been optimists and pessimists, the former animated by the life-bringing sentiment of hope, and the latter oppressed by the death-dealing sense of fear. Let us always choose a happy medium between a foolish excess of hope and an unreasonable apprehension of future troubles. The world’s history and our own experience show us that it is the optimist who has caused the world to progress, and we should trust and believe that the sentiment of hope and faith will always animate humanity. I prefer hope.

Choose a protection stone

For my own choice, identity, fit, and meaning come first.

Ask for material names and treatments.

Check the fit. My fingers remember 108; a strand should move comfortably.

Keep one clear intention. One stone can be enough.

For blue and black, the Psychic Protection Bracelet pairs lapis lazuli with black tourmaline. I would check the fit, then choose my own meaning.

The Psychic Protection Bracelet, shown in current Shopify product photography.

Gloria Cardenas

About Gloria Cardenas

Gloria Cardenas lives in South Tucson, in the stucco house she bought in 1988. She strings malas at a card table with a faded beach towel under the beads so they don't roll onto the linoleum. A sitting-group teacher in the late nineties made her count 108 without looking down. She still does it that way. She keeps one finished strand on a nail by the kettle.