Stone Lore

By Kate Holly-Clark & Kythryne Aisling

Agate
Element: varies
Balances ying-yang energy, stabilizes the aura. Facilitates discernment. Imparts strength and courage. Opens one to innate creative talents. There are many forms of agate, each with specific properties.

Blue Lace Agate
Element: air
A very calming, soothing, grounding stone.

Botswana Agate
Element: water
Success, creativity, finding answers. Can help ease transitions and make life changes easier.

Chalcedony
Element: water
Very soothing, peaceful, aids with emotional healing.

Moss Agate
Element: earth
Strength, healing, emotional courage, power, prosperity.

Red Agate
Element: fire
Courage, prosperity, healing.

Amazonite
Element: water
Associated with the throat chakra. It is a communication enhancing stone. It can relieve stress and calm the nervous system. It is also a good stone for enhancing creativity. Amazonite lessens self-defeating behaviors and self-defeating talk.

Amber
Element: fire
Purifies body, mind, and spirit. Balances electromagnetics of the body and allows even flow of energies. Provides a positive, soothing energy. Spiritualizes the intellect.

Amethyst
Element: water
Sedative energy. Facilitates spirituality and contentment. Stone of stability, strength, sobriety, and peace. Excellent for meditation. Enhances psychic ability.

Ametrine
Element: water, air
Has all the properties of both amethyst and citrine, as well as some unique ones of its own. A very balanced, solid stone that can help bring the wearer into emotional and mental balance.

Aquamarine
Element: water
Courage, intellect, protection. Assists spiritual awareness, actualization.

Aventurine
Element: earth
Independence, leadership, creativity. Balances male/female energies. Aligns mental, physical, emotional, and auric bodies.

Azurite
Element: water
Awakens psychic ability, insight, intuition. Third eye. Excellent for clearing the mind in meditation.

Calcite
Element: earth
Energy amplifier, teacher. Optical Calcite is excellent for clearing and cleansing.

Carnelian
Element: fire
Prosperity, love, healing, strength, fertility, creativity.

Celestite
Element: air
Excellent stone for dream recall and astral travel. Hope and harmony. Communication.

Chrysocolla
Element: water or earth, depending on who you ask
Strength, balance. Promotes harmony and attunement to the earth. Prosperity, good fortune. Purifies one's environment.

Chrysoprase
Element: earth
Balances yin-yang energy. Acceptance of self and others. Prosperity, good fortune.

Citrine
Element: air
Positive energy - stone needs no cleansing . Dissipates negative energy. Warmth, joy, optimism.

Emerald
Element: earth
Loyalty, sensitivity, harmony, tranquility. Assists in memory retention and mental clarity. Prosperity.

Fluorite
Element: air and water
Stability, order, discernment, concentration. Helps one to understand and maintain ideals and the perfection of the universe. Fluorite comes in a wide range of colors, each with specific properties.

Blue Fluorite
Protector of the emotions. In instances where one is feeling overwhelmed or confused it helps restore emotional balance.

Clear Fluorite
Enhances serenity and strengthens consciousness. It helps one to live in the moment without a sense of spiritual emptiness. It also guards against psychic attack.

Green Fluorite
Promotes healing on all levels of a being, and shrinks problems with self-love.

Purple Fluorite
Strengthens mystic sight, spiritual truth and can promote third eye opening. It diminishes spiritual and psychic confusion

Garnet
Element: fire
Commitment, devotion, love, stability and order. Even flow of energy. Courage and strength. Prosperity and abundance.

Hematite
Element: earth
A very grounding stone that enhances focus and stability. It also strengthens one's ability to solve problems. Problems of spaciness and inability to concentrate are very diminished by this stone. Hematite also dispels negativity.

Herkimer Diamond
Element: spirit
Awareness, attunement, clairvoyance, telepathy. Good for information retention. Actually a type of double-terminated quartz from a mine in upstate New York.

Iolite
Element: water
Truth, simplicity, imagery, peace. Living at higher awareness level. Iolite is one of the best stones to use in psychic, healing, and spiritual activities. It can also enhance curiosity. It is also an excellent stone for meditation as it helps one grow spiritually in a peaceful approach. Iolite is also said to help build relationships. Used by the Vikings as a navigation tool.

Jade
Element: earth
Harmony, peace, fidelity, confidence. A wonderful dream stone. Each color of jade has specific properties, which are detailed below.

Blue Jade
A peaceful and passive energy source. Helps people who meditate to relax and gain an inner serenity. A quiet teacher of patience and slow, steady progress. It is a wonderful stone to give to people who feel restricted or overcome by situations beyond their control.

Brown Jade
A stone that connects us to the earth. A good stone to use to help settle matters of the home or to adjust to a new environment.

Green Jade
Most common variety. Very calming to the nervous system. The color green is representative of life or growth. Helps one channel passions in a constructive way, making expressions of love easier.

Lavender Jade
In touch with the emotions. Beneficial to people who have been hurt by love or need to discover the gentleness within themselves. Can help one learn restraint and subtlety in matters of emotional importance.

Red Jade
A passionate and active stone. Caution is advised here: it can have such a stimulating influence that the wearer becomes agitated and feels the need to express anger. It can help you extract those feelings and come to terms with them. Use Red Jade to blow off steam, to release tension.

White and Cream Jade
Helps one direct their energy to its most advantageous outlet. Helps filter out distraction and allows you to envision the best result of a given situation.

Yellow and Orange Jade
Both are similar enough to be considered together. Both impart the gift of joy and happiness. They teach the interconnectedness of all beings. 

Jasper
Element: usually earth
Protection, awareness, insight. Grounding. There are many varieties of jasper; some of the most common are listed below.

Bloodstone
Element: earth
A type of jasper. Strength, healing, courage.

Brown Jasper
Helps one find stability and balance. Benefits ailments that result from environmental pollution. Boosts the immune system and assist in extracting pollutants and toxins from the body. Keep in mind that this process takes some time since Jaspers work slowly. Helps one become more ecologically aware. Well suited for use by people who wish to relive past events through regression or analysis.

Green Jasper
Is used for Respiratory/Heart Chakra work. Especially suited to tempering aspects of your life that have taken on too great an importance. Works as a gentle daily reminder that the whole is only the result of all the parts. Works best on ailments of the upper torso, digestive tract, and the cleansing organs.

Imperial Jasper
Element: earth
Helpful for finding your emotional center and getting balanced and grounded, especially after a stressful situation or ordeal.

Ocean Jasper
Element: earth, water
Ocean Jasper is produced from only one mine near Marovato, Madagascar. The deposit, being located at the edge of the ocean, can only be seen and collected at low tide. This remote area has no roads so the material must be transported to civilization by boat. Technically considered "Orbicular Jasper" in reference to its colorful orbs, some have adopted the name "Moon Jewel Jasper. How orbicular jasper forms is still a scientific mystery. This stone helps one to accept responsibilities, develop patience and help with circular breathing during meditation. 

Moukaite
Encourages curiosity, exploration, and adventure. Protective, grounding, helps to keep the wearer grounded in the present moment.

Red Creek Jasper
Red Creek Jasper is an especially soothing, healing, balancing jasper. It is good for clarity and seeing what lies at the heart of a difficult matter. Wear it for support in times of relationship crises.

Red Jasper
This stone works much like Bloodstone in its link to the circulatory system. Beneficial in battling diseases of the blood and detoxifying blood-rich organs like the liver. It helps bring problems to light before they are a threat. Also used for protection, courage, energy. Help with blood, relieve anemia, stop bleeding, heal rashes and wounds. Red stones are considered projecting stones and are used to destroy disease, strengthen conscious, courage, strength, physical energy, luck, and success. Dense, heavy, and/or opaque.

Yellow Jasper

Beneficial to the endocrine glands and the cleansing organs. Makes one feel stronger and in better physical condition. Yellow for stomach, intestines, liver, spleen areas. earthy grounding. Also used for communication, inspiration, protection, visualization, travel, digestion, nervous system, skin problems, breathing disorders. Yellow stones are considered projecting stones and are used to destroy disease, strengthen conscious, courage, strength, physical energy, luck, and success.

Kunzite
Element: earth
Communication, love, peace. Protects and dissolves negativity. Excellent for meditation.

Kyanite
Element: air, spirit
A very powerful stone with interesting energy. Comes in three colors, as detailed below.

Blue Kyanite
Never needs cleaning or clearing, aligns all chakras. Tranquility, communication, psychic awareness. Excellent for meditation and dream recall.

Black Kyanite
Very strongly grounding.

Green Kyanite
Gentler and quieter than blue, and not as grounding as black.

Labradorite
Element: air
Represents the light of the universe, extra-terrestrial energy. Intuition, subconscious. Illumination.

Lapis Lazuli
Element: water
Knowledge, wisdom, perfection, protection, creative expression.

Larvikite
Element: water
Storm energy, darkness, secrets. Very grounding to some and unnerving to others.

Lepidolite
Element: spirit
Lepidolite is a lithium-mica. It is high in lithium and was originally mined for the mineral. Solid lavender to soft pink, dull, sparkly. Calms and relaxes. Gently eases intensity of feelings, stress, mood swings, self-criticism, worrying. Brings hope, relief, gentleness, self-love, patience, self-forgiveness. Honesty, stability, hope, acceptance. Assists in change and transition. Facilitates astral travel.

Malachite
Element: earth
Transformation, spiritual development. Clears the way to attain goals. Fidelity, loyalty, reasoning ability. Excellent for travelers, prosperity.

Moonstone
Element: water
Lunar, female energy. Emotional, intuitive. Rhythms, cycles, destiny. Considered a "woman's stone" especially for matters of pregnancy and childbirth.

White Moonstone
Calm, intuition, support.

Rainbow moonstone
Fertility, hope, joy, peace.

Peach moonstone
Optimism, joy, intution.

Grey moonstone:
Truthfullness, honesty, intution.

Obsidian
Element: earth
Dispels negativity. Grounding, healing, protective. Helps one to clearly see one's flaws and the changes that are necessary. Comes in many colors and varieties.

Apache Tears
Represents the tears of Native American women, mourning the death of their warriors driven over the cliffs by the cavalry. Therefore, this "volcanic glass" has been used to comfort in times of grief. This stone allows us to see the true meaning of a situation and can provide us with insight and the understanding to accept it.

Blue Obsidian
Stimulates Throat Chakra, communication, helps in astral travel, Tarot reading. Helps keep away negativity and is an extremely protective stone when traveling. Helps with directional knowledge, as well, particularly for sensitive people.

Green Obsidian
Heals broken crystals and charges them. Balances Heart Chakra. Assists in energy healing during Reiki. This beautiful stone allows for a connection with nature and the self-realizations of love, tenderness and the significance of nuturing.

Rainbow Obsidian
Brings light and love to one's life. Allows for the spiritual side in one's nature to be recognized. Known as the "stone of pleasure", it can bring enjoyment and gratification to one's life. It is also used for "gazing" especially in matters of love, relationship and the development of one's etheric and physical bodies.

Snowflake Obsidian
This obsidian stone, which has inclusions of phynocryst, gives it the snowflake pattern on it's surface, and allows us to recognize unnecessary patterns in our lives. Promotes self-esteem and confidence. Clairaudience and owning our lower aspects for growth; Healthy balance. Allows us to be more sensitive and aware of the beauty and love that is around us.

Strawberry Obsidian
This rare stone is a luscious red with the fire of the volcano still in its appearence! Stimulates the Root Chakra and therefore, our physical energy and validates our self-worth. Grounds us and allows us to stand up to fear and face anxiety. This red obsidian allows for our dominate qualites to awake as it balances our male and female energies.

Violet Obsidian
This rare stone has the cooling properties of the Third Eye, Crown and Transendental Chakra energies. This is a stone that shows us the power of spirituality and the endless possibilites through Universal attraction, love and growth. This stones connects us to our intuition, our auric fields and is one of the most powerful gazing stones for it comes from the earth, yet has the properties of the heavens.

Onyx
Element: earth
Balances and grounds. Reduces sex drive. Promotes fidelity. Absorbs and flattens emotional intensity. Androgynous. Excellent for centering/aligning total person with higher powers. Banish grief,enhance self control, wise decision-making, encourages happiness/good fortune. Can be used to provide a "peek" into the future, helps one to follow the path alone, promotes personal strength, understand the reality of the moment, become the master of one's own future.

Opal
Element: water
Creativity, inspiration, imagination, joy, beauty. A good stone for travelers, artists, and anyone experiencing life transitions.

Pearl
Element: water
In tune with emotions, water, and women, especially pregnant women, pearls are a symbol of pure heart and mind; innocence and faith. Because it is from the sea, it has watery and lunar elements, therefore it is used for balancing emotions, especially for water signs. . Some superstitious divers wear pearls for shark protection.

Peridot
Element: water or earth
Healing, protective. Allows one to understand changes in one's life, regulates life cycles. This stone is traditionally used for health, wealth, and protection. Helps understand relationships, other realities Alleviates depression, anger, fear, jealousy, anxiety. A visionary stone. Helps connect us to our destinies and to an understanding of the purpose of existence. Can help us visualize not only the ultimate peak of physical but of spiritual continuation as well.

Petrified Wood
Element: earth
Grounding, provides strength. Stone of transformation.

Pyrite
Element: earth
Shields from negative energy, good stone of protection. Enhances intellect and memory. Symbol of the sun.

Quartz
Element: varies depending on the type of quartz.
The most common stone on earth.

Blue Quartz
Element: water
A fairly rare stone, found in the US and Brazil. Varies in color from pale blue to lavender or gray. Helps you discover or increase your understanding of your spiritual nature. Has a calming effect upon the mind and stimulates hope. A good healing stone for linking heart with Throat and Brow Chakra to expand self expression and creativity, plus refining communication skill to new levels. Eases throat tension. Still evolving. Yin.

Clear Quartz
Element: all

Thought to amplify both body energy and thoughts. It can assist in the creation of power, clarity of thinking, meditation, cleansing, clearing the aura, spiritual development and healing. Clear Quartz is considered the "stone of power". A dedicated healer. Pure white light passes through it easily, leaving all the colors of the spectrum unaltered and giving substance to the argument that Clear Quartz crystals can help balance all the elements needed to make us whole and fulfilled. Amplify whatever influences are present in an individual or location. Acts as a purifier and tunes into the frequency of each individual. Will unblock specific areas or organs blocked from transmitting or receiving the flow of energy throughout the body. Helpful in guiding our search for the meaning and importance of existence. Aids in meditation. Can be used in conjunction with any other stone or gem for specific physical problems. It will amplify the effects of individual stones and attune the treatment to the energy of an individual person.

Harlequin Quartz
Element: spirit
A unique blend of two minerals on either end of the light spectrum and is used for balance, energy and vitality. They provide a beautiful "dancing" energy, which, when activated, stimulates energy flow on all levels. Harlequins contain red dots or strands of hematite or lepidocrocite. They combine the properties of quartz with hematite or lepidocrocite, which being red, stimulates physical energy and circulation. It can be used to stimulate the Root chakra and to provide for a direct pathway between the base chakra and the heart chakra. It activates all the qualities of the Root chakra, the heart chakra, and the crown chakra, and provides physical energy to the physical body. It further stimulates the healing qualities of the heart.

Phantom Crystals
Crystals that at one point finished their growth cycle, then began growing again later. When looking inside these crystals, you can see a striation that indicates where the original tip was. For someone drawn to this type of stone, a need for growth is indicated.

Purple Quartz
Element: spirit 
This stone should not be confused with Amethyst. It has a dark violet color and may have inclusions or clouding within it. Beneficial to the cleansing organs. Capable of stimulating thoughts and helping you learn to contemplate and analyze data.

Rose Quartz
Element: water
Rose Quartz represents love, beauty, peacefulness, forgiving, lovingness, self-love and emotional balance! It is a soft, gentle, soothing stone that warms the heart center. Its value as a nurturing friend cannot be overstated. Neither can its soothing influence. Helps diffuse negative stimuli and uncomfortable memories. Helps us discover the ability to love ourselves and makes us more open to other people. It is of particular value in helping us to forgive ourselves, hastening self-acceptance. Helps us realize that all change is important, even difficult change. Stimulates love and tender appreciation of all things.

Rutilated Quartz
Element: air
Power, strength, inner courage. Intensifies energy of the crystal. Stimulates brain. Inspiration, clairvoyance.

Single and Double-Terminated Clear Quartz
Element: all
Single-terminated Clear Quartz crystals are six-sided with a flat bottom and point at the top. These crystals teach us to focus energy on a concentrated point. Especially useful for people who have a specific area or organ in the body that needs lots of attention. For mental states, it will help you to focus on the best path to travel in breaking old habits or establishing new ones. Double-terminated Clear Quartz crystals are a special occurrence in nature. Most terminated crystals grow out of rock, often in clusters with other crystals. Double-terminated Clear Quartz crystals grow in clay or other soft materials. It has a point on both ends. They can draw energy as well as direct it. The center of the crystal works like a neutralizing chamber. One of the points draws negative energy inside, where it is transformed and purified. The energy then passes out of the crystal through both points. It shows us that most efficient energy comes from our own center.

Smoky Quartz
Element: air
Healing, grounding, balance. Excellent for people with chronic illnesses.

Tangerine Quartz
Element: fire
Comes from Madagascar and are quartz crystals with a transparent coating of bright orange over them. Orange is the color of the second, or Navel Chakra, which has to do with the reproductive organs, and life-giving/creative energy. The energy of Tangerine quartz is bright and giving - these are very lively stones. Most stones from Madagascar are unusual and highly energetic, and this is no exception.

Rhodochrosite
Element: earth
Love energy. Excellent stone for balance in all areas.

Ruby
Element: fire
Loving, nurturing, spirituality, wealth, protection. Fertility, prosperity, and love.

Sapphire
Element: water
Joy, peace, beauty, prosperity.

Selenite
Element: air/spirit
Clarity of consciousness, awareness, insight, good judgement. Aids in accessing past/future lives.

Serpentine
Element: air
This stone is an excellent stone for meditation. It can be used to clear clouded areas of all the Chakras and especially to assist in opening the Heart. Sometimes sold as a substitute for Jade. Eloquence. Connects physical and astral bodies. In jewelry, it provides a balanced setting that retains the qualities of the stone it holds. Lunar energy. Cleansing, balancing.

Sodalite
Element: air
Logic, efficiency, truthfulness. Enhances group communication. This stone is most recognized for healing, meditation and wisdom. This a good stone for general communication for self and writing. It is used for expressing logic and ideas. It can access fine levels of intuitive information and promote the understanding of these concepts. It is also known to enhance community relationships. Considered a stone that is still evolving, sodalite can strongly affect changes in your attitude about yourself. It helps you be more objective and less critical about ways of dealing with existence. It is a stone associated with studying.

Sugilite
Element: water
Spiritual love, perfection, inspiration, confidence. Alleviates negative/destructive emotions.

Sunstone
Element: fire
Happiness, joy, light, energy.

Tektite
Element: air, spirit
A type of obsidian created when a meteor impacts the earth.

Tigereye
Element: fire, earth
Earthy, grounding. Represents sun and earth. Optimism, prosperity, insight, personal power. Helps separate thoughts from feelings. Tiger's Eye allows us to recognize both our talents and our faults. It can reveal your true needs without our self-serving or rigid mental attitudes getting in the way.This stone helps change anxiety, fear and obsessiveness into practicality and logic. Has the grounding energy of the earth, but is embellished with a glowing warmth. A stone for people who need more confidence to accomplish their goals. Draws helpful people and material things to the wearer. Centers energy and mental focus. This stone helps us to find our closest version of perfectionism without obsessive behavior.

Topaz
Element: air
Success, true love, individuality, creativity, joy.

Tourmaline
Element: earth, water
Inspiration, understanding, self-confidence, balancing. Electrical.

Tunduru Sapphire
Element: fire, air
While very similar to their blue cousins, Tunduru sapphires have an entirely different feel to them - much warmer, bolder, and almost a bit mischievous. They glow like embers in a fading fire, and bring warmth and joy.

Turquoise
Element: earth
Spiritual attunement, strength, grounding. Protective.

For more information on gemstones and crystals, we recommend the following reference books:

 

Obligatory disclaimer: The information in this guide is presented for entertainment purposes only, and should be considered to be folklore and trivia. We do not make any claims as to the effectiveness of these stones or their alleged properties, and you should not use rocks as a substitute for medical treatment, psychotherapy, or common sense.

Creative Commons LicenseThe Wyrding Studios Stone Properties Guide by Kate Holly-Clark & Kythryne Aisling is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.