I Spent Three Years Selling Healing Crystals as Cure-Alls

For three years, my Monday afternoons, Thursday evenings, and Sundays were spent at a hole in the wall gem shop next to a medical marijuana dispensary. To date, it was the highest-paid and most interesting job I’ve ever had.

We were open from 9 am to 9 pm and were home to a host of regulars who’d come in for mediocre coffees, free crystals, or tarot readings from our resident psychic and herbalist (yes, we had an herbalist on call).

In my typical shift, I’d be a barista, a therapist, and an exorcist all before taking on the role of salesperson. Regulars would come in to soothe their worries with rose quartz palm stones, nervous newcomers would drift around the safety of the jewelry section, and frequent flyers would purchase obsidian and tourmaline for their healing grids, waxing poetry about spirit rituals and sacred geometry that went over my head.

Men worried about depression, women scared about health issues, millennials convinced there was a ghost in their condo, tough guys and gals concerned with what their interest in crystals said about them — all of them came to me.

I snagged my position when the mother of the estranged owner came into my other retail job — I was hired on the spot without an interview and began working for the manager (the estranged owner’s personal assistant) less than a month later. I was hired on the basis of “vibes”, which I apparently embodied well enough to be given three hefty raises over the following three years.

Knowing nothing of crystals or the magical powers they possessed, I learned on the job and discovered how to be quick on my feet. The descriptions of the gems ranged dramatically depending on which website or book you looked at that day, so coworkers and I would spend hours cherry-picking the best of the best to place on the tiny artisanal cards next to bowls of moonstone chips, or chunks of raw red obsidian.

For the most part, I used vague generalizations; words like calming, grounding, and clarity. I don’t say this to ruin your experiences at gem stores — I’m saying it because it worked.

Most of the people purchasing pieces didn’t really believe in the product — but they all swore by it. The people who did believe put even more faith into it. It was more than just the stones. It was a lifestyle, a belief system, something to live by. And at least on my part, a lot of it was made up.

Doesn’t mean I didn’t love it.

I lived and breathed crystals; carried stones in my pocket before exams, kept them on keychains, and gave them as gifts. People in my classes knew I had them on me and would ask if they could hold onto them for their exam — how’s that for the power of crystals?

The Placebo Effect

In theory, crystals work wonders. They vibrate in different frequencies (quartz, for example, is used in watches and radios) which gives an air of legitimacy to the claims of changing, raising, or lowering your vibrations. They also have the benefit of being old. Like, really old (4.4 billion years old). People trust old.

In practice, there’s not much there. Even experienced coworkers had a hard time differentiating between various stones we’d get in shipments, and you’d be hard-pressed to find literature proving the claims that crystals are able to change your mental or physical state.

That doesn’t mean you should toss out your favourite rose quartz pieces; they’re still helping you.

The placebo effect gets a bad rap — people don’t like being led astray — but there’s more proof that placebos work than there is about crystals. In medicine, sugar pill placebos are likely to work up to 30% of the time.

When we would create descriptions for stones, or embellish the properties of certain gems to fit the desires of our customers, it was never done maliciously. The more we put into these positive traits, the potential these stones held, the more people believed in them and believed that they could make a difference in their lives.

If we told you that lapis lazuli could open your throat chakra, it could! One woman swore that resting a polished piece of lapis on her clavicle reduced motion sickness on road trips — you can bet I added that into my spiel when guiding people around the tumbled stones table. If we told you that the citrine pieces next to the register brought prosperity and wealth, they did (we had a bowl of them artfully placed and lucratively priced there for the picking)!

Hell, even though I didn’t believe, I believed.

Blue calcite palm stones in my pocket led to better exam results; rose quartz next to my bed (even now) and I’m still in a loving relationship; tourmaline on my jewelry to keep away those dreaded “negative vibes”. You can call it manifestation, being careful intention with your energy, focusing on the right thing, or crystal magic. As long as it works for you, it matters. If you get something out of it, it’s important.

I left my job at the crystal store mid-pandemic (ie, got laid off), and in a way, it was rather fitting. I finished my degree, changed my job, and moved cities within three months’ time; closing off a naïve and fanciful chapter of my life.

One day the red jasper (for grounding and calming energy) fell off my keychain and I never replaced it. I no longer carry crystals with me wherever I go; most of the ones that used to be scattered around my home have been tucked into storage containers (which pleases the Boyfriend to no end — “why do we need so many rocks everywhere?” he would ask, exasperated when I returned home from another shift with pockets full of stones).

It’s not that I no longer care, and it’s not that I don’t believe that they carry potential, but more as if they’ve done all they can for me. Maybe I’m in a better place, or maybe (more likely) I just don’t have the energy to put energy into them. But if it works for you, do you, man.

The use of crystals and gemstones are an important part of many people’s lives. Many turn to them in times of need, when things are going wrong in their lives. People who don’t have religious or spiritual backgrounds to lean on will often search for something else. Crystals, and other metaphysical objects, fall in the perfect realm for those who shop as self-care, and those who want something slightly out of this world to make them feel stronger.

Skeptical friends would ask me all the time if the rocks I sold to tourists and friendly dreadlocked strangers were real. They all wanted to know if they worked. I always said they did.

It was never a simple black and white answer. You put your intention towards it, towards the crystal, and yeah they can work wonders. Sure, a handful of people would come to me hoping a chunk of citrine would help with their siblings’ cancer, or a host of other legitimate medical disorders, and only at that point would I have to gently remind them that rocks weren’t a cure, and to pretty please see a doctor about anything serious.

But for relieving mild anxiety, manifesting positivity, or bringing good vibes into your life, you’ll get as much out of crystals as you put into them. In that way, their magic is boundless.