How to cleanse, dedicate and program your crystals

In order for crystal healing to work effectively, crystals need to be cleansed, dedicated and programmed. It is important that you cleanse your crystals as they can pick up and absorb negative energies and emotions as well as positive ones. If you think about the journey that the crystal has made from initially being mined to arriving in your home, the number of people who have handled it from the miners down to other customers in the shop you bought it from, it could have picked up lots of different emotions and energies. The stones themselves may have been mistreated, or even have travelled through negative environments. They could have absorbed so much. I would strongly recommend you cleanse and dedicate any crystal you have before you use it. If you use your crystals for healing, you should make a habit of cleansing them before and after using them.

The easiest way to cleanse a crystal is to hold it under running cold water. Hold it under until you feel, see or just know the water is running “clean” from the crystal. Of course there are exceptions to this e.g. Selenite. However, the majority of crystals can be cleansed this way quick and easy way. I wouldn’t recommend running under hot water though; this may fracture or even break your crystal.

Another method is to hold crystal in the smoke that comes from a lit white sage smudge stick. If you do not have or cannot get one of these, an incense stick will do just as well. This method (a smudge stick) could also be used for cleansing rooms, cards, etc. Depending on the size of the crystal, usually 15 – 30 seconds on each “side” should do it, or just use your intuition and “know” when it has been cleared.

Alternatively you can bury your crystals in the soil outside or a plant pot … after all, crystals came from underground and they’ll be more than happy to go back to where they came from for a while, just remember where you buried them.

You could visualise. Hold the crystal in your hands and imagine it surrounded by a white light, then imagine the white light going “through” the stone, removing the stored energy within it, do this until you are happy your crystal is “clean”. The intention and energy from you will be transmitted directly to your crystal and it will be “clean” of the energies accumulated on its journey.

You can place your crystal in a bowl of herbs, flowers or plants.

You can “breathe” positive energy into the crystal.

You can of course use more than one of these methods. Personally I will run my crystals under water (making sure the crystal is safe to run under water) and then I will use an incense/smudge stick. It’s just a habit I have gotten into.

You can use a pendulum to determine whether your crystal is cleansed or not.

You then need to dedicate your crystal, another important step. Hold the freshly cleansed crystals in your hands, ground yourself, set the intention to cleanse the crystal and say either out loud or to yourself:

“I dedicate this/these crystals to the highest good and wellbeing of anybody and anything they come into contact with. This cannot be broken, even by myself”.

Our thoughts are energetic, once we have them the energy is out there, so the crystal will respond and you will have a cleansed, dedicated crystal ready to be energised.

You can, if you like, program your crystal for a specific purpose i.e. absent healing, meditation, healing. Programming your crystal is pretty much the same as dedicating it, focus on your intention for your crystal by saying to yourself for out loud e.g. “This crystal is programmed for meditation” over and over again, continuing holding the crystal and repeating your intention until you “feel” or just “know” the vibrations have programmed the crystal. You can do this as many times and you feel necessary.

OK, so then you must energise your crystal and there are a couple of ways of doing this:

Leave your crystals on your window sill in sunlight, or moonlight;

If you are a reiki practitioner, you can energise the crystal with reiki.

So your crystal is now ready for use.

I would recommend that if you have crystals at the side of your bed or in your bedroom that you don’t have too many together at once, a whole lot of energised crystals could possibly disturb your sleep by “chattering” with all the energy they are giving off – if this happens, bob them in a drawer or put them in another part of the house!