When my daughter was around five, she became obsessed with crystals. She would display them on her bookshelves and lay them out in the light of the full moon or in the ocean to ‘cleanse’ or ‘recharge’ them. She ended up with scores of amber, rose quartz, amethyst, citrine, turquoise and lapis rocks - and I kept buying them. In truth, I prided myself on a child who was sensitive enough to forgo the mainstream junk of Barbies and plastic toys for something so seemingly wholesome and lovely. Not once did I ask myself where the crystals came from, or who had extracted them from the earth.
Back then, we went on twice-yearly trips to Crystal Castle; a popular tourist destination in the hinterland of Mullumbimby, Northern New South Wales, where crystals were sold for anything from $2 to $10,000. There, customers would wander around the manicured grounds, among massive amethyst standing stones and even larger jewel studded Buddhas, urged to wait until “the right crystal finds you”, thus delivering love, peace and healing. A promise that these sparkling bits of rock can free people from themselves.
It wasn’t until years later that I realised the supposed healing qualities of these minerals held a murkier secret. These days, crystals are no longer the sole provenance of hippies and New Agers - they have become mainstream, Instagram-worthy accoutrements for anyone from wellness stars to our friends at school pick-up.
It wasn’t until years later that I realised the supposed healing qualities of these minerals held a murkier secret.
But how many of us know where our crystals really came from? The rare stones we buy may sometimes cite a country of origin, but not which particular mine they come from or how ethical or unethical its environmental and labour practices. Most crystals are the glittering by-products of large-scale industrial copper, cobalt, granite, gold and ‘rare earth’ mines; the metals which power our iPhones, iPads and television screens.
These mines, in poverty-stricken, mineral-rich regions such as Africa and in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo and parts of South America and Morocco, , create surface contamination and exploit child labour. This is an unregulated industry, mining non-renewables, rife with exploitation, with lax to zero protections for low-paid workers whose safety is constantly in jeopardy.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, children as young as seven , which are also rich in amethyst, smoky quartz and citrine. This is slave labour, there’s no way to sugarcoat it. - comprising and worth billions in profits - has been compared to ‘blood’ or ‘conflict’ diamonds in Africa due to its unsafe, irresponsible conditions and secretive nature. It has resulted in an due to heroin use in its poorly paid workers and helped bankroll a between the Kachin people and the Burmese army and government. In 2020, landslides in the poorly regulated jade and gold mines of Hpakant . According to investigations by NGO Global Witness, even the Taliban get a substantial cut of profit from its .
My dog wore an amber necklace for years. Apparently, the friction against dog fur creates sparks which ward off ticks and fleas. Babies in high-income, alternative suburbs of Sydney, New York and LA wear amber necklaces to alleviate the pain of teething. Sales of insects in amber skyrocketed after the popularity of Spielberg’s Jurassic Park franchise. Both the amber fossil and decorative industry, mostly based in the Baltic, the Dominican Republic and Myanmar, are no more ethical than mines in other parts of the world. Annual global sales of amber number in the hundreds of millions, yet the , due to the shafts being so narrow. each month when the mines flood or cave in or are injured by land mines on site.
Even publicly listed mines are not required by law to disclose their profits from by-products.
Even publicly listed mines are to disclose their profits from by-products. As yet, there is to track a crystal’s trajectory from mine to cutting factory to tumbler (polishing and smoothing) to trade show to shopfront. Most sellers obtain the crystals for their shops at these shows, and these same sellers often don’t know where the crystals come from.
It took me years to care enough to do the research required to explore the dark side of these healing crystals. It wasn’t until I spoke to friends who have travelled to these countries that I learned first-hand how destructive the crystal mining industry is. Regulations around the ethical and sustainable sourcing of crystals in any country in the world. ‘Connecting with the earth’ and ‘healing yourself’ don’t sound so simple when the crystals we use and the people who live in it.
My daughter’s crystal obsession eventually waned. As she grew older, she switched to more benign pleasures: horses, books, history. The hundreds of crystals she’d amassed over the years were given away, nestled in pot-plants, buried in the garden. Now, the very few we’ve kept adorn our outdoor shower. Each time I stand under the stream of water in sunshine, watching droplets glitter on moonstone, selenite and aquamarine, I marvel at how something so beautiful can contain worlds of ugly history, if we allow ourselves to see beyond the hype.
