Crystals Leave Real ‘Rockers’ Cold

When it comes to crystals, it’s clear: One man’s talisman is just another’s pet rock.

The New Age preoccupation, in which believers find physical and metaphysical powers in quartz--crystals to meditate by, crystals to hasten healing--has left many longtime rock collectors stone cold.

“We are looking at mineralogy as a science while the crystal people--the ‘healies,’ as we call them--look at the so-called supernatural powers the stone is supposed to have,” said Gus Meister, 78, of Altadena.

No Real Rock Hounds Will Attend

Meister, a retired machinist and a hobbyist for 34 years, said it is unlikely he will find his down-to-earth collecting pals, members of the Mineralogical Society of Southern California (founded in 1931), at the second Crystal Congress. No, that event Friday through next Sunday at the Sheraton Plaza la Reina, will be too “healie-oriented,” he explained.

Indeed, the show promises “120 of the top exhibitors,” a talk on the benefits of a crystal compound for filling teeth and speakers exploring the topic “Crystals, Placebo or Legitimate Healing Tool?” said producer Lawrence Stoller, a Mill Valley resident and a former songwriter who went into the gem business five years ago at the dawn of crystal consciousness.

The congress will also feature a live, audio-visual Crystal Link--a simultaneous viewing of what are said to be the world’s two largest polished crystals: “Ki,” a 160-pounder to be exhibited in Los Angeles; and “Empress,” a 67-pounder that has been shipped to the Soviet Union. The display will be offered as “a symbol of peace,” said Stoller, a gem vendor who has embraced everything in “the crystal domain,” from pendants to parapsychology.

He conceded there is a split between New Agers and traditional rock hounds, many of whom “have spiritual concepts that are quite traditional and limited.” New Age thought, he said, “makes them nervous.”

Meister, who is heading the Mineralogical Society’s own show Oct. 8 and 9 at the Pasadena Convention Center, seems bemused by the crystal cult. “As far as we’re concerned,” he said, “everything is very thoroughly explained by natural processes, through physics and chemistry. (Crystals) will only heal if you believe it. . . . We’re coming right back to the old superstitions of the ancients, the Greeks, the Romans.”

Though they may dispute their powers, there is one point on which traditional collectors and crystal believers concur: Crystalmania has driven prices up and rocked a once moribund market. Mine owners, wholesalers and retailers who typically mark a crystal up 20-50% are riding a crystal wave.

“About five years ago, you could buy a halfway decent crystal for $10,” Meister said. “Now that same quality crystal is likely to be $30, $40.”

Rock Currier (his real name), a mineral and gem importer and wholesaler in Monrovia for 15 years, saw his gross sales double between 1986 and 1987. He now grosses $2 million annually and is quick to say, “I don’t experience any benefits from the crystals, other than financial.”

Once, the mom-and-pop rock shop was his customer base. But since the dawning of the New Age, puzzled proprietors of such stores have told Currier they have had “these people coming in and feeling everything. It was like people from outer space visiting. . . .”

Collect by ‘Silver Pick’

What of those entrepreneurs selling crystals for wearing, for rubbing, even for pets? Where do they find crystals to sell? Most come from big mines in Arkansas and Brazil. Rarely are they found by amateur hobbyists on weekend outings. Urban sprawl has covered many local hunting grounds and now, Meister said, “We do most of our collecting with, as we say, a silver pick, which means we go to shows and buy them.”

A serious mineralogy student embarks on a continuing quest for a better museum-quality specimen, trading up as budget permits. Stones are treasured, exhibited and admired for themselves. A splendid crystal never would be made into what Meister calls a “doodad.” He said: “We are not even allowed to polish . . . we only clean it.”

“Healies,” on the other hand, are apt to pick theirs up at New Age shops and bookstores, Currier said, noting the first crystal proponents have spawned a network of vendors with a “Tupperware party” approach to buying and selling crystals.

Quartz crystal, a common mineral, can still be found in the Southern California mountains, where “you can go out and dig a large collection,” Currier said. But, he added, collectors have already grabbed most pieces with commercial value--”Nobody leaves $5 and $10 bills laying on the ground. . . .

“If you’re going to get really serious” about gathering crystals, “you’ll need dynamite and a rock drill, or maybe a bulldozer,” said Currier, who sells fossils, pyramids, bookends, obelisks as well as crystals “by the barrel” to retailers at his Jewel Tunnel Imports.

At the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, one of the nation’s largest such events, “They bring in these trucks, big land haulers, just full of crystals, boxes and boxes of crystals, which are sold to stores that serve the healies,” Meister said.

A Nick Here, a Nick There

Many of the stones are damaged, of no interest to the serious hobbyist, he said, noting, “We want to see (the crystal) as nature grew it. Just a little nick here, a little nick there, that wouldn’t bother the healies.”

But is a crystal glut on the horizon? “I would certainly think so, yes,” Currier said.

Stan Esbenshade, a 34-year-old Tucson wholesaler and lifelong rock fancier, agreed. He said that at this year’s Tucson show, “Quartz was a hard sell . . . everybody and their dog had some.” He speculated that “the metaphysical market is maturing. They’re tired of pieces of quartz. They want to see what else is coming out of the ground.”

Looking into his crystal ball, Esbenshade sees a boom in fluorite, a colorful mineral that, ground up and processed, goes into fluoride toothpaste and Freon refrigerant.

He also had another observation about current New Age crystal collectors: “Show them an ugly (piece) and a pretty one, it’s always the pretty one that heals best. I find it strange that no ugly minerals have any healing properties.”