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Before I knew how to care for stones and minerals, I owned tons of amethyst crystals that I left alone - but as I started learning about other crystals, I looked around at my neglected amethyst collection and asked myself: does my amethyst need to be cleansed? Early on I read that amethyst can energetically cleanse itself and other stones, so I wrongly assumed they didn’t need energetic cleansing. So, does amethyst need to be cleansed? Amethyst should be energetically cleansed like all other crystals and stones. Even though amethyst holds a high vibration, this vibration can be altered and thrown out of balance. This is because its energy can be negatively affected by unhealthy conditions it is exposed to. You can cleanse an Amethyst crystal by using these methods: Water Salt Sun Sound Smoke Energy/Programing But, even if you do all of these things with perfect accuracy, how do you know if they are really working? Doing all the activities listed above are great ways to use crystals, but it’s important to understand how they work to get you to your desired outcome. For example, meditating with crystals isn’t going to be beneficial if you aren’t understanding why and how they really work to boost your meditation practice. The Energetics of Amethyst and Why It Needs to Be Cleansed Amethyst is one of the more well-known and used crystals, and there is a good reason for this. It has an incredible ability to calm the mind and expose new layers of intuitive awareness. In a Beta brainwave state you are operating via our conscious mind, which is very logical and linear. In a Theta brainwave state, you switch to a higher amplitude of brainwaves where daydreaming and imagination occur. It is in a Theta state where intuition is switched on and downloads of information can be acquired, and kept in memory. However, this can only occur if you and your amethyst are aligned with each other. The goal of using crystals in an intuitive practice is to get into alignment with their vibrational frequency. If your amethyst is out of tune or alignment, it cannot give you the powerful benefits that it could and should be providing. Amethyst can get out of alignment by holding onto pockets of negative or lower vibrational frequencies. In general, amethyst is powerful at transmuting negative energy into neutral, peaceful energy -- however, every crystal has it’s limit. When exposed to high amounts of negative or ungrounded energy, it can get overloaded. When this happens, it may feel that you and your crystal are not in sync. If you are an empath, you may even subconsciously try to heal the crystal by taking on some of its negative energy, giving you negative thoughts, bad dreams or physical pains. When To Cleanse Your Amethyst: When You First Get It You should always energetically cleanse a crystal right after you acquire it. Most likely, it was transported via an aircraft where it was exposed to huge amounts of radiation. Or it was transported long distances in a vehicle where it couldn’t find a stable place to ground - causing it to be ungrounded. At crystal shows, it is exposed to high amounts of other people’s energy, so it is best to cleanse these off. Once a Month If You Wear it If you wear amethyst frequently on your body, you should cleanse it once a month, roughly once every completed moon cycle. This way it can resync with your energy systematically and rhythmically, and keep up with your growth cycles. With each cleanse it will get rid of any programing it picked up from you (negative or positive), and restart with a fresh new perspective. Once a Season If It’s In Your Home If you have amethyst in your home that is not in contact with you much, but it is holding space in your living area, you should cleanse it once a season - or four times a year. Again, it is great to cleanse a crystal in between cycles so it can stay in rhythm where you are at in each season. You can even customize your cleansing that fits with the elements of each season. For example, you can cleanse it with sunshine in the summer, snow in the winter, rain in the fall, and with salt or rice in the spring. More about all those methods later on in this post. Before You Program it With Your Intentions I always cleanse my crystals before I want to program them to help me with specific energies. If you want to use your amethyst crystal for a specific purpose in a meditation or ritual, it is a good idea to cleanse it before you program it with your specific intentions. Whenever you Want! Most importantly, you should energetically cleanse your amethyst anytime you feel like it needs it! Water: Cleansing Your Amethyst with Various Types of Water Water is a great way to cleanse an amethyst crystal for two reasons: It is hard enough that it won’t dissolve or get damaged by getting wet. Amethyst is a 7 on the Mohs hardness scale - any crystal that ranks above a 5 is ok to use with water. Ever seen a snowflake up close? Doesn’t it look like a crystal structure? It is because water is a crystal. It carries information, and holds a vibration, just like other crystals. Moving water across the surface of a crystal moves a lot of energy because of this. Tap Water Running your amethyst under running tap water is a fine way to cleanse it, but make sure that the temperature is not too hot or cold, as this could cause your crystal to crack or get damaged. Also make a note of how hard or soft the tap water is in your location. This refers to the mineral content of the water: hard water has more minerals (such as calcium and magnesium), and soft water has less. You can check this by looking up the water quality in the city where you live. Too many minerals in your water could, over time, cause damage to your amethyst crystal. Filtered Water The best way to mitigate mineral damage to your crystals is to filter your water. My favorite way to filter my water is by using charcoal. I do this by placing a few binchotan charcoal sticks in a pitcher of tap water and let sit for 12-24 hours. Pour this charcoal filtered water over your crystal above an empty bowl or sink. You can find binchotan charcoal here. ◈ Pro tip: I like to save this water and use it to water my plants. The bad characters are filtered out and it now has the charge of a crystal! I also like charcoal activated water because I believe it restructures the water and gives it a higher vibration, which is what you want when cleansing your crystals. You can also use basic Brita filters, or the ones installed in refrigerators. Rain Water Some people have reported that leaving your amethyst out in a storm to get rained on is a great way to cleanse it. The most powerfully charged water is when it comes straight from the earth, or straight from the sky. While rain water alone is great for cleansing your amethyst because of its powerful charge, I think that the negative ions that charge the air after a storm also plays a huge role in this cleansing process. More about that later on in this article. You can leave your amethyst out in the rain, or you can collect rainwater in a vessel, and pour it over your crystal when the time feels right for you. Spring or River Water Another way to access the earth’s best water filter is, again, the earth itself. Water from a natural spring that flows directly from the aquifers deep in the ground is holding the memory of the earth. This water has a very high vibration, and is absolutely magical at boosting your crystals vibration as well. To do this you must find a local spring and run your amethyst under the running water, or obtain spring water and run it over your crystal above a sink or bowl. River water is a great way to cleanse it as well, as it also has structured water that can energetically cleanse your crystal. I like to bring my collection of crystals with me on a hike when I know that I will be venturing near a natural spring, stream or river. Being in nature alone with my crystals also helps me align more to their vibrations, while raising both of our vibrations together. Crystal Infused Water This is where you can get creative with your cleansing techniques. You can cleanse crystals with the crystal essence of other crystals. You do this by putting one crystal in filtered or spring water and let sit for 8-12 hours or overnight. Put that water in a spray bottle, and mist your crystal with the crystal infused water to cleanse the energetic field of your amethyst. My favorite combinations are: Citrine infused water: Gives amethyst a boost of optimism, warmth, and clarity. Black Obsidian infused water: Boosts amethyst’s protection abilities, especially spiritual protection and protection against psychic attacks. Blue Topaz infused water: Enhances the natural abilities to induce peacefulness, to calm ungrounded emotions, and to assist with its ability to connect you to your higher self and to the spiritual realm. This water should not be consumed, and do not heat the water as this can cause damage to your crystals. Ocean/Salt Water Salt has been used to cleanse negative energy from people, places and things for centuries. It absorbs negativity and transmutes it back to universal consciousness. When you go to the beach, you can literally feel your energy being pulled into the ocean, as the negativity gets pulled in with the salty waves. Dipping your feet in salt water puts you in an instant state of relaxation. Just like with you, saltwater can absorb negative energy from your crystal and bring it back to its natural, high vibrational state. Bring your amethyst to the beach and hold it to your heart as you dip your toes into the water and feel the negative energy being pulled from it into the ocean. If you can’t get to the ocean, fill your bathtub ¼ full with warm water and 1 lb. of sea salt. Stir with your hand until dissolved. Dip your feet in the tub and hold your crystal to your heart as you imagine and feel the negativity being pulled from the crystal into the water to be transmuted. Put seashells nearby and sounds of the ocean in the background if you really want to set the mood. Salt: Using Salt to Cleanse your Amethyst - Use Caution! If you notice in the previous paragraphs I did not mention putting your crystal in the ocean water. Why is that, you ask? Well, salt is a mineral, and just like with tap water, saturating your amethyst in water with too many minerals can degrade it over time. Saltwater can be especially harmful because when the salt water dries on the surface of the crystal, the salt sticks to crystal and the salt minerals can have a negative reaction with other minerals in the crystal, causing it to discolor, crack or get damaged. A quick dunk in salt water will not harm your crystal in the short term, but to be safe, it’s best to use salt to cleanse your crystals in other ways. These are other creative ways I like to use salt to cleanse my crystals: Bury It In Salt You can saturate your amethyst in dry salt, without the water component to decrease the chances of causing mineral damage to it. Take an empty bowl and put your amethyst inside. Fill the bowl with sea salt until the entire crystal is buried under salt. Let sit for 30min - 4 hours. To boost the cleansing properties and to charge the crystal as well, place the bowl out in direct sunlight. The salt and the crystal will get supercharged with the sun’s energy, and the salt will shade the direct sunlight from hitting the crystal which can cause damage to the crystal. More about that later on in this post. Be sure to run your amethyst under clean filtered water after you remove it from the bowl of salt to remove any salt left on the crystal. Set on a towel to air dry. Put Under A Bag of Salt If your amethyst is already damaged and you do not want to risk damaging it any more, but still want to use salt, then this method is great. Fill a bag with sea salt and place over the crystal for as long as you want. The bag can be anything that holds the salt so that the salt granules don’t fall out. The bag that holds your scrabble pieces, a paper bag, your reusable grocery tote bag, etc. Even a ziplock bag would work, but I prefer not to use plastic whenever I can help it. The salt will still absorb and transmute negative energy from your crystal even if the salt is not touching the surface of the stone. No-Contact Salt Method Very similar to the above method, but for those who can’t find a bag, this method uses salt to cleanse your amethyst without it touching the surface crystal surface. Find a large empty bowl and fill it with dry sea salt. Place your amethyst in a smaller bowl, and set inside the large salt filled bowl, similar to if you were double boiling it. Push the smaller bowl down so that the salt is nearly to the rim of the smaller bowl, but not filling it. The crystal is now immersed in salt, without the salt touching the crystal. Sun: Limit Sun Exposure When Using Sunlight to Cleanse Amethyst Direct sunlight not only cleanses your amethyst, but will also charge it with its own natural energy. Your amethyst will go from feeling dull and lifeless to tingling in your hands. But amethyst is not a crystal that you want to leave on a windowsill to be baking in sunlight for many hours. Amethyst should be kept out of direct sunlight, as the heat can cause the crystal to crack and it will cause that vibrant purple color to fade. Some amethyst clusters may even start getting black or brown dots underneath the surface. Direct sunlight will damage your amethyst crystal if left for long periods of time. But short periods of time are fine. If you want to cleanse your amethyst with sunlight, limit it to 30 minutes. This is more than enough time to cleanse and charge it, and won’t cause damage. I learned this one the hard way. Here is an example of one of my crystals that I left on a windowsill during the summer, before I knew better. You can see the obvious fading, and the brown spots I mentioned. Here is a photo I took of one of my amethyst cluster that faded and started showing brown and black dots because it was left too long out in the sun. The amethyst cluster in the top right corner shows the shade of purple this type of amethyst should be. Smoke: Ancient Cleansing Ritual to Cleanse Amethyst with Smoke The act of using smoke to cleanse a person, place or object is called “smudging.” This is a Native American tradition that has been used to cleanse, purify and create balance. It is powerful because uses all four elements found in nature: water, earth, air and fire. If you follow this tradition, you should use a shell from the ocean as your container for the smudge stick or bundle - this represents water. The wood, herbs or resins that are burned represents the element of earth. Lighting the smudge is the fire element. The smoke from the herbs is the air element. Using a feather to spread the smoke also represents the air element. Light a smudge bundle of your choice and blow out the flame so that it is smoldering and releasing a lot of smoke. With a feather, spread the smoke around the crystal so that all parts of it have contact with the smoke. Do this until the smoldering goes out and the smoke stops. I’ve experimented with a lot of different smudging methods on my amethyst, and I prefer using a blend of sage and lavender specifically for amethyst. Sage is great from clearing negative energies and lavender brings out the natural calming elements of amethyst. I think I also gravitate towards matching colors, and lavender with the beautiful purple in lavender is somehow soothing for me. Also, as an added boost, science has shown that when sage is burned it releases negative ions, which has huge energetic benefits to cleansing. More about that later in this post. Sound: Nearly the Most Effective Way to Cleanse Amethyst Is Sound We all know about the four elements, but medieval science and alchemists believed in a fifth element to nature: space. This is commonly called ether. It is the energetic essence, or life force, that surrounds and runs through every living thing. It is the space that holds everything together. The ether that surrounds each living thing is also called an aura. It holds the programming, belief systems and general vibrations that the person or object is projecting out to its surroundings. The best way that I have found to cleanse the ether, or aura of an object, specifically crystals, is sound. I use tuning forks to do this. For amethyst, the best tuning forks I have found are: 4096 Hz tuning fork: Known at the crystal tuner. It can be used on all crystals and stones, but is best used on quartz crystals, such as amethyst. 432 Hz tuning fork: I have found that using this crystal brings me into intense alignment with my amethyst. It not only cleanses the energy of the crystal, but heals any energetic disharmony between me and my amethyst. Using these together both cleanses the amethyst and heals the energetic connection between you both, causing for greater alignment when using it for your intended purpose. It is truly amazing, in my experience. To use tuning forks, tap the metal tuning fork with a wooden or rubber stick and hear the tuning fork start to buzz with a high vibration. While the tuning fork is projecting a sound, run it through and around the space surrounding your amethyst. There will be areas that the pitch will suddenly drop or sound muted. This is an energetic cord or pocket of negative energy. These are the areas you keep working around until the pitch feels stable again and unmuted. Energy/Programming: You Are Actually The Best Cleansing System Even if you did all of the methods mentioned above many times over, they still could not compete with this powerful cleansing method. Ready? It is YOU. You are the best healing and cleansing source for your crystal. Your intentions and energetic influence on the crystal is more powerful than you can imagine. And doing this is simple. Hold your amethyst in one of your hands, and with the other hand, hold it above the crystal. Imagine pulling the energy from the bottom of the crystal, and allowing the energy to cycle through your energetic system. Set the intention that you know exactly how to process that energy in the present moment. Imagine that energy coming back and flowing through your other hand pouring back into the crystal as unconditional love and light. This creates a tremendous bond between you and your crystal. It may seem dangerous to allow the negative energy to flow into your body, but do not worry about this. You are only allowing the energy that you can process yourself in the present moment, without getting overloaded. If you are worried about this, give yourself a grounding cord that connects from the base of your spine to the center of the planet and imagine any energy that you cannot handle flowing down this grounding cord back to the core of the earth to be transmuted back to universal energy. Other Methods I’ve Experimented With: Negative Ions: I am a tad bit obsessed with negative ions, because they make be feel AMAZING. In a world where we are bombarded with positively charged ions -- coming from electronics, cars, stress, microwaves, radio waves, etc -- it is essential to balance those out with negative ions. Simple math, a positive and a negative = zero, or perfect balance. You don’t want to be overly charged one way or the other. Negative ions are most concentrated around running water such as waterfalls or rivers, and the ocean. It is why you feel so good in these settings. Storms produce negatively charged ions, which is the “calm before the storm.” The smoke from a sage smudge produces negative ions, which may contribute to its purifying ability. Near my computer I always have my negative ion generator going to offset the electric charge. If a negative ion generators creeps you out, you can buy a Himilayan salt lamp, which produces negative ions and absorbs negative energy. Place you crystal near a negative ion generator, or a salt lamp, if it has been near electronic devices or you suspect it has been blasted with radiation on its transit to you. Usually this happens when it is shipped from another country via an airplane. Other Crystals: You can cleanse crystals with other crystals as a powerful cleansing technique. For my amethyst, I always use a clear quartz crystal that is pointed. For some reason, this is the most effective crystal I have found to redirect energy from the amethyst back to its original source. I believe the quartz crystals working together also contributes to this. Burying In The Ground: I don’t use this method, because I don’t like to get my crystals dirty, but you can bury the amethyst in the ground to let the earth absorb any negative energy. Rice: Another method that I have used, but personally don’t gravitate towards, is rice. You can fill a bowl with any type of rice and place your amethyst on the surface of the rice. After 12-24 hours, the rice has absorbed the negative energy. You should throw this rice away and do not cook with it. Maybe I don’t prefer this method because I don’t like food waste. I don’t really know. I just never got attached to it. But it may be the best method for you! You don’t know unless you try. Related Questions: How to clean amethyst? This question is different than energetically “cleansing” amethyst, but may be something you are also curious about. To literally clean an amethyst cluster or geode from dirt or debris, all you need is: Gentle soap (such as Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap, I like Eucalyptus scent) Room-temperature filtered water Soft bristle toothbrush Empty spray bottle Fill the empty spray bottle with the water and 1tsp-1TBS of liquid castile soap and shake until blended. Spray the surface of the amethyst. Gently scrub the surface with toothbrush. Be sure to get in between clusters. Run under luke warm water to rinse. Lay on a towel and air dry (do not apply extra heat, such as a blow dryer, as this may damage your crystal). How can I tell if my amethyst is fully cleansed of negative energies? There is no 100% sure way to tell. The best way is to use your intuition and knowingness. Pick it up and feel it. Close your eyes and notice any thoughts, images or sounds that are showing themselves while your mind in quieted. Trust that the method you have chosen was the exact method that was needed -- you chose it for a reason. You can also use a clear quartz pendulum to test it out. Hold the pendulum above your amethyst. If it starts rotating counter clockwise, it is probably not fully cleansed. If is starts rotating clockwise, it is probably sufficiently cleansed. If it is not moving at all, it is probably cleansed but also needs to be charged. The stronger the rotation is either way, the more negative energy it is holding, or the more positively charged it is.