Or nothing more than the power of suggestion

1. Crystal

Depending on the context and discipline, crystals have been described as something that can possess both organic and inorganic properties, or express vibrancy and lifelessness. Although they appear inanimate, crystals suggest life by exhibiting signs of movement through growth. Ascribing vibrancy to crystals either through its physical and chemical properties or metaphysical qualities not only communicates particular attitudes and ideologies with regards to the material World, but to a large extent defines different vectors of progress - aesthetic of modern glass architecture, consumer electronics and digital screens among others.

2. Architecture

The early attempts to scientifically organize knowledge about minerals were through classification largely based on the physical properties of the crystals - visible, touchable and tasteable - but also including categories such as beauty and their optical qualities,  reflectivity and transparency.

Besides the scientific efforts to provide systems that would cluster together rocks with relatable properties, the legends describing  crystal made environments - palaces, caves and fountains that broke the rays of light in a crystal-like fashion - provided the first insights into the potentials of glass architecture.

Transparency and clearness - properties associated not only with appearance of the crystals but also with certain human virtues - triggered the imagination of artists, architects and writers. Johann Gottfried Herder described crystallization as a creative act, articulated in geometric structures.

Early 20th century German architect Bruno Taut, wrote in his manifesto “Alpine Architecture”:

After the October Revolution in 1918 Bruno Taut established several working groups in Berlin, one of them was Arbeitsrat für Kunst. Walter Gropius - the future director of Bauhaus - was the member of this assembly. In his opening manifesto of Bauhaus - one of the birthplaces of what we understand today as modernist architecture - he wrote:

3. Chip

With the resurgence of crystal imaginary, some of the discoveries dating back to the early 20th century gained immense momentum - artificial growth of single crystals and findings of liquid crystals among notable ones.

At the time of his accidental discovery, Jan Czochralski could not have conceived of a Digital Revolution fuelled by crystals - without which Silicon Valley would never have materialized as we know it today. Materially dependent on the extractive and artificial processes of crystal making, Silicon Valley also very much embraced the culture of spirituality and psychedelics actively cultivated in the 60s and 70s and often tied to the metaphysical properties and strengths of crystals.

4. Program

It is claimed that lab-manufactured crystals, a practice becoming more and more common as natural resources are further depleted, have accumulated the energies and properties of their maker and that environment - the lab. If this claim is to be believed, it follows logically that ‘naturally’ mined crystals, too, would carry the energies of those who labored to extract them from the Earth, as well as the shifting energies of the Earth itself accumulated across centuries and millennia. Alluding to this schema of value, some crystal healers argue for the notion of a crystal hierarchy in which the most powerful crystals are derived from the Earth rather than made in labs.

This assumes that there is still a nature untouched by man, although hundreds of new minerals that are discovered every year, is in fact the result of human activities - minerals that melt together with plastics, or grow in the cracks of disused mines, among many other formations, including labs.

Nevertheless crystal healers would agree that stones made in the lab will still have some sort of field of energy and healing properties. It is also commonly agreed that the crystals need to be cleaned and programmed to achieve their highest performance.

Intention and focus are key when programming the crystals for particular tasks. You need to be sure that you know exactly what your desire is.

Be clear. Be transparent.

There are different opinions on how long the program you have granted to your crystal will last - a popular one is that it will remain in that state for one lunar cycle.

The phantom properties programmed into crystals today are not separable from their commodity value: obtained most often through monetary exchange and degrading mining practices, the crystals marketed by crystal healing Instagram accounts and websites invite potential buyers to ‘shop their intention’ or propose an emotional ‘exchange for four hundred dollars’.

Following the logic of extractive capitalism the imagination associated with crystals 'comfortably’ co-habits with the exploitation of the natural resources and the bodies that go deep down in the earth to lift out the transparent stones to be placed into a grid beneath the yoga studio floor to balance out the radio magnetic waves emanating from the elevators in the building.

5. Vibrant Matter

The growth and thus perceived movement inherited within crystals have long suggested its vibrant properties within scientific discourse. German biologist and eugenicist Ernst Haeckel, whose lust for white supremacy and belief in polygenism dehumanized organic life, humanized inorganic matter in his text, “Crystal Souls - Study of Inorganic Life,” published in 1917:

“All substances, inorganic, as well as organic, possess life; all things have a soul, crystals as well as organisms”.

Ernst Haeckel's book drew inspiration from the discovery of liquid crystals by his own student Otto Lehmann, who also believed that crystals are animate - a presumption derived from the state of liquid crystal which is a distinct phase of matter observed between the solid and liquid states. Today liquid crystals are behind the technology of LCD screens.

The New World Order calls for extrasensory rituals that would be embedded into crystal thinking allowing us to reshuffle our to large extent unethical material realities.

A liquid crystal display becoming a portal for the content streamed on it. Fractal compositions coded on the liquid crystal display to be erected somewhere.

The silica crystals that transmit electrical signals within the guts of everyday communication commodities, and silica crystals that are at the heart of the devices that are supposed to fight off the magnetic waves radiating from 5G networks.

Techno-spiritual gestures embedded in consumer electronics, and the ghosts of our everyday interactions.

Recharge.