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Continuing the quartz / orgone series. So far, I’ve found that the layered orgonite (metal + paper) was magickally inert, but that quartz is magickally interesting: It has significant, stable magickal structures, and if you put energy into it, those structures will absorb the energy and re-emit it in the quartz’s signature, which is usually more noticeable than the same amount of energy in your own signature. (That’s why people think quartz amplifies energy).
There’s one more component of the orgone generator Ananael used to charge his talismans: An oscillating magnetic field. So today, I’ll test quartz with a magnet.
Results Summary
Short story: Magnetism does not appear to affect quartz, at least in terms of magickal energy. I didn’t have an oscillating electromagnet, but I did have a powerful magnet from a fridge-mounted spice rack, and moving it near and around the quartz does not produce magickal energy.
And if that were the only story, I would’ve just tacked it onto the end of last post and called this series done. But today, I want to tell you about some errors I made in researching this, and the importance of rigorous testing.
In this post, I’ll use normal text like this to tell you the chronological story, and what I thought at the time.
And I’ll use this tabbed-in gray text to tell you what I now think was actually happening.
Initial Test: Sensory Connections
After discovering all this stuff I’d never expected — magickal structures in quartz, ice and water, and how temperature influences the structures — I was pretty ready to accept other new findings, too.
So, I held the quartz in my hand, connected to the structures, and moved a magnet in a circle over it. (A vertical circle, so the bottom of the circle was close to the quartz, and the top was far away).
And I felt something. A tingle in my palm (the one holding the quartz). And when I looked hard, I could sense energy in the quartz. I was amazed, because I never expected the magnet to influence the quartz, but it was.
I now think that the tingle in my palm was proprioception — the feeling you get when your hands almost touch. It’s a tingling, but it’s not energy. (You’ll often see beginner energy healing classes tell you to almost touch your hands so you can “feel energy emanating from your body.” But if you close your eyes and have a friend almost touch you, there’s no tingle, so clearly, it’s not actual energy.)
The bit of energy in the quartz was from my own sensory connections. Remember, good sensory connections have very little energy. But moving my hand — the one with the magnet — distracted me a bit, and made my sensory connection worse. Add in the tingling, which made me think there was energy there, and I can easily see how I would have sent a little energy along the connection, which the quartz would reflect back at me.
I also tried moving the magnet in a big circle around the hand holding the quartz, but didn’t feel any energy. At the time, I figured it had something to do with the flat verse rough sides of the quartz. (My piece of quartz is the size of a small fist, one side with flat facets, the other side broken roughly.)
What I now think happened: Moving my hand in a circle around the quartz didn’t activate the same proprioception tingling. And I didn’t send energy along the connection either because this movement was less distracting, or because, without the tingling of the proprioception, I wasn’t thinking about energy.
Proper Testing
With all my talk about scientific testing, I’d better not leave it with just my sensory connections. So I devised a fairly simple, but fairly rigorous, procedure:
I close my eyes, make the sensory connections, and tell Lisa I’m ready. Lisa flips a coin. If it’s heads, she moves the magnet in a circle just above the quartz. If it’s tails, she moves her hand in the same motion, without the magnet (which should produce the same breeze and any sounds from her shifting her weight, but no magickal energy in the quartz). In both cases, she doesn’t say anything. (We don’t want me picking up any clues from her voice). I say whether I noticed the energy before opening my eyes, to prevent me from reading her body language.
As you’ve probably gathered by now, it didn’t work. Once my eyes were closed, I didn’t feel the proprioception tingles. Depending on how hard I tried to sense the energy — which correlates with how much energy I accidentally put on the sensory connection — I’d either notice energy, or not notice it. Lisa sometimes put a bit of energy into the quartz, too, so I’m glad her hand was there in both conditions.
After a few trials, I stopped, and figured out what happened. Then I paid more attention to keeping my sensory connection quiet, and when I did, didn’t notice any energy in any of the test cases. I would still feel the tingles when my hands got close, and I’d still feel the energy if I let myself get distracted. All those senses were real, but when I tried to add them up into a story of how all the moving parts work, I got that story wrong. And that’s why it’s so important to do proper, blind testing.
Seeing What You Expect
This isn’t unique to sensory connections. If you expect something to taste good, it probably will, as long as it doesn’t actively taste bad. In a dark room, your eyes will naturally start to see spots and shapes, and if you expect to see something in particular, you will probably see it in those shapes.
The key to doing good research isn’t avoiding errors. It’s creating tests that can show you your errors, so you can accept them and learn from them. My hope is that, by showing you my errors, you’ll be a little less worried about making your own.
Other posts in this series:Hat tip to Doing Magick. His post on the importance of teachers to have humility helped me decide to post this and show you my errors.
- Energizing Quartz, Water and Ice (February 16, 2012)
- Do Magnets Energize Quartz? (February 20, 2012)
- Experiments with Orgone (February 13, 2012)
- Just What Is Orgonite? (February 13, 2012)
- Exploring Quartz (February 14, 2012)
Tags: Crystals, Sensory connections
What you’re referring to is called “The Ideomotor Effect” and what you say is valid. Magnets have no effect on quartz, let alone quartz who’s Magikal power is not activated. Magik predated the formation of atoms and molecules and is autonomous from things that would otherwise influence it. It is a conscious force of nature and while it may be subject to the laws of physics, it is not subject to the laws of physics in the manner which they apply to molecular-cellular matter. But it’s good to know that there are those who distinguish between genuine Magikal Power since in recent years, Magikal apologists have tried to obfuscate it into a generic use of any kind of energy. Whether it’s comfortable or not, the most accurate Magikal knowledge comes from Fairy Tales etc. While reductionists and similar types may mock this, it’s because they’re not too bright and think that the only possible approach is to take fairy tales literally rather than seeing them as genuine Magikal knowledge encoded in fairy tales and having no clue that experiments like the one you outlined are what lead us to draw these conclusions. Since when did Science become the exclusive property of dogmatic atheists? =OP
Hi Dark, I’m going to ask you what I try to ask myself when I think about the history or fundamental nature of magick: What have you seen that makes you believe those things? I’m curious, because I wouldn’t vouch for most of what you’ve said, so it’s an opportunity for me to learn. Don’t feel like you have to answer them all at once, and if this is something that’s more appropriate for some posts on your blog, feel free to leave a link here.
I’m not an expert on orgone or radionics by any stretch, but what I’ve read about this suggests that people who are contend that the specific oscillating frequency of the field is what’s important in terms of producing specific effects. In other words, according to that schema you wouldn’t be able to generalize from “exposure to a magnet doesn’t energize quartz” to “placement within an oscillating magnetic field doesn’t energize quartz.”
Radionics enthusiasts, in fact, have a whole chart of different oscillation frequencies that they contend produce specific magical effects. I will add that I’m generally somewhat skeptical about those claims, but what they are proposing is quite different from exposing things to permanent magnets. I’ve never had an experience that would suggest a permanent magnet would be able to charge anything, at least not on its own.
Anyway, as I’m not an expert on this you might want to get in touch with someone who is if you’re interested in exploring these ideas any further. Trying to base your idea of “what people who work with orgone believe” according to my limited understanding of it is likely to create some misconceptions.
Thanks for explaining that. I’m glad to know there’s other stuff to explore, when I return to this.
I think my interest in quartz and orgonite has run its course, at least for the moment. This started as curiosity, just poking around with sensory connections for 20 minutes. Then I tried the magnet, thought I saw something cool, and started posting. I did the proper experiment on Saturday, after the other posts were already up. I might do a summary of my findings, but I’m eager to get on to writing the book (and blogging about each chapter as I do).
And if you do any testing with your generator, let me know. I’m still curious, just not enough to go out and buy the equipment.
So, I went through my small collection of rocks I tend to accumulate and found a decent quartz shard. Nothing perfect but more then a random, tumbled nugget.
Placed it between my hands and did a few moments of ‘making energy between my hands’ with the crystal snug between them.
Typically, (when it works), I can move a palm above the other palm (or arm) and feel ‘something’ — and be a good 4-6 inches above the skin doing it. Sometimes it feels ‘like’ a balloon with a static charge is going over the spot or — if I ‘just point a finger at my palm’, I can sort of feel like a drag or pushing sensation. (( which might just be the mind playing those perception tricks I guess)).
This time I lay the quartz along the good old lifeline (easiest way to hold it) and did a finger pointing. Weirdness — since it kind of felt like the crystal was shifting a tad to one side or the other — even though there was no visible movement at all.
So, like a kid poking at a bug in Nature, I spent a good ten minutes poking and spiralling and generally enthralled that I was ‘feeling’ anything.
***
Re: crystals and ‘resonance’.
Yep. Whole articles on how to make ‘the proper’ wire coils. AND, what particular frequencies to mess with… although most seem to be around the one’s suggested from Dr Hulda Clark’s frequency zapper ‘unit’.
Thanks Kol. Great description of the joy of playing with magick. Glad I could help inspire you.
By the way, if you can feel the energy from 6 inches away, that’s probably actual energy, not proprioception. At least for me, that only happens when my finger is around an inch away. I want to make sure everyone is aware of the value of rigorous testing, but I don’t want to make you paranoid about it, particularly for anyone just starting out with energy.
Question:
Why is quartz not effected by electromagnetic force?
Why is a difficult question. It can go in so many directions. What are the physical properties of quartz that cause it to interact with biofield energy at all? Are any of those properties affected by magnetism? All I can tell us is that I tested it, and passing a magnet near quartz does not seem to produce biofield energy.
In general, quartz (like most other crystals) is not magnetic. So if you want to explore why magnets don’t interact with quartz for biofield energy, a good place to start would be understanding why magnetic objects are magnetic, and why non-magnetic objects are not. (I recall it having something to do with polar molecules and free electrons, but don’t recall specifics.)