"According to Pew Research Center data...42% think spiritual energy can be located in physical objects such as crystals." Urgh. Is it really 42%? That's depressing.
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Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
31–40 of 46 posts
Re: Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
#32I was at a dinner party and I was talking to the man’s wife about my work in software and cybersecurity. She told me that she keeps a crystal next to the family computer to help protect it from computer viruses.
I would not know what to do in this situation. Do you just shut down and walk away and find a different conversation to join? Do you humor them? Do you ruin your reputation and friendship by telling the man's wife "You're stupid"? Do you try to politely explain something to someone who is dumb as a crystal and will probably never be able to understand? Do you call 911 because they might be having a stroke or psychoti…
Sometimes just park your own view and genuinely ask questions and find out why she believes in them. Sometimes you can have an interesting conversation that way.
But most of the time, change the subject.
Re: Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
#33I was at a dinner party and I was talking to the man’s wife about my work in software and cybersecurity. She told me that she keeps a crystal next to the family computer to help protect it from computer viruses.
https://www.grahamcluley.com/magic-crystals-viruses/
And this hilarious video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MM0Z_jCrGo
Re: Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would not know what to do in this situation. Do you just shut down and walk away and find a different conversation to join? Do you humor them? Do you ruin your reputation and friendship by telling the man's wife "You're stupid"? Do you try to politely explain something to someone who is dumb as a crystal and will probably never be able to understand? Do you call 911 because they might be having a stroke or psychoti…
Sometimes just park your own view and genuinely ask questions and find out why she believes in them. Sometimes you can have an interesting conversation that way. But most of the time, change the subject.
Thanks.
Re: Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
#35A friend of my wife and I is into crystals and is also currently dating. She wants to find someone who is open about the magical powers of crystals. Thinking of that made me realize that I would rather date someone on crystal meth than someone on crystals.
Reminds me of when I lived with my methhead landlord in college who was also really into crystal magic...
Re: Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
#36"According to Pew Research Center data...42% think spiritual energy can be located in physical objects such as crystals." Urgh. Is it really 42%? That's depressing.
The use of "such as" in that question feels weasely.
I think plenty of people walk through a museum and feel that certain inanimate physical objects carry a nearly spiritual weight. That didn't mean they think there's healing power in a geode.
Re: Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
#37"According to Pew Research Center data...42% think spiritual energy can be located in physical objects such as crystals." Urgh. Is it really 42%? That's depressing.
Science education in this country is seriously broken. The elementary schools jump right into teaching procedural skills such as the 'scientific method', which is really just experimental design and is useless without teaching the basic critical thinking and philosophy of science. Those are way more important for the majority of students, who are not going to go on to be scientists. We need to start the education at…
> We need to start the education at the preschool level, teaching the kids how easy it is to be fooled and why we have to always question.
You’re going to have to rejig several years of curriculum based on the Easter bunny, various Christmas holiday creations, children’s books and probably ruin a lot of imaginative fantasy books.
I’m okay with it though, my older siblings basically did the same thing to me from a young age.
Re: Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
#38"According to Pew Research Center data...42% think spiritual energy can be located in physical objects such as crystals." Urgh. Is it really 42%? That's depressing.
If you use the word energy in the sense of I don't feel that energetic today, ie as a mental state then that's not so bad. Obviously it doesn't make sense for energy in the joules sense.
Re: Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Science education in this country is seriously broken. The elementary schools jump right into teaching procedural skills such as the 'scientific method', which is really just experimental design and is useless without teaching the basic critical thinking and philosophy of science. Those are way more important for the majority of students, who are not going to go on to be scientists. We need to start the education at…
Here’s an alternative view: we do an ok job of science education, but a deeply unsatisfactory job of teaching people that it is OK to be themselves and likes the stuff they like. Crystal spiritualism to me is just a reaction to the fact that people overascribe meaning to things that they like and enjoy, as a justification beyond “I enjoy it”. It goes hand in hand with the whole spiritualism around rock climbing or st…
The simple counter-example here is: everybody likes cocaine, but nobody likes what cocaine does to you over long term, so you should probably not do it.
Re: Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze
#40A friend of my wife and I is into crystals and is also currently dating. She wants to find someone who is open about the magical powers of crystals. Thinking of that made me realize that I would rather date someone on crystal meth than someone on crystals.
Reminds me of when I lived with my methhead landlord in college who was also really into crystal magic...
My previous roommates (a couple) were both big into xanax and crystals. They'd go on walks around the town, f'd up on scrips, and pick up rocks, bring them home and gush at me about what they found 'look at this ruby!" They'd proclaim (it was just a shard of broken beer bottle, I kid you not). By the end, the side of our house had accumulated a several hundred pound collection of (totally mundane and worthless) rocks. Their plan was to crack these rocks open by throwing them at the (concrete) ground, hoping to find crystals inside. In my opinion the benzos infantilized them, because they were not like that when they moved in, it was a downward spiral of a transition over two years.
This wasn't even thier worst quality. But I will always remember thier 'crystal' hobby.