Healing Crystals - The A-Z Guide (2nd Ed) by Michael Gienger

[Review of Healing Crystals 1st Ed:] This is a very practical little book of fewer than a hundred pages. It is a handy slim book that would easily slip into a jacket pocket or handbag. It is a basic but useful guide to 430 gemstones used in healing. The layout and presentation is excellent. Each page features five different gemstones, with a colour picture of each one, all of them in alphabetic order. With each crystal is listed its mineralogy, indicating its classification and group. This is followed by its “Indications”, its healing properties, with comments on its spiritual aspects, its mental aspects and its physical aspects. There is then a reference to its degree of rarity followed by a tick box for the reader to note whether that particular crystal is in their possession. Each entry has no more than about 40 words, but there is a reference under each to where further information can be found. I have several books on crystals but this is now my favourite. I can pick up a crystal and find it in this book immediately. The basic knowledge I find there is enough for most people. Those wishing to specialise further can use this book as an effective starting point. For those of us who are not specialist this book is a powerful tool to give us confidence in getting going. I am delighted with it and can recommend it to anyone wishing to know more but who do not wish to be overwhelmed by information.

[Review of Healing Crystals 1st Ed:] This is such a neat little pocket book with snippets of information and being such a handy size makes it a useful addition to the crystal therapist’s tool box. The clear pictures in Healing Crystals are a great aid to identifying crystals and I think this is the books main strength. What I find particularly useful are all the pictures of the agates, the calcites, the chaldeony’s, garnets, jaspers and opals – I had no idea there were so many different types of garnet for instance. Healing Crystals contains information about the mineralogy of each crystal, indications for spiritual, mind or mental, body or physical and soul or subconscious aspects and use. It also includes availability, which is quite handy to know if like me you’ve trailed the internet on an ‘I want, I must have, I really, really need this one’ mission only to find them difficult to locate if they’re rare. There is a useful little tick box by the crystals which indicates whether you have the crystal or not, which is helpful for an inventory (and insurance purposes too I thought), plus a bibliography for more information. There are so many crystals and so much to know about crystals, can we ever have enough books to help us learn? I think not! Michael Gienger’s Healing Crystals, I think, is a crystal lovers must.