"Metaphysical Properties" of Stones

Well...not the first time THIS subject has been brought up around here and once again...someone gits their knickers in a wad about it!

Come on Sir Rox! I will defend your right to your opinion to the end but PLEASE...grant that SAME entitlement to others without having to beat them over their head to bring your "scientific" bent to print.

In not so many words...be nice kay? (box just got the top ripped off...I can hear it now! ;D ;D ;D)

Rocks make us feel better. You can discuss that aspect ALL you want but it remains: Rocks make us feel better.

Holding, touching, playing, cutting, sanding, polishing, wearing, buying, finding, giving, getting, smashing, throwing, seeing, hearing, using...

nuff said.

Amen geogoddess,

When I can't get solder to flow or melt something or get a creative block I turn to the stones. I go and cut a few cabs and the next thing you know a stone just jumps out at me and practically designs itself. Call it metephysical if you want or just call it the love of the stones. But who on this board doesn't get jazzed when the open up their tumblers or cut into rough rock and see some great colors or patterns.

I had a couple of nuns looking at my jewelry at an art show last year and one of them said, "Isn't God funny. He hides such beautiful things in the earth waiting for someone to discover them."

Main Entry: meta·phys·i·cal
Date: 15th century

1: of or relating to metaphysics
2: a: of or relating to the transcendent or to a reality beyond what is perceptible to the senses b: supernatural
3: highly abstract or abstruse; also : theoretical


Main Entry: meta·phys·ics
Etymology: Medieval Latin Metaphysica, title of Aristotle's treatise on the subject, from Greek (ta) meta (ta) physika, literally, the (works) after the physical (works); from its position in his collected works
Date: 1569

1 a (1): a division of philosophy that is concerned with the fundamental nature of reality and being and that includes ontology, cosmology, and often epistemology (2): ontology
2 b: abstract philosophical studies : a study of what is outside objective experience


Main Entry: on·tol·o·gy
Etymology: New Latin ontologia, from ont- + -logia -logy
Date: circa 1721

1 : a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being
2 : a particular theory about the nature of being or the kinds of things that have existence

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So, why did I post this? Because I feel that we'd be better off arguing the existence of ghosts.

Eileen

This thread started out questioning the purorted "metaphysical properties" of stones. In essence, whether rocks have some kind of "magical" resonance or energy that goes beyond the bounds of science to impart some special healing or energy powers.

But this is assuming that we've plumbed the bounds of science, that there isn't anything left to be discovered. I don't believe that we have, and in fact am not entirely sure that we ever will, either. We have collectively thought many times over the ages that we have reached those bounds, and every time someone has come along and pushed them even farther out.

And I suspect that it's like a lot of other things - little research has been done, and little will be done, because leading scientists aren't going to want to risk their reputations on anything that might cause the rest of the community to take them less seriously, and grant money is going to be hard to come by as well. And they probably have other more pressing things to study, I would think that answering the question of whether or not there's anything to any New Age philosophy is not going to be particularly high on anyone's list of things to make their life's work. But a lack of conclusive study on anything doesn't equal proof that there's nothing worth studying to it.

Also, any sort of trials with human subjects are always going to be inconclusive at best - because where are you going to find 'placebo' sodalite, tigereye, or whatever other mineral to do a double-blind study with? Any positive result that you see while doing a study can be dismissed by the 'against' side as the trial subject just believing that it works, if you don't have any way to isolate the real mineral from a substitute in a way that neither the testers nor subjects can tell which they are being given/or are being used. And if you alter them from the way they are 'supposed' to be used (try to mask their identity by painting them, or putting them in opaque mesh bags, etc), then any negative result can be dismissed by the 'for' side as the introduction of foreign objects/principles into the study. Leading to results that don't prove or disprove anything to the peer reviewer who is supposed to be gleaning a clear conclusion without showing any bias in either direction.

So unless there is a way to prove or disprove it mechanically (meaning, by some sort of instrumentation that can detect some emanation whether electrical, magnetic, chemical, or even sub-atomic) and also relate that to the body (which we certainly still do not know everything there is to know about), I don't think we're going to be seeing any proof. Nor any dis-proof, either.

For the skeptics - find a surgeon who has been one for some period of time, and ask them if they've ever seen anything in their practice that completely defied science and/or rational explanation in either direction (people dying when there was no logical reason they should have, and living when they should have died...cancers/leukemia going into complete remission without treatment, etc). I can just about guarantee you that they have seen things that there is no logical scientific explanation for, and that some of those have even gone beyond the bounds of what might be explainable as simply 'will to live' (in either direction). There are still a lot of things that we simply don't know and can't explain, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're beyond the bounds of science. It just means the bounds of science are not quite...err...set in stone just yet.

Well, To The Blackfeet, the Iniskim (Buffalo Stone) is one of their most powerful items in the medicine bag, having saved them from starvation. Quite a story , here is a link. www.ocbtracker.com/ladypixel/buffston.html

The Buffalo stone in reality is fossilzed Ammolite,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammolite

My point is simply that most humans now as well as long ago have a seemingly built in need/desire to feel a bit more secure in such a big, scary world.

Perhaps as we search for elusive tranquility, we drift towards whatever our own personalities might predispose. For some it is this for another something entirely different.

I believe the mind is the real driving force behind it all, and when we believe strongly in something, it can and will affect our overall health and mental well-being.
To put it in a nutshell, whatever floats your boat!

Although I do think that the rocks and crystals sold for metaphysical reasons are a rip off as far as price goes I think it is an individual experience that is impossible to prove or disprove.

If someone tells you that they have a head ache can you tell if they are telling you the truth??

Food for thought,,,,,,

I once saw a geologist, who had over 10 years of college in his field,using dowsing rods!!

He had all the electronic "gizmo's" to find what he was looking for but they all failed.The dowsing rods didn't!

To my knowledge no one has figured out how dowsing rods work but they do for some and not for others.I was VERY skeptical about their use until the geologist taught me how to use them.

I think we all have to keep an open mind about all things until it is proven ,in fact, that it does or does not work or it does or does not,did or did not exist.

I doubt if any of us want to go back in time where anyone with a new idea or opinion is beheaded!!!

connrock
Ps:I DO pitty the newbie who reads this posting in this section!It just doesn't belong here.

In a way, it isn't any different than taking multi-vitamins when I read some of the previous arguments. Ask your doctor about multi-vitamins and if hes leaning on his education and training he'll state that there is no conclusive scientific evidence that multi-vitamins provide any benefit. Now try to take my MegaMen 50+ away from me!

While I enjoy these types of debate there will never be any resolution as long as faith and scientific evidence don't correlate. What I don't like is the personal attacks when facts are not available. To each his own.

Now where did I put my amethyist head band? hahahaha

I guess I see it a little differently - that just because something can't be proven or disproven now, doesn't mean it can never be. Maybe we just don't have the tools yet. That has been the case for a lot of the things that we have known or suspected, long before they could be proven or disproven - for example, proving that organisms like bacteria, viruses and amoeba are the cause of infection, before there were microscopes that could see them. Or proving that high blood pressure was the cause of many ills, before there was any way to actually measure it. Or proving that there was electrical activity in the brain, before the EEG was invented. And so on.

If nobody ever kept an open mind about what might be possible, we'd still be believing things the way our long-ago ancestors did...such as that the evil eye, witchcraft or disfavor of the gods was the cause of disease, rather than micro-organisms that at the time nobody could see or prove existed. It always made an impression on me that most of the leading scientists or discoverers were in their own time ridiculed for believing things that 'conventional wisdom' for the time deemed impossible or ridiculous - and that now seem like they should always have been evident, because we've always grown up knowing them.

Until something can be conclusively, without a doubt disproven, for me it still falls within the realm of the possible even if I don't personally consider it likely. History is chock-full of our incorrect conclusions about ourselves and the world around us...we have been collectively wrong about so many things from our earliest history to now, that being wrong about something even in this day and age would not surprise me in the least.

For my 50 years on this earth I've learned that an open mind is a happy mind. I don't discount the science of rocks because I like to have a correct identity because I'm in the jewelry and rock business. I need that knowledge to disclose to my customers.

As for metaphysical properties I only make the stones and jewelry available to customers to do with what they believe. I will mention in passing of some of the metaphysical properties of a stone in a light hearted way. Usually, "If you are into metaphysics this stone..." I sell stones and jewelry for the same price as I do at rock shows, Art shows, or metaphysical shows.

Am I ripping people off? I think not. I'm selling a product either for adornment or metaphysical. It's up to the customer. I just make the product available.

Rick