This is a transcription – with annotations, all in italics – of Kyle Russell’s 8th podcast, recorded in July 2020, and released February 2021. The featured image is one of our prototype covers – developed for the horizontal version – we ended up switching back to a square format. Please visit our Podcast Page here on CrystalConcentrics.com, to hear this and other Crystal Zone podcasts.

Welcome to the Crystal Zone podcast with Kyle Russell of CrystalConcentrics.com. Our motto is Crystals for Life.

I am very excited because I am in the midst of working on a book – my first book – and what I hope to be a bit of a ground-breaking piece of writing. I am thrilled by the response I’ve been getting from people. 

At first I made a colorful Mind Map that showed people how I was going through the process – what the outline of the book was – and I got a lot of favorable responses to that (early in June of 2020).

Then about a month later, I put out a mock image of two potential titles – one simply called ‘Crystals: Unique Perspectives on Understanding and Working with Stones’ – and the other title was ‘Crystal Energy Zones: Understanding and Working with Stones.’ I got so much positive feedback from people that I’m going to need an entire afternoon just to sift through and figure out what will be the best title. Maybe by the time you hear this podcast, the book will be out and I will have (certainly) made that decision.

I wanted to make this podcast in order to capture what it is like – and what it feels like – for me to be in this process of writing a book about something that’s been so important to me for 33 years. I am incredibly committed to my work with crystals and I am always learning new things. But I also realize – at the age of 55 – that it’s time to leave some sort of a legacy/record of what I have done and what I have thought-through in terms of the stones.

So I’m going to give you a little bit of an outline of what I have for a structure in this book. I begin talking about this book being ‘For you If’ – and I list a number of different things, including you being interested, but also being open minded – because I do have an outlandish story to tell about how I got into this. 

A drop of spiky Besednice (a locality in Czech Republic) Moldavite, not much bigger than the one given me, that catapulted me into The Crystal World

I have devoted a separate podcast and blog to that topic: telling the story of how I was given a free piece of Moldavite that changed my world by giving me a major download of information about crystals. I learned not only what the different ones were and what they were meant to, sort of, do – in terms of interacting with our human experience – but I also became geo-sentient, as I call it. That is the term for my ability to understand and classify stones according to what I later have identified and called my 10 Energy Zone system

The 10 energy zone system that I have, roughly overlaps the chakras. I don’t have time in a twenty-something minute podcast to explain to you everything about what the chakras are, and about the ten energy zones. But certainly if I have time, I will step into some of these ‘rooms’ and show you around, in anticipation of the book coming out.

I would love for you to have your interest piqued and to contact me to be on the list of people who either get the e-book first or the first hard copies – or if it’s already long since published – getting your copy sent right to you. I’ll have hard copies to sell, they will be available for on-demand printing through Ingram-Spark, and the eBook will be available through Amazon.

Now before I get into the explanation of the ten energy zone system – which is one of the things that makes me different, which I explore in the book (again, I’m not going to get into every detail about what the bullet points are) – but I will talk about several New Age beliefs that are so widespread in the community, that even people in sub-modalities like Crystals, are adherent to some of these bigger New Age beliefs

The finalized Table of Contents for my forthcoming book Crystal Energy: Understanding and Working with Stones for Clarity and Flow

I will tease you by telling you that some of them that I get into, in the book, include:

  • The idea that (and these quotation marks are paraphrasing): “light is all-powerful and darkness is either malevolent or irrelevant.” Another big New Age belief that is held is that:
  • “If you do what you love – the money will follow” or “If you follow the Law of Attraction, everything will work out;” Similarly,
  • “If you are not succeeding in life (if you are suffering, if you are unwell, if you are dying) – that all of these bad things that have happened to you (or all the good things that have not happened to you) – are ultimately your fault because you failed to tap into the universe successfully.”
  • “Had you done it right – you would be rich like all the big names in the New Age world – and you wouldn’t be struggling or unhappy in whatever way.” 

So I do sort of confront some of those beliefs. I then confront a bunch more beliefs that are more particular to the crystal world, including:

  • The obsession with cleansing and clearing and programming, none of which I find particularly essential to working with stones. I do get into this in many of my podcasts and blogs and posts, maybe a little bit less on social media. But I am a strong believer that cleansing crystals can sometimes zap them of what makes them unique and take away that special thing which they have to offer you. And so as a result, I am just less interested in that sort of manic ritual that so many people think is essential. 
  • I also touch on the whole concept of programming, which is to say that programming is not something that you do to the stones. They come ready to go. Programming is what you need to do to yourself and for yourself, as you think about making your life better. 

Those are some examples of really over a dozen different conceptual frameworks that exist already in the Crystal World, which I challenge. I then follow up with a bunch of Crystal Concepts which may be unique to me, but are not necessarily confronting any previous belief systems. They’re just simply clarifying what I think is valuable and important to know and think about. 

I define Meditation. I talk about Spiritual Work, what is spiritual work. I talk about the dynamics at work in feeling the Energies of Crystals. And I also talk about the phrase – “Working with Crystals” – what does that mean? 

This is a sample two-page spread, from early in the book, for you to get a sense of the layout. Very spacious, very beautiful!

These are all very, very important underpinnings for applying knowledge to your work, either on yourself or with other people. I don’t have a certification program. I think this book is going to go a long way towards educating people with the information that I believe that they should have, based on my personal experience. I have looked at books and I have read things online about crystals that infuriate me – because they’re so simplistic – or they’re so excessively inclusive as to be meaningless

Classic example of an octahedral green Fluorite cleaved, eight-sided crystal.

You may have noticed this yourself, that if you look at the description and benefits of one stone, you will find a list that may include, you know:

  • “makes your digestion better,
  • “helps you fight negativity, and also
  • allows you to connect with angels.”

To me, those are wonderful qualities, but they’re not really related. And it’s very hard for me to believe or accept that one stone can do all of those different things (or why it would even want to).

When it comes to selling crystals, it becomes clear why the industry does this. There are a number of crystal authors and teachers who also sell crystals. It’s in their interests to turn you on to as many different types of crystals as possible, because then you will buy them, and that will hook them up in a whole separate way. 

I’m not that invested in whether you buy from me or whether you buy from someone else (well maybe a little, I would certainly prefer it!). And I’m even less invested in you buying every single stone out there, because I do not believe that every single stone is a must-have

Even I used to think that a Rock was just a Rock, relative to the “more important” Crystals, but now I recognize their significance as Foundation Stones, and call then Bedrock.

There was a period of time in which I believed that if it wasn’t a crystal or if it wasn’t a fancy rare stone, that it was irrelevant and not worth paying attention to. I have since learned better. But part of the beauty of my work is that I am learning over time, and I am adding to my knowledge. So the book that you’ll see now is the culmination of 33 years of thinking about and working with crystals. That doesn’t mean that I won’t either put out another book or accompanying blogs that help fill in the blanks – and or add new information – that I didn’t realize I didn’t know, when I was writing this book. 

I think this book’s going to be very fun and informative way to share a whole lot more with the world than even the people who have worked with me for years know about, because they’re not seeing the full picture, the entire body of my teaching between the covers of one book. And that’s what this publication promises to offer. 

A beautiful goddess pendant, she is also a winged angel made of some sort of Jasper it seems.

I will tell you a couple of other pieces to the puzzle. They include things like Crystal Placements. Where do you put your crystals – by your bed – or in your pocket? Do you wear them as jewelry? Do you bring them to work? And I talk about why and how each of those things can be useful. I talk about Crystal Forms – that is to say – what shape the crystals take. Are they carved into deities or angels or animals? Do they take on sacred geometric shapes like the octahedron or the pyramid or the sphere? And I go through each one of those and explain what makes a sphere different from an egg, for example. Or what makes a pyramid different from an octahedron. This gives you a basis on which to choose what types of stone-shapes you want – never mind the types of stones that you’re going to be picking – because the types of stones are very relevant, too. 

I’ll be going through and providing a list of at least 200 stones (I believe it ended up being 244!), divided either as Quartz or non-Quartz. And then also I divide them according to the various categories that they fit into –  such that a stone that is a Root stone, for example, does not appeal to the Belly necessarily – and certainly is not an Ascension stone.

So I give each of these stones what I call Energy Signatures, what it is that they uniquely provide that other stones do not provide. And I tackle a number of myths, including the idea that if you want a certain energy, that only one type of stone can provide that. Now, as you become a more advanced worker with stones and you really start to understand the unique and different qualities of all the stones, it starts to make sense why this one is unique in terms of what it is that can be provided through that stone. But a lot of beginners read online or in a book that such and such a stone provides all these qualities. And I’ve already identified that it is a flawed offering, to say that all of these stones provide all of these different wonderful qualities. It is unfair to the user and it’s definitely unfair to the stone to say that it can be all things to all people. And so when somebody comes into my shop and says “I want such and such a stone because it does these ten wonderful things” – I ask them and try to narrow down – “what it is from that list that you think is most important?”

And maybe instead of following that very obtuse and generalized system that you may have found elsewhere, I propose that you instead consider my system, which is much more specific. If we can identify what it is that you’re looking for energetically, there may be another stone that is more abundant or even cheaper that you can use just as well to achieve whatever it is, that thing you’re trying to do with the stones that you have. 

So ultimately, this book is designed to be a help guide, a tool for you in your learning about crystals – a way for you to systematize your knowledge the way that I have – so that you can also group everything under the sun into one of these ten energy zone categories that I’ve created. 

An Ametrine Cathedral – you might not think of as a Quartz, but it is – which is pictured among 176 other stones, on the pages of the forthcoming Crystal Energy book.

It’s a very simple, straightforward system that is learnable. And also, the book will be that reference for you – you can see all the Quartzes laid out – you can see all the non-Quartzes laid out. You can see which stones alphabetically fit into the Foundation energy zone or the Heart energy zone. And I will provide explanations about what many of them offer in terms of an energetic quality. I’m also planning on adding the value that currently exists in my Crystal Meditation and Affirmation card deck, which is a positive affirmation that you can also add to and associate with the particular stone.

So you get your meanings and your affirmations – those appear in the card deck – which will also be reflected in the book. In the book, I plan on including all 80 photographs from the card deck, but also adding a number more (turns out to be 177!) to illustrate key distinctions and varieties that I think you should know about. 

And at the end of the book – I explore actually Working with Crystals and ways in which we can think about and act around the concept of healing – ways in which we can use crystals to communicate and transmit energetically (through space and time). 

This photo is care of EnergyMuse, as seen on Pinterest. It’s a beautiful layout, but not one I would recommend, just due to the sheer number of stones, which I find energetically confusing.

These are practical applications. I talk about the Laying on of Stones, either on the body or on the Third Eye. I talk about how to think about Death, Illness, and also Wellness. These are all huge, huge concepts – that demand to be not confronted per se – but certainly faced, looked at, and addressed. 

I’m really pleased to be offering this book to you. I will say that it is proving to be a lot harder than I originally thought. I have written down all my thoughts, but as I go back through it and as I start to work with editors and formatting, there is the separate challenge of photographs. Which ones do I choose, where do I place them, how big should they be? How to split up the chapters, should one section be in front of another section? Can this whole paragraph be deleted? Am I really going deep enough? Am I not providing enough information or detail to make a certain section of the book as fulfilling to read as it ought to be?

So that is a whole aspect of my book writing experience – that is something I’m in the thick of – and something that is a little bit scary because we’re under deadlines. Editors can work within this two week period. Formatters can work within that two week period. It takes four weeks to print a book. I’d originally hoped to have it out by Christmas 2020, and here we are looking at Spring 2021.

I have a show I’m trying to share this book at. And will it be ready? All these are questions and burdens on my mind. But I hope that from everything that I’ve said, that you realize what an interesting and educational project this has been for me. Much more importantly, how useful and revealing it can be for you in your understanding about crystals, whether you are a novice or whether you are ‘certified’ and have been working with crystals for years as a practitioner. So thank you so much for listening. 

Do keep an eye out for our blogs. We often accompany our podcasts by blogs and you can learn so much more at our main Website. Thanks for listening. This has been a Crystal Zone podcast from Kyle Russell of Crystal Concentrics.

Til soon…we will update this blog with links to buy the book when it is launched…be sure to get onto the Crystal Concentrics mailing list to receive our newsletters HERE.

You’re in tune to the Crystal Zone podcast, talking all about Crystals for Life, and you might wonder where would be a great place to buy crystals. Well, we have a warehouse and storefront: the Portal Crystal Gallery in Arlington Center, Massachusetts, and you can have a look at all our displayed items. And also, if there’s something of interest, we have an extensive backstock in any case. If you’re more distant and you want to work by e-mail and phone, we are happy to serve you through our Quality Custom Crystal Mail Order service. A portion of our inventory is up at CrystalConcentrics.com.

But you should definitely email Kyle@CrystalConcentrics.com with any questions.

We can send you videos and show you all kinds of items which we have not yet had time to upload on to the site. Looking forward to hearing from you.