Group of various healing crystals - Crystals

CRYSTALS: A Guide to Using the Crystal Compass for Energy, Healing, and Reclaiming Your Power [book review]

Last updated: November 4th, 2019
Front cover of book - Crystals

CRYSTALS: A Guide to Using the Crystal Compass for Energy, Healing, and Reclaiming Your Power

Aisha Amarfio

[St. Martin’s Essentials, 256 pages]

When I used to live in the Plateau in Montreal—the coolest, most stylish, hippest place in the city—I’d often pass by a New Age store on the way to the metro.

It was a bit like every other New Age store I’ve since come across: statues of Hindu deities and Buddhas adorning the windows, Tibetan tapestries serenaded by Ravi Shankar’s sitar, the smell of incense tripping outside the door and the combination of consumerism and mysticism rolled into one. And sometimes, I’d go in, always wondering if I’d find magic, like in The Neverending Story or maybe even Gremlins.

Alas, I never did find anything magical. But in the corners, what always caught my eye were the crystals: crystals of so many hues and colours, some small enough to fit in my hand, some as huge as my head, some reminding me of the peacocks I saw in my childhood and some resembling the Himalayas in miniature.

Crystals and humans: A shared story


What’s always fascinated me about crystals is that, like humans, they’re of nature, from nature and part of nature, having arisen from the same elements we’re all from.

We humans come out white, black, brown and yellow, and all the colours and shades in between—like crystals.

Yet, it’s us humans who speak and move, who laugh and cry, who break hearts and have our hearts broken—unlike crystals.

What does it mean to live in a world where some matter ends up as these shiny objects, and some matter ends up as human clay?

I believe that the human psyche answers this question by seeking this “Other”; crystals (with their mesmerizing colours and their shared “nature-ness”) are able to connect with something primal within us, like when we stare at an open flame.

Yet, what’s astounding is how that companionship has always been presented to me, most often by crystal peddlers, as something inert and one-sided: “Have a problem? Buy some crystals, place them around your home so that they can heal you by their proximity.”

This always felt like cheap and easy love, the wrong kind of love, as it condemned them to mere servants, props for our ego; or worse, mere decorations that gather dust. And it wasn’t ‘til I read Aisha Amarfio’s book that I realized how much richer our relationship with crystals—and ourselves—can be.

Aisha Amarfio


Aisha Amarfio is a shamanic healer and energy medicine practitioner with a clinic in London, England. She’s trained as a Reiki Master, and is also a Clinical Hypnotherapist and a Master NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) Practioner.

She’s smart and experienced, no doubt about it. But hear her voice for yourself:

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Crystals are little pieces of earth, love and magic. We all need a little magic injected in our lives. With unending demands of daily life, the unhealthy pressures from social conditioning and the endless chatter in our heads, we can become lost and forgetful of who we are; we can become disconnected from our depths and start to wonder what life is all about. – p.1
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This is the voice of someone whose training allows her to take a wholistic view of healing and sickness, of heartbreak and malaise.

Creeping through is her Shamanic background, with her role of empowering the person who’s seeking help to play an active part in the process. And crystals, through the high level of order in their lattices, are best placed to serve as the “conductors, amplifiers and purifiers that transmit and transform our energy in line with their unique values.” (p.18)

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Becoming a shamanic healer and reiki master helped me to deepen my practice of energy work with crystals. Working with crystals over the years, I discovered that crystals are little shamanic healers and reiki masters themselves. They are master channels of life force, each with their own unique quality. And just like a shaman, they tune you into yourself and the rest of the universe so that you can unlock your deepest wisdom, reclaim your power and reconnect with your soul to be the fullest version of you. – p.5
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The Crystal Compass


healing crystals book review

Less bestiary or Pokédex, where Crystals are compared side-by-side for their strengths and weaknesses, this book is arranged around the Crystal Compass. The Crystal Compass is Aisha’s easy-to-use map that helps readers identify the cause of their tension and select the crystal they need to heal themselves.

Aisha combines her experience with shamanism and energy healing with her knowledge of crystals to offer a healing journey through which the reader can reconnect with their soul, using crystals as their “personal on-hand shamanic energy healers.” (p.6)

The Crystal Compass is divided into four major sections by element (Earth representing the body; water representing the emotions; fire representing the mind; and air representing the spirit), and within each element is a catalogue of the crystal properties for the element.

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We are divine and have all the answers, crystals just help us to amplify our divinity so that we can reveal our true self. And the world needs more true selves. – p.239

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The book goes into detail on each element and the tensions that can be addressed by it, and includes healing exercises and guided meditations for the ailments/problems that each element can correct.

This process is a far cry from simply purchasing a crystal and leaving it around, and it requires—perhaps even demands—constructive self-work on behalf of the “patient.” True healing!

«RELATED READ» THE FRUITS OF THE EARTH: An introduction to crystal healing»


image: Elderberry Arts

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