Ologies with Alie Ward - Gemology (CRYSTALS & GEMS) with Kelly Sitek

Episode Date: October 10, 2017

Professional gemologist Kelly Sitek talks about adventures in mining, the chemical composition of different gems, breaks down the test taking process for gemology and gives advice on haunted stones. We also spill some tea on cultured pearls and address the psychology and neurological merits of crystals/the placebo effect. Whether you are a staunch skeptic or all about woo-woo, you may end up shoving a crystal down your pants just for good luck. A.k.a. neural top-down control of physiology.Follow Kelly Sitek on Instagram More episode links and infoFollow Ologies on Twitter and Instagram Shirts, mugs, etc. OlogiesMerch.comSupport the show on Patreon

Hey, okay, just a quick note up top that this episode gets like a little like a little mystical. We don't not talk about the power of crystals in this. I wanted to know as a gemologist what thisologist's belief was in the mystical nature of rocks if she believed in it. So I hear her out. I also discuss the neuroscience of the placebo effect and how our thoughts can change our behaviors. If you're interested in neuro science, try not to at me about it because like I get it.

Okay. Cool. Episode four, ologies coming in hot. All right. First off, thanks to everyone who's been listening and leaving reviews on iTunes and rating. You're subscribing. The more you do that, the higher this thing gets in the charts and then the people see it and the more people shared dumb science jokes, I guess the better.

I don't know. And also thank you to everyone who's supporting on Patreon. I see you and I love you. And for anyone who had a hankering for merch and who's been to ologiesmerch.com, cool shirt or mug or tote. Okay. Gems, this episode about gems, it's truly outrageous. Well, it's pretty good.

We don't talk about crotches very much, but it is a pretty good episode. So let's start with the etymology of gemology. Comes from ology, the study of gems, meaning gems. But gems comes from an old dusty Latin word for gems, which comes from the word for bud, like a cute little rose. Only it's dug from the ground and it's worth more than your house. Now I knew I wanted to cover this topic for months. And so I started hunting down on Facebook for a gemologist and I got in touch with today's

guest whose number I saved in my phone with the crystal ball emoji, the diamond emoji and the ring emoji. Now I'm going to tell you a secret. If you have an emoji next to your name in my phone, I like you and like you extra more a lot. And this person is just as wonderfully warm and passionate as they come. She's worthy of the emojis. We talked about the difference between gems and minerals, what it's like to be at a blast

site, what's the actual deal with mystical healing from a few different angles, hidden crystal caves, some super weird tragic history of the figures in gemology. And because the beauty of gems lies as much in their shimmer as it does the weird, dark mystique of valuable coveted things, I think part of what's so great about gemology is that there's creepy stuff about it. So this guest is a gemologist and a jewelry cataloger at Bonham's and Butterfields, which is an auction house. And she's just lovely.

She's just goddamn lovely. Please enjoy Kelly Sitek. OK, Kelly Gemologist. Yes. This is so exciting. I've never met a gemologist before. I think it's a very small niche of a field. So I haven't met many either, except now that I'm actually in the world.

But beforehand, before I actually met a diamond dealer, I didn't really know what gemology was or what the industry was like as far as jewelry and minerals and crystals go. So it was, I mean, once you meet one, then a whole world opens. There's a bookshelf spin open and then there's a world of diamond dealers. Gem dealers that connects to mining in Africa and Asia and all these different places. And you learn that so many people are involved in the process of getting a stone from the earth, taking it from the earth to a piece of jewelry or to a crystal in a shop for sale. So it's really kind of amazing all the work and all the people that go into the whole

industry. It's incredible. How long have you been a gemologist? I'm actually a very new gemologist. I graduated just a little over a year ago from the Gemological Institute of America. It's down in Carlsbad. It used to be based out of here. It's also all over the world now.

All right. I knew nothing about the Gemological Institute of America. So I did a little digging. Oh, that's a pun. I'm sorry. Honestly, I didn't mean it. So the Gemological Institute of America is legit. If you're going to become a gemologist, this is the way to do it.

It was founded by a guy named Robert Shipley. The website for the Gemological Institute of America starts off with his bio and the sentence sounds like it's straight out of a 1940s movie trailer. It sounds like this. During the depths of the Depression, a middle-aged man with little more than ambition and charisma revolutionized the gem and jewelry industry. That's his bio. He sounds dope.

So Shipley was kind of a down-on-his-luck jeweler who screwed up a few times because he didn't know which gems were which. And so his business failed. And then he went through a divorce, which I think was a big deal back then. So he split. He went to Paris. He said, forget this. I'm going to be an artist.

He got another wife. Her name was Beatrice. And in general, Shipley was bummed that jewelers often had no idea what stones they were working with. It had boned him in the past. He was upset about it. So B, as she was known, encouraged him to take some goddamn gemology classes. And I'm picturing their conversations.

And I imagine them talking about this smoking in the living room. Anyway, so Shipley did. He went to England and he was so impressed with the gemology courses. He came back to America. He started up this institute in the US. He sold microscopes and loops and gem info booklets out of their apartment. He and B, man. What a team.

Nowadays, to become a certified gemologist, you can do it for about 20 grand on campus in Carlsbad or a little bit less if you study up at home. Either way, you definitely get one of those cool squinty loop situations. So they send you all the schoolwork and all the stones to identify. And then you go down there to take the scariest test of all time to get your degree. It's very intense. It's called the 20 stone. It's very menacing.

What is it? You have to take 20 stones, whatever they give you. And it's really whatever they had given you in your test, they'll give you one of those. But it could be synthetic. It could be an imitation of something. It could be the natural form of the stone, but you have to identify it. Do tests with the gemological equipment, like a refractometer and a polariscope and things like that.

And then you have to identify what it is, but you can't get anything wrong. So if you get one little tiny thing wrong, then you fail. And I actually failed my first one from one answer. It was a synthetic emerald versus a natural emerald. And I had to take it again and it was fine. But do you hate emeralds now? Are you so pissed at them? It honestly made me just want to see so many more because the best thing you can do for

yourself in gemologies, just get your hands on as many stones as possible because people are getting really good at imitating stones and recreating stones to make them look natural, but they're not. So that's where it gets scary with actually buying gemstones or jewelry. You just don't know because there's so many good fakes now and you want to actually know what you're purchasing or you have. So no, I'm like, damn it, emeralds. How did you get so involved in this?

You've been doing it for a year, but were you always super into crystals? From a young age, yes, my dad tells me stories of hanging out in the driveway. He would like put me outside and then he'd come back and there would be these piles of sticks and stones. He was like, I don't know what you were doing if it was like some ceremony or something. You were a baby witch. Baby witch doing some sort of spells with the earth, I'm not sure. But I've always had a fascination with bugs and rocks and the earth and dirt and things

like that. So I actually went to get a BA in the arts first. I have an art history minor and then it's a fine art degree that's in printmaking. And I kind of didn't really know what to do from there, what I wanted to do, but I always loved antiques and things like that. So then I went into the antique world, the antique business and worked in some antique shops. And that is where I met the diamond dealer and understood like, I love antique jewelry

and the idea of the preservation of history and it's very sentimental. You met the diamond dealer. Was he wearing a cloak and did he have a mustache and a monocle? Who is this guy? No, he's actually very suave. He's very much a diamond dealer. They're very charming. They know how to talk a deal and things like that, which was good.

He was very, very supportive and helpful and just like, you love jewelry so much. Have you thought of this? You should really look into the program at the GIA and then I did. And then from there, it's actually really interesting. My love is actually with minerals and how they come straight from the earth. The raw specimens. So this ended up kind of combining nature and art and history all in one. All in one.

All my favorite things. Yeah. And so that's where I am now. How did you celebrate when you passed your second test? I cried and called my mom. You did? I did. I literally was like, I'm so proud of myself.

There was with the online program, there's so many different people from so many different walks of life taking it. So there's like older people that have been in the business forever, but they want their actual degree now. I was mostly some older ladies as well, but a lot of them had a hard time passing it. So I was really like psyching myself out. I was like, oh my gosh, like they did the online program and I did the online program. How am I going to do this?

But I think it's just so mental. It's just going in there just saying, I understand the stones. I've seen them. You know what to look for. And you get to like use a microscope to look inside there and just like see the entire world of the stone. No cheat sheet. No cheat sheet.

Can you wear any rings or anything with you? You're like, all right, I know this is a carnage. There is like this giant book you get to use. So what you first do is you kind of identify a body color and if it's translucent or opaque, things like that, like characteristics, just looking at it with your eye. And then you go into using a refractometer, which is where you put the stone with RI liquid and you figure out what its refractive index is. It's kind of like how it splits light.

And that's a very big sign of what the stone is going to be. So if it's 1.77, you know, it's going to be like a sapphire generally. So each stone kind of has their own number, which helps you identify. Some are very similar. So you need a bit more information, like use a polariscope to see its polarity of things and then you go from there, but you do a couple of tests to figure out. And then you have to go into looking at through the microscope to see, does it have signs of being, you know, manmade?

Is it a bull? Is it, you know, from... How do you tell if it's manmade? Is it too perfect? Sometimes like it's very eye clean. So if you don't see anything, you're like, oh, this looks a little suspicious. Okay. So you're like, it's either a natural stone that's been heated or diffused to make the

color better, or it's now a synthetic stone that is created through one of four processes with like heat and chemicals and things like that. So it's really interesting. It looks like this long cylinder shape, the synthetic ones called a bull. And then they cut it from there. So when you're looking in the microscope and you turn it on a certain axis, you can see these beautiful curved strye, which is like rings. And that's how you tell it was in this like cylinder shaped bull.

And how do they make them? So you just put some carbon like under insane pressure in a factory? Yeah. It's like in this platinum crucible and then like minerals. And like there's a few different processes where they either like slowly drip minerals in there, or they just have it all in this kind of mixture and then they heat it up and it's very complicated. I don't even know.

I'd love to see how it's done. Are there any people that go synthetic because they think it's like more like cruelty free or like better like from an environmental or yeah. Like there's a whole blood diamond stitch. Like, right. Do people gravitate towards synthetic kind of like a tofurky on Thanksgiving, do you know what I mean? I think synthetic is more for cost.

I think a lot of people want the look of a beautiful sapphire, but maybe they can't afford it. So then they go synthetic and you still get that great look and it is the actual chemical makeup of the sapphire, but it's just synthetic and it's been manmade. I think mining is hard to really wrap your mind around because there are certain governmental protection like for the miners and the companies that are put in place. So there isn't, you know, a constant power struggle for these or violence, things like that.

But you can't control everything. So unfortunately, you just don't know where all these pieces are coming from. But I think that's why for me, I really like a lot of the antique jewelry because it's been around. It's new. It's not being mined now. These days, people, of course, are much more aware of blood diamonds. So thanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, for bringing that into awareness with your film Blood Diamond.

They're also called conflict diamonds, which I feel like there was someone in PR that's like, can we not call them blood diamonds, can we call them conflict diamonds? Conflict sounds less awful than blood diamonds, but these stones, the money was used to fund ongoing conflict, insurgency, and wars. Now it's said that one in four diamonds, roughly, is a conflict diamond. But there were regulations. There's one called the Kimberley process, and some things pass through. That's for sure.

I asked Kelly how she felt about it, and she said this, I'm very into ethically sourced diamonds, although I think even with all the laws and systems in place, it can be hard to truly know how diamonds come to find themselves in jewelry. That is why I'm also a huge fan of older diamonds or reusing family diamonds. So there you go. Old is cool. Now, what's up with birthstones? And does Kelly even like hers?

God, I hope it's not an emerald. It's not. Thank the Lord. Can you imagine? I'm an aquamarine. Just be spiteful towards my birthstone for the rest of my life. No. It's an aquamarine.

It's just an aquamarine. How do they choose that? How do they decide that that's what month is at? It's March. March, okay. I have no idea what the history is of birthstones, but... All right. History of birthstones.

This goes back to the Bible, which is not what I was expecting to learn. Israelites were a ceremonial breastplate. It was adorned with four rows of three precious stones said to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. There's also something in the book of Revelation, chapter 21, about 12 different stones. So this goes way, way, way back. In 1916, a bunch of jewelers got together in Kansas and put out an official list. This is your month you were born.

This is your stone. Suddenly, everyone cared about their stone. It was genius. Everyone except people who got topaz. What's your words? Do you know? Mine sucks. What is it?

It's a topaz. I was going to say pearl, but... Oh my gosh, topaz. There's some beautiful topaz. Imperial topaz is my favorite. It's beautiful, glowing, kind of orange-y red topaz, and it's just spectacular. Well, that actually, okay. Because every time you'd go to the mall and they'd be like, well, it's your month.

Everyone would be like emeralds and diamonds and rubies, and then topaz. You'd get to November, and it was literally the color of sewer water, and you're like, what happened? Why did they run out of gemstones in November? They just decided to make the probably the worst color topaz. But why are there some, why are topazes like, okay, we know diamonds can be different colors. Topazes can be many different colors. Same with emeralds and rubies.

What makes a gem different colors? It was such a dumb question. It is the chemical makeup of the gem. So whatever minerals were in the area, the heat and the pressure and the minerals in the ground that combined create the chemical makeup of a stone, and that creates the color. So like vanadium and things like that can create a different color in different gemstones. It's all about what is combined and what was kind of like in the stew of this mineral that made it that color.

So with like tourmaline is one of my favorite stones because it comes in, I think the largest array of colors, you know, like hot pink and gorgeous teals and green and blue and reds, every color really. So I think a lot of gemstones, people don't realize do that as well. Like it's interesting because a ruby and a sapphire are actually the same stone. They're both in the family of corundum. But then their color gives them a specific name. So a ruby is the red form of corundum.

Stop it. So a sapphire is the blue form. And then you can also get into like the definition of a pink sapphire versus a ruby is just the color. So pink sapphire and ruby are the same thing, except when you have a red body color, it's then a ruby instead of a pink sapphire, just pink. What makes a topaz different from an emerald or from a ruby? Like what is it the structure of the crystals?

The structure of the crystal and just literally the chemical compounds. So there's seven different growth characteristic types for gemstones. So there's only seven ways that they'll really grow, monolithic, trilithic. There's seven of these in these structures. So you'll see a spinel or like pyrite and they grow into like a perfect cube. It's so cool. Right. Naturally just a cube.

And some grow like with a hexagonal shape, a barrel grows with a hexagon. So that also contributes to what makes them different is their natural growth structure. But topaz is beautiful in summers. I've seen like a kind of bluey green one. It was so gorgeous. That's so nice of you to say. Sea water. Yeah.

That's like a very like, you know, when you see like an ugly baby and you're like, it's going to grow up and be fine. Like the topaz is like, all right, it's like, but it's beautiful. They're beautiful. They're all beautiful. They're all beautiful. You just have to find the ones that really speak to you. That's what it's about.

I'm pissed about Pearl because a pearl's not a goddamn gemstone. That's just a dingleberry from a clam. Well, from an oyster. But do you know what I mean? No. Yeah, it's an organic product. So it's, I mean, for me, I like, I'm not super into pearls just because that they're actually cut from an animal and vegan, but so it makes me sad.

But it's also just beautiful that like an animal can create such an incredible product. It's just this natural. But it's not a gem or is it a gem? It's a gem. Exactly. Like it versus a mineral. Oh gosh, I wish I could have remembered the exact definition of that right now. I mean, it's good.

It means it doesn't come up in your work very much. It does not. The definition of a gemstone does not come up in my work very often. That's okay. I looked it up. So a gemstone is a precious or a semi-precious stone or mineral chosen for its beauty, chosen for its durability. It's cut and then polished.

Now check this out. There's a difference between a rock and a mineral. I never ever thought about this. A mineral has a very unique chemical structure and properties, but a rock is just a combination of different minerals. This fact is so precise and I would never have learned it if I hadn't just had to look it up and it makes me want to sound an air horn like the ones that party DJs use. Okay, I'm going to, but just super tiny in the background.

Um, but I think pearls are technically an organic matter or material because they come from just a coral. So those are in the organic field and then rocks and gemstones are inorganic. It is weird that there is one gemstone that's just like, we pluck this thing out of a, out of a bivalve. You know what I mean? Is that weird that like it came from like a, that's weird. I never really thought about that.

I'm not sure who discovered that and was like, this is going to be beautiful and this is going to be jewelry and it's going to be a precious thing that's desired. Who creates the like demand for certain things? I'm not sure, but it is fascinating. Okay. So there's evidence of prehistoric pearl hunting. People love these for millennia, but for the thousands of years, it was pretty much a crapshoot in a few tons of oysters, only a few would have like a naturally occurring

pearl. So pearls were incredibly expensive because you'd, you just hope that this little critter got a chunk of something stuck in its craw, but then in the early 1900s, that all changed. There was a guy named William Seval Kent. He was a British biologist who was really, really into sustainable fisheries. Someone's got to be into that. Now in the 1890s, he was in Australia. He was experimenting with pearl cultivation and it involved a little round bead made of

mollusk shell plus a little piece of donor mollusk material being surgically implanted into the gonads of a mollusk and then they returned to the ocean in a net for a few years. They're like, work on that pearl and they're like, I hate you. So he was working on this in a place called the Thursday islands and some guys named me say and Nishikawa, also happened to be in the Thursday islands and they patented this in 1907 and took a while to get all the patents, all that stuff anyway. In 1921, round-cultured pearls hit the market. So it said that this guy, William Seval Kent, maybe adopted it and maybe these guys came

to the Thursday islands and were like, hey, that's pretty good. And then took it back to Japan and patented it, whatever. William Seval Kent was like, take the pearls, my life sucks, I've got bigger problems. For example, his mom died early, his half-brother was killed by his sister, perhaps, who was convicted of it, although he maybe was an accomplice, but he was never charged. Anyway, it's all sad, it's all super dark, makes me want to hug everyone in the world and then go hide in a cave, speaking of caves. And then have you been on a dig at all?

I went on one dig and it's pretty much the coolest thing on the entire planet and I want to go mining so much more in my life. I was taken by a friend on this kind of like private mining tour down in like Oceanview or Oceanside, Oceanside in California, which is where a lot of Turmaline mines are. And they get like smoky quartz and things like that. So there's a lot of great mining here in California and you can actually pay to go and mine for the day, which is really fun too. In Southern California, if you check out this site called Dig for Gems, for 75 bucks you

can go haul some rocks for the day, but warning, bring water and apparently the owner is a lot like your 70 Sam and that he is a contangorous pioneer type. Do you get to keep what you get? Yeah, you get to like keep certain things, which is really cool. I haven't done that yet, but I need to. We went on this one tour where we went and saw like deep in the mines. So you actually go in the mountain side and there were a whole bunch of guys that were drilling the wall to blast that day.

So I'm literally like watching them drill these holes and it's really loud and they're like pumping it full of water so it doesn't create a lot of heat and whatever. So there's a bunch of holes in the wall and then they bring in the dynamite sticks, which is terrifying to be around dynamite is so scary. So they make like holes like burrows and then they show the dynamite in the burrows. So what they do is like when they're looking in a wall, you want to look for little signs of crystals or like a pocket that will have stones in it. And then from there, you're going to try to blast to open up a pocket.

And hopefully behind there, there is some some sort of like rocks or crystals or things like that. And sometimes you hit it really big and you hit this great pocket and it's like full of gems or you end up like, I think a lot of times people maybe end up destroying stones because they're trying to blast the wall or, you know, things like, I know, that's such a harsh bail, but you got to, you know, I think you just have to try, you know, you don't know, you can either go in there with your hands or you're going to blast the wall open if there's a pocket.

So like, what else are you going to do? Just pick at it with your fingernails till you get through a mountain. Yeah, you can't do that. No, it's we would take forever. Right. So yeah, because we were very far in the mountain. Were you claustrophobic? No, it's huge.

OK. The caverns they make are like just ginormous and there's all these like different kind of walkways to go through and different levels that you can go up. It's wild. I feel literally like kind of like a mole or something like wandering around. I was like, oh, wow, animal life. So we packed everything full of dynamite and then they light everything and I'm like, are we not supposed to be running right now out of the mountain and they're just taking their

time. They're like, oh, we have four minutes. I was like, I'm going to run out the mountain. You're in the mountain. We're in the mountain and they light it. And so. What? Yeah.

So, so scary. And then it's the deepest, biggest boom you've ever felt. Whoa. And it was just like, boom. And I was like, oh my God, that's so scary. And then you see all of the dust come out and then you have to wait an hour to let it settle. OK.

And then they go in there and they kind of like hit the top of the ceiling to make sure nothing comes down because there are still rock that's loose. Who has that job? A man with a hard hat. That job sucks. I know. I was like, oh my gosh, so scary. And then you go in there and we got to kind of dig around to see if there was anything

that was in the pocket. And unfortunately, that day there wasn't, but they showed us another kind of area that did have a little bit of a pocket. So we got to take some quartz home and things like that, which is really cool. Did you keep it? Yeah. I have a couple. Like there's a rock that has like this beautiful, like perfect quartz point coming out of it.

And they've gotten a lot of spodumene out of there, which is a type of crystal. And it's so cool because on different accesses, it like shows either like a pink or like this beautiful violet color, which is so cool. So you turn it and you see different colors. And there was this one in there called big kahuna that they took out of there. Big kahuna. They named it. And it's huge.

I mean, this thing is the biggest that I think they've ever seen. So. Is it typical to name crystals? Yeah. There's also one that's really cool. It's like this beautiful tourmaline. I think party color tourmaline on a quartz and it looks like a steamboat. So I think it's called like a steamboat something.

I'm not sure what it is, but I think I had no idea they got nicknames. There's not going to be another one of these in the world. And then they name them because they're just so amazing. Yeah. Now, let's get back to your crystals. You have a collection of crystals, clearly, right? Do you name those or no? I don't name them, but they definitely I think like if you go anywhere,

they definitely have a certain energy. Like some really speak to you or not, you know, it's almost like any object that either calls to you or it doesn't. And with crystals for me, their beauty and their individuality really talks. It's, you know, if you're in a store of crystals, there's going to be one that's like, take me home. Like I need to come with you. I did that recently.

I was in Arizona. Yes. And I was and I went into a little gym shop and I was like, oh, this is lovely. And I was looking at things and I was like, what do you have that's like a good calming situation? Because I'm like a Chihuahua. I'm just like, yeah. I'm like, what's like something calming?

And he's like this blue thing. Oh, I have it in my wallet. Yes. Can you tell me what it is? Yes. OK, this is not meant to be a pop quiz, but let's do it. OK, I'm like, I'm going to suggest Blue Waste Agate first in my mind of what he would suggest, but let's see what it is. OK, let's take a diagnosis. There's in my wallet, there's also earplugs and bobby pins.

That's the essentials. Yeah, the essentials. So OK, OK, so I got this blue thing because he said it was calming and also because he seemed so nice. I didn't want to just walk out of his shop without buying anything. No, this is this is actually a quartz. OK, it's called aqua aura quartz and it's actually treated. So what they do is they put this in some sort of container or crucible or something

and they heat it with titanium. What? Like particles. And that actually puts this blue kind of rainbow essence on the surface. So it's a court point, a quartz point. So that has a lot of incredible healing powers. OK, this is where science and the woo woo kind of collide. Just stick with me. Let's look into this.

So in the last five years, apparently there's been a 40 percent increase in Google searches for the term crystal healing. Now, do crystals work? It really, really depends on your definition of work. One study in 2001 by Dr. Christopher French asked participants to meditate for five minutes holding a crystal. Some were given a real awesome crystal. Some were given a fake crystal, but people who reported warmth in their hands

and increased feelings of well-being were about equal. So wellness is kind of in the hand of the beholder here. Well, I have a question about this. Is it not kosher to touch someone's crystal? Because I always feel like you're not supposed to touch their crystal. That's a great question, because I think some have like, oh, my gosh. Right. But there are a lot of people that work really intensely with crystals

and they work with programming them with their intentions, with what they want to manifest. So it can be good to ask. But for me, like if it's generally jewelry, I'm just like I wear it for the good energy and the good vibes and if people want to, it's like, that's whatever, you know, you're going to share the energy and the good juju. Did you take a specific crystal down with you to take the test? I think I had a few that day.

I definitely had some quartz and some black tourmaline because black tourmaline is really grounding and it's really good for your home, especially, but it helps take away negative energy and negative thoughts and things like that. So I was like, I need to be calm and grounded. And I did have some laboratory. It's a stone of magic. And I was like, I need some extra help today to pass this test.

So that's, it worked. It worked. I had like the little cluster on my desk. The psychology of crystals is super interesting scientifically. Number one, crystals are here. Some people swear by them, Adele, Katy Perry, all of the Kardashians, Madonna. So as long as you're going to hear about crystals, let's consider the psychology and the physiology behind them.

We'll get to the physics in a minute. OK, first, your brain is a jiggly mess. It's got nerves and wires and fatty stuff and memories and shit we don't understand. But one of those things we kind of understand is the placebo effect. Now, according to my doctor, www.webmd.com, one of the most common theories is that the placebo effect is due to a person's expectations. So if a person expects a pill to do something, then it's possible that the body's own chemistry can cause effects similar

to what a medication might have caused. There's a word for this. It's called neural top down control of physiology. That is the direct regulation by the brain of physiological features. Features like the immune system and metabolism and stress. I didn't totally get this. So I looked up the scientific paper called top down and bottom up mechanics in mind body medicine development of an integrative framework for

psychophysiological research. Sure. OK, this is what I said. And this was a published scientific paper. So mind body therapies, including things like hypnosis, biofeedback, yoga, meditation, Tai Chi have been found effective for reducing depression, insomnia, anxiety, post traumatic stress, irritable bowel syndrome, nausea, acute and chronic pain, and for managing impaired circulation, diabetes, stuff like that.

And there's a number of mechanisms of top down control of physiology that you can use to achieve that. One might be meditation, one might be holding a rock. What's a good starter kit for people who are like, I'm going to do it. This is the year. This is my year to dabble in crystals. I'm going to become one of those witchy people and I'm just going to dabble in awesome minerals and stuff.

Just like a little few crystals. Yeah, what's like there's like they walk into a gem store. Like what's their starter kit? Like they want to be like, ha, is a great, great question. They want to get have a good job like starter kit. This is great. OK. Number one, definitely clear quartz because it is a master healer. OK. And please note, if you get crystals, you need to cleanse them as well.

You want to put them in the moonlight, if you can, just let that cleanse them. Or you can put them in the sunshine or put them in salt water or rice, I think, does it to rice? You can just put them in rice. You're like, I got my crystal in the toilet and I need to dry it out. Like put in a bag of rice. Is it like charging something that's low in the dark, like holding it up to a light? Yeah, kind of like you need to like, especially with quartz, because it takes in so much energy, you want to release it.

There is something called piezo electricity and it's the principle that crystalline forms like quartz can generate electricity when under stress. I mean, you see this if you have a quartz watch. Some folks argue that the crystalline structure in minerals aligns with the energy field of our bodies. Others say, well, shit, dog, that's pretty rock and it makes me happy. My stance, tomato tomato. Does the thing make you happy?

Do the thing. Quartz for sure. If you want to bring abundance, money, more monetary, like stuff into your life, you want to get citrine, which is this beautiful kind of golden color. It is also quartz, but that is like the abundance stone. And it's just it's good for everything. And then if you want something to heal your heart, to promote self-love and self-care, you want to get rose quartz, which is a beautiful pink color. It's one of my favorite stones.

It's very soothing. It's gorgeous, like soft, dusty pink, and that is number one heartstone. And then also black tourmaline. You definitely want to have just for your home, for yourself as protection, because as we go into the world, you know, there's so much going on. And and I think that tourmaline is a really good protector against, you know, whatever might arise that you're not really comfortable with. Like World Wars and stuff.

Yeah, like the apocalypse. Kind of, you want to be prepared with your crystals. If anything, you can throw them at people like I got a spiky one. Come at me, bitches. This one's really heavy. And then I think probably finally from me, I love Labradorite. It's one of my favorite stones. I have so much of it just because it is incredibly beautiful.

And it like every single one is different. And it is the stone of magic. And I totally believe that. What are the camps of other gemologists or diamond dealers? How do they feel about like anything spiritual with with gems? Like, where do you where does where do gemologists fall? This is it's such a mixed bag, I think, because crystals for me, they're they're just like this beautiful creation of the earth.

So they really ground me to the earth and they remind me to kind of calm down and center. And some people are just not in that mind frame. They're not on that spiritual side of things. So they're just they come from the earth and that is it. And they want to sell it for money and they look at as it at it as like a business. So it really depends on your views on life. And if you're a spiritual or not and some people dabble a little bit

because they just think they're so beautiful and they're actual just crystal collectors, it's not so much for the spiritual side, but just the beauty and the rarity of the items. So it's really a mixed bag all over the spectrum. It's not so much about the figure or whatever you're holding. It's just that you get to put your energy into something physical. You're not just always having to think or believe in something. You can actually hold something.

Well, it seems like once you kind of know what a stone stands for, then like any time you look at a glimmering gold stone or like a rose quartz, you're going to be like, oh, yeah, that's right. My heart has to heal some others. You don't even think it'll be on your mind, at least. I have a bunch of questions from people who, yeah, wanted to just pepper you with questions. So we'll do a rapid fire round.

OK. You don't have to answer them in depth, but just tell me. Yeah, we'll rapid fire these. But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors, why sponsors? You know what they do? They help us give money to different charities every week. So if you want to know where oligies gives our money,

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OK, your questions. These are some good questions that I never would have thought of. OK. Jen wants to know, I want to know what stone other than diamonds is overrated and what stone is underappreciated? Oh, my gosh. It's a good question. Wow, that was great. Good job, Jen. Overrated, I'm just going to quickly go not to be spiteful with emeralds

because because it is actually a fact that 85 percent of them are actually treated with an oil or a resin to make their clarity better and not to take away from the amazing energy of an emerald. But I think it is deceptive sometimes if people don't truly know that. So if you're listening, know that 85 percent of emeralds are generally treated. They're not synthetic, but they are treated with oil or something within them to make them work there. So overrated emeralds are overrated, underrated.

That's really hard. Labrodyte, spectrolyte, spectrolyte, for sure. I think underrated and should be more out there is just one of my favorite stones of all time called Lodolite quartz or garden quartz, because it literally looks like a foamy purple green garden inside of quartz. It's like one of the most amazing stones I've ever seen. And they come in just like all these different shapes.

I wish I would have brought one. Actually, my bracelet has it in it, but it looks like kind of like moss. Oh, my God, that's so cool. It's like a cool natural marble. Yeah, it's crazy. And it's just like this whole world of stripes. And you can see the growth patterns and the texture looks like that green foam. You stick flowers into and you just want to touch it, but it is hard.

And it is encased in stone. Garden quartz, garden quartz, or it's Lodolite quartz. That's hard to spell. People remember garden quartz. Yeah, garden quartz. Lodolite. I don't know. I have no idea where to start with that, maybe now. L-O-D-O-L-I-T.

Garden quartz, easier to remember. OK, Jessica wants to know if you have thoughts on haunted and cursed gems. You know, it's really interesting. I met this woman that I used to work for and she was the first person that ever said bad juju to me, that phrase, bad juju. And it's from her two stone antique diamond engagement ring that she had with her ex-husband. She's like, this ring has bad juju.

And I have now fully come to realize that it exists and it is true. So I think. How can I just think you put them in the moonlight? Maybe, but I think it's more like you just need to get rid of them from. Like, I think someone can restore the good energy of a stone. But I think a lot of times for a person, it can have such a negative connotation that you just need to like get rid of it from your life. And I think that's why a lot of people sell their stones or their jewels,

because they want to get rid of that situation that it was in. And hopefully the person that gets it then can bring some new life to it. If you have a haunted gem, should you first try to put it in rice or salt water or the moonlight and see if your life gets better? I, you know, I would. But I think it's such a mental state. Like, if you have a nasty ex husband or partner or whoever that you keep, look, you look at the ring and you're like, oh, right.

And then you're like, oh, well, maybe I could make it into earrings or something else. But then you'd still be thinking about it. You might as well just get rid of it and get something fresh. So haunted gems. Yes. They're a real thing, real bad juju. Well, how do you feel about making remains into gemstone, which are human remains? You know how you can take you can take human remains that have like the ashes? Yes. And then turn them into a gemstone question.

I have heard that recently into like a diamond or something. Right. I'm all about that personally, because I'm a huge fan of memento, more jewelry and the sentimental, like, longing and loving of people that cared so deeply for their loved ones and they want to remember them. So in Victorian times, they used to take hair and weave it into like watch fobs or necklaces or brooches and or they would like recently in the auction, I work at an auction house and we have this adorable moonstone baby face brooch with a diamond bonnet.

And it was probably for a child that had passed, but it's so sentimental. And I think, you know, whatever way you want to remember your loved one is wonderful. I mean, some people do blood in a vial. I don't know if you were too young to recall Angelina Jolie and her husband, Billy Bob Thornton, wearing vials of blood around their neck. Please Google that if for no other reason than to see the evolution of Angelina's eyebrows. I'm really into that. Just like loving memory of someone.

So provided they're not a dick and then you're going to have a haunted exactly. You don't want to do that one. All right, Clare, that was your question. So great. Yeah, just make sure they're not a jerk. Yeah. Oh, Justin wants to know, is Gem truly outrageous? Probably, yes. Maybe. Brittany, you would like to know what the difference is between mineralogy and gemology.

That's a great question. I think what it comes down to is gemology is more the study of faceted gemstones. OK. And I think mineralogy is the study of their natural form, how they come out of the earth. So then once you take those natural form and you cut it down to a gemstone, then that is when it becomes gemology. And then you're really looking inside at the stone and its characteristics as far as if it's synthetic or natural rather than how it is, you know,

from the earth and you dig it up and it's a perfect specimen. So. Oh, got it. So it's kind of like a product of that. A little bit. Exactly. Yeah. And then this was my couple of people asked this. So a diamond engagement rings. How did that start? And is that over or people or is that going to be eternal?

That people are going to be giving diamonds as engagement? Diamonds are forever. I think, number one, the slogans aside, diamonds are so popular because they are the toughest, hardest stone in existence. So you can bang them around whatever and they will last your lifetime. Other stones, not so much. You have to be more careful about what you're putting in a setting and how you're setting it.

So the next hardest stone is then a sapphire or ruby. So a lot of people go with that option as well for an engagement ring. But then when you get into other areas like opal, which is something I do not recommend for an engagement ring whatsoever, because it is one of the softest stones and it will craze. It will start to crack. Really? If you don't take care of it and if you wear it every day. So it's one that won't last as long.

So I think diamonds are so wonderful because they are just so hard and they'll last your lifetime if you, you know, take care of them properly. Some do chip if you hit them just right, but it is pretty rare. So I think that's why there's such a popular option. Where that exactly started, I'm not sure. It could have just been because of wanting to expand the diamond market once more diamonds were found and, you know, people use marketing to make everything happen.

Oh, engagement rings, quick history. Diamonds, rare, expensive. But in the 1860s, huge diamond mines were discovered in South Africa. Who, boy, were there diamonds? De Beers diamond cartel was founded. Then the depression hit. And in the late 1930s, they needed to sell more diamonds. So a marketing campaign was launched to convince people

that starlets and rich people and the truly in love were diamonds. In the late 1940s, the slogan a diamond is forever was coined. And I mean, granted diamonds are a hard ass stone, but they want you to want them. And also the lyrics, if you like it, then you should have offered a marriage dowry of goats and textiles and household items does not have the same ring. Sorry. OK, diamonds. So they're hardy.

They are hardy. They are the number one hardest stone. Right. And if you get a used one and it's haunted, try to cleanse it. Cleanse it. OK. Moonlight. GTK, good to know. OK, and then we'll do we'll do good side, bad side. What is your least favorite thing about gemology? What is something that's just annoying or pisses you off?

Oh, or about your job as a gemologist, because you work at an auction house appraising. And right. Yeah. And I think my least favorite part of the job is all of the deception that comes with trying to mimic stones or imitate them, especially if you go to a lot of foreign countries, they want to sell you rough stones, but they will they will manipulate them to look, you know, real or authentic, and then you get them home and they're totally fake

or they're like glass with some sort of, you know, treatment on them. So that makes me really sad that there's a lack of respect. People want to make money and things like that. But don't go don't go staying a beer bottle and then be like. Or he didn't call it this type of ruby. And then you find out that it's he treated and it loses its value by, you know, more than half. So right. But by that point, you're like on another continent and they're like,

what jokes on you? Yeah, don't buy it like that. I mean, if you don't know what you're looking for, don't do it. Know your shit before you go to another country and take home some jewels. Right. You want to know just some some little tips before going through with that. But I think that's probably my biggest thing is like the deception that exists in the world is just really sad. So some of your favorite thing. My favorite thing that makes me so unbelievably happy is when you look

inside of the zone in a microscope and you just you're looking at this like a world that is like so incredible. And I can't believe that the world or, you know, the earth has actually made this like something deep within the ground has been created that is unbelievably spectacular. And then some amazing human brought it outside of, you know, the earth. So so incredible. And there's a lot of different photographers now that are actually taking photos of the insides of gems.

And there's a few of my favorite Instagram accounts. I have to remember all their names. But there's Mineralian and he does a lot of like inner opal. And it just looks like this underwater sea world that's like in the sunlight. It's amazing. But you can look up, you know, micro photos of gems and see all their inclusions. And you'll see gas bubbles inside this tiny like negative space that is literally tiny, tiny like you have to look in a microscope to see it.

So looking through a microscope is just a super trippy world. Is it like in Superman when he lives in a crystal world? Kind of. It's you're just you're in awe of, you know, that it exists. You're just like, how did the how did the earth make something so beautiful? And a lot of people don't know that that is something or they just, you know, it's not something that interests them. But for me, it's just like this, I don't know, it's like a nerdy thing. I just love to look in a microscope and see this whole other world.

And it makes me really grateful for the earth. I'm like, wow, so amazing. Thanks, Earth. Isn't it weird that there are gems that you haven't met yet that are just chilling in a rock in a cave right now? Somewhere longing to be brought to light and gocked at. Yeah. And have you seen those like crazy giant selenite crystal caves in Mexico that that's been circulating everywhere

where they're literally giant and you see the men like walking on them? And it's just like pure magic. I don't even know. Yeah. Superman must live there. Oh, my God, holy stalactites, people. I looked this up and it's insane. Before you Google image search cave of the crystals, which is in Chihuahua, Mexico, please,

please consider holding onto your butts because it's so insanely pretty. You can lose your minds. Thirty foot high crystals. They make Superman's fortress of solitude look like a studio apartment in Burbank. I'm going to give you the skinny on these things. So the caves were discovered in 2000 by some miners, and they were essentially flooded naturally, but they were drained by the mining company to reveal these insane, beautiful structures.

And the caves right above a magma chamber. So they're hot as balls, 136 degrees. And when they're drained, it's up to 99 percent humidity. So researchers looking into these crystals had to wear vests that were stuffed with like otter pops and ventilators just to study them for 20 minutes at a time. The crystals are made out of gypsum, which is the same stuff as in drywall, but it's in crystal form.

Now, the mining operation recently stopped. The caves got refluttered. So you can't go visit them. You can't have your birthday party in them. But just think the crystals are just in a hot bath. They're chilling. The crystals are like, get out of here, dude. We've been here for half a million years, getting bigger and bigger.

Fill us back up. Get your hard hat side of my butt. That's what the cave is saying. Sorry, I talk about butts so much. Jeez. Well, what are you excited about? What's like your next goal? Like what's the next thing you're you're excited about doing in your work?

I personally just want to work more now, like less with jewelry and more with the specimens, more mining, getting my hands on the natural product, seeing it in its environment, its natural environment. So ideally, I would love to work in a warehouse of crystals and just be with crystals all day every day, just like a huge and they exist as wholesalers and things like that, that sell to smaller stores. Yeah, I just I love the idea of, for me, the spiritual aspect of just putting

your energy into something physical to help you connect to earth and to, you know, your dreams and whatever you're doing. So so now that I have this blue crystal that I keep in my purse, should I keep in my purse or is that a shady place to keep a crystal? You can totally keep in your purse. I generally always carry something on me, like legitimately bra crystals, I think are a thing for women. Bra crystals, bra crystals.

You just stick it right in your bra. If you don't have a pocket, like if you're wearing a dress, I generally have one just, you know, do you have any in your bra right now? I don't, unfortunately, but I'm wearing so many that. But sometimes, you know, like I'm wearing a certain thing and I don't really have a necklace on or something. Right. So I just kind of stick one in there. Nobody knows. But it's for me.

And it's right next to my heart, which makes me feel a little more, you know, secure and better going into the world. But this is my new favorite thing is a bra crystal crystals, like really like soft palmstones are really good for that. They actually sell they're like these round flat stones, but they kind of sit in there really nicely. So just like to just like nip and cover. Exactly. Just be careful.

You know, you don't want to like pop out somewhere, you know, like, what is that? You're like, I don't know where that rock came from, you know? Don't touch my crystal. Yeah, seriously, though. I'm going to shove this in my bra and see what happens. Yeah. To a calmer week. Addendum, someone you know who is recording this voice over right now may have put a crystal in her bra and so what?

But also it was the sharp pointy kind. And when she took off her bra, it fell on her toe and she was like, oh, I forgot you're in there, buddy. And then she looked down and she had the most ridiculous crystal shaped imprint in her chest area. So if you're going to do a bra crystal, get the flat kind. Also, side note, since researching this topic, plus last episode's deep dive into how much a dino dig costs versus an American wedding,

Google and Instagram and Facebook have absolutely poured ads for engagement items into my eye holes. And I hereby ask them to please knock it the fuck off robots. Speaking of social media, you can find the wonderful, wonderful Kelly Sightech on Instagram as the Rock Huntress. She posts pictures of beautiful stones, including the ones that we talked about today. Allergies is also on there at Allergies and on Twitter at AllergiesPod. And I'm on both as Ali Ward.

And if there's something about the podcast you want to hear, you just want to say hi or give me some feedback, you can email me at helloaliward at gmail.com. If you love the podcast, you can go straight to rating, subscribing, reviewing, tell friends. And thank you to everyone supporting on Patreon. I decided to put this out without a network. I'm just going solo so I could do it without a bunch of ads.

And you guys are making it possible for me to pay a sound engineer. Hey, Jason, and buy microphones and software and put up money for merch. Also, feel free to visit AllergiesMerch.com for shirts and totes. Thank you, Shannon and Bonnie, for helping me with that. And thank you to Hannah and Erin, a few of my dear friends for creating the Allergies podcast group on Facebook and just being awesome. So until next Tuesday, remember to ask smart people them questions before you wind up crushed into a souvenir pendant or haunting an emerald.

Next week, horology.