What Happens if You Don’t Cleanse Your Crystals?

Healing crystals are popular for spreading positive vibrations, but most of them do this by absorbing negativity and transmitting positivity. When you stop cleansing them or start tossing them into the junk shelf every time, you’re inviting cosmic chaos!

What happens if you don’t cleanse your crystals? 

The energies of a healing crystal become ineffective, conflicting, stagnant, or haphazard when you reuse it without cleansing it. 

Sometimes, negative energies build up and lead to adverse effects. At other times, leftover negativity from a previous ritual or user ends up messing with your intentions. Or maybe they’re drained after heavy-duty rituals.

The truth is when you treat your crystals well, they will return the favor a hundred fold. So, it’s crucial you know how to cleanse crystals just as well as how to charge them.

I will describe the benefits of cleansing crystals, what happens to you and the crystal when they’re used without cleansing, and the sources of the negativity that block your crystals’s healing energies. Plus, I’ll answer the burning question: how often should you cleanse your crystals for the best results? 

Let’s dive in!

Historical Use of Crystals for Healing

Crystals have enchanted humans since ancient times in many ways. 

Did you know Archaeologists discovered gemstone tools in 2014 that date back 3.3 million years? What makes this even more incredible is it predates the emergence of Homo Sapiens by half a million years.

While the earliest use of crystals dates back to Ancient Sumerian magic formulae in the 4th millennium B.C., many other cultures used them extensively. Ancient civilizations used them for endless needs of the body, mind, and soul. 

For instance, Egyptians made protective talismans from Lapis Lazuli, the Chinese made medicine from Jade for luck, the Greeks used Amethyst for calming down, the Yorubans made carving tools out of Obsidian, and Vedic (Indian) civilizations made medicine from Clear Quartz for purification.

Why Cleanse Crystals?

When you start connecting the dots between healing crystals and our past, it’s crystal clear why loving, maintaining, and caring for them are vital for their best use!

Moreover, crystal cleansing is different from cleaning because cleansing refers to the removal of negativity. 

Think of crystals as emotional sponges that absorb the dirt and grime from your mind every time you use them in a ritual. What would happen if you kept reusing a sponge without cleaning it? They’d undoubtedly fester, spreading the dirt and grime each time you used them. 

Pretty gross, right? 

The truth is, when you love and care for your crystals, you’re not just maintaining their magic, you’re amplifying yours, too!

Importance of Cleansing

Regularly cleansing your crystals isn’t just surface upkeep because it goes beyond the superficial. 

Did you know a cleansed crystal leads to clear and focused energies? It’s like wiping away the foggy, misty, or cloudy things to let the bright and positive sunshine in!

Whether you’re looking to manifest intentions or keep the good vibes flowing, it’s essential to start by removing the negative energy they’ve already absorbed. 

That’s why neglecting crystal cleansing rituals may overload them or block positive energies, reducing their ability to purify, amplify, and spread positive energies. It’s much like expecting a candle to glow brightly without trimming its wick or cleaning the melt. 

All of this can result in a lack of energy to focus when setting intentions or a slower manifestation of your desires. 

Most of you know that when we use crystals in rituals, we form deeper connections with heightened awareness or intuition by connecting to the chakras. 

Can you imagine what will happen when these energies are flipped? It may make you extremely distracted, tired, stressed, anxious, afraid, or even ungrounded. 

Another scary thing is how crystals start emitting negative energies when they aren’t cleansed regularly, sometimes affecting the dynamics of the space where it’s kept and casting a dark shadow.

They may disrupt the harmony at home, leading to frequent fights and tensions or wreaking havoc on your body, mind, and soul.

Have you heard of crystals breaking when their purpose in your life is done? The truth is crystals even break apart when they are congested with negativity due to a lack of cleansing. In short, cleansing your crystals regularly may increase their lifespan!

Preventing Interference from Previous Energies

Cleansing is the first step with any new crystal you receive. 

Have you ever picked up a new crystal and felt like it just wasn’t clicking with you? The culprit might not be you or the crystal but rather the residual energies of whoever used it before. 

It’s like trying to relax alone in your bedroom but feeling like someone sneaky joined you, and you can’t even see them! 

From my experience, crystals have a knack for absorbing energies from all around them. This sort of energetic imprinting is extremely common with new crystals, even if they were cleansed after packing. 

The truth is that new crystals can pick up energies from people involved in the delivery process. While you might vibe with strangers occasionally, foreign energies in sacred crystal rituals usually mess up the whole process. 

Depending on the previous user, this may translate to bad luck, karmic debts, negative emotions, evil vibrations, side effects, or conflicting frequencies in your life.

It’s like starting to write your story on a fresh page only to realize you’re actually scribbling over someone else’s. So, make sure to start fresh with your crystals by cleansing them before diving into your rituals to avoid any setbacks.

Once cleansed, the crystal unleashes its full potential, enabling you to manifest your goals with perfect aim and precision.

Removing Negative Energy

You now know crystals aren’t immune to the world around them, just as we aren’t. This is mostly because they’re constantly interacting with the energy around them. Some may absorb these energies, and others may amplify or filter them. 

In this section, I will show you where crystals draw their negative energies from and figure out how often you need to cleanse them for the best results.

Sources of Negative Energy

Healing stones and crystals can absorb negative energy from many sources and more than our bodies, minds, or spirits. 

Commonly, crystals absorb unrest, stress, chaos, and conflicts. They can even pick up negativity from traumatic situations, jealousy or envy, hatred, guilt, death, worry, tension, and anxiety from your surroundings. 

Moreover, we now live in a tech-heavy sea of radiation, and EMFs (electromagnetic frequencies), thanks to phones, tablets, TVs, laptops, routers, speakers, and endless other gadgets, surround us almost always. 

Hence, there is a high chance our distressed emotions can unknowingly transfer to the crystal and taint its vibrational purity. Even geopathic stress and environmental disasters can add to the negativity in the atmosphere, wrecking the crystal’s energies. 

For instance, the crystal you take to work may be filled with the frenzied energies of all the people and their gadgets you pass on the way. This is especially true if you regularly take the subway, the bus, or another crowded commute to work.

Suppose you usually spend your time before bed aimlessly scrolling through social media. Then it’s natural to be bombarded with bad news, crisis stories, or outrageous reels that affect your psyche, which your bedside crystals pick up on. 

Guess what happens, then? Your crystal ends up getting blocked, haywire, or clogged! 

Even leftover energies from previous users can mess up your intentions if the crystal isn’t cleansed. I’ll describe how that happens next.

Frequency of Cleansing

Now that we’ve pinpointed the culprits behind the negativity, let’s figure out how often you should cleanse and reset the energy of your healing crystals. 

The best way to keep the vibrations of your crystals positive is by cleansing them before and after every use. You should cleanse crystals after buying them, no matter whether it is online, offline, or even from a friend or family.

That said, the ideal cleaning frequency for your crystal depends on whether it is self-cleansing, how often you use it, and the environment you’re both in.

For those who deal with crowds daily, multiple cleansing rituals are a must to clear their negativity. It may be ideal to cleanse before stepping into the crowd and after leaving public spaces. The same goes for those who wear crystal jewelry. 

On the other hand, the crystal that’s peacefully alone on your kitchen or bathroom shelf may not need much attention. But the crystal at your door or window demands several cleanses per day. 

Listening to your intuition also helps you figure out the perfect cleansing routine to keep your crystals in the best vibrancy. If you’re getting dull, heavy, or clogged energy from them, it’s a surefire sign to cleanse them, regardless of when your last cleanse was.

FAQ

What Happens When You Use a Crystal That’s Not Cleansed?

Using a crystal without cleansing leads to the accumulation of negative energies within the crystal. This may lead to haywire energies, lack of focus for manifesting intention, slow manifestation of intents, and the disability to resonate with intentions.

Moreover, uncleansed crystals can affect the user when they transmit stagnant or negative energies to the user, leading to chakra imbalance, discomfort, and side effects. These effects may multiply depending on how long it hasn’t been cleansed.

How Long Do Crystals Need to Cleanse for?

The ideal duration for cleansing a crystal ranges from a few minutes to a few hours, days, or even weeks. 

This depends on several things:

• When you cleansed the crystal last (recently or long before).
• What rituals you did with the crystal until now (light or heavy rituals).
• How much negativity the crystal has absorbed since its last cleanse (less or a lot).
• What the size of the crystal is (small or large).
• Where the crystal was kept until now (alone or in a busy place).
• How often the crystal was used (regularly or occasionally).
• What type of cleansing ritual you are using (heavy or light energy rituals).

If you’ve been cleansing your crystal regularly, then the next cleanse can be done in a few minutes. 

For crystals that haven’t been cleansed for long, a thorough cleanse is usually longer. That said, you can also use strong cleansing rituals, like fire, natural light, full moonlight, or incantations, to cleanse it quickly yet thoroughly, as these rituals use powerful energies. 

Which Crystals Don’t Need Cleansing?

You don’t need to cleanse Clear Quartz, Selenite, and Black Tourmaline, or some varieties of Citrine, Kyanite, and Morganite. These are self-cleansing crystals that are capable of repelling negativity or transmuting it into positivity. 

Here’s a pro tip: you can keep any of the self-cleansing crystals next to the crystal you want to cleanse to remove all the negativity it absorbed.

How Many Times Should I Cleanse My Crystals?

Cleansing your crystals once before every use is the ideal number of cleanses it should have. You can also cleanse it after every use to keep the stagnant energies of your crystal at a minimum.

Can Rice Cleanse Crystals?

Yes, rice is a good option for cleansing crystals, as it absorbs negativity effectively in many Asian cultures. Just like it’s used to dry out moisture from wet phones, rice can absorb negativity from crystals. That’s why the rice used to cleanse crystals is discarded afterward.

For instance, in Japanese Shinto ceremonies, rice is used to cleanse negativity from spaces. Rice is also used in Chinese culture to clear evil vibrations around altars and sacred objects. 

Hindus use it to clear evil eyes during poojas or sacred rituals, and Thai cultures use it to rid the body of negativity. 

How Do You Know When a Crystal Needs to be Cleansed?

A crystal ready to be cleansed may:

1. Have a dull or cloudy appearance.
2. Send out off-kilter energies. 
3. Lead to a heaviness whenever you hold it. 
4. Leave you tired, lethargic, or stressed.
5. Give you intuitive clues.
6. Shift your mood.
7. Induce disturbing visions. 
8. Increase the disharmony in its vicinity. 

Start Cleansing Crystals Today!

Healing crystals are powerful tools, used by humans for eons to enrich the spirit as well as heal the body and harmonize the mind. Some are crystals for strength, while others bring luck, immortality, spiritual growth, protection, power, or manifestation. 

However, crystals become ineffective and fail to provide these benefits when you don’t cleanse them regularly. Ideally, you should cleanse crystals before and after every use to prevent negativity from seeping into your intentions or life. 

What happens when you don’t cleanse your crystals?	Loss of PositivityLack of FocusBuildup of Stagnant EnergiesDisrupted Manifestations Shortened Lifespan
Why should you cleanse crystals?	HarmonyPositivityAmplified EnergiesEffectivity Quick ManifestationEliminate Side-Effects Prevent Negative Results Avoid Breaking or DamagesPrevent Residual Energies Bad LuckChakra Imbalance
What are the sources of negativity for crystals?	StressTraumaEMFsChaos and ConflictsJealousy or EnvyHatredGuiltDeathAnxietyGeopathic StressEnvironmental DisastersLeftover Energies from Others
What is the ideal frequency of cleansing?	Before and After Every Use