Serpentine

(sur - puhn - teen)
Main Origins:
Russia, New Zealand, Norway, England, Canada, Brazil, Australia, Argentina, Pakistan, India, Japan, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the United States.

What is Serpentine?

A polished serpentine crystal on a black background

Serpentine is a large mineral group with hydrous magnesium iron silicate that forms from the serpentinization of rocks, like Peridotite and Olivine. 

As a silicate crystal, it forms many varieties of green, brown, blue, red, black, white, pink, orange, and yellow colors with a greasy, silky, soapy, or flaky texture. It’s considered great for emotional balance, especially from stress and anxiety. 

Did you know Serpentine is commonly used in construction? While it was popular for facades and trims in the 18th and 19th centuries, you’ll find Serpentine in flooring, countertops, and landscaping today. It was widely used for spirit contact. 

Fun Fact: Serpentine is a dangerous crystal because it contains asbestos. Avoid ingesting or inhaling it.

Serpentine Metaphysical Properties and Benefits

Did you know Serpentine is called the Snakeskin stone? The crystal is often linked to Medusa and her neo-pagan Goddess energy. 

Ancient Greeks used Serpentine crystals for healing wounds, improving skills, and protecting sailors with the power of the Greek Goddess Athena.

Serpentine is also linked to other Gods, like Shiva, the Hindu God of Destruction; Kundalini Devi, the Hindu Goddess of Life Force Energy; Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec God of Literature; Asclepius, the Greek God of Medicine, and Wadjet, the Egyptian Goddess of Serpents. 

As Serpentine is seen with several crystals, minerals, and colors, it’s associated with all the primary chakras and their benefits, yet it’s mainly associated with the Heart and Root Chakras. 

Serpentinite in silver opens the Lunar Chakra. In dark green, it opens the Higher Heart Chakra, bringing wisdom and prosperity. It’s associated with the elements Earth and Wood, signifying stability, power, courage, strength, and growth. 

Venus, the planet of beauty, success, and wisdom, rules the Snakeskin stone. It’s linked to the cosmic vibration of the Number 8, bringing manifestation and ambition.

Serpentine Healing Properties and Benefits

Detox and Healing

  • Many varieties of Serpentinite can clear negativity and toxins from the body, chakra, or space. It’s great for enhancing recovery and healing in the body.
  • Make crystal elixir by indirectly infusing it with Serpentine to heal the body from within. You should never inhale or ingest Serpentine directly infused with water. 

Skincare and Youthfulness

  • You can use water infused with Serpentine (indirectly) in lotions, scrubs, soap, and brushes to rejuvenate multiple chakras during bathing.
  • Charge your Serpentinite under sunlight for a few minutes and make an indirect infusion of Serpentine without the crystal touching the water. Add a few drops of this infusion to your cosmetic product.

Fertility and Passion

  • Many stories say the Serpentine crystal is great for fertility. Healers and psychics often say it enhances libido, passion, and drive.
  • Lie on your yoga mat and place your Serpentine crystal between your chest and pelvic area while meditating. 

Emotional Balance

  • Serpentine helps you calm down by stopping overthinking and negative thoughts. It helps you see positivity and light even in testing situations.
  • Activate Serpentine for emotional balance by smudging it with sage. You can light the stick and waft the smoke over the crystal a few times for this.

Stress-Relief

  • From anxiety to depression, obsession, and tension, Serpentine varieties protect and strengthen your body, mind, and spirit from stress-related issues
  • You can charge Serpentine crystals by burying them overnight under three inches of soil.

Serpentine Spiritual Properties and Benefits

The body of the woman is sleeping while her soul is floating and connected by a cord

Psychic Protection

  • Serpentine protects wearers from psychic harm by empowering your auric shield. As a result, negativity never touches you or causes harm to your chakras. 
  • You can create a shield of protective energies around yourself by charging Serpentine in front of a lit candle for a few minutes. Afterward, carry the charged crystal no matter where you go. 

Wisdom and Enlightenment

  • Serpentine can open your mind to cosmic blessings with prolonged exposure. It’s great for broad-mindedness, acceptance, wisdom, and empathy
  • The best way to activate Serpentine for wisdom is by charging it with the healing sounds of a metal singing bowl. You can place the crystal within a few inches of the bowl while playing with it.

Karmic Therapy

  • Did you know misfortune, illness, and sadness come from karmic debts? If your past life karmic debts need closure or penance, clear them with Serpentine.
  • You can charge the stone by soaking it overnight under the full moon or new moon before gazing into it. This will show you psychic visions on how to do penance.

Abundance and Prosperity

  • Serpentinite opens the Higher Heart Chakra and invites good fortune, success, and abundance in your life. It’s also good for luck and wealth.
  • To attract wealth with Serpentine, create a wealth crystal grid with this crystal in the center. Don’t forget to activate the crystal with positive affirmations before setting the grid. 

Astral Travel

  • Traveling across the cosmos through different lives, spaces, and dimensions is easy with Serpentinite crystals by your side. It helps you link to the subtle body and shift realities, too.
  • The best way to initiate astral travel with Serpentine is by chanting the mantra Om into the crystal. Afterward, place it under the pillow for astral travel through dreamwork.

Serpentine Side Effects

  • Confusion and disorientation: Prolonged exposure to Serpentine without cleansing leads to chaos in the mind and reality.
  • Bad Luck: Serpentine may invite bad luck if you’re not karmically clean. Consult your astrologist if this is the case.

Serpentine Meaning: What Does Serpentine Symbolize?

A persons hand is covering the blooming flower

Protection is the meaning of the Serpentine healing crystal.

No matter where you look, Serpentinite has a rich connection with serpents. That’s also where the energetic, protective, and rejuvenating benefits come from. 

The Gods associated with Serpentine – Kundalini Devi in Hinduism and Asclepius in Hinduism – were also depicted with snakes. This green-colored crystal also associates with fertility, nurture, life force, wisdom, protection, and passion.

Did you know shamans in Ancient Assyria used dark-colored Serpentine to contact spirits and angels? This crystal is often called Styrian Jade when seen with Opals and Calcites. 

The Serpentine benefits in the new age have grown to include inner peace, balance, universal connection, and karmic therapy.

Varieties of Serpentine

  • Common Serpentine: Most Serpentine crystals show brown, black, or yellow inclusions on a base of pale green with a soapy luster. They’re great for clearing negative energy, confusion, and negative thoughts. 
  • Chrysotile: Popular as White Asbestos, Chrysotile crystal is used industrially and shows a white, pale, or dark green color with a silky texture. It’s often used for psychic protection, chakra balance, and creativity. 
  • Antigorite: Showing dull and dark bluish-green to olive-green shades, Antigorite has a mottled appearance due to Chromite and Magnetite minerals. It’s called Serpentine Jade or Greenstone and works great for mental clarity. 
  • Lizardite: Showing a unique scaly texture, Lizardite shows brown, yellow, and gray colors in olive or pale green base color. Use this stone for support, courage, and peace.
  • Bowenite: Often seen in pale green hues, the Bowenite Serpentinite variety may show white, yellow, or crocodile-green color. It’s excellent for patience, calm, karmic therapy, and freedom and is known as tangiwai in Māori.
  • Williamsite: This type of Serpentinite shows a greasy luster with black, brown, or gray inclusions on a dark green base color. It shows a mottled appearance from Chromite. It’s great for wisdom, enlightenment, and spiritual awareness.
  • Ophicalcite: A brown and gray variety, Ophicalcite contains different Calcite colors, like green, brown, white, gray, and black. Use it for astral projection and Merkaba meditation. 
  • Atlantisite: The purple-spotted variety of Serpentinite, Atlantisite shows a base color of olive-green and dark green hues. It’s great for compassion, inner peace, and harmony. 
  • Ricolite: This type of Serpentinite shows many green hues from pale to dark, with white and gray banding. They’re excellent for cosmic guidance and emotional stability.
  •  Connemara Marble: Containing large amounts of Serpentine, this is a dark green marble with black and white veining. It’s great for harmony, positivity, and peace. 
  •  Verd Antique: Verde Antique is a dark green crystal with black and white veining originating from the green meadows of Vermont. It’s excellent for relaxation, pleasure, spiritual awakening, and universal connection.
  •  Silver Eye Serpentine: An opaque Serpentinite variety, this crystal has a waxy coating with black and silver inclusions. It’s excellent for wisdom, karmic therapy, and protection. 
  •  Banded Serpentine: Showing bands of green, black, and white, the banded variety has a waxy luster and helps with concentration, creativity, and growth. 
  •  Mount Shasta Serpentine: Also popular as Mt. Shata Stone, this crystal variety shows green, brown, beige, yellow, black, and white hues. It’s good for clearing chakra blockages.
  •  Dragon Blood Serpentine: Often found in Australia and called Bloody Serpentine, this variety has a dark olive-green hue with red, yellow, brown, and maroon spots. Use it for grounding, passion, protection, and stress relief.
  •  Opalized Serpentine: This Serpentinite variety shows yellow, lime-green, brown, white, black, and gray colors based on the Serpentine replaced by Opals. It’s great for skin care, especially detox.
  •  Serpentine Stichtite: Serpentine formations with Stichtite often show purple and pink inclusions. They’re good for wisdom, decision-making skills, and intelligence.
  •  Pink Serpentine: The presence of manganese in Serpentine causes reddish to brownish pink colors. They’re good for grounding, confidence, passion, renewal, and balance.
  •  Blue Serpentine: Showing an indigo blue veining on a white or pale green base color, this Serpentine variety is popularly associated with Kundalini Devi. It opens the Third Eye and Throat Chakra.
  •  Red Serpentine: Showing reddish brown to maroon, orange, and brown hues, Red Serpentinite mostly gets its color from iron. It’s great for fertility, passion, power, and emotional stability. 
  •  Brown Serpentine: With a fibrous texture and mottled appearance, the Brown variety of Serpent Stone shows dark brown, beige, yellow, white, and orange hues. It’s excellent for personal power, growth, and destiny. Often called Rainforest Brown.
  •  Black Serpentine: With an emerald-green tone, dark black color, and white veining, Black Serpentine is a powerful protection stone that grounds you. 
  •  Orange Serpentine: A Serpentinite variety that opens the Sacral Chakra, this crystal is popular for balance and letting go. It shows olive green, yellow, pale orange, clay, and white hues.
  •  Picrolite: The presence of Magnetite and Chromite gives this variety its startling blue-green colors with white, beige, green, white, and butter-yellow banding. Use it for opening the Heart Chakra and inviting love inside. Picrolite commonly occurs with Dunite and Serpentine.
  •  Utah Serpentine: Popular as Utah Jade, this type of Serpentinite is a protection stone containing Antigorite, Lizardite, Chromite, and Magnetite. It shows pink, olive-green, white, black, and gray hues. 
  •  Marmolite: Only found in Switzerland, Marmolite has an oily luster with Olivine, Pyroxene, and Magnetite. It shows dark or pale green with blue colors and is perfect for detox, rejuvenation, and cleansing. 
  •  Quartz on Serpentine: White Quartz with Serpentinite is a naturally occurring crystal great for cleansing and charging. It shows olive-green, white, blue, black, and brown hues.
  •  Pyrite Serpentine: Resembling quail eggs when polished, Pyrite shows brown and black varieties of Serpentine on yellow and green varieties. This natural crystal pairing is great for good luck, creativity, and courage. 
  •  Sodalite Serpentine: Serpentine exists with Fluorite and Sodalite in olive-green, white, blue, and gray colors. They’re excellent for strength, harmony, and energy.

How To Cleanse Serpentine?

A woman holding a crystal chakra wand while being smoked with incense

  • Clear Quartz Wand: Circle a Clear Quartz wand thrice over the crystal to remove negative energies stuck to it. 
  • Positive Affirmations: Hold the crystal in your palm and chant cleansing affirmations.
  • Incense: You can cleanse crystals with incense sticks by wafting the smoke of a lit incense over this crystal.

Questions and Answers

Is Serpentine a marble?

No, Serpentine is not a marble but is called Serpentine Marble owing to its similarity with marbles.

Is Serpentine safe in the water?

Yes, Serpentine can go in the water, but prolonged exposure to this dangerous asbestos crystal may damage the crystal and leach out toxins into the water.

Can Serpentine go in the sun?

Yes, Serpentine can be in the sun, but make sure it’s no more than 10 minutes because overexposure can erode the color and damage the crystal.

Is Serpentine safe in salt water?

No, Serpentine isn’t recommended with salt water because salt can enter the pores and cracks on this crystal and damage it.

How to identify real Serpentine?

Serpentine is best identified by its silky, greasy, soapy, flake, or oily luster. It’s cold to the touch, heavier than pebbles, and shows apple-green or dark green with black, white, or brown mottling.

Is Serpentine expensive?

Raw Serpentinite costs a dollar or less, but polished crystals may cost $4 to $100 per carat, depending on their color, origin, shape, and properties.

How do you take care of Serpentine?

Serpentine needs regular care and cleaning to keep it in the best shape. Avoid leaving it out in the sun, water, or salt, besides storing it in safe spaces without accidental mishaps.

What crystal to pair with Serpentine?

Serpentine is good for pairing with crystals like Turquoise, Red Jasper, Scolecite, and Phenacite.

Is Serpentine rare or common?

Serpentine is a common healing crystal found worldwide.

Is Serpentine toxic to the touch?

No, Serpentine crystals aren’t toxic to touch unless broken or powdered. You should, however, avoid ingesting or inhaling it in any form as it contains asbestos.

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