Many people today surround themselves with crystals, whether for healing properties or as part of their spirituality. But the question of whether crystals can affect the body or the spirit goes back millennia. Marisa Galvez has identified two distinct traditions for understanding crystals. First, there’s a Christian tradition that focuses on how crystals might allow us to transcend the body into a realm of pure spirituality. But there’s also a tradition that links crystals to erotic love. In medieval poetry, the shimmering qualities of crystals are used to capture an experience of love that’s dizzying yet pleasurable.
Bonus clip
Marisa explains how one medieval poem rejects pure spiritual love by focusing – bizarrely – on a beloved’s crystal teeth
Works mentioned
– Pliny the Elder, The Natural History
– The Land of Cokaygne
– Guillaume de Lorris, Le Roman de la Rose (The Romance of the Rose)
– Bertran de Born, “Canso”
Further reading
Rachel Syme at The New Yorker – Crystals’ Resurgence in the Self-Care Age (with a video featuring Marisa Galvez)
Crystallization2 (video from Beauty of Science)
Hannah Stouffer at Vice – Nature’s Art Forms, Crystals, Become Mind-Bending Sculptures
Literary Hub – The Seven Stages of Love, According to French Poetry
Laura Kalas Williams at The Conversation – Being lovesick was a real disease in the Middle Ages
Larry Rohter at The New York Times – The Troubadours of Brazil’s Backlands