Crystal Therapy on the NHS

UK National Health Service promotes yet more dubious alt-med therapies

Via the Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:

Crystal therapy traditionally involves placing quartz crystals on different parts of the body – often corresponding to a person’s “chakras” – in an attempt to construct an “energy grid,” which is purported to surround the subject with healing energy. 

The ancient healing powers of quartz crystals were said to have been discovered by Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), an American mystic whose “psychic readings” foresaw the lost city of Atlantis. He claimed that the citizens of Atlantis used quartz crystals “to obtain power and to amplify the natural energies of the earth and sun.”

Aintree University Hospitals further promotes colour therapy (or chromotherapy), an obscure treatment involving “the use of colour and its own unique vibrational, healing properties to balance energy in the body that may be lacking or over-stimulated.”

Needless to say, the scientific evidence does not support either therapy. 

The NHS’ promotion of the three other therapies listed above – aromatherapy (and aromatic facial), reflexology and reiki – has already garnered the attention of the mainstream media in the UK. However, the range of alternative and complementary therapies currently available on the NHS is not well documented. Stay tuned for more.

See also: EFT on the NHS, my April 4, 2016 item on Derbyshire Community Health Services’ promotion of Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), brain child of US author Gary “I am not a doctor” Craig.