Crystal in legend and folklore

Crystal is and has been used extensively in numerous cultures worldwide and over thousands of years to invoke spiritual experience and as such has gained a status of a mythical and revered substance.  Once a substance is found to provide spiritual experience, it also tends to gain a mythic and religious status.  What we may not realise is that it has much the same status in European Christmas decorations, which have a symbolism few may appreciate.

I have described the basic symbolism in the entry Crystal ball.  Where the ball is hollow it essentially represents the Egg.  But we can add a little more.

A Christmas Tree is symbolic.  It is representative of a ‘soul cone’ with its paths going up the levels.  The crystal balls on the Christmas Tree symbolise the spiritual mechanisms by which one ascends one's cone - the spiritual path ascent.  

Different types of stone appear to have different properties spiritually providing different frequencies of vibration and thus different points of access.  Overall we have a fairly good symbolic representation of this in the different colours of the balls. 

We thus now have the complete symbolism of the Christmas tree – the pine tree [an evergreen], which never truly dies and is ‘reincarnated’ each ‘spring’,  with its spiritual paths spiralling up the tree [tinsel and garlands], the mechanisms by which one can gain different points of the path [crystals and lights], the rewards if the ascent is a spiritual one [presents on tree], and the Higher spirit one meets if one ascends the tree to the top [angel].  The star is symbolic of the ultimate in attainment spiritually.

Nowadays, the Christmas decorations we might use are made of glass rather than crystal, thus some of the symbolism has been lost.

It is worth adding that this tree was originally part of the celebration of 'Yule' and not a specifically Christian artefact. 

The ancient pagans, Druids, Egyptians, and Chinese, celebrated the Winter Solstice, the day of the year that the Sun is at its lowest but begins its ascent in the sky.  There is thus further symbolism involved here as the tree was brought in to celebrate ‘ascent’ –  – ascent towards the Creator, and the beginning of new life  - reincarnation or alternatively the final achievement of the spiritual goal.   The evergreen tree represented eternal life in all its multiple meanings – the survival of function even if form is destroyed or dies.  When Candles were placed on the tree we have the icing on the cake as it were.  This symbolism goes back thousands of years.