By
Elizabeth F. Shores and David Trulock
Shamaan
Ochaum is a dream therapist from Austin, Texas who brings groups of clients to
Mt. Ida. Together, they sleep outside on Fisher Mountain, where Ochaum says the
underground veins of quartz crystals emanate powers which enable them to
"increase the dream experience." The place has "a very intense
life charge," which fosters a sense of peace and well-being, she said.
Ochaum
claims to be the daughter of a Shoshoni medicine man, and said she is carrying
on the tradition of using quartz crystal as a tool in healing.
Quartz
crystal is unique, she believes, because it emanates electromagnetic energy in
an unchanging pulse. This energy has a healing effect on physical ailments,
Ochaum believes, as when she carefully moves a crystal upward along a person's
spine. It can also be used to gain a "vision" of the interior of the
human body, she said, in order to locate and identify illnesses such as ovarian
cysts, and can even help a person move into an altered state of consciousness.
Whether or
not one believes in quartz crystals as sources of supernatural power, there is
no question that the stones do possess scientifically proven natural powers, governed by the laws of
physics.
Many
crystals, including quartz, are piezoelectric, and it is this property that
makes them so useful. 'Piezo" means pressure, so piezoelectricity means
"pressure-electricity." Putting pressure on a piezoelectric crystal
generates a voltage; conversely, applying a voltage generates internal pressure,
causing the crystal to change its physical shape very slightly.
Because
sound is a variation in air pressure, piezoelectric crystals have been used for
many years in the recording and reproduction of music. Microphones, phonograph
cartridges and high-frequency "tweeters" in loudspeakers are examples
of devices that have exploited the piezoelectric effect. Improved magnets or magnetic fluids have
replaced piezo crystals in some applications, however, since the dynamic range
and frequency response of crystals are not ideally suited to audio.
It is, in
part, this physical quality of crystals that prompts some to believe that they
possess special powers. Ochaum described these benefits of quartz while attending
the Fourth Annual Quartz Crystal Festival at Mt. Ida October 24. Crystal
dealers came from around the country, and the festival offered $1,000 in cash
prizes for big crystals in a Championship Quartz Crystal Dig competition. There
was also a quilt show.
Ochaum
grants that these mystical effects of crystals are not empirically measurable.
"Science
is skittish about doing research because it is so subjective," she said of
crystals' alleged powers. And understanding their power is something of a
balancing act, because some of the power may come from the stone itself, while
some may come from the person's faith in it.
Don Owens,
a geologist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, does not reject the
claims of quartz's mystical powers, but, he added, "I disbelieve more than
I believe."
"There
are obviously some people who have an inner power, such as clairvoyants,"
he said. "I don't totally disbelieve it."
But others
are more skeptical. "I'm a Christian. I put my faith and trust in the
Lord. I don't need a durn rock," said Jimmy Reynolds of the National
Forest Service. "I think they're kooks."
Mike
Howard, a geologist with the Arkansas Geological Commission, has heard "a
never-ending series of wild claims" about the powers of quartz. "I
don't believe it, but that's neither here nor there.... A placebo in any form
can get results."
But apart
from faith-healing and audio reproduction, there are other uses for crystals as
well. Quartz in particular is suited for very high-frequency applications, in
the range of millions of vibrations per second. The ubiquitous "quartz
watch" is one such application. A tiny sliver of quartz, with its high
degree of geometric order, has certain natural vibrational frequencies called
resonant frequencies. When an electrical frequency corresponding to a resonant
frequency is applied to a piece of quartz, the vibrations are extremely stable
over long periods of time and are relatively unaffected by changes in
temperature.
The
stability of the quartz time-base is used in computer circuits, providing the
clock signal that determines how fast the computer operates and how well all
the operations are synchronized. Quartz resonant frequencies are used by radio
and TV stations to maintain their assigned frequencies, and constitute the basic
tuning standard in most newer radios and televisions.
Also, the
high-frequency vibrational modes of some piezoelectric crystals are ideal for
generating and detecting ultrasonic underwater sound, an activity that has
become more important in this age of ultra-quiet, nuclear-armed submarines that
can avoid conventional sonar.
Although
large single crystals are rare and valued for their beauty, microscopic crystalline
structure itself is quite common. All rocks and metals exhibit a microscopic
crystal structure. Salt, sand, snow and ice are examples of different forms of
crystalline structure. The silicon computer chips produced and designed
in California's Silicon Valley provide an example of the practical importance of
artificially grown crystals, and modern electronics at its most fundamental
level is nothing more than the study of how electrons
behave in crystals.
(2014 notes: I had recently moved to Austin when this article was published in December 1987 in Little Rock (in the weekly alternative newspaper Spectrum). I wrote only the physics-related parts, at the request of the editor. I had never heard of Shaaman Ochaum, and still haven't. In the summer of 1997 I made copies of this article and gave them to students in a second semester conceptual physics class I was teaching at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, which is now called Texas State University-San Marcos. Several students asked me after class if I knew how to get in touch with Shaaman Ochaum. They were disappointed when I told them I didn't. This article was a side-bar to a larger, front-page article by Elizabeth Shores on crystal hunting and mining in the Ouachita National Forest near Hot Springs.)
