The Material Agency of Crystals in New Spirituality

Significance of Decay and Failure of Materials

Authors

• Tenno Teidearu Estonian National Museum; Univesity of Tartu

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23991/ef.v50i1.120977

Keywords:

material religion, material culture, new materialism, materiality, materials, agency

Abstract

This paper studies crystals in New Spirituality in Estonia not only as things, or objects, used in certain practices, but also as agentive materials. My research participants, who wear crystals, take their material properties seriously, finding the properties to have supportive qualities, according to esoteric interpretation. Nevertheless, things and materials, objects and minerals, are never permanent; they have material lives of their own. Sometimes minerals lose their gloss, crack, break or just become lost. Physical decay and displacement, which are the focus of this paper, have meaning-making potential, which my interlocutors interpret within the framework of the esoteric. Their perception of these minerals can be understood in posthumanist and new materialist terms. The paper uses the concept of material agency to demonstrate how natural processes of decay acquire cultural meaning by connecting material properties and human interpretation.

_{This work was supported by an Estonian Research Council grant (PUT number PRG670), ‘Vernacular Interpretations of the Incomprehensible: Folkloristic Perspectives Towards Uncertainty’.}