the crystal store: an exorcism story

The beads of the Un­akite bracelet that I had pur­chased a week ear­li­er were wear­ing down, re­veal­ing un­der­neath what seemed to be clear plas­tic. What once posed as small, pol­ished stones or “Crys­tals,” now looked like noth­ing more than paint­ed, plas­tic balls.

The bracelet was one of the less pret­ty, less “crystal‑y” ones that I wore in bunch­es, dan­gling from my skin­ny wrists, not spark­ly or shim­mery, but dull and earthy.

For this rea­son, it is un­like­ly that I would have cho­sen it my­self. The tiny, blonde, fairy-girl at the Crys­tal Store had a way of siz­ing me up, and telling me ex­act­ly what I need­ed based on her read­ing of my en­er­gy. “Un­akite! For sure.” She said as she slid the beads onto my arm, where it met all the oth­er beads with a sat­is­fy­ing, click­ing sound. To be fair, I had asked her, “What do I need?” search­ing, des­per­ate for any­one to tell me what I might do to feel bet­ter.

Now, as I looked at the fake bracelet, I felt rage boil­ing up with­in me. I couldn’t re­mem­ber what the crystal’s ac­tu­al heal­ing prop­er­ties were, or what feel­ings they were meant to elic­it, but a fake any­thing al­ways throws me into a fury. I can­not stand a fake. I knew it.

It was all fake. Every­thing I’d ever trust­ed in was fake. A lie, all of it. There was no mag­ic. Mag­ic was not real, and this bracelet was proof that every ex­tra­or­di­nary be­lief I’d ever had was farce. I thought about let­ting it go, and just liv­ing with the sad fact that I had de­bunked the whole crys­tal world of spir­i­tu­al heal­ing. I de­cid­ed in­stead, to take them down with me, and con­front those crys­tal-frauds, head-on.
 

I had be­come ob­sessed with vis­it­ing the sparkling and mys­ti­cal Crys­tal Store short­ly af­ter its open­ing in East Nashville. I first heard about it from a pho­tog­ra­ph­er friend of mine, who was shoot­ing a no-bud­get video for me, Gueril­la-style, for a song of mine called Crys­tal. The song was about hav­ing a new found clar­i­ty af­ter get­ting sober. Crys­tal clear, clar­i­ty. Con­nie, my pho­tog­ra­ph­er friend, was to shoot the open­ing par­ty for The Crys­tal Store, im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter our shoot. 

She in­vit­ed me along, but I was too wiped out. I could han­dle very few cal­en­dar events per day as I was still re­cov­er­ing from a head in­jury that left me dizzy, tired and nau­seous much of the time. We laughed at the fact that she was shoot­ing two Crys­tal themed things that day, think­ing it was quite kismet, but that’s how every­thing had been since I had hit my head and quit drink­ing. Non stop synchronicity. 

In life, I hadn’t giv­en much thought to crys­tals, oth­er than us­ing the word as a metaphor in a song. Per­haps they were on my sub­con­scious radar as I had tak­en to watch­ing na­ture doc­u­men­taries about caves, while re­cov­er­ing from my con­cus­sion. Dark, qui­et, and filled with sur­pris­ing trea­sures, glit­ter­ing sta­lac­tite chan­de­liers, bats, and creepy-crawly crea­tures, who’s eyes had been weed­ed out by evo­lu­tion af­ter cen­turies in the pitch black, freez­ing cold slime. I could re­late, I felt all of those things in­side of me. 

A few days af­ter the video shoot, I googled the store’s ad­dress and drove there to check it out my­self. My vi­bra­tion raised in­stant­ly as I walked into the Vic­to­ri­an house that had been trans­formed into an ac­tu­al fairy land. 

Bright, col­or­ful gems, on every wall, and in every cor­ner, the sun hit­ting their carved facets and bounc­ing rain­bows around the room. In the cen­ter of the shop stood a gi­ant, phal­lic, Rose Quartz, even taller than me. I looked up at it, put my arms around it, and leaned my face next to it’s cool, smooth sur­face. Touch­ing and hold­ing the stones was encouraged. 

There were lit­tle hand­writ­ten signs next to every bas­ket of crys­tals, de­scrib­ing all of their mag­i­cal, heal­ing prop­er­ties, every­thing from a bet­ter li­bido, to bet­ter blood, to psy­chic pow­ers and as­tral trav­el. I had found the an­swers. I had al­most no mon­ey, but it wasn’t a prob­lem, as you could pur­chase a small stone for only a few dollars. 

Bracelets start­ed around ten dol­lars. This quick­ly be­came my new habit, and my new se­cret as I shouldn’t have been buy­ing any­thing friv­o­lous, es­pe­cial­ly not rocks. My re­cent rock bot­tom had hit every area of my life; fi­nan­cial, re­la­tion­ships, ca­reer, dig­ni­ty, san­i­ty, it left no stone unturned. 

I had been see­ing a ther­a­pist on Tues­day morn­ings. I would un­leash my de­spair upon him so in­tense­ly, that some­times I wor­ried about him. He seemed over­whelmed, un­der-qual­i­fied, and he was very clear­ly wor­ried about me. “I feel like I’m not be­ing seen,” I said to him as I stared at the gold toes on his sports socks, watch­ing him dig his heels into the tan car­pet. “I don’t even know if I’m real. I can’t trust any­one, or any­thing.” I con­tin­ued, through tears. 

I be­lieve every­body wants to be seen, heard, and un­der­stood, but I had a par­tic­u­lar­ly strong de­sire for vis­i­bil­i­ty. Per­haps it had some­thing to do with the know­ing that my moth­er, once my bea­con of love and truth, could not see me, es­pe­cial­ly since her mar­riage to a man who’s need for to­tal con­trol led him to gaslight every­one in his sight, blur­ring all of our realities. 

I searched else­where and every­where, seek­ing at­ten­tion and val­i­da­tion, while I drank and drugged my­self into fur­ther in­vis­i­bil­i­ty, shrink­ing small­er and small­er, un­til fi­nal­ly, I fell and hit my head, and the clar­i­ty kicked in. 

Af­ter the clar­i­ty, I changed my phone num­ber, giv­ing the new one only to a se­lect few. My moth­er was not one of them. The pain was vis­cer­al. “Please tell me what to do …” I begged the ther­a­pist. He sighed and said noth­ing, ap­pear­ing to be drown­ing, right along with me. 

I had nev­er met the own­er of The Crys­tal Store be­fore. I had seen him around on a few of my many vis­its there. Long, dark hair, and glass­es, cov­ered in shim­mer­ing beads that hung from his neck and arms, he looked very much the part of “Crys­tal-heal­er-guru-guy.”

Con­nie was a bit of a fan-girl when it came to Ataana, say­ing he was a great heal­er, and mys­tic, ca­pa­ble of read­ing en­er­gy, and heal­ing even the crys­tals them­selves, which he re­ferred to as “lit­tle be­ings.” He prob­a­bly had many groupies, as the store was usu­al­ly filled with all dif­fer­ent kinds of women, all search­ing for re­lief in his soft-spo­ken, Ger­man ac­cent­ed voice, and his lu­mi­nous presence. 

I thought about these women, easy tar­gets, and re­mind­ed my­self that it was a good thing I wasn’t go­ing to get sucked into such non­sense, as I in­tro­duced my­self to Ataana and showed him the bracelet, ex­plain­ing my the­o­ry. His smile was warm and dis­arm­ing. I felt my­self soft­en slight­ly, and thought I might give him the ben­e­fit of the doubt. Per­haps it was he, who was be­ing tak­en ad­van­tage of, pur­chas­ing fake whole­sale gems, to­tal­ly un­aware that he was sell­ing plas­tic in place of crys­tals. He looked at the bracelet with a fur­rowed brow and said, “I’ll be right back.”

He re­turned with a ham­mer, laid the bracelet on the ledge of the front-porch and smashed it. Sev­er­al beads cracked open to re­veal their in­te­ri­or, brown­ish-red and mud­dy-green with a lit­tle clear in­ter­wo­ven into the rough in­sides of what was very ob­vi­ous­ly a stone. 

“It must have grown with a clear quartz.” He said, peer­ing down at it. I felt in­cred­i­bly fool­ish and was glad I didn’t ac­cuse him of be­ing a crook, but em­bar­rassed that I might have im­plied that per­haps he was a fool. 

He turned and looked at me in­tense­ly as I stood there, un­com­fort­able with his sud­den at­ten­tion. “Un­con­di­tion­al love.” He said. “This bracelet rep­re­sents un­con­di­tion­al love and the real prob­lem here, is that you don’t be­lieve in it.” 

I looked around. There was no one else in the store. It was just him and me. “Say this out loud … any en­ti­ties that are at­tached to me, show your­self.” He said, while in­spect­ing me. I com­plied, and re­peat­ed it ver­ba­tim. “Where did you feel it in your body?” He asked. I point­ed to the area above my bel­ly but­ton, and be­low my ribs, right in the mid­dle, that soft area that seems kind of emp­ty, void of organs. 

“That’s your so­lar plexus.” He said. “You have an en­ti­ty at­tached to your so­lar plexus, since child­hood, and it’s pre­vent­ing you from be­ing seen. Your moth­er put it there.” 

I felt my whole body go tingly as I looked at him with saucer eyes.

“How could you know this?” I de­mand­ed, “I just said this in ther­a­py. That I feel like I’m not be­ing seen. AND, I just stopped talk­ing to my moth­er!” I stared at him, wait­ing for a log­i­cal an­swer, but he just smiled that warm smile, show­ing no sur­prise. “Say it again, ANY EN­TI­TIES THAT ARE AT­TACHED TO ME, ANY DARK EN­ER­GIES, SHOW YOURSELF!” 

I re­peat­ed it, loud­er, and I felt a jump in that area that I now un­der­stood was re­ferred to as my “so­lar plexus.” He told me to fol­low him and again, I complied. 

We walked into one of the rooms and he pulled a large, black, stone from a bas­ket of sim­i­lar stones, and placed it in my hand. “Look into the stone. See how if you look very deeply into the stone you can see these lit­tle gold threads, un­der­neath the dark­ness?” He asked me. The stone felt heavy, like a bur­den, as I in­spect­ed it close­ly. The lit­tle gold threads shim­mered when you moved it slight­ly and it hit the light. 

“You need to go deep, deep into the dark­ness, deep­er than you’ve ever gone be­fore, to find your gold­en light.” He looked into me. “You’re not afraid though be­cause you’ve al­ready been liv­ing in the dark, for as long as you can remember.” 

I got a full body chill as I said, “Yes! I just got sober, how do you know all of this?” I was still try­ing to ask rea­son­able ques­tions. He sat me in a chair in the cor­ner of the room. He placed a sec­ond stone, the same type, black with gold-shim­mer threads, in the palm of my emp­ty hand. “I’m go­ing to help you re­move this en­ti­ty, but what­ev­er you do, do not let go of the stones un­til it’s gone.” He warned, star­ing into my eyes with­out even a hint of irony. 

Sit­ting in the chair, it dawned on me that I felt way too vul­ner­a­ble, and I longed to get up and run out, nev­er to re­turn. I felt hot and my heart raced and those damn rocks sud­den­ly seemed to weigh a ton. The room shift­ed slight­ly, and every­thing now had heat­waves bounc­ing off of it, like star­ing at hot black­top, on a scorch­ing sum­mer day. Ataana con­tin­ued on, with grow­ing in­ten­si­ty, “You want­ed to leave this earth, you nev­er want­ed to be here, you’ve been fight­ing it since you were a child, and now, only re­cent­ly, you’ve made a choice to re­main here, to stay.” 

I felt knocked back from the shock of truth, es­pe­cial­ly as I had nev­er told ANY­ONE what had been go­ing through my mind on all those morn­ings that I woke up, not know­ing where I was, who was lay­ing next to me, or what had hap­pened the night be­fore. Dis­ap­point­ment, that I had wok­en up, yet again. I had nev­er told ANY­ONE what had ac­tu­al­ly hap­pened on the night I hit my head. 

How I had con­sumed a liter of Titos, two bot­tles of wine, and who knows how many lo­razepam while writ­ing a song called, “No To­mor­row.” I couldn’t re­mem­ber mak­ing a con­scious de­ci­sion to write that song or im­bibe that amount, it’s as if I was be­ing moved by an un­seen force, a me­chan­i­cal arm, or an evil spir­it. I could only re­con­struct that evening’s events, upon wak­ing to the hor­ror of see­ing my bloody face in the bath­room mir­ror, stum­bling down the hall into my stu­dio, count­ing the bot­tles, wit­ness­ing the over­flow­ing ash­trays, and the bust­ed pi­ano bench, it’s legs splayed out like Bam­bi on ice. Then there was the mat­ter of my face, with the pi­ano-bench shaped cut across the bridge of my bro­ken nose, bruis­es around my eyes, a split lip and a cracked tooth. I didn’t know yet that I had a con­cus­sion that would last for months. The cher­ry on top. For some rea­son though, this was it! This was the mo­ment that I had been wait­ing for, and right then and there, for the first time in my life, I de­cid­ed that I want­ed to live. I made a choice to stay. 

Back in the chair, I felt a force, try­ing to push its way out through my skin from in­side of me. I felt like I might burst. The whole room had be­come wavy. I had suc­cumb to this new re­al­i­ty and ac­cept­ed that I must stay and fight the en­e­my with­in, a dark en­ti­ty that had been steal­ing my light, feed­ing off any joy or mis­ery I might have ever experienced. 

Then it was be­hind my eyes and my eye­balls bulged out of my face. I won­dered if they might pop out of my head and roll around on the floor and as I wor­ried about this, Ataana shout­ed dra­mat­i­cal­ly, “It’s in your eyes now!!! It’s try­ing to blind you so that you can’t see its ex­is­tence! Don’t let go of the stones!!!” I held the hot, heavy stones in my sweaty palms, held them for dear life. My brain had dag­gers shoot­ing out of it as he yelled, “it’s in the top of your head, it’s go­ing to leave through the top of your head!” And then I felt the force push swift­ly out through the top of my head. “It’s still lin­ger­ing around you! Don’t move, don’t let go of the stones!” And I obe­di­ent­ly sat as still as a man­nequin, mov­ing only my eyes around, won­der­ing if I might see some black, smoky thing fly­ing wild­ly above me. I sat for awhile and Ataana fi­nal­ly ap­proached me. He looked at me and smiled, “There you are,” he said, “It’s nice to fi­nal­ly see you.”

He al­lowed me let go of the stones as he took them from me gin­ger­ly, as if I had just hand­ed him my dirty un­der­wear. He brought them into the bath­room and washed them in the sink. Just like that. It felt an­ti­cli­mac­tic and maybe even cheap to see him wash the stones that had just pulled out my dark en­ti­ty, in the tap of a bath­room sink. I had the feel­ing of com­ing down af­ter a hard­core mush­room trip, where you look around and every­thing that seemed so fan­tas­ti­cal and sig­nif­i­cant was again back to reg­u­lar, old life. 

A mo­ment lat­er he came back with a large, pink and laven­der crys­tal and placed it in my arms. I cra­dled it awk­ward­ly, and wait­ed for it to do its heal­ing, while he shuf­fled about the store, look­ing at pa­per­work and check­ing his phone. Sud­den­ly, the lit­tle, blonde, fairy-girl ap­peared. “Oh my good­ness,” she ex­claimed, “I didn’t know you were here!” It was odd, her not be­ing able to see me, but now that the en­ti­ty was re­moved, she could see me. 

Could it be that lit­er­al? Was that was what was be­ing in­ferred? I guess I hadn’t seen her ei­ther. Maybe she had just been in an­oth­er room? Many years back, I had been a magician’s as­sis­tant at the Mag­ic Cas­tle, in Hol­ly­wood. Roc­co (the ma­gi­cian) and I had all sorts of shticks and gags that we played off of each oth­er, and I won­dered if this too was all smoke and mir­rors, and she was the magician’s as­sis­tant. I thought about this as I held the Sorcerer’s Stone. 

Fi­nal­ly, I stood, shaky and ex­haust­ed. Ataana gave me a warm and gen­er­ous hug. I won­dered if it was about to get creepy, if he might lean in with his pelvis, but it did not and he did not. It was gen­uine and safe. “Will I be okay?” I asked, as he pulled back to look me, again, deep in the eyes, while an­swer­ing with cer­tain­ty, “You will be more than okay. You will thrive. Just be pa­tient. The next few weeks might be un­com­fort­able, you might feel as if some­thing is miss­ing, and you will need to mourn this loss. Drink lots of wa­ter and we are al­ways here for you.” 

He hand­ed me a new Un­akite bracelet, which sort of sur­prised me as I’d for­got­ten about my rea­son for be­ing there in the first place. I no­ticed that some­how three hours had passed. I left with­out him charg­ing me, or try­ing to sell me any­thing. Feel­ing be­wil­dered but hopeful. 

The next morn­ing, I re­mem­bered that some­thing had been vi­o­lent­ly ripped out of me, be­cause my so­lar plexus was gen­uine­ly, phys­i­cal­ly sore. I’d been stripped raw and couldn’t seem to shake the un­set­tling feel­ing that some­thing was miss­ing. I’d look around the room, and down at my hands, try­ing to put my fin­ger on what it might be. I was con­sumed by a sense of grief and loss, that just kept crash­ing over me in waves, every time I al­most caught my breathe, an­oth­er wave. I cried for a month sol­id, like some­body had turned on the faucet and just left it run­ning, left it on so the pipes wouldn’t freeze. 

I won­dered if it had been real, or maybe it was place­bo, the pow­er of sug­ges­tion. I thought about who I might turn to for as­sur­ance, who could val­i­date my ex­pe­ri­ence. In­stead, right then and there, I de­cid­ed that it was time to trust my­self. I de­cid­ed I was real, and mag­ic is also real. 

 

—hol­ly solem

Flom­mist Hol­ly Solem is a singer/songwriter, mod­el, ac­tress and writer known for her work on Amazon’s orig­i­nal se­ries Hand of God, as well as play­ing, tour­ing and writ­ing with nu­mer­ous bands and artists. Copy­right © 2021–23 Hol­ly Solem. Pic­tured: Paul Klee, Crys­tal Gra­da­tion (de­tail), 1921.

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