I Was Invited To An Essex Crystal Shop As An Avowed Sceptic And Was Very Close To Changing My Mind
Article written for Essex Live by Anna Willis.
I have always thought of myself as a scientific and rational person. I’ve grown up as a staunch atheist and have been sceptical of spirituality for as long as I can remember.
But recently, I was contacted by a local Essex crystal rock shop, inviting me to come and find out more about crystals. My immediate instinct was to delete the email and have a little giggle about it, but I wondered whether I might actually learn something new.
So I turned up at the Crystal Rock Co. in Leigh-on-Sea with an open, but still sceptical mind. The shop is run by Olly Tait, who himself only “got into” crystals three years ago, after noticing how much his wife was spending on the semi-precious rocks.
He said that when someone who is new, or a beginner, to crystals comes in, he says: “It’s very simple, but it’s very complicated for some people. If you’re buying for someone, have the person in your thoughts, your mind, your heart.
“And what you’re drawn to, what you find a pull to, even if it’s something you don’t necessarily like the look of, if you focus on something, then I’ll talk to people and tell them the meanings, the spiritual meanings and the physical properties of these crystals.”
I then thought I’d give it a go. Whilst the shop itself seems very small, it’s been cleverly filled with crystals of all shapes, sizes and colours, and it was immediately a bit overwhelming to try and pick one out. I did as Olly said and relaxed my mind, just letting it wander as I examined each shelf of crystals.
There were some I dismissed straight away – too shiny, too smooth, wrong colour, strange vibe. But it was on the third set of shelves that Olly stopped talking to me, noticing perhaps before even I did, that I was finding something.
I was toying between some little glass jars filled with tiny chips of crystal, when a larger lump caught my eye. It was tucked away right at the back of a shelf, hidden behind some more polished crystals.
It was ugly, with a reddish-brown dusty coating and barely looked like a crystal at all. But I was drawn to it, for whatever reason. I took it over to Olly, who pronounced that it was iron quartz.
Olly said: “Quartz is a healer, known as the Master Healer. And it’s an amplifier of all energies, including your own energy.” He continued: “The iron here gives it a connection to the chakras, the solar plexus chakra. The red is the root chakra, which is grounding.”
In combination, the crystal I picked out would help with grounding, rooting and emotional healing. I could sit in mediation holding the quartz in my left hand, with my right hand underneath, and Olly recommended putting your intentions into the stone, such as being grounded in the moment.
In the end, I decided not to buy the crystal, but in the days since I visited, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It has certainly made me interested in learning more – which is something Olly and his shop aspire to do.
The shop in Leigh opened eight months ago, but Olly only started his journey into crystals during the lockdown of 2021. He said he became interested after his wife began buying crystals, and then Olly joined in and tried a bit of buying and selling them himself online for a while.
He took a chance and moved into one of the little pop-up stalls in Basildon Eastgate shopping centre, but through serendipity or, as Olly said, “the Universe”, he found and moved into the shop in Leigh. Olly said: “When I was in Basildon I didn’t have the money to come to Leigh Broadway, I didn’t have a shop to go to, but I said, right I’m going to go and find a shop in Leigh Broadway, I’m going to go and open one. And four months later I did.”
Olly chose Leigh as it is “such a spiritual area”, he said. “There’s so much call for it now.” The shop is now also becoming a hub for spiritual events, classes and workshops, some of which are so popular they’re now booked up for the next three months.
Olly said: “I’m in the business of collecting people at the moment. People are coming to me and being drawn to where I am, offering different services, and I want to create a spiritual hub.”
But it’s not just crystals that are on offer in the shop. It’s the three C’s, “crystals, coffee and cake”, Olly summarised. He said: “If I get involved with a likeminded person, I can talk to them for two hours and I wanted to be able to offer a cup of coffee and a relaxed atmosphere and a slice of cake.”
He continued: “If someone comes in for coffee, then they can have a browse at the crystals. And the other way around, if someone’s coming in for crystals, they can have a cup of coffee as well at the same time.”
After a visit to the Crystal Rock Co. I certainly felt like I’d learned something new – and I’m definitely now a bit less sceptical about crystals. Whether I go back and take home the crystal is to be seen though….