Black obsidian means protection, truth, and release. It is the black glass that turns bad intent back at its sender, the mirror that shows you what you would rather not see, and the blade that cuts what needs cutting, and it has been all three for longer than any other stone in the crystal cabinet. In crystal practice it is the stone for shadow work, for shielding a home or a body, for scrying, and for the clean break at the end of something.
Below you will find what obsidian actually is and why it is not a crystal, how it forms and where it is found, its varieties from snowflake to rainbow to the man-made blue, how to tell it from black onyx, black tourmaline, and jet, its history as the sharpest edge and the oldest mirror humans ever made, its spiritual meaning from Aztec priests to the modern crystal books, what it is good for, who should not wear it, its chakra and zodiac, how to use, activate, and cleanse it, what it should cost, and how to care for it. If you only want the correspondences, jump to the properties table.
What Is Black Obsidian?
Obsidian is volcanic glass: silica-rich lava, the same rhyolite melt that would have cooled slowly into granite underground, that instead poured out at the surface and chilled so fast its atoms never lined up into crystals. It is at least 70 percent silica by weight, and because it has no crystal structure it is not a mineral at all but a mineraloid, a natural glass, which is why "obsidian crystal" is a shop term rather than a geologist's one. It is 5 to 5.5 on the Mohs scale, softer than quartz and easily scratched by it, light in the hand at a specific gravity of about 2.4, and it breaks the way all glass breaks, in smooth curved shells called conchoidal fracture, which leave an edge thinner than any metal can hold.
Why is obsidian black? Iron. Pure silica glass would be clear, and obsidian is dark because of the iron and other metals dissolved in the melt, and in most black obsidian because of countless nanoscopic grains of magnetite, the black iron oxide, scattered through the glass. Hold a thin edge up to a strong light and the black turns smoky brown or gray, because the glass itself is translucent and only the iron makes it dark. Obsidian is also, in geological terms, temporary: glass wants to become crystal, and over a few million years groundwater seeps in, the surface crystallizes, and the rock turns to gray, dull perlite. That is why almost no obsidian on earth is older than about twenty million years, and why archaeologists can date an obsidian tool by measuring how deep the water has crept into its cut surface, a method called obsidian hydration dating. The name comes from Pliny the Elder, who wrote that a Roman named Obsius found the stone in Ethiopia.
How Obsidian Is Formed and Where It Is Found
Obsidian forms at the edges of rhyolite lava flows and domes, where the lava met cold air or water and froze before it could crystallize, so it is found only in young volcanic country. In the United States that means the West: Glass Buttes in central Oregon, where collectors dig black, mahogany, rainbow, fire, and gold sheen obsidian out of the same hills, Newberry Volcano in Oregon and Medicine Lake in California, Yellowstone in Wyoming, and deposits across Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Idaho. There is none east of the Mississippi. Mexico produces most of the carved and polished obsidian in the trade and the famous green obsidian of Pachuca; Armenia, Iceland, Turkey, Greece, Kenya, Japan, and New Zealand all have it; and the island of Lipari off Sicily supplied the Neolithic Mediterranean with blades for thousands of years.
Obsidian Color and Varieties: Snowflake, Rainbow, Mahogany, Sheen, Fire, and Apache Tears
What color is obsidian? Black, almost always, with brown, gray, and a smoky olive green occurring naturally and every other color rare or man-made. The varieties are the same glass with something extra in it:
| Variety | What it is | Look | Lore in one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black obsidian | Plain glass darkened by iron and magnetite | Glossy jet black, translucent smoky brown at thin edges | Protection, truth, release |
| Snowflake obsidian | Glass that has begun to crystallize into gray-white cristobalite | Black with soft white snowflakes; mostly Utah and Mexico | The gentle obsidian, for balance and looking at your patterns without flinching |
| Rainbow obsidian | Glass with layers of magnetite nanoparticles that split light like a film of oil | Black until it catches the light, then bands of violet, green, and gold; Mexico and Oregon | The obsidian for joy inside grief, and for the heart |
| Gold sheen and silver sheen obsidian | Glass with aligned gas bubbles trapped in the flow | A metallic gold or silver shimmer that moves across the black | Sheen for insight into the future and the self |
| Mahogany obsidian | Black glass swirled with iron-red and brown | Marbled brown and black; Mexico and Oregon | Grounding with warmth, strength through a hard stretch |
| Fire obsidian | Rare glass with ultra-thin magnetite layers | Flashes of full-spectrum color on a black ground; Glass Buttes, Oregon | A collector's stone; the lore borrows from rainbow |
| Apache tears | Rounded nodules of obsidian weathered out of perlite | Small smoky black pebbles, translucent when held to light; Arizona and Nevada | Grief and comfort, from the 1870s Apache legend attached to them |
| Green Pachuca obsidian | Natural glass tinted olive green by its chemistry | Smoky bottle-green, translucent; central Mexico | The Aztecs' most prized obsidian, for the same protection and truth |
| "Blue," "teal," "cherry," and bright "green" obsidian | Manufactured glass, sometimes sold as natural | Perfectly clear, bright, even color with no smokiness | No tradition; bought for the color |
Snowflake obsidian is the second most searched obsidian after black, and it deserves its own line: the white patches are the glass slowly turning back into rock, nothing added, and in practice it is the obsidian people reach for when plain black feels like too much. Rainbow obsidian's colors come from the same magnetite that makes black obsidian black, arranged in layers thin enough to interfere with light, and it must be cut and polished at the right angle to show them, so a rainbow obsidian heart or sphere that stays black in most light is normal. Our shop has its own snowflake obsidian page.
Black Obsidian vs Black Onyx, Black Tourmaline, and Jet
Four black stones share the protection shelf, and the questions "black onyx vs obsidian" and "black obsidian vs black tourmaline" are asked hundreds of times a month. The quick tells:
| Stone | What it is | How to tell it | Lore in one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black obsidian | Volcanic glass, 5 to 5.5 | Glassy, sharp-edged when chipped, smoky-brown at thin edges under light, light in the hand | Protection that reflects, truth, release, scrying |
| Black onyx | Chalcedony, 6.5 to 7, usually dyed agate | Waxy rather than glassy, opaque even at edges, harder than glass, may show faint bands | Protection with discipline and self-control |
| Black tourmaline | A boron silicate mineral, 7 to 7.5 | Grows in striated prisms with ridges along the length; dull to vitreous, never glassy-smooth in the rough | Protection that absorbs and grounds; the electrical stone |
| Jet | Fossilized wood, 2.5 to 4 | Very light, warm to the touch, brown streak, takes a static charge when rubbed | Protection through grief; the mourning stone |
| Hematite | Iron oxide, 5 to 6.5 | Metallic mirror-gray, heavy, red streak | Protection with weight; the iron stone |
In the tradition the three main protectors divide the work: obsidian reflects and reveals, tourmaline absorbs and grounds, onyx holds the line. Practitioners who want all three carry the trio, and the shop's crystal protection kit is exactly that.
Black Obsidian Spiritual Meaning
Black obsidian's spiritual meaning is protection first, and a particular kind: a mirror-shield that turns what is sent at you back toward its source rather than soaking it up. Its second meaning is truth, the stone that shows what is really there, in a room, a relationship, or yourself, and its third is release, the clean cut that lets you leave something behind. All three come from what obsidian physically is. It is glass, so it reflects; it is dark, so it swallows the light you do not need; and it breaks into the sharpest edge in nature, so it has always been the knife. In crystal practice it is the stone for shadow work, for warding a home, for the scrying mirror, and for the end of a relationship, a habit, or a season.
Scott Cunningham's Encyclopedia of Crystal, Gem and Metal Magic lists obsidian as projective, ruled by Saturn, of the element Fire, with the powers of protection, grounding, divination, and peace, and he notes the obsidian spheres and mirrors used for scrying since ancient Mexico. Judy Hall's The Crystal Bible gives it the most cautious entry in the book: obsidian is "a stone without boundaries or limitations," it "works extremely fast and with great power," and its truth-enhancing nature "brings imbalances and negative energies to the surface" so they can be dealt with, so she says to use it with care and to keep it beside a gentler stone. She calls black obsidian the strongest of the obsidians, a stone for shielding, for grounding cords into the earth, for scrying, and for facing one's own darkness, and she adds that a large piece of obsidian is a powerful protector for a home. Where Cunningham gives Saturn, modern practice adds Pluto, the planet of what is buried and transformed, and the stone's day is Saturday.
The history is the oldest of any stone on this site. Humans were flaking obsidian into tools at Kariandusi in Kenya some seven hundred thousand years ago, and by 12,500 BC blades from the volcanoes of central Anatolia were being traded down into the Levant and Iraq, the first long-distance trade in any material that archaeologists can trace. Neolithic Lipari made obsidian bladelets by the ton and shipped them across the Mediterranean; obsidian from Yellowstone turned up in Hopewell mounds in Ohio, fifteen hundred miles from the source; and Bronze Age Turkey was making obsidian scalpels before 2100 BC. In Mesoamerica it was the metal that the metal-poor civilizations never needed: Teotihuacan controlled the green Pachuca quarries, the Aztecs edged the macuahuitl, a wooden sword set with obsidian blades that the Spanish said could take a horse's head off, and Aztec priests gazed into polished obsidian mirrors sacred to Tezcatlipoca, the god of night, sorcery, and destiny, whose name in Nahuatl means Smoking Mirror. One of those mirrors crossed the Atlantic after the conquest and became the scrying glass of John Dee, Elizabeth I's astrologer, and sits in the British Museum today. On Rapa Nui the pupils of the moai were obsidian. Every meaning the stone carries now, the shield, the mirror, the blade, was already in use before writing.
What Black Obsidian Symbolizes
Black obsidian symbolizes the truth that cuts. Its black surface is read as the void before creation and the night that hides and protects; its mirror polish as self-knowledge, the face in the dark glass; its razor edge as decisiveness and the severing of what no longer belongs; and its volcanic birth, fire frozen in an instant, as transformation caught mid-act. It stands for protection that does not flinch and honesty that does not spare you.
What Black Obsidian Is Good For
- Protection. The first use in every tradition that has had it: worn, carried, or set at the threshold as a mirror-shield. It anchors our 24 crystals for protection guide and sits at the root of nearly every protection kit sold.
- Shadow work. Hall's use and the modern one: the stone held while you look at the parts of yourself you have been avoiding, with a Book of Shadows open beside it.
- Scrying. The oldest divination tool there is; our full guide to scrying covers the black mirror step by step.
- Cutting cords and ending things. The blade stone, for the end of a relationship, a job, a habit, or a grief that has gone on too long.
- Grounding. Cunningham's grounding stone, a root chakra anchor beside hematite in our root chakra oil blend post.
- Clearing a space. A chunk in a room that feels off, or on the altar after an argument; the stone Hall says brings what is hidden to the surface so it can be cleared.
- Samhain and the dark half of the year. On our Samhain altar and winter solstice altar guides as the stone of the season's dark.
- A beginner's protector. The protection stone in our crystals for beginners guide, and the one to add if you are starting from the Wicca beginner crystals list.
Black Obsidian Properties and Correspondences
| Property | Black obsidian |
|---|---|
| Material | Natural volcanic glass, at least 70 percent silica, darkened by iron and nanoscopic magnetite; a mineraloid, not a mineral |
| Hardness | 5 to 5.5 on the Mohs scale; brittle, chips into razor-edged shells |
| Color and streak | Jet black, smoky brown or gray at thin edges; white streak |
| Element | Fire in Cunningham; Earth in most modern books |
| Planet | Saturn in Cunningham; Pluto added in modern practice |
| Energy | Projective |
| Chakra | Root |
| Zodiac | Scorpio and Sagittarius; Capricorn for Saturn |
| Birthstone | Not on the modern list |
| Deities | Tezcatlipoca by history; Hecate, Hades, and the Morrigan in modern practice |
| Day | Saturday |
| Keywords | Protection, truth, release, shadow work, scrying, grounding, transformation |
Black Obsidian Chakra
Black obsidian is a root chakra stone. The root, Muladhara, sits at the base of the spine in yogic tradition and governs safety, survival, and the sense of being anchored in the body, and its stones are the black and red ones: obsidian, hematite, black tourmaline, onyx, garnet. Practitioners hold a tumbled stone at the base of the spine or set one at each foot in a body layout to drain what the session brought up down into the earth, which is the "grounding cord" Hall describes. Some also lay a small piece on the third eye for scrying and shadow work, but the root is its home. If the chakra system is new to you, our beginner guide to the seven chakras explains it, and our complete list of chakra crystals places obsidian at the root.
Black Obsidian Zodiac Signs, Who Should Wear It, and Who Should Not
Scorpio is the sign most often given to black obsidian, for Pluto, the underworld, and the willingness to look at what others avoid; Sagittarius is the second, from the older lists, and Capricorn is added for Saturn. Any sign can wear it, and it is not a birthstone for any month.
Is it good to wear black obsidian? Yes, for anyone who wants a protective stone with an edge, anyone doing shadow work, anyone in a season of endings, and anyone whose home or workplace has turned hostile. Who cannot wear black obsidian? Nobody is barred from it, and the online lists of "people who should not wear obsidian" are guesses. What the tradition actually says comes from Hall: the stone is intense, it brings things to the surface fast, and someone already raw, grieving hard, or anxious can find that too much, so she pairs it with a gentle stone, rose quartz or clear quartz, or suggests snowflake or Apache tear obsidian instead. The practical cautions are about the object: obsidian is brittle glass, so an obsidian ring will chip and a bracelet knocked on a door frame will crack a bead, and a chipped edge is genuinely sharp, sharp enough to cut skin, so a broken piece goes in the trash, not back in the pocket. Take it off at night if it keeps you wakeful; it is not a sleep stone, and nobody in the tradition ever claimed it was.
How to Use Black Obsidian
The best black obsidian uses put it at a threshold, in the hand, or in front of the eyes:
- At the door. The oldest placement: a chunk or a free-form piece inside the front door, on the sill, or in a bowl at the entry, as the mirror-shield for the whole house.
- Worn on the left wrist. Bracelets in 4mm, 8mm, and 10mm beads; the tradition gives the left, receiving side to protection coming in and the right to sending, and most practitioners wear obsidian on the left. Ignore the ads for "feng shui black obsidian wealth bracelets" with gold beasts on them: the lore is invented for the ad, and natural obsidian is one of the cheapest stones there is.
- As a scrying mirror. A black obsidian mirror, from a two-inch pocket mirror to an eight-inch altar mirror, or a 50mm obsidian sphere, in low candlelight with the surface angled so it reflects nothing; the scrying guide has the full method.
- In shadow work. Held in the non-dominant hand while you write the honest page in your journal, then set on the page when you close it.
- For a clean ending. Held while you say what is over, out loud, then cleansed and put away for a week; some practitioners bury a small piece with what they are releasing.
- At the feet after ritual or a reading. One stone at each foot to ground and drain, the closing move of a chakra layout or a heavy session.
- On the altar in the dark half of the year. From Samhain to Imbolc, as the stone of the season; the shop's obsidian witch's hats and dragon's heads are the carved versions.
- In a protection kit or charm bag. With hematite and black tourmaline, as in the shop's black obsidian and hematite protection set and the three-stone protection kit; a chip in a witch bottle does the same job.
- On a Saturday with a black candle. Saturn's day, per our guide to the magical days of the week, with a black candle chosen by our candle color meanings guide.
- In new moon water. A chip beside a jar of water on the dark of the moon, for banishing washes and floor washes; the shop's new moon water is made with an obsidian chip.
- As a pentacle. The black obsidian pentacle pendant and the sterling silver pentacle with obsidian put the protective symbol on the protective stone, and the flower of life altar tile does it for the altar.
How to Activate Black Obsidian
How do you activate black obsidian? Cleanse it first, always, because Hall's warning is that this stone carries what it has picked up, then hold it in your dominant hand, name its job in plain words, "You are for keeping this house safe," or "You are for showing me the truth," and put it where the job is. For a protection stone that means the door or the body; for a scrying mirror it means the altar, and many practitioners consecrate a new mirror by passing it through incense smoke and leaving it under a dark moon rather than a full one. Nothing else is needed. Re-activate it whenever you cleanse it, and cleanse it often; obsidian is the stone the tradition says to cleanse more than any other.
Obsidian Mirrors and Scrying
Black obsidian mirrors are the oldest scrying tools in the world, older than the crystal ball, and the Aztec ones were polished flat discs of the same glass sold today. To use one: low light, a single candle behind you and to the side so the mirror's surface shows only dark, a few minutes of soft-focused gazing, and patience with the first sessions, which usually show nothing. What people report is a clouding of the surface, then images or impressions, and the tradition holds that the black mirror shows truth rather than comfort, which is why Hall pairs it with a stone for the heart. Keep the mirror wrapped in black cloth between uses, cleanse it with smoke rather than water on the polished face, and never leave it where sunlight can strike it, which is bad for scrying and, with a concave mirror, a fire risk. Our scrying guide has the full method for mirrors, spheres, and bowls, and the shop's scrying mirrors run from two to eight inches, several on stands.
Obsidian Knives, Blades, and Scalpels
Obsidian's edge is real, not folklore. A freshly flaked obsidian blade has a cutting edge about three nanometers thick, many times finer than the best steel scalpel, and under an electron microscope the obsidian edge is smooth where the steel one is a saw. Surgeons have used obsidian scalpels experimentally, and some report cleaner cuts that heal with less scarring, though the blades are not FDA-approved for routine surgery because they are brittle and can snap. In practice this matters two ways. An obsidian athame or ritual knife, which our athame guide covers, is the traditional blade for cord-cutting and banishing work, and it should be handled like a real knife because it is one. And a chipped tumbled stone or a cracked bead has that same edge; wrap and discard it rather than keeping it loose in a pocket.
Crystals That Pair Well With Black Obsidian
- Rose quartz for the softness Hall says obsidian needs beside it; the classic pairing for shadow work.
- Clear quartz to light what obsidian brings up, and to soften its intensity.
- Hematite for weight beside the edge: the shop's protection set pairs them.
- Black onyx and black tourmaline for the full protection kit, obsidian to reflect, tourmaline to absorb, onyx to hold; the black tourmaline collection is where most people start.
- Selenite to cleanse it, since obsidian needs cleansing more than any other stone.
- Labradorite for scrying: labradorite for the vision, obsidian for the mirror.
- Amethyst for peace after the release work.
- Carnelian for the courage to act on what the mirror showed.
How to Cleanse and Charge Black Obsidian
Black obsidian is non-porous glass, so almost every method is safe, and the tradition says to use them often:
- Running water. A rinse under the tap or a dip in a stream, then a dry; obsidian is fine in water.
- Smoke. The traditional choice for mirrors and spheres, since it leaves no water marks on the polish.
- Sound. A bell or bowl; the everyday choice.
- Selenite. Overnight on a selenite slab, and the pairing Hall recommends.
- Earth. Buried overnight, the volcanic stone returned to the ground; brush it clean after.
- Moonlight. The dark moon rather than the full for obsidian, by tradition; a full moon is fine too.
- Sunlight. Safe; obsidian does not fade. A few hours is enough, and keep spheres and concave mirrors out of direct sun for the fire risk.
- Salt. Salt water is fine for tumbled stones; dry salt can scratch a polished mirror, so skip it for those.
Our full guide to cleansing and charging crystals covers eleven methods, and our thirteen ways to clear and recharge adds more.
Can Black Obsidian Go in Water?
Yes. Obsidian is solid glass with nothing in it to dissolve or rust, so it can be rinsed, soaked, bathed with, and left in a bowl of water on the altar. The only cautions are hot-then-cold, which cracks any glass, and the polished face of a scrying mirror, which water spots; wipe mirrors dry at once or cleanse them with smoke instead.
How to Tell if Black Obsidian Is Real
Obsidian is glass, so the question is never "glass or stone" but "natural or manufactured," and natural black obsidian is so cheap that almost nobody fakes it. The fakes are the colors:
- Suspect bright colors. Natural obsidian is black, brown, gray, or smoky olive-green. Clear bright blue, teal, cherry-red, electric green, and "aqua" obsidian are manufactured glass, however they are labeled.
- Hold a thin edge to the light. Natural black obsidian goes smoky brown or gray at a thin edge; a chip that stays dead black or turns a clean color is manufactured or dyed.
- Look for flow. Natural glass often shows faint bands, streaks, or tiny bubbles pulled into lines by the lava's movement. Manufactured glass is perfectly uniform.
- Check the polish and the price. Natural snowflake, mahogany, and rainbow obsidian cannot be faked convincingly and cost little; a "rainbow obsidian" that is rainbow from every angle is a coating.
- Scratch it. Obsidian at 5 to 5.5 is scratched by a steel knife and by quartz. That does not separate it from window glass, which is about the same, but it does separate it from black onyx and black tourmaline, which are harder.
Everything we sell is natural obsidian, mostly from Mexico, and the listings say so.
Black Obsidian Price
Black obsidian is among the cheapest stones sold, because there are mountains of it. A chip bracelet is about four dollars, a 4mm bead bracelet three, an 8mm strand four to seven, a pound of tumbled chips fourteen, a free-form chunk seventeen, a 50mm sphere seventeen, and scrying mirrors from twenty-four dollars for two inches to eighty-nine for eight. Carvings cost for the labor: the pentacle pendant is thirty-four, the flower of life altar tile sixty-three, and a pair of dragon's heads sixty-nine. Rainbow obsidian runs a little more than black by the pound and fire obsidian is a collector's stone. For spiritual work, a pound of chips will fill every jar, bag, and bowl for years.
Black Obsidian Care
Black obsidian needs the care of glass, because it is glass. At 5 to 5.5 on the Mohs scale it is scratched by quartz, steel, and household dust with sand in it, so store it apart from harder stones and wipe it with a soft cloth rather than rubbing; polished pieces lose their mirror finish faster than any crystal. It chips rather than dents: a bead strand dropped on tile will crack a bead, a ring will not survive a year, and a scrying mirror should live wrapped in cloth in a drawer, not standing on a sunny sill. It does not fade, rust, or dissolve, so light and water do it no harm. Treat any chipped edge as the blade it is.
Where to Find Black Obsidian
Everything we carry is in our black obsidian collection, all of it natural glass. The stones: tumbled chips by the pound, a free-form chunk, a 50mm sphere, rainbow obsidian tumbled stones by the pound, and the carved pieces, a flower of life altar tile, a pair of witch's hats, a pair of dragon's heads, and the pentagram gemstone cubes. The mirrors, in their own scrying mirrors collection: flat mirrors at two, three, four, five, six, and eight inches, and mirrors on stands at 6cm, 8cm, 10cm, and 12cm. The jewelry: bracelets in 4mm, 8mm, and 10mm, a 4mm stretch strand, the chip bracelet, the butterfly bracelet, the obsidian pentacle pendant, the sterling silver pentacle with obsidian, and wire-wrapped obsidian pendants by the five. The kits and blends: the black obsidian and hematite protection set, the three-stone crystal protection kit, the purification kit with snowflake obsidian, and new moon water with an obsidian chip. The gentler kind has its own snowflake obsidian page, with tumbled stones and pebbles by the pound and bracelets in 8mm and a stretch strand. For the rest of the black shelf, see black tourmaline, onyx, hematite, jet, and all protection crystals and root chakra crystals.
Black Obsidian FAQ
What is black obsidian?
Black obsidian is natural volcanic glass: silica-rich lava that cooled too fast to form crystals, darkened by iron and microscopic magnetite. It is a mineraloid rather than a mineral, 5 to 5.5 on the Mohs scale, light in the hand, and it breaks into curved shells with edges sharper than steel. It is found only in young volcanic regions, mainly Mexico and the western United States.
What is the spiritual meaning of black obsidian?
Black obsidian means protection, truth, and release: a mirror-shield that turns harm back toward its source, a stone that shows what is really there, and a blade for clean endings. It is a root chakra stone, listed by Scott Cunningham under Saturn and Fire for protection, grounding, divination, and peace, and called a stone without boundaries by Judy Hall.
What are the benefits of black obsidian?
In crystal practice, protection for a person or a home, honest self-reflection in shadow work, grounding after ritual or a hard day, a clean break at the end of something, and a surface for scrying. The benefits practitioners describe are about attention and intention; the tradition makes no health claims for it.
Is it good to wear black obsidian?
Yes, for anyone who wants protection with an edge, anyone doing shadow work, and anyone in a season of endings. Wear it on the left wrist by tradition, take it off at night if it keeps you wakeful, and treat a chipped bead as the sharp glass it is.
Who cannot wear black obsidian?
Nobody is barred from it. Judy Hall calls it intense and fast-acting, so someone already raw or grieving may find it too much and do better with snowflake obsidian, an Apache tear, or obsidian paired with rose quartz. The real cautions are practical: it is brittle glass, so rings chip and cracked beads are sharp.
How do you activate black obsidian?
Cleanse it first, hold it in your dominant hand, say its job out loud in plain words, and put it where the job is, the door for protection, the altar for a mirror. Many practitioners consecrate obsidian under a dark moon with incense smoke. Re-activate it every time you cleanse it, and cleanse it often.
What chakra is black obsidian?
The root chakra, for safety, grounding, and being anchored in the body. Practitioners hold it at the base of the spine or set a stone at each foot to drain and ground after ritual, and some lay a small piece on the third eye for scrying.
What zodiac is black obsidian for?
Scorpio first, for Pluto and the willingness to look into the dark, then Sagittarius from the older lists and Capricorn for Saturn. Any sign can wear it. It is not a birthstone for any month.
What color is obsidian?
Black, almost always, with brown, gray, and smoky olive-green occurring naturally, and mahogany, snowflake, rainbow, and gold or silver sheen as natural patterns within the black. Bright blue, teal, cherry, and electric green "obsidian" are manufactured glass.
What is the difference between black obsidian and black onyx?
Obsidian is volcanic glass, 5 to 5.5, glassy and sharp-edged, translucent smoky brown at thin edges, and light. Black onyx is chalcedony, 6.5 to 7, waxy rather than glassy, opaque to the edge, harder, and usually dyed agate. In the lore obsidian reflects and reveals; onyx holds the line and builds self-control.
What is the difference between black obsidian and black tourmaline?
Obsidian is glass, smooth and conchoidal; black tourmaline is a crystal mineral, 7 to 7.5, that grows in ridged prisms and never looks glassy in the rough. In the lore obsidian reflects harm back and reveals truth, while tourmaline absorbs and grounds it, which is why the two are usually carried together.
Can black obsidian go in water?
Yes. It is solid, non-porous glass and can be rinsed, soaked, and bathed with. Avoid hot-then-cold, which cracks glass, and wipe a polished scrying mirror dry at once or cleanse it with smoke instead.
How can you tell if black obsidian is real?
Natural obsidian is black, brown, gray, or smoky green, turns smoky brown at a thin edge held to the light, and often shows faint flow bands or bubble trails. Bright, perfectly even blue, teal, red, or green "obsidian" is manufactured glass, and a rainbow that shows from every angle is a coating.
How much is black obsidian worth?
Very little: a chip bracelet about four dollars, bead bracelets three to seven, a pound of tumbled chips fourteen, a sphere seventeen, scrying mirrors from twenty-four dollars. Carvings cost for the labor, and fire obsidian is a collector's stone.
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