People naturally look for patterns because pattern recognition is one of the main ways we learn. If you touch a hot stove and burn yourself, you understand quickly that the stove caused the pain. If you water a dry plant and it recovers, you reasonably conclude that the water helped. We move through life by noticing that one event followed another and then trying to determine whether the first event produced the second.
Most of the time, this is useful. The problem begins when we assume that timing alone proves causation.
This is what people mean when they say correlation is not causation. Correlation means that two things happened together, or that one followed the other. Causation means that one thing actually produced the other. Two events can be connected, but the fact that they occurred close together is not enough to prove what the connection was.
Imagine that someone begins carrying a crystal and then notices that their anxiety improves. Their improvement may be completely real. The question is not whether they felt better. The question is what caused them to feel better.
Perhaps the stone had some effect. Perhaps carrying it reminded them to slow down and breathe. Perhaps they felt more hopeful because they believed they were doing something to help themselves. Perhaps they were also sleeping better, exercising more, leaving a difficult relationship, taking medication, spending less time online, or coming out of a stressful period that was already beginning to pass. Several explanations can fit the same experience, and the timing alone does not tell us which explanation is correct.
Critical thinking is not the act of dismissing the experience. It is the willingness to examine more than one possible cause.
Personal Experience Is Real, but Explanations Can Still Be Wrong
People often become defensive when personal experiences are questioned because it can sound as though someone is accusing them of imagining what happened. That is not what this argument requires.
A person may genuinely feel calmer while holding a stone. They may sincerely believe it helped them. Their experience does not have to be fake for their explanation to be incomplete.
This distinction matters because an experience and an explanation are not the same thing. “I felt calmer after holding this stone” is a description of what happened. “The stone emitted an energy that reduced my anxiety” is an explanation of why it happened. The first statement may be entirely honest and accurate. The second requires additional evidence.
The person may have felt calmer because the object gave them something to focus on. They may have sat still for five minutes when they otherwise would have continued spiralling. They may have expected relief, and that expectation may have changed how they interpreted their physical sensations. The stone may have reminded them of a promise to remain composed or to stop responding impulsively.
None of those explanations makes the experience meaningless. They simply locate the cause somewhere other than an unproven physical energy inside the mineral.
It is reasonable to begin with personal experience. It is not reasonable to assume that personal experience automatically reveals the mechanism behind it.
“It Happened After” Does Not Mean “It Happened Because”
The reasoning mistake involved here is sometimes called post hoc reasoning, from the Latin phrase post hoc ergo propter hoc, meaning “after this, therefore because of this.”
The structure is simple:
I started carrying the crystal.
My situation improved afterward.
Therefore, the crystal caused the improvement.
The conclusion may be true, but the order of events does not prove it.
This same mistake appears in ordinary life all the time. Someone wears a new bracelet on Monday and receives good news on Tuesday. Someone drinks a certain tea while they have a cold and feels better three days later. A business owner changes the music in the store and sales improve that weekend. A student uses a new pen during an exam and receives a better grade.
In every one of those cases, the first event happened before the second. That gives us a possible cause, but not a proven one. The good news may already have been coming. The cold may have been reaching its natural end. The weekend may have brought more customers. The student may have studied more effectively.
The same principle applies to crystals. A person may carry rose quartz and then begin a relationship. Perhaps carrying the stone made them feel more open, hopeful, confident, or willing to meet people. Those behavioural changes could matter. But that is different from concluding that the stone directly attracted another person into their life.
The point is not to rule out every possibility. The point is to recognize that the first explanation we notice is not automatically the correct one.
The Evidence We Notice and the Evidence We Ignore
One of the clearest examples of this problem involves phone calls.
Almost everyone has had the experience of thinking about someone and then receiving a call or message from that person shortly afterward. When it happens, we notice it. We may answer the phone by saying, “That is so strange. I was just thinking about you.”
The timing feels meaningful because the two events line up so neatly.
What we usually fail to count are all the times we thought about that person and they did not call.
You may think about a friend dozens of times over several months. Most of the time, nothing happens. There is no call, no message, and no memorable coincidence. Because nothing happened, the event does not stand out. It leaves no story behind.
Then one day, you think of the person and your phone rings five minutes later. That instance becomes memorable because the thought and the call occurred together. The matching example is preserved while the many non-matching examples disappear from consideration.
Those missing examples matter. They are contradictory evidence.
If we are trying to decide whether thinking about someone somehow caused them to call, we cannot count only the successful matches. We also have to count all the times the thought occurred without the call. Once we include those cases, the pattern may become much less impressive.
The same thing happens with crystals.
A person carries citrine and receives an unexpected payment. They remember the connection. But how many times did they carry citrine without receiving money? How many people carried the same stone and experienced no financial improvement? How many people received unexpected money while carrying no crystal at all?
These are not minor questions. They are part of the evidence.
A claim cannot be evaluated honestly if we count the hits and ignore the misses.
Confounding Variables: What Else Changed at the Same Time?
A confounding variable is another factor that may have influenced the result.
Suppose someone begins carrying a crystal at the same time they start meditating every morning. After several weeks, they feel calmer. It may be tempting to attribute the improvement entirely to the stone, but several things changed at once.
They started sitting quietly each morning. They reduced phone use during that period. They began paying attention to their breathing. They may have improved their sleep because the routine gave their day more structure. They may have expected to feel better and begun noticing calm periods that previously went unrecognized.
Real life rarely gives us the clean conditions of an experiment. People change several behaviours at once, especially when they have reached a point where they are serious about solving a problem. Someone buys a crystal, begins journalling, cleans their home, leaves a difficult job, starts therapy, exercises more, and spends more time with supportive people. Later, they remember the crystal as the symbol of the change.
The stone may genuinely have mattered to them, but symbolism is not necessarily the same thing as physical causation.
A person might carry black tourmaline as a reminder to create stronger boundaries. Because the stone is in their pocket, they think about those boundaries throughout the day. They stop answering certain messages, leave unhealthy situations earlier, say no more directly, and begin protecting their time.
Their life may improve because of these changes. The crystal may have played a role as a cue or reminder. But the actual mechanism may have been attention and behaviour rather than an invisible field of protection.
That interpretation does not weaken the person. It gives them more credit. The stone reminded them of something, but they made the decisions.
Regression to the Mean: Why Things Often Improve After Their Worst Point
People usually try remedies when a problem becomes bad enough that they feel compelled to act. They look for help when the anxiety is severe, the headaches are frequent, their sleep has become unbearable, or their emotional state has reached a low point.
This timing can create the appearance of causation.
Extreme conditions often move back toward normal. A very bad day is commonly followed by a less severe day. A terrible week may be followed by an ordinary one. Symptoms rise and fall even when no treatment is used. This tendency is known as regression to the mean.
Suppose someone has been experiencing headaches, and one day the pain becomes unusually severe. That is the day they decide to place a crystal beside the bed. The next day, the headache is less intense.
It is understandable that they might credit the crystal, especially if the improvement felt dramatic. But the worst headache of the month was unlikely to remain at its most extreme level indefinitely. The symptoms may have improved naturally.
Again, the relevant question is not whether the person felt better. They did. The question is whether the same improvement would likely have occurred without the new remedy.
This is difficult to determine from a single personal experience because we only see what happened after the person tried the remedy. We do not see the alternative version of events in which they did nothing.
Regression to the mean explains why many ineffective remedies can appear convincing. People tend to begin using them when conditions are unusually bad, and ordinary improvement follows.
Selection Bias: Why Success Stories Become More Visible
Success stories are more likely to be shared than failures.
A person who carries a crystal and then experiences a dramatic improvement has a story to tell. They may post online, tell friends, leave a review, or recommend the stone to someone else. A person who carries the same crystal for six months and notices no meaningful change usually does not write a long account of nothing happening.
This creates selection bias. The examples we see are not a complete record of everyone’s experience. They are the examples that were interesting enough to survive.
Suppose one thousand people carry a stone associated with prosperity. Over the next year, some will receive raises, find better jobs, gain clients, receive refunds, sell property, inherit money, or encounter some other financial improvement. Others will lose jobs, accumulate debt, or experience no meaningful change.
The people who experience positive events are more likely to connect those events to the stone and share the story. The people who experience nothing have little reason to speak.
Eventually, a collection of positive stories builds around the stone. Every story may be sincere, but sincerity does not solve the selection problem. We are still seeing the successes without knowing how many failures were left out.
This is why testimonials alone are weak evidence. They usually tell us what happened to selected individuals, but not how often the same outcome failed to occur.
Memory Builds a Story Rather Than Keeping a Perfect Record
Human memory does not preserve every event equally.
We remember unusual matches. We forget ordinary failures. We give more attention to information that fits what we already believe, and we often reinterpret past events in light of what we believe now.
Suppose someone believes a particular stone brings luck. When something fortunate happens, the stone becomes part of the story. When nothing happens, there is no reason to remember the day. When something bad happens, the person may conclude that they did not cleanse the stone properly, that their energy was blocked, or that the stone prevented something even worse.
This creates a belief that is very difficult to challenge because every possible outcome can be absorbed into it.
Good result: the stone worked.
No result: the effect was subtle.
Bad result: the stone was overcoming resistance or preventing greater harm.
Once a belief is structured this way, contradictory evidence becomes almost invisible. There is no possible result that clearly counts against the claim.
This is not unique to crystal beliefs. Business owners remember marketing ideas that produced large sales and forget all the times the same ideas failed. Gamblers remember winning nights. Investors remember accurate predictions. Sports fans remember victories that occurred while they wore a lucky shirt. People remember dreams that resemble later events and forget the hundreds that did not.
The mind tries to make experience coherent. It is very good at doing that, but coherence is not the same thing as proof.
Coincidence Happens More Often Than We Think
People tend to underestimate how many opportunities there are for coincidences to occur.
During an ordinary day, we think about many people, places, worries, hopes, and possible future events. We see countless numbers, words, images, colours, and names. We have many conversations and make many small decisions.
With that much information passing through our lives, some events will line up in surprising ways.
You think about someone and they call. You buy a stone associated with opportunity and receive an offer. You dream about water and it rains. You notice the same number several times in a day.
The coincidence feels unlikely because we focus on the exact event after it happened. We ask, “What are the odds that I would think about this person and then receive a call?”
A more useful question is, “How many people did I think about this month, and how many opportunities were there for any one of them to contact me?”
The number of opportunities matters.
If you think about many people over many days, it would be more surprising if none of them ever contacted you shortly afterward. The matching event feels extraordinary because it is memorable, while the many non-matches leave no impression.
The same reasoning applies when someone uses a crystal associated with luck, love, money, confidence, or protection. Many possible events could later be interpreted as confirmation. A new friendship, a business opportunity, an unexpected refund, a good conversation, or a moment of courage might all be treated as proof that the stone worked.
When many possible outcomes could count as success, success becomes easier to find.
Belief Can Still Affect Behaviour
There is an important complication here. A belief may influence an outcome even when the explanation attached to the belief is wrong.
Suppose someone believes a stone makes them more confident. They bring it into a meeting and feel steadier because they expect it to help. They speak more clearly, maintain eye contact, and ask for what they want. Other people respond positively, and the meeting goes well.
In this case, the belief may have contributed to the outcome. That does not necessarily mean the mineral emitted confidence into the person’s body. The causal chain may have been psychological and behavioural.
The person believed the object would help.
That expectation changed how they behaved.
Their behaviour changed how others responded.
The result was real, even if the original explanation was inaccurate.
Objects can carry meaning. A wedding ring, religious symbol, family heirloom, photograph, uniform, or written reminder can all influence how a person feels and acts. A crystal can function in the same way.
There is an important difference, however, between saying, “This stone reminds me to act confidently,” and saying, “This stone radiates confidence energy.”
The first statement describes a relationship between meaning, attention, and behaviour. The second proposes a physical mechanism. They are not equivalent claims, and they do not require the same evidence.
Counterfactual Thinking: What Would Have Happened Otherwise?
The central problem in determining causation is that we cannot directly observe what would have happened if the person had made a different choice.
This is known as counterfactual thinking.
A person cannot live the exact same week twice, carrying the crystal during one version and leaving it at home during the other. They only experience one path.
This means the most important comparison is missing.
The question is not only, “What happened after I used the crystal?” It is also, “What would probably have happened if I had not used it?”
This is the reason controlled testing matters. Researchers compare groups because a single outcome tells us very little about the alternative. One group receives the treatment or uses the object. Another group does not, or uses a placebo. Researchers then compare the results while trying to keep other variables similar.
Suppose one hundred people carry a crystal and fifty report feeling better. That may sound impressive until we learn that fifty out of one hundred people in a comparison group also felt better without the crystal.
In that case, improvement occurred, but the crystal did not appear to create the difference.
If the crystal group consistently improved more than the comparison group under careful conditions, the evidence would become stronger. The comparison allows us to ask whether the outcome exceeded what would have happened anyway.
Controlled studies are not perfect. Human behaviour is complex, and experiments can be designed badly. But some comparison is better than none when we are trying to distinguish causation from coincidence, expectation, natural improvement, or missing variables.
How to Question a Claim Without Dismissing the Person
There is no benefit in mocking someone who believes a crystal helped them.
Ridicule usually causes people to defend the belief more strongly. It also confuses criticism of an explanation with criticism of the person.
A better approach is to ask questions that expand the range of possibilities.
What else changed during that period?
Was the problem already improving?
Did using the stone change your routine or behaviour?
How many times did you use it without noticing a result?
How many people used the same stone and experienced no change?
Would the improvement likely have occurred anyway?
Is the claim about personal meaning, psychological effect, or a physical property of the mineral?
What evidence would help separate those explanations?
These questions do not tell the person that their experience was worthless. They ask them to examine the experience more completely, including the examples that did not fit the pattern.
That is the central discipline of critical thinking. We do not count only the evidence that supports the idea. We also look actively for the evidence that would weaken it.
Skepticism Is Not the Same as Automatic Rejection
Skepticism is sometimes misunderstood as a refusal to believe anything unusual.
That is closer to cynicism.
A skeptic does not have to declare every crystal-related experience false. The more responsible position is to ask what the available evidence justifies.
Crystals can be beautiful, culturally important, emotionally meaningful, scientifically interesting, and useful as personal symbols. A stone can become part of a meditation routine, remind someone of a commitment, mark an important event, or help focus attention.
Those are legitimate uses.
The problem begins when one form of value is treated as proof of another. A person feeling calmer while holding a crystal does not automatically prove that the crystal emits healing energy. Finding personal meaning in an object does not demonstrate a universal physical effect. Improvement after beginning a ritual does not establish that the ritual was the sole cause.
The experience can matter without proving every explanation attached to it.
The More Empowering Explanation
Some people worry that a psychological explanation makes the experience less meaningful. It does not have to.
Suppose a crystal helped someone remember to breathe, slow down, set boundaries, or behave more deliberately. The object became a tool for directing attention. The person still had to act.
That explanation may be more empowering than the idea that the stone did everything.
If confidence, protection, discipline, or success comes entirely from the object, then the person becomes dependent on possessing the object. If the stone works as a reminder or symbol, the ability still belongs to the person.
The stone may support the process, but it does not replace the person’s choices.
This allows someone to keep the ritual, meaning, and enjoyment of the object without making claims that go beyond the evidence.
A More Careful Way to Think About Cause
When one event follows another, the connection may be worth investigating. It simply should not be treated as proven because of timing alone.
The result may have come from the action itself. It may have come from expectation, behaviour, natural improvement, coincidence, selective memory, or another change that occurred at the same time. Several causes may also have worked together.
Sometimes the most honest conclusion is that we do not know.
That answer can feel unsatisfying because people prefer a clear story. But uncertainty is not intellectual failure. It is often the most accurate position available.
We can respect personal experience without assuming that the person’s first explanation must be correct. We can acknowledge that rituals and objects carry meaning without treating meaning as evidence of a physical mechanism. We can remain open to possibilities while still asking what would count against the claim.
The question should not only be, “What happened after I used the crystal?”
We should also ask, “How many times did the expected result not happen, what else changed, and what would probably have happened anyway?”
Those missing examples are often where the clearest thinking begins.
By Adam Kelliher