May 29, 2025 • 33 mins
This deep dive explores the surprising origin and evolution of Superman's crystal aesthetic. But why crystals? We unpack the ancient human fascination with these mythic natural formations.
What began as a bold artistic choice in Richard Donner's 1978 film transformed Superman's visual identity forever, replacing the Buck Rogers-inspired aesthetics of early comics with something altogether more alien and mesmerizing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You ever seen that movie what Lies Beneath?
Yeah, that's based off mycrystal mistress.
Gentlemen, let's broaden ourminds.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Are they in the proper approach pattern for
today?
Negative.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
All weapons Now Charge the lightning field.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome back to Dispatch Ajax.
I'm Skip, I'm Jake, and todaywe're going to discuss something
that is in the, you know,modern zeitgeist, something
people might have questionsabout after certain sneak peeks
have happened.
Uh, yeah, I certainly havequestions about it, I'm not
talking about what the fuck isgoing on with competing Predator
(00:55):
films.
No, Well they're pairingPredator films.
I guess, but that's what I'msaying.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Questions oh yeah, you know what questions deserve
Answers.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
They do.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And vengeance.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So today, and I'm going to surprise you with this
topic, though it shouldn't be asurprise with Superman coming
out soon.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Who.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So there's this guy.
Envision a world with a manwhen two kryptonians love each
other very much uh-huh so, withthe james gunn superman coming
out, we see a return to theaesthetic of crystals in the
structure of his fortress ofsolitude.
This is obviously a callback orperhaps a through line that
(01:43):
begins with richardner'sSuperman the movie.
Though there have been manyattempts over the years of
Superman lore, retellings toredefine or move away from the
crystal thing, it still enduresas an iconic part of Superman
mythos, both visually andnarratively.
Visually and narratively.
Now, as a person who grew up onSuperman comics, starting with
(02:06):
my dad's comic books from the50s, 60s and 70s, then getting
my own comics in the 80s andthrough the 90s the crystal
thing actually seemed like anaberration.
It really wasn't common BeforeSuperman.
The movie Krypton and Superman'sgear was aesthetically a
continuation of the look andfeel of the like Buck Rogers,
flash Gordon era which we love,with bubble domes and rings
(02:27):
around everything and costumesthat look like Emperor Ming.
So it was a little out of leftfield when the 1978 film adopted
this bold new take.
After the film post-crisis onInfinite Earths, john Byrne was
tasked with redesigning Kryptonin a couple of miniseries in the
mid-80s leading up to thecharacter's relaunch.
(02:48):
The new direction DC took couldbe the reason they ran away
from the crystal stuff to startfresh.
Oh no, I'm sorry, let me takethat again.
Flip that script rewind.
I'm an idiot.
The new direction DC took couldbe the reason they ran away
from the crystal stuff, not justto start fresh, but also
because when Richard Lester tookover the Superman movie
(03:09):
franchise, the use of crystalssuddenly made no sense at all
and those movies were fuckingterrible.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Tell me how you really feel.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
That's the medical term.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's like you got a bit of shit around your film.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Oh man, you got a real lester in there.
We're gonna have to do an mriuh the cw show.
Smallville brought back theiconic crystals and some lore
from superman, the movie andeven christopher reeve, which
was kind of a big deal.
Brian singer, superman returnsmade a series of understandable
but ultimately problematicdecisions, a series of
(03:49):
problematic decisions BrianSinger would make.
Let's just say that.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
They just slip right in there against the audience's,
will I?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
need to have this young intern bring me coffee for
an hour alone in my dressingroom.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Make sure and put some Astroroglide in that coffee
.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
for me, the Secret Superman Returns did make a
series of legitimatelyunderstandable decisions by
going back to Donner's crystallook and trying to explain their
behaviors from the first filmin a way that explained a few
hand-waved questions andadvanced the new film's
narrative.
Later in the comics, dc broughtback the crystals and dubbed
(04:26):
them Sunstone, which I know,which, just like Krypton, is
already a thing.
One reason for this is likelythat then-comics wunderkind
Geoff Johns was formerly anintern for Richard Donner and
(04:47):
even brought him on board towrite a Superman arc in the mid
aughts.
But why crystals?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
As so many new agers in California have said.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Are we in Sedona all of a sudden?
Why crystals?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, there is a dimensional portal opening up,
you've got to get under thatmountain in oregon.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Why the choice to use that, look, that concept for
superman?
It wasn't because of kryptonite, because that was loosely based
on the contemporary fascinationwith things like uranium and
other radioactive stone-likematerials.
The 1978 fortress of solitudemade sense in some ways, because
(05:27):
if you were going to keep thelore of the fortress being
unseen by the rest of the worldby putting into the arctic
though it would have made moresense putting it into the
antarctic because it'suninhabited.
In a modern world it would haveto be hidden and built in like
a completely different way.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
So crystals have been a mysterious part of mythology
and mysticism throughout humanhistory have to be hidden and
built in like a completelydifferent way.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So crystals have been a mysterious part of mythology
and mysticism throughout humanhistory, obviously something
other than what we considerstone, but often resembling
something that seems as thoughit was manmade.
Marisa Galvez, an associateprofessor of French and Italian
at Stanford university, isworking on a comprehensive
history of the relationshipbetween people and crystals
(06:08):
throughout the century.
Quote, and when I say that, Iwill quote her, but I also will
paraphrase her, but I just stillwant to give the attribution
Quote.
The physical qualities ofcrystal make it stand out among
other stones.
Its ability to refract lightand its transparent but dark
appearance are partially thereasons why so many different
(06:28):
cultures and societies ascribedmagical powers to this stone.
Because of their symmetry and,often, clarity, crystal
symbolized spiritual purity andperfection and was often used in
religious texts.
The most ancient writings ofEurope that mention crystal
include the accounts of theRoman historian Pliny the Elder,
(06:50):
who described differentprecious stones, their origins
and physical qualities.
The word crystal comes from theGreek kristallos, literally
meaning coldness drawn together,essentially meaning ice.
In Western Christianity,crystal was often mentioned in
writings and is used to decoratereligious objects, as it was
(07:11):
thought that crystal manifestedtranscendence and the light of
the heavens.
For the religious, the stonesymbolized purity, faith and
perfection.
For example, it was used oftento describe the purity of the
Virgin Mary, even though thatwhole thing is up for
interpretation.
Aside from its more obvioussymbolism in faith and innocence
(07:34):
, crystal was also a materialfor thinking about and not
merely representing erotic love.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Crystal is also the name of my favorite stripper.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Exactly, crystal doesn't love you.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I'm sorry, crystal only loves your Coke.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Crystal will steal your wallet.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Do not go in the back room with Crystal.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Now that you've been in New Orleans you know what I
mean.
Even in descriptions of Easternyou know, like Orientalism and
things like that architecture inmedieval texts the crystalline
qualities of fountains andbuildings evoke mystery and
uncertainty and desire.
(08:24):
You know, people lusted fordiamonds and yada, yada, yada.
This was probably because thestone itself has a contradictory
aesthetic quality.
Crystal is a broad term, istransparent, but you need to put
in effort in order to seethrough it.
It refracts light, but it canalso emit light.
(08:46):
People have always had thisfascination with precious stones
, but they latched on tocrystals partly because they
have a contradictory physicalquality.
They are both dark andtransparent.
You can see through them, butnot really.
That history helps explain thecontinuing contemporary
obsession with crystals and howthey are thought to have magical
(09:08):
healing effects and energy oh,like the dilithium crystals in
star trek oh, we'll get to thatoh sorry don't worry, we're
gonna talk about dilithium,kyber crystals and the dark
crystals.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Don't worry oh, god damn it.
I, I'm sorry, I'm sorry theyjust all like at least we're
getting where our brains were,on the same path we're on the
same page.
Yeah, I want you to interject Iwas just reading ahead without
reading ahead.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
In the middle ages people also thought that
crystals would bring spiritualpresence.
People had this hunger to havesomething physical that embodied
the purity and the divinePeople still have that hunger
now, even in a more secularworld.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, you can get a crystal dildos right now.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You can get a crystal skull dildo right now.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
You can get a crystal skull vodka dildo Today by 3 pm
.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I'll bring it myself.
Dan Aykroyd will deliver it toyour house.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, yeah, anybody need this crystal gold dildo.
No it's like 150 bucks you geta blue Evan Turin crystal wand.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
He made him sound like Burt Reynolds.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Burt Reynolds from SNL.
Yeah, that's your, dan Aykroyd.
Well.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I don't know anybody who's ever done a good Dan
Aykroy from snl yeah that's.
Yeah, that's your dad.
Act right.
Well, I don't know anybodywho's ever done a good dad aggro
depression.
So that's good as anybody.
Crystals in many ways fulfill aspiritual need.
Some people go to church, somedo yoga and others collect and
meditate with crystals.
And you know what?
There's a big vin diagram withthose crossover From protective
talismans to healing tools.
(10:45):
Crystals have played diverseroles in human societies forever
.
One of the earliest and mostprevalent uses of crystals
throughout history has been asprotective amulets.
People believed that certaincrystals possessed inherent
energies that would ward offevil spirits and bring good
fortune.
And bring good fortune.
From the ancient Egyptiansadorning themselves with lapis,
(11:11):
lazuli and turquoise to theRomans wearing amethysts for
protection, crystals held animportant place in the lives of
our ancestors.
These amulets were cherishedtreasures for their perceived
ability to safeguard their waresfrom harm.
People believed crystals couldconnect them to the divine.
They could channel energy,energy, the energies of the
cosmos.
They could enhance intuition.
Some cultures even attributedspecific qualities to different
(11:34):
crystals, associating withparticular, you know, virtues or
elements.
You'll see that today that'sstill going on.
The ancient mesopotamiansutilized crystals as I'm sorry,
hit heights, hit heights.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The ancient Mesopotamians utilized crystals
such as carnelian and jasper intheir jewelry, their seals and
their statues.
They believed that these stonespossessed protective and
healing properties offeringdivine guidance.
Crystals were revered as aconduit between the earthly
realm and the realm of the godsor, in Mortal Kombat parlance,
the earth realm and the outworld.
I don't know why that should beimportant.
(12:18):
I have no idea.
Yeah, no, it's a.
You know we're a geeky podcast,that's fine, yeah shit,
nothing's coming.
I'm trying to like scrapeeverything, let's let's nail it,
nail it, yeah, yeah, sometimesShit nothing's coming.
I'm trying to like scrapeeverything, nail it, nail it.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, sometimes you just gotta keep going.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I mean the Egyptians.
Crystals like quartz andobsidian were placed within
tombs to guide and protect thedeceased on their journey to the
afterlife.
They believed that crystalscould facilitate communication
with the gods, believed thatcrystals could facilitate
communication with the gods.
Philosophers like Plato andAristotle pondered the nature of
crystals.
Hippocrates recognized thehealing potential of crystals
(12:53):
and used them in their medicinalpractices.
And we will get to that,because that's going to be a
whole problem or solution.
When you cut off the head ofyour first whale, you can come
back and tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Don't tell me, I do my business, don't tell me it
didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
In Hinduism, gemstones are associated with
deities and are used in ritualsand astrological practices.
Buddhism incorporates crystalsas offering on altars,
representing purity and clarity.
Taoism views crystals asembodying the five elements
harmony and balance with thenatural world.
Native American and indigenouscultures have often revert.
(13:34):
Wow, that's spelled wrong.
I fucked that up.
Have Native American andindigenous Native American
creatures.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I almost said creatures.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Wow, I was going to say cultures, but I meant Jesus
Christ.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Jesus Christ also liked crystals.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
This is how we get the Book of Mormon.
God damn it.
Native American and indigenouscultures have often revered
crystals for their spiritual andhealing properties.
Crystals are used in ceremonies, vision quests, what we might
call shamanic practices.
People think that by listeningto them they can get insight
(14:12):
from the past and connect withthe land's spiritual energy.
Now, in modern times, more andmore people have embraced old
ideas about healing propertiespossessed by crystals.
However, they try andrationalize it through some
measure of pseudoscience.
The idea they have energy andproperties that can be used for
healing remains largely unproven.
(14:33):
That's our disclaimer, I'msorry.
People who use crystals forhealing often say that they can
feel their energy.
They may hold them and claimthem.
They feel hot.
Natural stones feel cold to thetouch, but they can feel warm
after being held briefly.
Yeah, that's physics, I don'tfollow.
Thermal energy causes somethingto emit heat and or light and
(14:57):
cannot be felt as a vibration.
When the vibration of a crystalconnects with the human energy
field, it's believed chakrascould be realigned.
Human energy field, it'sbelieved chakras could be
realigned.
And I don't want to sound likeI'm coming down or being really
negative on certain religions.
That's not what I'm saying, Ijust am.
I get it I'm just fucking withyou no, I mean it's fair to say
(15:20):
that I'm not discountinghinduism or taoism or buddhism
by saying since we're talkingabout modern upper middle class
white people, but I get it, I do.
There are some scientificthings that do back that up to a
certain extent, but not in theway that they're used.
(15:42):
There's a phenomenon known aspiezoelectricity and that is
often used to support the theorythat crystals vibrate at
different frequencies.
Piezoelectricity is anelectrical charge produced when
certain crystals are exposed toa mechanical stress or pressure.
According to people who believein crystal healing and things
like that, everything in theuniverse, including crystals and
(16:04):
living beings, emits avibration.
The vibrational frequency issaid to interact with an energy
field surrounding the human body.
Unfortunately, it is true, butit's also not true.
It's true that atoms vibrate.
It is true that there is avibrational frequency to
everything in the universe.
The way they're taking it ispicking and choosing from
(16:25):
different ideas.
It's believed that when onealigns with the other, it can
affect physical, emotional andspiritual well-being.
The idea that by using crystalswith a specific vibrational
frequency, it's possible toinfluence or align an energy
field surrounding the body,promoting balance and healing.
You know just generic words.
(16:47):
The problem with this is thatenergy fields and vibrational
frequencies in that context donot exist.
The belief that crystals vibratecomes from the understanding
that everything in the universeis moving.
That is true.
The extent to which they movevaries depending on the object.
Now, some of this conception iscompletely understandable.
(17:10):
I get it.
Microscopic particles, such asatoms, do vibrate and interact
with each other.
Matter is made up of atoms andmolecules, both of which are
moving.
The movement known as thermalenergy causes them to vibrate,
emitting energy in the form ofheat and light, which is just
(17:30):
the electromagnetic spectrum,which is everything Heat, light,
radio waves.
The ability, for instance, ofquartz crystals to retain
information has led to thebelief that a crystal used for
healing can be programmed tostore info, but that's not
really how it works.
A crystal oscillator is anelectronic circuit that uses a
(17:53):
piezoelectric crystal as afrequency selective element,
which means the oscillatorfrequency is often used to keep
track of time, like in quartzwatches, or to provide a stable
clock signal for digitalintegrated circuits and to
stabilize frequencies for radiotransmitters and receivers.
(18:13):
The most common type ofpiezoelectric resonator is a
quartz crystal, so oscillatorcircuits incorporating them
became known as crystaloscillators.
However, other piezoelectricmaterials, including
polycrystalline ceramics, areused in similar circuits.
See, a crystal oscillatorrelies on the slight change in
(18:35):
the shape of a crystal under anelectric field.
People don't do this anymore,but it used to be when you were
like in elementary school orjunior high.
You would make a crystal radio.
A voltage applied to theelectrodes on the crystal causes
it to change shape.
When the voltage is removed,the crystal generates a small
voltage as it elasticallyreturns to its original shape,
(18:56):
which is fascinating and reallycool, and arguably this is one
of the things that a lot ofphysicists talk about.
Isn't this way more wondrousand fascinating that the
universe works this way?
It's amazing.
Fundamentally, a crystal is asolid in which the constituent
atoms, molecules or ions arepacked into a regularly ordered,
(19:18):
repeating pattern extending inall three spatial dimensions.
It's symmetrical and very, verywell structured.
It's structured in an orderedway, but almost any object made
out of any elastic materialcould be used like a crystal
this way, you know, if you, aslong as you have appropriate
transducers, since all objectshave natural resonant
(19:39):
frequencies of vibration.
For example, steel is veryelastic and has a high speed of
sound, which means that soundtravels through it at high speed
.
It was often used in mechanicalfilters before quartz was.
The resonant frequency dependson the size, shape and
elasticity and the speed ofsound within an object.
So yeah, you could see whythere were.
(19:59):
You could see why there are somany ways crystals seem so
mythical and mistress, mistress.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
That's not I.
I too had a mistress.
Uh made a crystal I paid heroff.
She doesn't call anymore youever seen that movie at what
lies beneath?
Yeah, that's based off mycrystal mistress never call here
.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That's why they seem so mythical and mysterious,
metaphysics and physics alike.
On top of all of that, naturalcrystal formation can be
confounding to the layperson orour ancestors.
They aren't necessarily aproduct of erosion like most
rocks, and, though not alive,crystals technically grow.
(20:45):
Crystals grow when moleculesthat are alike get close to each
other and stick together,forming chemical bonds that act
like velcro between atoms.
Mineral crystals cannot juststart forming spontaneously.
They need special conditionsand a nucleotation site to grow
on.
A nucleotation site can be arough edge of a rock or a speck
(21:07):
of dust.
That creates a chain reaction.
That's exactly how hail works.
You can't have hail unlessthere's a speck of dust or
something to form the icecrystals around, and then it
falls down.
It's not heavy enough to fallto the ground, so it goes back
up, forms more ice crystalscomes down, same thing over and
over again until it's heavyenough to fall out of the air.
(21:29):
It's the exact same thing,which is fascinating because
it's not ice, it's not water.
It's a mineral created by theearth.
That's completely different.
At or near the earth's surface,a lot of molecules are
dissolved in water.
They flow through over theground If there are enough
molecules in the water that arealike, they will separate from
(21:51):
the water as solids.
If they have a nucleotide site,they will stick to it and start
to form crystals.
Rock salt, which is actually amineral called halite, grows
exactly the same way.
Other minerals, for instancetravertine, sometimes forms flat
edges in caves and around hotsprings, where water causes
(22:12):
chemical reactions between thewater, the rock and the air.
You at home right now couldmake salt stalactites by growing
crystals on a string.
You take a string, yeah, youdissolve epsom salts in water
and lower a string into it.
Leave it for a few days.
The water will slowly evaporateand leave the Epsom salts
behind.
(22:32):
As that happens, salt crystalsprecipitate out of the water and
go crystals on the string.
I've seen it.
I've seen it happen.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Don't tell me it didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
When magma cools down , mineral crystals grow from it
just like water freezing intoice cubes.
These mineral crystals form athigh temperatures and much
higher temperatures than salt.
So as a device of fiction,they're understood and
misunderstood.
Just enough to be a blankcanvas MacGuffin In Star Trek.
Dilithium crystals facilitatewarp drive.
(23:04):
They don't power starships.
I want to make that very clear.
Dilithium crystals facilitatewarp drive, they don't power
starships.
I want to make that very clear.
Dilithium crystals do not powerstarships.
They facilitate thematter-antimatter reaction
within a starship.
All right, let's clear that up.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Okay.
So what is the energy source?
That's the collision betweenmatter and antimatter, mm-hmm.
Okay, and then the crystal isthe conduit by which that energy
is then used.
Yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Mm-hmm, because they vibrate the crystal at a
specific frequency in which,just like a lot of crystals on
Earth, will refract light andlet light pass through it.
When they introduce matter andantimatter, specifically
hydrogen, well, deuterium, whichis an ion of hydrogen, and
anti-deuterium at the same timethrough it, it passes through
(23:55):
the crystal.
Because the crystal isvibrating at a specific way, it
allows the antimatter to passthrough it and the matter to
pass through it withoutdestroying it, colliding and
then being focused through thecrystal.
Obviously, that energy becomesplasma and is focused through
the warp chamber.
So crystals don't poweranything in Star Trek.
(24:19):
They just allow the controlledannihilation of matter and item
matter.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Okay, that's it.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
All right.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Anyway, in Star Wars, kyber crystals powered
lightsabers and the Death Star.
The dark crystal reflected thepower of the celestial to merge
two different beings into newlife.
So, having the crystals givento him by his parents, superman
was able to fabricate a crystalsanctuary spontaneously and of
(24:49):
its own accord, a technologyimbued with power and knowledge
grown from the ice of a barrenwasteland.
That, and I think the idea wasto mark Krypton not just as
alien but also cold, sterile, aclean crystalline order.
(25:09):
Crystals are so bafflingbecause they are so perfectly
ordered atomically out ofabsolute chaos.
If you remember the real finalconflict in Donner's Super, in
the Movie before Zod shows upand all that.
The conflict is betweenJor-El's directive to not
interfere and let human historytake its course and the empathy
(25:33):
taught to Clark by the Kentsthat leads him to save Lois and
bend the rules of Jor-El.
Physics and logic.
Interestingly, james Gunn's newSuperman movie seems to keep
crystals in the forefront whilealso embracing the golden and
silver age aesthetics that GrantMorrison leaned into in the
seminal All-Star Superman.
(25:53):
So I think it's safe to say now,at this point, the crystals
aren't going anywhere crystalsare eternal this is my crystal
blue persuasion up next on polethree pole three makes me sound
like she's a racehorse I gotthree to one on crystal uh, we
(26:18):
got daddy's delicate condition.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Come on, let's go all right, and we need uh crystal
coming forth for our quintilla.
I haven't seen.
So do they have like is is thefortune of solitude?
Does it look like the donnerone?
Yes okay, it does.
I guess it's just kind ofbecome ingrained in part of the
Superman mythos now that youcan't deny it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
You had all of Superman lore up until Superman
the movie.
That's all just Flash Gordon,you know, buck Rogers, shit.
And then you get Superman themovie and they do crystals and
then they go away from it andafter Crisis they don't do the
crystal thing anymore.
Then they go away from it andafter Crisis they don't do the
crystal thing anymore.
It wasn't until essentiallyuntil Geoff Johns started
reintegrating the crystal thingaround the time that Superman
(27:01):
Returns came out that theybrought that back into
mainstream DC lore and evenafter that with Snyder's man of
Steel, they completely ignoredthe crystal thing.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
While you're talking, I looked at the history of the
Fortress of Solitude and I waslike what did Snyder do?
Because I didn't reallyremember and it's like no, it's
nothing really like that.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
No, it's a ship that crashed in the Antarctic, I
think.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, talk about sterile.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
He threw the green crystal into the Arctic and that
created the Fortress ofSolitude.
Why would it be green ifKryptonite is green and all that
?
You know like that doesn'treally make a lot of sense.
Some of that it's hand wavywith the donner stuff and that's
fine.
The lester stuff they try anduse that and it and it doesn't
make any sense.
So I think that dc was tryingto run away from the lester
(27:45):
stuff as much as they possiblycould, just like they ran from
the joel schumacher shit andthen when jeff johns came aboard
he helped bring that back.
That's when they get thesunstone thing and that's when
you get what you have now in dclore with with how crystals work
with kryptonians yeah, I guessit's just it's.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
It's so replaced previous ideas yeah when I think
of, say, the man who hadeverything for the man who has
yeah for the man who has I.
I envision it in my head ofbeing like a crystal structure
because it was set in the arctic.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Before that he lived in the mountain.
It was like a hollowed outmountain that he made with a
giant key the giant key yeah, Iremember the giant key, just so
ridiculous in all-star superman.
They actually do a really goodriff on that, which I think is
very, very good, where it's justcarved from the heart of a
neutron star.
So it's not a giant key, butit's the heaviest key in the
entire world.
Yeah that's fun.
But you know, when you get tothe modern era where you can't
(28:39):
do that anymore becausesatellites and cameras and
people traveling across theArctic, that doesn't make sense
anymore.
So it made sense that they hadto be like, well, they had to
hide it and then you can grow itout of the ground.
No, a lot of that, even, likeyou said in the man who has.
For the man who has everything.
(29:00):
Um, it's because it wassupposed to be in one of the two
poles, so it was ice.
It wasn't.
It literally wasn't until 1978'smovie that they established it
as crystal, and crystals ingeneral are fascinating.
I understand why people areinterested in them.
It literally wasn't until1978's movie that they
established it as crystal.
Crystals in general arefascinating.
I understand why people areinterested in them.
They do seem sort ofantithetical to what we know
(29:21):
about the natural world.
You know Like you get rocks andyou get man-made stuff and you
get glass and you get that.
But crystals form naturally andthey grow without being alive.
And it's not mysterious, eventhough it kind of is, because I
didn't even I should have, but Ididn't even get into time
crystals.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Or crystal skulls or the crystalline entity.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I know I kind of wanted to do all of that, but I
didn't have time.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, we have something that is so permeated,
so many cultures, so much ofboth fact and fiction You've got
to cut everything off at somepoint, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
It is the perfect MacGuffin.
You can just say it's a crystaland because you know, crystals
are used to store information.
They do emit energy, they dovibrate, they do grow All of
these weird things that don'tmake a lot of sense compared to
the rest of the natural world.
They're an easy thing to usefor narrative MacGuffins, and
(30:20):
that's just what they did.
It worked in Superman 78.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
It's just as fascinating now as it was 2000
BC.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Oh yeah, 350,000 years ago.
Yeah, you know, when we're incaves and we see crystals form
because of mineral deposits orwhatever, yeah, it's just as
fascinating now as it was then.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Thanks for listening to the latest crystal podcast,
where we discuss all thingscrystals.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Healing.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Healing, sexual energizing.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Lightsabers.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Light drives Egyptian mythology.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Stargate.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Dan Aykroyd vodka.
You know all the importantthings really.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
The things that matter to the lives of everyday
Americans.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
We're going to start our crystal platform.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
You and I.
Co-president, vice presidentHoward the Duck.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
A crystal version of Howard the Duck.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Like Emma Frost.
Yes, exactly, I knew, that'swhere you were going.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Until the next crystal podcast.
We've hoped that you've enjoyedthe episode.
We've definitely enjoyed thisjourney together.
If you wouldn't mind rating usfive crystalline entities on the
podcast app of your choice?
Ideally, apple podcast is thebest way for us to get heard and
seen and the word spread aroundto all the other crystalline
entities that you know and love.
(31:42):
But until we plug your earswith the next crystal pod oh,
and sometimes we're going to dolike little pods we're going to
call them crystal light.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Oh, damn it.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Now I have to do that it's stupid, but stupid is what
we bring and stupid is what youlove.
It is what it does.
Yeah, it's like what it says onthe package.
Right Skip.
What should they do until thatnext time?
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Well, they should probably clean up all the
crystals around themselves tosome sort of reasonable degree,
reasonable crystal degree.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, they should probably pay their crystals to
their bartenders If they couldput the crystal within the
crystal.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
If they could use crystal to pay their bartenders
and their KJs, theirbroadcasters.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
And to pay crystal up on.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Bowl 3.
Like Tuco Salamanca, if theycould use crystal to pay all of
these things, if they couldsupport those local comic shops
and retailers by paying them inCrystal, but only by the book
Amethyst from DC Comics.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Oh, don't do that.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I went there.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Well, somebody had to .
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Really, though, I was kind of holding on to it being
like well, I gotta say, at somepoint, it's a living.
You don't know this, but Jakeis a small pterodactyl that
lives underneath my desk.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I've gotta do pods, I gotta do blowjobs and I do garb
disposal.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
It's weird because he doesn't have lips.
It's what he likes, but he doesscratch the recordings Of our
podcast into a vinyl For somereason.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I got these wings.
What else am?
Am I going to do with them?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
That's your beak.
That's weird.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Just end it.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
We would like to say Godspeed, fair wizards.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Crystals.
Please go away.
You ever seen that movie what Lies Beneath?
Yeah, that's based off mycrystal mistress.
Gentlemen, let's broaden ourminds.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Are they in the proper approach pattern for
today?
Negative.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
All weapons Now Charge the lightning field.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome back to Dispatch Ajax.
I'm Skip, I'm Jake, and todaywe're going to discuss something
that is in the, you know,modern zeitgeist, something
people might have questionsabout after certain sneak peeks
have happened.
Uh, yeah, I certainly havequestions about it, I'm not
talking about what the fuck isgoing on with competing Predator
(00:55):
films.
No, Well they're pairingPredator films.
I guess, but that's what I'msaying.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Questions oh yeah, you know what questions deserve
Answers.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
They do.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
And vengeance.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
So today, and I'm going to surprise you with this
topic, though it shouldn't be asurprise with Superman coming
out soon.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
Who.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So there's this guy.
Envision a world with a manwhen two kryptonians love each
other very much uh-huh so, withthe james gunn superman coming
out, we see a return to theaesthetic of crystals in the
structure of his fortress ofsolitude.
This is obviously a callback orperhaps a through line that
(01:43):
begins with richardner'sSuperman the movie.
Though there have been manyattempts over the years of
Superman lore, retellings toredefine or move away from the
crystal thing, it still enduresas an iconic part of Superman
mythos, both visually andnarratively.
Visually and narratively.
Now, as a person who grew up onSuperman comics, starting with
(02:06):
my dad's comic books from the50s, 60s and 70s, then getting
my own comics in the 80s andthrough the 90s the crystal
thing actually seemed like anaberration.
It really wasn't common BeforeSuperman.
The movie Krypton and Superman'sgear was aesthetically a
continuation of the look andfeel of the like Buck Rogers,
flash Gordon era which we love,with bubble domes and rings
(02:27):
around everything and costumesthat look like Emperor Ming.
So it was a little out of leftfield when the 1978 film adopted
this bold new take.
After the film post-crisis onInfinite Earths, john Byrne was
tasked with redesigning Kryptonin a couple of miniseries in the
mid-80s leading up to thecharacter's relaunch.
(02:48):
The new direction DC took couldbe the reason they ran away
from the crystal stuff to startfresh.
Oh no, I'm sorry, let me takethat again.
Flip that script rewind.
I'm an idiot.
The new direction DC took couldbe the reason they ran away
from the crystal stuff, not justto start fresh, but also
because when Richard Lester tookover the Superman movie
(03:09):
franchise, the use of crystalssuddenly made no sense at all
and those movies were fuckingterrible.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Tell me how you really feel.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
That's the medical term.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
It's like you got a bit of shit around your film.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Oh man, you got a real lester in there.
We're gonna have to do an mriuh the cw show.
Smallville brought back theiconic crystals and some lore
from superman, the movie andeven christopher reeve, which
was kind of a big deal.
Brian singer, superman returnsmade a series of understandable
but ultimately problematicdecisions, a series of
(03:49):
problematic decisions BrianSinger would make.
Let's just say that.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
They just slip right in there against the audience's,
will I?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
need to have this young intern bring me coffee for
an hour alone in my dressingroom.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Make sure and put some Astroroglide in that coffee
.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
for me, the Secret Superman Returns did make a
series of legitimatelyunderstandable decisions by
going back to Donner's crystallook and trying to explain their
behaviors from the first filmin a way that explained a few
hand-waved questions andadvanced the new film's
narrative.
Later in the comics, dc broughtback the crystals and dubbed
(04:26):
them Sunstone, which I know,which, just like Krypton, is
already a thing.
One reason for this is likelythat then-comics wunderkind
Geoff Johns was formerly anintern for Richard Donner and
(04:47):
even brought him on board towrite a Superman arc in the mid
aughts.
But why crystals?
Speaker 1 (04:54):
As so many new agers in California have said.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Are we in Sedona all of a sudden?
Why crystals?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Well, there is a dimensional portal opening up,
you've got to get under thatmountain in oregon.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Why the choice to use that, look, that concept for
superman?
It wasn't because of kryptonite, because that was loosely based
on the contemporary fascinationwith things like uranium and
other radioactive stone-likematerials.
The 1978 fortress of solitudemade sense in some ways, because
(05:27):
if you were going to keep thelore of the fortress being
unseen by the rest of the worldby putting into the arctic
though it would have made moresense putting it into the
antarctic because it'suninhabited.
In a modern world it would haveto be hidden and built in like
a completely different way.
Speaker 1 (05:43):
So crystals have been a mysterious part of mythology
and mysticism throughout humanhistory have to be hidden and
built in like a completelydifferent way.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
So crystals have been a mysterious part of mythology
and mysticism throughout humanhistory, obviously something
other than what we considerstone, but often resembling
something that seems as thoughit was manmade.
Marisa Galvez, an associateprofessor of French and Italian
at Stanford university, isworking on a comprehensive
history of the relationshipbetween people and crystals
(06:08):
throughout the century.
Quote, and when I say that, Iwill quote her, but I also will
paraphrase her, but I just stillwant to give the attribution
Quote.
The physical qualities ofcrystal make it stand out among
other stones.
Its ability to refract lightand its transparent but dark
appearance are partially thereasons why so many different
(06:28):
cultures and societies ascribedmagical powers to this stone.
Because of their symmetry and,often, clarity, crystal
symbolized spiritual purity andperfection and was often used in
religious texts.
The most ancient writings ofEurope that mention crystal
include the accounts of theRoman historian Pliny the Elder,
(06:50):
who described differentprecious stones, their origins
and physical qualities.
The word crystal comes from theGreek kristallos, literally
meaning coldness drawn together,essentially meaning ice.
In Western Christianity,crystal was often mentioned in
writings and is used to decoratereligious objects, as it was
(07:11):
thought that crystal manifestedtranscendence and the light of
the heavens.
For the religious, the stonesymbolized purity, faith and
perfection.
For example, it was used oftento describe the purity of the
Virgin Mary, even though thatwhole thing is up for
interpretation.
Aside from its more obvioussymbolism in faith and innocence
(07:34):
, crystal was also a materialfor thinking about and not
merely representing erotic love.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Crystal is also the name of my favorite stripper.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Exactly, crystal doesn't love you.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I'm sorry, crystal only loves your Coke.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Crystal will steal your wallet.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Do not go in the back room with Crystal.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Now that you've been in New Orleans you know what I
mean.
Even in descriptions of Easternyou know, like Orientalism and
things like that architecture inmedieval texts the crystalline
qualities of fountains andbuildings evoke mystery and
uncertainty and desire.
(08:24):
You know, people lusted fordiamonds and yada, yada, yada.
This was probably because thestone itself has a contradictory
aesthetic quality.
Crystal is a broad term, istransparent, but you need to put
in effort in order to seethrough it.
It refracts light, but it canalso emit light.
(08:46):
People have always had thisfascination with precious stones
, but they latched on tocrystals partly because they
have a contradictory physicalquality.
They are both dark andtransparent.
You can see through them, butnot really.
That history helps explain thecontinuing contemporary
obsession with crystals and howthey are thought to have magical
(09:08):
healing effects and energy oh,like the dilithium crystals in
star trek oh, we'll get to thatoh sorry don't worry, we're
gonna talk about dilithium,kyber crystals and the dark
crystals.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Don't worry oh, god damn it.
I, I'm sorry, I'm sorry theyjust all like at least we're
getting where our brains were,on the same path we're on the
same page.
Yeah, I want you to interject Iwas just reading ahead without
reading ahead.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
In the middle ages people also thought that
crystals would bring spiritualpresence.
People had this hunger to havesomething physical that embodied
the purity and the divinePeople still have that hunger
now, even in a more secularworld.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Yeah, you can get a crystal dildos right now.
Speaker 2 (09:54):
You can get a crystal skull dildo right now.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
You can get a crystal skull vodka dildo Today by 3 pm
.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
I'll bring it myself.
Dan Aykroyd will deliver it toyour house.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yeah, yeah, anybody need this crystal gold dildo.
No it's like 150 bucks you geta blue Evan Turin crystal wand.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
He made him sound like Burt Reynolds.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Burt Reynolds from SNL.
Yeah, that's your, dan Aykroyd.
Well.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
I don't know anybody who's ever done a good Dan
Aykroy from snl yeah that's.
Yeah, that's your dad.
Act right.
Well, I don't know anybodywho's ever done a good dad aggro
depression.
So that's good as anybody.
Crystals in many ways fulfill aspiritual need.
Some people go to church, somedo yoga and others collect and
meditate with crystals.
And you know what?
There's a big vin diagram withthose crossover From protective
talismans to healing tools.
(10:45):
Crystals have played diverseroles in human societies forever
.
One of the earliest and mostprevalent uses of crystals
throughout history has been asprotective amulets.
People believed that certaincrystals possessed inherent
energies that would ward offevil spirits and bring good
fortune.
And bring good fortune.
From the ancient Egyptiansadorning themselves with lapis,
(11:11):
lazuli and turquoise to theRomans wearing amethysts for
protection, crystals held animportant place in the lives of
our ancestors.
These amulets were cherishedtreasures for their perceived
ability to safeguard their waresfrom harm.
People believed crystals couldconnect them to the divine.
They could channel energy,energy, the energies of the
cosmos.
They could enhance intuition.
Some cultures even attributedspecific qualities to different
(11:34):
crystals, associating withparticular, you know, virtues or
elements.
You'll see that today that'sstill going on.
The ancient mesopotamiansutilized crystals as I'm sorry,
hit heights, hit heights.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
The ancient Mesopotamians utilized crystals
such as carnelian and jasper intheir jewelry, their seals and
their statues.
They believed that these stonespossessed protective and
healing properties offeringdivine guidance.
Crystals were revered as aconduit between the earthly
realm and the realm of the godsor, in Mortal Kombat parlance,
the earth realm and the outworld.
I don't know why that should beimportant.
(12:18):
I have no idea.
Yeah, no, it's a.
You know we're a geeky podcast,that's fine, yeah shit,
nothing's coming.
I'm trying to like scrapeeverything, let's let's nail it,
nail it, yeah, yeah, sometimesShit nothing's coming.
I'm trying to like scrapeeverything, nail it, nail it.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, sometimes you just gotta keep going.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I mean the Egyptians.
Crystals like quartz andobsidian were placed within
tombs to guide and protect thedeceased on their journey to the
afterlife.
They believed that crystalscould facilitate communication
with the gods, believed thatcrystals could facilitate
communication with the gods.
Philosophers like Plato andAristotle pondered the nature of
crystals.
Hippocrates recognized thehealing potential of crystals
(12:53):
and used them in their medicinalpractices.
And we will get to that,because that's going to be a
whole problem or solution.
When you cut off the head ofyour first whale, you can come
back and tell me about that.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Don't tell me, I do my business, don't tell me it
didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
In Hinduism, gemstones are associated with
deities and are used in ritualsand astrological practices.
Buddhism incorporates crystalsas offering on altars,
representing purity and clarity.
Taoism views crystals asembodying the five elements
harmony and balance with thenatural world.
Native American and indigenouscultures have often revert.
(13:34):
Wow, that's spelled wrong.
I fucked that up.
Have Native American andindigenous Native American
creatures.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
I almost said creatures.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Wow, I was going to say cultures, but I meant Jesus
Christ.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Jesus Christ also liked crystals.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
This is how we get the Book of Mormon.
God damn it.
Native American and indigenouscultures have often revered
crystals for their spiritual andhealing properties.
Crystals are used in ceremonies, vision quests, what we might
call shamanic practices.
People think that by listeningto them they can get insight
(14:12):
from the past and connect withthe land's spiritual energy.
Now, in modern times, more andmore people have embraced old
ideas about healing propertiespossessed by crystals.
However, they try andrationalize it through some
measure of pseudoscience.
The idea they have energy andproperties that can be used for
healing remains largely unproven.
(14:33):
That's our disclaimer, I'msorry.
People who use crystals forhealing often say that they can
feel their energy.
They may hold them and claimthem.
They feel hot.
Natural stones feel cold to thetouch, but they can feel warm
after being held briefly.
Yeah, that's physics, I don'tfollow.
Thermal energy causes somethingto emit heat and or light and
(14:57):
cannot be felt as a vibration.
When the vibration of a crystalconnects with the human energy
field, it's believed chakrascould be realigned.
Human energy field, it'sbelieved chakras could be
realigned.
And I don't want to sound likeI'm coming down or being really
negative on certain religions.
That's not what I'm saying, Ijust am.
I get it I'm just fucking withyou no, I mean it's fair to say
(15:20):
that I'm not discountinghinduism or taoism or buddhism
by saying since we're talkingabout modern upper middle class
white people, but I get it, I do.
There are some scientificthings that do back that up to a
certain extent, but not in theway that they're used.
(15:42):
There's a phenomenon known aspiezoelectricity and that is
often used to support the theorythat crystals vibrate at
different frequencies.
Piezoelectricity is anelectrical charge produced when
certain crystals are exposed toa mechanical stress or pressure.
According to people who believein crystal healing and things
like that, everything in theuniverse, including crystals and
(16:04):
living beings, emits avibration.
The vibrational frequency issaid to interact with an energy
field surrounding the human body.
Unfortunately, it is true, butit's also not true.
It's true that atoms vibrate.
It is true that there is avibrational frequency to
everything in the universe.
The way they're taking it ispicking and choosing from
(16:25):
different ideas.
It's believed that when onealigns with the other, it can
affect physical, emotional andspiritual well-being.
The idea that by using crystalswith a specific vibrational
frequency, it's possible toinfluence or align an energy
field surrounding the body,promoting balance and healing.
You know just generic words.
(16:47):
The problem with this is thatenergy fields and vibrational
frequencies in that context donot exist.
The belief that crystals vibratecomes from the understanding
that everything in the universeis moving.
That is true.
The extent to which they movevaries depending on the object.
Now, some of this conception iscompletely understandable.
(17:10):
I get it.
Microscopic particles, such asatoms, do vibrate and interact
with each other.
Matter is made up of atoms andmolecules, both of which are
moving.
The movement known as thermalenergy causes them to vibrate,
emitting energy in the form ofheat and light, which is just
(17:30):
the electromagnetic spectrum,which is everything Heat, light,
radio waves.
The ability, for instance, ofquartz crystals to retain
information has led to thebelief that a crystal used for
healing can be programmed tostore info, but that's not
really how it works.
A crystal oscillator is anelectronic circuit that uses a
(17:53):
piezoelectric crystal as afrequency selective element,
which means the oscillatorfrequency is often used to keep
track of time, like in quartzwatches, or to provide a stable
clock signal for digitalintegrated circuits and to
stabilize frequencies for radiotransmitters and receivers.
(18:13):
The most common type ofpiezoelectric resonator is a
quartz crystal, so oscillatorcircuits incorporating them
became known as crystaloscillators.
However, other piezoelectricmaterials, including
polycrystalline ceramics, areused in similar circuits.
See, a crystal oscillatorrelies on the slight change in
(18:35):
the shape of a crystal under anelectric field.
People don't do this anymore,but it used to be when you were
like in elementary school orjunior high.
You would make a crystal radio.
A voltage applied to theelectrodes on the crystal causes
it to change shape.
When the voltage is removed,the crystal generates a small
voltage as it elasticallyreturns to its original shape,
(18:56):
which is fascinating and reallycool, and arguably this is one
of the things that a lot ofphysicists talk about.
Isn't this way more wondrousand fascinating that the
universe works this way?
It's amazing.
Fundamentally, a crystal is asolid in which the constituent
atoms, molecules or ions arepacked into a regularly ordered,
(19:18):
repeating pattern extending inall three spatial dimensions.
It's symmetrical and very, verywell structured.
It's structured in an orderedway, but almost any object made
out of any elastic materialcould be used like a crystal
this way, you know, if you, aslong as you have appropriate
transducers, since all objectshave natural resonant
(19:39):
frequencies of vibration.
For example, steel is veryelastic and has a high speed of
sound, which means that soundtravels through it at high speed
.
It was often used in mechanicalfilters before quartz was.
The resonant frequency dependson the size, shape and
elasticity and the speed ofsound within an object.
So yeah, you could see whythere were.
(19:59):
You could see why there are somany ways crystals seem so
mythical and mistress, mistress.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
That's not I.
I too had a mistress.
Uh made a crystal I paid heroff.
She doesn't call anymore youever seen that movie at what
lies beneath?
Yeah, that's based off mycrystal mistress never call here
.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That's why they seem so mythical and mysterious,
metaphysics and physics alike.
On top of all of that, naturalcrystal formation can be
confounding to the layperson orour ancestors.
They aren't necessarily aproduct of erosion like most
rocks, and, though not alive,crystals technically grow.
(20:45):
Crystals grow when moleculesthat are alike get close to each
other and stick together,forming chemical bonds that act
like velcro between atoms.
Mineral crystals cannot juststart forming spontaneously.
They need special conditionsand a nucleotation site to grow
on.
A nucleotation site can be arough edge of a rock or a speck
(21:07):
of dust.
That creates a chain reaction.
That's exactly how hail works.
You can't have hail unlessthere's a speck of dust or
something to form the icecrystals around, and then it
falls down.
It's not heavy enough to fallto the ground, so it goes back
up, forms more ice crystalscomes down, same thing over and
over again until it's heavyenough to fall out of the air.
(21:29):
It's the exact same thing,which is fascinating because
it's not ice, it's not water.
It's a mineral created by theearth.
That's completely different.
At or near the earth's surface,a lot of molecules are
dissolved in water.
They flow through over theground If there are enough
molecules in the water that arealike, they will separate from
(21:51):
the water as solids.
If they have a nucleotide site,they will stick to it and start
to form crystals.
Rock salt, which is actually amineral called halite, grows
exactly the same way.
Other minerals, for instancetravertine, sometimes forms flat
edges in caves and around hotsprings, where water causes
(22:12):
chemical reactions between thewater, the rock and the air.
You at home right now couldmake salt stalactites by growing
crystals on a string.
You take a string, yeah, youdissolve epsom salts in water
and lower a string into it.
Leave it for a few days.
The water will slowly evaporateand leave the Epsom salts
behind.
(22:32):
As that happens, salt crystalsprecipitate out of the water and
go crystals on the string.
I've seen it.
I've seen it happen.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Don't tell me it didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
When magma cools down , mineral crystals grow from it
just like water freezing intoice cubes.
These mineral crystals form athigh temperatures and much
higher temperatures than salt.
So as a device of fiction,they're understood and
misunderstood.
Just enough to be a blankcanvas MacGuffin In Star Trek.
Dilithium crystals facilitatewarp drive.
(23:04):
They don't power starships.
I want to make that very clear.
Dilithium crystals facilitatewarp drive, they don't power
starships.
I want to make that very clear.
Dilithium crystals do not powerstarships.
They facilitate thematter-antimatter reaction
within a starship.
All right, let's clear that up.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Okay.
So what is the energy source?
That's the collision betweenmatter and antimatter, mm-hmm.
Okay, and then the crystal isthe conduit by which that energy
is then used.
Yes, okay.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Mm-hmm, because they vibrate the crystal at a
specific frequency in which,just like a lot of crystals on
Earth, will refract light andlet light pass through it.
When they introduce matter andantimatter, specifically
hydrogen, well, deuterium, whichis an ion of hydrogen, and
anti-deuterium at the same timethrough it, it passes through
(23:55):
the crystal.
Because the crystal isvibrating at a specific way, it
allows the antimatter to passthrough it and the matter to
pass through it withoutdestroying it, colliding and
then being focused through thecrystal.
Obviously, that energy becomesplasma and is focused through
the warp chamber.
So crystals don't poweranything in Star Trek.
(24:19):
They just allow the controlledannihilation of matter and item
matter.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Okay, that's it.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
All right.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Anyway, in Star Wars, kyber crystals powered
lightsabers and the Death Star.
The dark crystal reflected thepower of the celestial to merge
two different beings into newlife.
So, having the crystals givento him by his parents, superman
was able to fabricate a crystalsanctuary spontaneously and of
(24:49):
its own accord, a technologyimbued with power and knowledge
grown from the ice of a barrenwasteland.
That, and I think the idea wasto mark Krypton not just as
alien but also cold, sterile, aclean crystalline order.
(25:09):
Crystals are so bafflingbecause they are so perfectly
ordered atomically out ofabsolute chaos.
If you remember the real finalconflict in Donner's Super, in
the Movie before Zod shows upand all that.
The conflict is betweenJor-El's directive to not
interfere and let human historytake its course and the empathy
(25:33):
taught to Clark by the Kentsthat leads him to save Lois and
bend the rules of Jor-El.
Physics and logic.
Interestingly, james Gunn's newSuperman movie seems to keep
crystals in the forefront whilealso embracing the golden and
silver age aesthetics that GrantMorrison leaned into in the
seminal All-Star Superman.
(25:53):
So I think it's safe to say now,at this point, the crystals
aren't going anywhere crystalsare eternal this is my crystal
blue persuasion up next on polethree pole three makes me sound
like she's a racehorse I gotthree to one on crystal uh, we
(26:18):
got daddy's delicate condition.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Come on, let's go all right, and we need uh crystal
coming forth for our quintilla.
I haven't seen.
So do they have like is is thefortune of solitude?
Does it look like the donnerone?
Yes okay, it does.
I guess it's just kind ofbecome ingrained in part of the
Superman mythos now that youcan't deny it.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
You had all of Superman lore up until Superman
the movie.
That's all just Flash Gordon,you know, buck Rogers, shit.
And then you get Superman themovie and they do crystals and
then they go away from it andafter Crisis they don't do the
crystal thing anymore.
Then they go away from it andafter Crisis they don't do the
crystal thing anymore.
It wasn't until essentiallyuntil Geoff Johns started
reintegrating the crystal thingaround the time that Superman
(27:01):
Returns came out that theybrought that back into
mainstream DC lore and evenafter that with Snyder's man of
Steel, they completely ignoredthe crystal thing.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
While you're talking, I looked at the history of the
Fortress of Solitude and I waslike what did Snyder do?
Because I didn't reallyremember and it's like no, it's
nothing really like that.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
No, it's a ship that crashed in the Antarctic, I
think.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, talk about sterile.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
He threw the green crystal into the Arctic and that
created the Fortress ofSolitude.
Why would it be green ifKryptonite is green and all that
?
You know like that doesn'treally make a lot of sense.
Some of that it's hand wavywith the donner stuff and that's
fine.
The lester stuff they try anduse that and it and it doesn't
make any sense.
So I think that dc was tryingto run away from the lester
(27:45):
stuff as much as they possiblycould, just like they ran from
the joel schumacher shit andthen when jeff johns came aboard
he helped bring that back.
That's when they get thesunstone thing and that's when
you get what you have now in dclore with with how crystals work
with kryptonians yeah, I guessit's just it's.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
It's so replaced previous ideas yeah when I think
of, say, the man who hadeverything for the man who has
yeah for the man who has I.
I envision it in my head ofbeing like a crystal structure
because it was set in the arctic.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
Before that he lived in the mountain.
It was like a hollowed outmountain that he made with a
giant key the giant key yeah, Iremember the giant key, just so
ridiculous in all-star superman.
They actually do a really goodriff on that, which I think is
very, very good, where it's justcarved from the heart of a
neutron star.
So it's not a giant key, butit's the heaviest key in the
entire world.
Yeah that's fun.
But you know, when you get tothe modern era where you can't
(28:39):
do that anymore becausesatellites and cameras and
people traveling across theArctic, that doesn't make sense
anymore.
So it made sense that they hadto be like, well, they had to
hide it and then you can grow itout of the ground.
No, a lot of that, even, likeyou said in the man who has.
For the man who has everything.
(29:00):
Um, it's because it wassupposed to be in one of the two
poles, so it was ice.
It wasn't.
It literally wasn't until 1978'smovie that they established it
as crystal, and crystals ingeneral are fascinating.
I understand why people areinterested in them.
It literally wasn't until1978's movie that they
established it as crystal.
Crystals in general arefascinating.
I understand why people areinterested in them.
They do seem sort ofantithetical to what we know
(29:21):
about the natural world.
You know Like you get rocks andyou get man-made stuff and you
get glass and you get that.
But crystals form naturally andthey grow without being alive.
And it's not mysterious, eventhough it kind of is, because I
didn't even I should have, but Ididn't even get into time
crystals.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Or crystal skulls or the crystalline entity.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
I know I kind of wanted to do all of that, but I
didn't have time.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, we have something that is so permeated,
so many cultures, so much ofboth fact and fiction You've got
to cut everything off at somepoint, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
It is the perfect MacGuffin.
You can just say it's a crystaland because you know, crystals
are used to store information.
They do emit energy, they dovibrate, they do grow All of
these weird things that don'tmake a lot of sense compared to
the rest of the natural world.
They're an easy thing to usefor narrative MacGuffins, and
(30:20):
that's just what they did.
It worked in Superman 78.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
It's just as fascinating now as it was 2000
BC.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Oh yeah, 350,000 years ago.
Yeah, you know, when we're incaves and we see crystals form
because of mineral deposits orwhatever, yeah, it's just as
fascinating now as it was then.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Thanks for listening to the latest crystal podcast,
where we discuss all thingscrystals.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Healing.
Speaker 1 (30:48):
Healing, sexual energizing.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Lightsabers.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Light drives Egyptian mythology.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Stargate.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Dan Aykroyd vodka.
You know all the importantthings really.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
The things that matter to the lives of everyday
Americans.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
We're going to start our crystal platform.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
You and I.
Co-president, vice presidentHoward the Duck.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
A crystal version of Howard the Duck.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Like Emma Frost.
Yes, exactly, I knew, that'swhere you were going.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Until the next crystal podcast.
We've hoped that you've enjoyedthe episode.
We've definitely enjoyed thisjourney together.
If you wouldn't mind rating usfive crystalline entities on the
podcast app of your choice?
Ideally, apple podcast is thebest way for us to get heard and
seen and the word spread aroundto all the other crystalline
entities that you know and love.
(31:42):
But until we plug your earswith the next crystal pod oh,
and sometimes we're going to dolike little pods we're going to
call them crystal light.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Oh, damn it.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Now I have to do that it's stupid, but stupid is what
we bring and stupid is what youlove.
It is what it does.
Yeah, it's like what it says onthe package.
Right Skip.
What should they do until thatnext time?
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Well, they should probably clean up all the
crystals around themselves tosome sort of reasonable degree,
reasonable crystal degree.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
Yeah, they should probably pay their crystals to
their bartenders If they couldput the crystal within the
crystal.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
If they could use crystal to pay their bartenders
and their KJs, theirbroadcasters.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
And to pay crystal up on.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Bowl 3.
Like Tuco Salamanca, if theycould use crystal to pay all of
these things, if they couldsupport those local comic shops
and retailers by paying them inCrystal, but only by the book
Amethyst from DC Comics.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Oh, don't do that.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I went there.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
Well, somebody had to .
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Really, though, I was kind of holding on to it being
like well, I gotta say, at somepoint, it's a living.
You don't know this, but Jakeis a small pterodactyl that
lives underneath my desk.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I've gotta do pods, I gotta do blowjobs and I do garb
disposal.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
It's weird because he doesn't have lips.
It's what he likes, but he doesscratch the recordings Of our
podcast into a vinyl For somereason.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
I got these wings.
What else am?
Am I going to do with them?
Speaker 2 (33:15):
That's your beak.
That's weird.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Just end it.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
We would like to say Godspeed, fair wizards.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Crystals.
Please go away.
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