Emma Lucy Knowles, Crystal Healer to the Stars – WWD

When Emma Lucy Knowles was growing up, she had a fascination with her grandparents that she never got to meet. She was always told they died of broken hearts.

“I was meditating one day at the age of 11. I didn’t realize I was meditating, I was just sat in a space and this figure walked toward me like a tracing paper in my mind, telling me, ‘I killed your granny.’ I knew that was my grandad, but I didn’t [at the same time],” says Knowles, an author and practicing healer, clairvoyant and crystal whisperer.

Her mother shut down the triggering idea straight away when Knowles excitedly announced it to her and that’s when she started to emulate her older sister Becky’s behavior, who was more girlish and skeptical growing up. But it was a couple of years later that their mother confessed the truth of what happened.

“He had a nervous breakdown, grabbed her by the throat when she was going to leave and caught a nerve in her neck,” Knowles recalls of the conversation she had with her mother.

“But by that stage for me, everyone believed me, but I’d already started to not believe in myself and that slight skepticism helps because it just makes me push that little bit harder with spirits. It’s not all fairies and rainbows,” she adds, explaining that readings that only give someone hope can be quite dangerous.

In her new book, “Crystals to Manifest,” out now, Knowles charts how to use crystals in a practical way that’s all about empowering oneself rather than having a power over anyone else. She has been working with crystals from a young age but when she was approached by her publisher for her debut book, “The Power of Crystal Healing,” she rejected the proposal because crystals were always her “embarrassing little secret.”

At 7 years old, Knowles started collecting crystals while her older sister was buying sweets. They allowed her to sleep properly and harness her energy into them.

Her advice for newcomers into the crystal arena is simple and clear: To go for what draws you in rather than searching too deeply into what each crystal signifies. 

“Everyday magic is not a methodical practice. It needs a little bit of ritual, attention and focus, but it should boil down to letting your inner child and that inner spirit just to have space to show you where you need to go rather than feel so locked into what you think you need,” says Knowles.

She thinks of her crystals as employees, where she tends to them by cleansing them at home either under cold water or during the full moon because crystals pull water from the moon; sitting with the crystals while a candle is lit; sleeping with them, and mixing them up to avoid a “walking under ladder” syndrome, where one becomes too dependent on a particular crystal.

When Knowles worked as an executive assistant at Bauer Media Group, she would keep some of her crystals on her desk, which always sparked a conversation.

During her corporate job, she was practicing healing outside of working hours and finally went full-time with it in 2017. Her business has grown through word of mouth since.

But that clearly has worked, since Knowles’ clientele includes everyone from Victoria Beckham and singer Louise Redknapp to The Ritz-Carlton in the Maldives, where she recently hosted a crystal one-on-one for people on the island to drop in. On the following day, she curated a “house of crystals” session, taking over a villa and laying crystals all around it and guiding guests through why different pairings work.

On another night, she worked with the chef to pair food with the crystals, which was a sold-out session.

“We paired citrine with oysters because it’s very energizing and then he talked about the biomechanics within the body of what that food releases,” says Knowles.

Her crystal business is an ever-growing one and she’s currently in the middle of relaunching her website, where there will be more crystal offerings, each one hand-charged by Knowles, as well as on-demand energy sessions.