Black, and what is asked of it
Which protection stones?
The list is entirely black, and the need is ancient: warding off the evil eye is one of the oldest attested uses of stones, long before any lithotherapy. It is also the ground of the least verifiable claims, and it is better to know which ones.
Where the association comes from
From black as a colour of stopping, and from a real history. Jet was worn as an amulet against the evil eye across Europe, and still is in Spain as a figa, the closed hand. Obsidian served for scrying mirrors in Mesoamerica, and John Dee's mirror in the British Museum is an Aztec obsidian brought back in the sixteenth century. That part is documented. The recent part is much less so: black tourmaline and shungite are now sold as protection against electromagnetic fields, a claim with no physical basis. A stone a few centimetres across attenuates nothing measurable, and that has to be said plainly on a page about protection.
The stones tradition offers
What tradition suggests doing
Worn on the person, or placed at the entrance of the home, where tradition sets the threshold. Black stones are, in almost every handbook, the ones cleansed most often, the idea being that they «absorb». If you follow that practice, know that jet cannot take water, that shungite marks the fingers at first, and that obsidian, being a glass, breaks into cutting flakes when knocked.
What a stone does not do
A stone protects from nothing physical: not from radio waves, not from accidents, not from people. What tradition describes is a reassuring gesture, and an object that recalls a decision. If you genuinely feel threatened by someone, that is a matter for people and sometimes for the law, never for a mineral.
The correspondences presented here belong to tradition and cultural heritage. They are in no way medical advice and never replace a consultation.
Frequently asked questions
Does shungite protect against phone radiation?
No. It is the most widespread claim in contemporary lithotherapy, and it rests on nothing: a disc a few centimetres across screens no measurable radiation.
Should a protection stone be cleansed often?
Tradition says so, because it assumes absorption. If you do it, match the method to the stone: jet cannot take water, shungite bleeds powder at first, black tourmaline takes anything.
Obsidian or black glass?
Obsidian IS a glass, a natural one. Against industrial glass, look for round bubbles and excessive homogeneity: obsidian shows flow striae and often fine inclusions.