What's the point in having stones that are dyed or heated ? Its unnatural, you might as well buy a hunk of plastic.
It ruins the whole conversation when you have to say this isn't from nature.
Sure some heated/dyed specimens are really beautiful, but so is an oil slick.
There have been times when I was disappointed that a specimen was not natural, and I could not buy it. A good example is a red agate crystal I thought was really cool, but no point if it's essentially a fake. I also thought a rainbow silicate carborundum was amazing, and was bitterly disappointed to find out it was a man made compound.
As for the heated amethyst, many people who care about energies believe that a heated amethyst has nowhere close to the power of a natural citrine. The two don't look anything alike either, only a fool would be fooled.
I am talking more about the citrine fairycrystal mentioned, not the possibly slight alteration Lynn describes with her amethyst. If it's still a nice purple than I'm sure it hasn't been messed with too much.
The whole point in crystal beauty I believe is that they are real works of art from mother nature. Anything else is just garbage in my opinion. It would sort of be like " look at this amazing fossil skull of this dinosaur, well actually it's not a dinosaur that actually existed, oh and it's actually made of plastic " I wonder how impressive your fossil collection would seem then
I prefer crystals/stones to be as natural as possible. In some cases cutting and polishing I find acceptable. Some stones actually benefit a great deal with a little polishing like tiger eye or labradorite. I don't buy anything that has been artificially heated, dyed, irradiated or lab made. Just out of principle, after all I would ruin my collection of natural specimens by contaminating them with such filth. If I have such strong feeling towards artificially made stones ( and I just collect for beauty ) I would assume people on this fourm that actually care about the crystal energies, should be even more against such practices. I would be surprised to find anyone here claiming they care about energy, actually entertaining the thought of getting such useless trinkets.
I am sorry if this offends anyone, as that is not the intention. This is simply how I view crystals. Sounds like Lynn has similar feelings.