The basic techniques involved in observing crystals through the microscope are straightforward and can be easily carried out at home. First, a thin crystal layer is grown on a glass microscope slide. This is done by dissolving, in an appropriate solvent, a small amount of the chosen substance on the slide. As the solvent evaporates the material recrystallizes out of solution forming a thin, translucent crystalline layer – just like frost on a window pane. Alternatively, the substance can be melted on the slide – as it cools it will recrystallize. Certain liquid crystals must be studied in this way as they'll only exhibit their liquid crystalline state at elevated temperatures.

Polarized light – light whose vibrations have been limited to only one plane – is needed to reveal the color latent within the microcrystals. It is easily produced through the use of two gray plastic polarizing filters. One is placed in the light beam before it passes up through the crystals, and the other is placed on the eyepiece, above the crystals. This latter one is then rotated until the polarizers are "crossed" and a black background is produced. The crystals are now ready to be observed through the microscope and are seen to shine brightly as they're brought into focus. Their highly-ordered molecular composition and many structural variations interact with the polarized light, selectively altering its wavelengths bringing forth the various colors. By slowly moving the slide, the microscopist can now seek out those designs which particularly appeal to him. A few drops of water added to the slide dissolve the crystals and set the process in motion again.

Expensive equipment is by no means required – all of the photomicrographs in this site were taken through a microscope built in 1915. Except for the three more highly magnified Detail photos, each image depicts an area about twice the size of a period in typical printed text. (For further information on photomicroscopy, and more, visit the Notes section.)

Crystals may well be the highest physical forms which matter, acting out of itself alone, can produce. Those holding firmly to a materialistic worldview cannot do otherwise than dismiss such an assertion, for they see in matter the basis of everything – not only are the physical bodies of plants, animals and people the creations of matter, but so too is life itself and all that springs from it – consciousness, feeling, all thought and willing. These are seen as by-products of the particular configurations into which lifeless matter has arranged itself. While such a viewpoint may be correct, it is by no means necessarily so – rather, it is but one possibility among several. For while living things are certainly composed of matter, the questions of whether they're brought into being by matter – and consist solely of it – remain wide open. Indeed, new discoveries in biology and physics, as well as the widespread accounts of the "near-death experience" and, perhaps most significantly, the spiritual insights of the Austrian scholar Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), all point in a very different direction.

In viewing these photomicrographs the question may well arise as to why they look so different from the typical quartz crystals with which we're all familiar. The quartz crystal – asides from being so much larger – has developed under conditions which allowed it to grow freely in all directions, while the growth of the microcrystals has been largely confined to a single plane. Of course they have depth as well, but they remain so thin that the microscope can be sharply focused upon their fine inner structures. Also, with quartz we're seeing one discrete crystal – or sometimes two or three fused together – while the photomicrographs here may depict many microcrystals at once, or, at other times, mere portions of larger crystals.