11 Crystal Altar Setup Ideas & Steps to Build an Altar

If your crystal collection is more than a dozen crystals, it’s time to set up a crystal altar that looks beautiful and works holistically. 

What is a crystal altar used for? How to set up a crystal altar? What are the best crystals for an altar? What are the best altar ideas for crystals?

Crystal Altars are arrangements of sacred things, like herbs, crystals, healing bowls, candles, and other spiritual items. You can display your crystals based on purpose, chakra, color, size, and metaphysical properties for cleansing, healing, charging, meditation, etc. 

We will learn how to set up a crystal altar with these steps: 

• Determine a purpose
• Select your crystals 
• Find a safe place
• What to add to the altar
• How to arrange the altar
• How to cleanse the altar 
• How to activate the altar 

We will also learn how to set up crystal altars for purification, meditation, chakra, healing, spirit contact, peace, good luck, fertility, divination, and protection with 77 crystals! 

How To Set Up a Crystal Altar: Stepwise Guide 

Any sacred place you place a Holy book or your sacred items automatically makes it an altar. If you add healing crystals to it based on your intentions, metaphysical properties, Feng Shui, chakras, colors, or sizes, they can manifest specific things. 

So, how to build a crystal altar? 

Step 1: Determine the Purpose for Your Altar 

People generally use Crystal Altars to display their crystals for easy access or specific spiritual rituals. 

Before you start setting up the altar, the first step is to determine the purpose of your altar. What are you making it for? Is it for aesthetics, healing, peace, or luck? Write it down as descriptively as possible in a book.

Step 2: Select the Crystals for Your Altar 

If your purpose for the altar is more metaphysical than aesthetic, you’ll find it easy to pick crystals based on their purpose, metaphysical properties, and powers. 

For instance, self-cleansing crystals are great for purification, whereas Root Chakra crystals work well for grounding. 

Step 3: Find a Safe Place to Set Up

People usually keep their crystal altars higher up from the floor to keep them away from pets, kids, or unwanted visitors. 

You can set it up in glass cases, on tables, shelves, or other places. Your altar should be away from direct sunlight and rain to safeguard crystals from prolonged exposure, as the sun and water can degrade even the strongest crystals.

Which direction should the altar face? 

Most spiritual altars (crystal and non-crystal) face the eastern direction because the sun rises in the east.

The best direction for placing crystal altars, however, is based on feng shui.

Here’s how to set up your crystal altar based on feng shui directions:

Step 4: Choose What to Place On the Altar 

Do you know what the four elements of the altar are? Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind are the four elements of the altar (Hellenistic thought). 

A few cultures consider the fifth element of Ether, or Void, an integral part of their crystal altars. You can keep the setup representing Earth, Water, Fire, Wind/ Air/Sky (Aromatherapy), and Ether/Void (Sound). 

Some cultures consider light, darkness, the moon, time, shadow, thunder, force, and ice as natural elements. 

You can basically keep anything that holds an aesthetic or spiritual connection with your mind, body, or soul on the altar with crystals. 

Here are some suggestions on what to place on a crystal altar, apart from crystals, and why. 

Step 5: How To Arrange Your Crystal Altar

Once you have a safe place to set up your crystal altar, the next step is to arrange your crystal table. 

How do you set up a crystal table? You can arrange crystals on an altar based on sacred shapes, geometry, chakras, and more. 

This chart will tell you how to arrange crystals in 7 ways on your altar: 

Step 6: Cleanse 

Cleansing your altar is crucial for removing negativity,  as it prepares the altar for attracting metaphysical benefits. It’s good to cleanse your crystal altar daily. 

This chart describes how to do the three best cleansing techniques for altars:

Step 7: Activate the Crystal Altar 

Once your crystal altar is cleansed, it’s time to set your intention with it. 

How do you activate the crystal altar? You can program or activate the crystal in many ways, but here are three favorites: 

11 Crystal Altar Setup Idea & How to Make them 

Now that you know how to make a crystal altar, I’ll teach you how to build 11 unique crystal altars and use them for different purposes.

1. Purification Crystal Altar

While you can keep self-cleansing crystals on a crystal altar for cleansing, a dedicated space for purifying crystals, energies, and vibrations in your home is always better. This way, you can cleanse any crystal or object by holding it in front of the purification altar for a few seconds.

Crystals you can add to the purification altar:

• Clear Quartz
• Selenite
• Super 7
• Shungite
• Geodes 
• Phenacite
• Tourmaline 

2. Meditation Altar

A safe space to meditate with meditation crystals, where you can sit or stand comfortably, is a meditation altar. It’s great for visualizing and manifesting intentions, and charging crystals, crystal jewelry, and objects. 

You can add singing bowls, smudge sticks, sacred geometry, tuning forks, drums, and plants to this altar.

Crystals you can add to the meditation altar:

• Amethyst
• Labradorite
• Apophyllite
• Spirit Quartz
• Hematite
• Celestine
• Cathedral Quartz 

Read more on using crystals for wisdom and knowledge to add to the meditation altar.

3. Chakra Altar 

Crystal altars are excellent for balancing, charging, and unblocking one or more chakras. Try to arrange chakra altars by chakra shapes, symbols, colors, and metaphysical properties. 

Crystals you can add to the chakra altar:

• Root Chakra crystals: Red Jasper or Hematite 
• Sacral Chakra crystals: Carnelian or Aragonite 
• Solar Plexus Chakra crystals: Citrine or Yellow Sapphire 
• Heart Chakra: Rose Quartz or Peridot 
• Throat Chakra: Turquoise or Aquamarine 
• Third eye Chakra: Labradorite or Tanzanite 
• Crown Chakra: Amethyst or Charoite 

4. Healing Altar

Certain crystals accelerate healing in the body, mind, and soul by unblocking negativity from your auras, chakras, etcetera. You can make a healing crystal altar based on the area of healing you want to target. 

Crystals you can add to the healing altar:

• Turquoise
• Malachite
• Unakite
• Aquamarine
• Pietersite
• Pink Kunzite
• Green Fluorite 

5. Angel Altar

If you’re an advanced crystal user, astrologer, tarot card reader, or psychic, it’s good to build crystal altars for communicating with angels, spirits, and otherworldly beings. Depending on your spiritual awareness, angelic crystals help you become a medium for spirit contact. 

Crystals you can add to the angel altar:

• Angelite
• Angel Aura Quartz
• Celestite
• Moldavite
• Prehnite
• Seraphinite 
• Sodalite

6. Peace Altar

You can bring serenity into your home by using crystals for harmony, calm, and balance on your crystal altar. Peace altars are excellent in offices, living rooms, bedrooms, entrances, and gardens. 

Crystals you can add to the peace altar:

• Rose Quartz
• Pink Calcite 
• Larimar
• Ammonite
• Amazonite
• Howlite
• Lepidolite

7. Good Luck Altar 

When life becomes a series of bad luck, it may be time to look for a solution in the crystal altar. You can attract success in your career, financial luck, good fortune, and abundance by setting up a crystal altar in the north, northeast, south, or southeast direction. 

Crystals you can add to the good luck altar:

• Citrine
• Pyrite
• Jade
• Tiger’s Eye
• Imperial Topaz
• Blue Sapphire
• Hessonite Garnet

8. Fertility Altar 

When the Sacral Chakra is blocked, it can stop the reproductive system from functioning properly. The right crystals on your altar can activate your kundalini energy, and it powers up fertility and libido. It’s good to keep fertility altars in bedrooms. 

Crystals you can add to the fertility altar:

• Ruby Zoisite 
• Peach Moonstone 
• Jade
• Vesuvianite
• Pink Quartz 
• Rhodonite
• Green Aventurine 

9. Divination Altar

Experienced crystal users use crystal altars for psychic abilities apart from prosperity and healing. Certain crystal altars can activate your dormant psychic powers like clairvoyance, intuition, foresight, wisdom, astral travel, and psychic vision. 

Crystals you can add to the divination altar:

• Apatite
• Lemurian Seed
• Indigo Gabbro
• Purpurite
• Green Datolite 
• Azurite
• Iolite

10. Protection Altar 

Most of us live around negativity that our spirits are drowning in. Did you know you can repel negativity from toxic people with crystals? 

Negativity from evil eyes, curses, psychic harm, and EMF radiation are easily eliminated with a protection altar of high-vibration crystals. We suggest setting it up in your bedroom or the center of the house to protect the whole family.

Crystals you can add to the protection altar:

• Snowflake Obsidian
• Black Jade
• Black Kyanite 
• Purple Fluorite 
• Black Tourmaline 
• Smithsonite
• Hemimorphite

11. Grounding Altar

Another way to remove stress, negativity, and evil vibrations from affecting your body, mind, or spirit is with grounding crystals. You can set them up in the living room, office, balcony, or entrance to help other people.

Crystals you can add to the grounding altar:

• Red Jasper
• Black Obsidian
• Bronzite
• Smoky Quartz 
• Red Agate
• Amber
• Black Onyx

FAQ: Crystal Altar Set Up 

1. Where is the best place to put an altar in the house?

The best place to put an altar in the house differs based on your purpose and associated feng shui directions. 

Here’s a quick list of feng shui directions to refer to: 

• North: Career Success
• Northeast: Good Luck
• Northwest: Protection 
• West: Creativity
• Southwest: Luck in love
• Southeast: Prosperity 
• East: Harmony 

2. Can you put all your crystals together? 

Displaying all your crystals together isn’t a problem if the same planet rules all your crystals or the planets they’re friends with. 

You must select crystals based on your purpose because crystals with the same chakra or color may have compatible metaphysical properties. 

3. What crystals should you not put together on the altar? 

A few crystal pairings you should avoid are:

• Clear Quartz with Malachite
• Amethyst with Carnelian
• Tiger’s Eye with Smoky Quartz

Read more on the what crystals should not be together article.

4. How many levels should an altar have? 

You can have as little as one or as many levels as you want on an altar. 

Typically, a spiritual altar has two levels representing heaven and earth. Many cultures also have altars with three to six levels with earth, heaven, hell, purgatory, afterlife, and reincarnation. 

You can add as many levels as you want, based on intention, shades of chakra colors, lucky numbers, etcetera. For instance, Root Chakra may be one level, Heart Chakra fourth, and Crown Chakra seventh. 

5. Can the altar be on the floor?

No, altars should never be placed on the floor because it’s disrespectful and attracts bad feng shui. If you don’t have any other place, keep your altar on a podium or a sacred cloth on the floor. 

6. Can Christians have altars? 

Yes, Christians can have altars because altars are holy places that act as sacred spaces to meditate on faith. 

There are so many altars in the Holy Bible. 

As a Christian, I have an altar in my native home with Sacred Heart, Candle, Holy Bible, rosary, cross, incense, and prayer books. 

My husband’s family home has a giant marble altar decorated with flowers, incense, lamps, smudge sticks, conch, bells, rice, water, fire, Tulsi plant, and many sacred things that they use for morning and evening Puja.

No matter your religion, you can have an altar with items spiritually important to you. 

Make your Crystal Altar Today!

Crystal users naturally end up with endless big and small, dark and light, or powerful and gentle crystals when exploring the world of healing crystals. 

It’s better to set up a crystal altar that attracts good vibes instead of crowding up your crystal table.

Crystal altars work well for manifestation, cleansing, healing, psychic powers, protection, spiritual guidance, peace, meditation, prayer, and more. 

Set up a crystal altar in spaces where you can easily cleanse, use, and rearrange the crystals. Don’t forget to note the seven steps to make crystal altars we learned. 

Here’s a quick summary of this article before you go:

Which is your favorite crystal altar setup idea? We’d love to know about your crystal altar if you already have one!