How many of you work with crystals?
Those of you who do may be aware that natural crystals have a spiritual spark which grant them their abilities?
Dont know any better way to say it except saying that all crystals have souls, which is half right and half wrong...
Thats why I just call it a "spiritual spark".
Back to the subject...
Thats why crystals have their attributes and abilities such as responding to a specific chakra or help you dream clearer.
Synthetic crystals lack this spark since it wasnt made by the love and care of the nature, but by man and his machines.
Worthless?
No, on the contrary.
Syntetic crystals can be programmed and given their own spiritual spark.
However, the power of the spark would depend on the skill of the sorcerer/magician/pagan and doing wrong would not result in a spark but in...nothing.
Glass is the absolute lowest substitute to an crystal but it can be used the same way.
That bring me to the point of this post...
Toy marbles can be programmed to fill different roles and being used to various magical roles you dont want to use your gems for.
As an example...
You are running low on energy, your soul thirst for energy but you cant fill it, not even by sucking your environment dry of energy.
You could take two glass marbles, imagine one of them sucking energy from the surroundings then imagine it have a link to the second marble which transfer the energy to you.
Then you drop the energy sucking marble in the sea and carry the reciever with you at any time.
This is not something you would want to do with your quartz, eh?
You can also take a really big marble and use it as a shield generator to protect you when you work with your magic.
Hope this article helped you or gave you some ideas.