Don’t get scammed! What is ‘Agni Manitite’?
Following on from the recent explosion in popularity of Moldavite, a new material has reared its somewhat mysterious head.
There are posts on every mineral sales group I’m a member of offering “Agni Manitite”. The sellers insist it is “just like Moldavite”, an ‘extra terrestrial stone’, or go far enough to insist that it is a tektite. It is not.
This material seems to mostly be sold by Indonesians, and then to crystal healing/new age shops, who are advertising it with all sorts of claims lies.
The names used include “agnimanitite”, “pearl of fire”, sometimes “cintamani”.
There is a type of language that often seems to be used in the posts – the language refers to everyone as being in a ‘tribe’, or a family, or as brothers, or sisters, part of the family.
So what is this material?
The correct term for it would be “Obsidian”, or if you want to be generous, a pseudo-tektite (fake tektite). These are nothing more than water rounded nodules of Obsidian. It can’t even be called rare – I found numerous Facebook posts offering hundreds of kilograms each.
The cheapest piece of this on eBay UK currently is £9. It’s 9.6 grams. I sell 100 grams packets of black Obsidian for just under £2, or rounded nodules known as ‘Apache Tears’ for 75p. The most expensive pieces of Agni Manitite on eBay can be hundreds of pounds.
A trained eye will quickly notice that this new material doesn’t have any of the characteristic shapes of tektites.
I don’t have a piece of what is being sold as “Agni Manitite”, but I did have some Apache Tear Obsidian and some Indochinite tektites handy. Here are some photos for your reference. Note that the Tektites are significantly more opaque – we’d have better results with thinner pieces, but you can see that the Obsidian is significantly more transparent and has a flatter grey-brown colour – coincidentally just like the Agni Manitites…
If you happen to have purchased one of these and wouldn’t mind me having a look, I’d appreciate it! Also, sorry I’ve ruined it for you.
If you do have any questions about Tektites, I would recommend the Facebook group ‘Tektites’.
By all means I don’t support mis-selling or false claims of formation etc. But from an energetic point of view I found mine to be very strong and effective in spiritual development. I would recommend working with one rather than getting hung up on human involvement and then avoiding them. Buy one, work with it, feel it. It would be a shame to be overlooked as it really can aid significant transformation.
Oh lighten up… it’s. Mystical tektite. Do your research!
No, it isn’t. It’s Obsidian.
Your information about agni manitite is rather wrong … its not Obsidian…. might want to learn more about how tektites are formed…
Did you actually read the post Simon? It makes it quite clear that I know what tektites are, and that ‘Agni Manitite’ is nothing but a misrepresented Obsidian masquerading as a tektite.
Try and find anything about the legitimacy of it without using a website that uses words like ‘healing’ or ‘magic’.
John, this is a good, short article clarifying that the metaphysical market calls this a tektite, when it’s origins are clearly volcanic. I used to own such a mystical store that sold crystals, etc., but it was disappointing to see how many naive people latch onto these magical marketing stories that are churned out for the industry by a small minority of marketers who saw an opportunity to take advantage of a mostly gullible market audience. The products sold like crazy but it gets discouraging after years of trying to educate folks beyond the stories that sell people on these stones and greatly inflates even the bulk, wholesale market price. Fanciful stories about crystals have always been part of the metaphysical market, but it got out of control after Robert Simmons Book of Stones hit the market in 2005. The book had a coffee table quality with larger, glossy hi-res photos and a format of ‘stone stories’ that worked perfectly for selling all the stones and crystals that Simmons” crystal supply & crystal jewelry wholesale distribution business marketed to the retail stores at much higher prices than other suppliers of the very same semiprecious stones. Of course I steered clear of his greatly overpriced wholesale supply chain propped up by his coauthored book of channeled stone properties, but the book was everywhere in that industry and most customers were influenced by it. I don’t remember if Simmons description mentioned that this stone had terrestrial, volcanic origins, but there were other books on the properties of crystals that, while calling it Indonesian tektite, actually went on to state its true geological origins. All that long wind of text said, i had a plumber over about 8 mo. ago and when he saw a piece of moldavite i had in a case in my living room, he got to talking about tektites and returned to his truck to retrieve a duffle bag of various tektites that he seemed to keep with him at all times. I have been out that field for 9 years now so it was strange to have all of that stone energy talk come back into my life. Btw, i am sensitive to crystal-stone energies but i’m not unduly influenced by the imaginitive stories that often accompany them. I got involved with them 20+ years ago when doing in depth lucid dream exploration and when i reread my dream journal entries, the dreams i had when i slept with a given crystal seemed to have common pattern of influence on the dreamstate so it only my expansion of love rockhounding.
Long story slightly shorter, this plumber pulled out a sizable gob of this ‘cintamani’ stone and i asked him what it was as there is no geological reference to cintamani and that’s when he mentioned it was Indonesian ‘tektite’. I know it is only my subjective experience and counts for nothing just that, but when i held it, i felt a rush of kundalini up my spine like i hadn’t felt it years. It sounds ridiculous because the stone was created much like any other obsidian yet i have never had much, if any response to obsidian. I’ve wanted to buy some just to retest it and see if i had the response again bur the business side pf me can’t bring myself to pay the crazy markup for what is essentially obsidian.
Egads..fill in the missing words with your mind when you read my long comment..thought i included them but didn’t proofread. I’m bad at smartphone typing.
https://www.mindat.org/locentry-138573.html
NOT new age. From a valid source with citations from experts around the world, extensive history of Angi Manitite, including the chemical make up (see Periodic-Table) of Tektite versus Obsidian. Tektites from a given locality have similar susceptibilities, it’s irrefutable evidence. This is a valid Tektite.
I suggest you read the study I shared before writing this off as “essentially obsidian”. Like Libyan Desert Glass, this mineral will fetch a high value as supply decreases. Molvadite can be found by farmers plowing their fields. It’s common and reoccurring making it useless to a serious collector.
Hi Stacy,
Correct, there are tektites from Indonesia – I’ve never argued against that. In collectors terms they are typically referred to as javaites or billitonites. However, they are not the same material as this ‘Agni Manitite’. There is no comprehensive history of Agni Manitite, because it doesn’t exist. This is purely a scam.
Actual Tektites from Indonesia are available, however, they are not widely available to the extent of ‘Agni Manitite’. For your reference, someone offered me 500kg of it last week. I don’t think it could be considered rare by any means.
Moldavite is absolutely not common (200-300 tons total found) and the worldwide supply has almost completely dried up over the past year or two, taking the price from around £1/gram to £20/gram…
Well of course you’re offered low prices. This is the first red flag for any collector. Fakes exist, especially with tektites since the production cost is minimal and demand is high. I can sell you a “AAA Ruby” and say it’s a real Ruby because both fluoresce. It’s up to you to have it certified as authentic, especially if the price is too good to be true. As far as the Moldavite, anything less than 20g is useless to SERIOUS collectors. My “High end” collection exceeds $10,000, yet I only have 5 minerals. Slivers are readily available on the market is more correct to say. A nugget is not collection worthy unless you simply want a tiny piece of “extraterrestrial”. Agni hasn’t been studied extensively enough to declare it as fake Tektite. Especially since it’s not usually sold as a “tektite”. You only find that description in places you shouldn’t be purchasing high quality stones from in the first place. ESPECIALLY Facebook. That’s a poor example to use. Until more studies have been released, it’s subjective to declare obsidian or Tektite..unless you have unpublished studies of your own?
I think you’re somewhat missing the point of this post, which is to warn people (including non high end collectors!) off buying a fake stone from Facebook, ebay, etsy, etc.
Please feel free to post a link to a piece of Agni, described as Agni, on a “high quality” retailer – I have not been able to find one. It is only sold on social media and websites offering metaphysical items.
You referred to Angi as “This new material”.
A non-fiction book was published in 1966 (not new age) regarding a collectors search around the world for Angi Manitite.
Fire Pearl: Magic Gem From the Moon by
This book is also one of the first mention of Tektites in a book as extraterrestrial, theorizing Tektites as stones as otherworldly. It’s quite rare and out of print but still obtainable. There’s a rich history of Angi beyond the internet is my point here. It’s not simply a fake material with no worth, it has a rich history next to Tektites that’s quite notable beyond “new age” hype.
I’ll be purchasing bulk Angi from America as well as Indonesia to do my own testing and research on the comparison made here in the article with Apache Tears in the near future. I’ll share my findings with links and test results as well.
Whether it be extraterrestrial or terrestrial, Angi Manitite isn’t as useless as this article makes it seem. I’d actually like to thank you for shining light on this particular mineral for me.
Should buyers be aware of it being sold as an “extraterrestrial” stone? Oh absolutely!…but never dismissive of the entire history. It may mean more to them than what they were looking for.
Hi Stacy,
I am referring to the material which has appeared online as a “new material”, yes – because people were not selling it as Agni prior to a year or two ago.
I’m fully aware that people have been referring to Agni Manitite for years; I am saying that this material offered online is not the same material and that it is not a tektite. Javanite tektites exist. The materials currently being sold online as agni are not Javanese tektites.
I did have a look on the British Museum and NHM archives to see if the pieces mentioned as being donated to historical figures were donated/displayed anywhere but hit a blank.
Tektites, according to current understanding aren’t extra-terrestrial in the sense that they are most likely pieces of the Earth that have been catapulted into the upper atmosphere by meteoritic impacts.
While I’ve read this thread entirely , I have to agree with both sides of the argument. The issue here is that there are people off loading wholesale lots of obsidian as agni. As someone who is on the ground in Indonesia 3x a year, this material is everywhere and looks identical to real agni. So while 95% of what you see online is obsidian being sold as agni , there is real agni out there. I myself have occurred a large collection from over the years. Make no mistake real agni is a tektite , not a pseudo- tektite or a meteorite . It formed when a meteorite hit , fussing w earths crust sending millions of pieces into the upper atmosphere. One thing I should also mention is that real agni is also found in China. When this meteor hit the earth the damage spread for miles. Most of the real meteorite pieces were lost in the ocean.