review
by Janice Van Cleve
Can the shape of water itself, the very fluid of life, be physically changed by a thought, a word or an image? This is the exciting window of possibility opened by the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto. Emoto's work was hinted at in the popular movie "What The Bleep?" He was in Seattle April 24 to speak about his findings to an enthusiastic crowd of about 500 people. I went to that talk and this is what I discovered.
Born in Yokohama, Japan, in 1943 at the height of World War II, Masaru Emoto told the audience that he started out life as a water seller. He graduated from Yokohama Municipal University's department of humanities and sciences with a focus on International Relations. In October of 1992 he received certification from the Open International University as a Doctor of Alternative Medicine.
Emoto was convinced that thoughts and feelings could alter physical reality. His theory is that all matter, at its basic subatomic level, is made up of vibrations.
He calls his theory "hado," a combination of the Japanese characters for "move" and "wave," and it fits comfortably within the larger wave theory of modern physics. Emoto's contribution to wave theory is the theory that if matter and energy consist of vibrations or waves, and human thought consists of vibrations or waves, our thoughts ought to be able to affect physical matter.
Using tuning forks, he demonstrated to the audience how vibrations work, . Two forks tuned to the same frequency were set side by side. When Emoto struck one, the second responded by vibrating. The second fork continued to vibrate even when the first was silenced. A different fork tuned just two megahertz lower did not elicit a response from the second tuning fork. In other words, it's not just any noise or vibration but a specific noise or vibration that causes a specific response in the target.
Emoto set out to prove his "hado" theory using water. Water is a unique substance in the world. It is necessary for all life. Most molecules are heaviest in solid state, yet water at 4° Celsius is heavier than ice. Water dissolves almost all other substances and has one of the highest surface tensions in nature. Humans are almost 80 percent water at birth and are still 60 percent water in their later years. The implication, as was pointed out in the movie, is that if our thoughts can affect water, then by thought alone we can physically affect ourselves. In fact, Emoto created an acronym for "hado" -- "Healing And Discovering Ourselves".
He began experimenting with water in the 1990's. He would expose water to various vibrations, freeze it and photograph the result. Water changes rapidly and is unstable, so in order to obtain an example of an average crystal at a given vibration, Emoto's team had to photograph as many samples as possible under as many conditions as possible. No two crystals would ever be identical, they knew. Yet crystals do show a certain distinctive structure, either grid or laminar, and can be identified by this structural tendency. Music and visual images were used to stimulate the water samples. The water was also exposed to words written on paper and photographs placed underneath or around the glass containers to see if these energies had any impact. They did.
The specific steps (described at www.hado.net/procedures.html) are:
1. We pour approximately 0.5 ml of water into 50 Petri dishes from a sample.
2. We place the dishes into a freezer for three hours and maintain the temperature at -25 degrees Celsius.
3. The observation of the water crystals takes place in a refrigerated room where temperature is maintained at -5C.
4. Observation equipment: Metal optical microscope (Olympus) with external camera. We take photos of crystals at magnifications of x100~200.
5. Water samples in Petri dishes have expanded by freezing and form a process on the ice tip.
6. We direct the light from the microscope onto the ice tip and observe water crystals.
7. Water crystals can be observed when the ice tip is melting away.
In general the water crystals appear to take on the design and image of the vibrations provided. Positive vibrations seemed to promote well-formed water crystals and their crystallization rate tends to be higher than those produced by negative vibrations. The effects were the same in several languages because the underlying human emotional vibrations are the same regardless of the specific vocabulary.
Could this be the reason that soothing classical music seems to promote healthy growth in house plants, as has been demonstrated by other scientists? Could this be why some music excites humans and other music calms them? Is this the reason that drumming circles and spiritual chants help us reach altered states of consciousness? It sounds plausible, given that we are primarily water and water reacts to these vibrations. It all depends, of course, on whether a well-formed water crystal is a happy crystal!
Unfortunately, Emoto's presentation often drifted very far from science and into what he considers his personal messianic mission to save the world. He spoke of his nightmares about the flooding mythical continents of Mu and Atlantis and how he "cured" them by writing his first book on messages from water. He claimed the 12 notes of the musical scale coincided with the 12 signs of the zodiac. He asserted that if we can bring 60 billion cells in our bodies into harmony through love, then our planet can house 60 billion people in harmony with love. He claimed that water was the messenger of God and kept quoting from John's gospel, "In the beginning was the word." He even led the audience in a sing along.
But Emoto is no quack. This was a book tour, not a scientific presentation. He understood his audience. Every specious argument and outrageous conclusion he uttered met with ohhs and ahhs from the adoring onlookers. He alternated self-deprecating humor with the hubris of a self appointed savior. He blended his personal philosophical beliefs with trite jokes and music. He masterfully manipulated the mix of slides, talk and audience participation into something like a new age tent revival...and he sold a lot of books.
I came away from the talk with the sense that Masaru Emoto is on to something. His experiments, if they can be duplicated and proven in other labs by other researchers, could open some doors to new health treatments. They may lead to new understandings of plants and animals, and how all living things relate to their surroundings and to the universe as a whole. They may reinforce the wave theory of physics and help redefine elements of cause and effect. They may even empower humans to take more personal responsibility for the world and how they live in it.
That is, of course, until politicians and marketing executives figure out how to use vibrations in water for their own ends.
Janice Van Cleve is a writer and curious enquirer into things physically quantum.
Copyright © 2006 by the article's author