When I first heard of Dr. Emoto’s amazing work with water crystals through his book “The Hidden Messages in Water” I was absolutely stunned. I then saw the movie “What the Bleep do we Know” and became thoroughly intrigued. I set off to conduct a research project in the chemistry department of Castleton College in Vermont to see if I could find sufficient evidence and support for Dr. Emoto’s claims to merit conducting a deeper research project to try to reproduce his work. The idea was to uncover as much information about his methods and procedures as possible to determine if is would actually be feasible to study the effect of energy healing, such as Reiki, on the formation of water crystals. I was so excited to think that I might be the first person in the world to verify his work!
So what follows is my official research paper that contains all of my findings and determinations after months of exhaustive review of Dr. Emoto’s published works. I hope that it will give you a deeper understanding and appreciation for the truth.
Sincerely,
Kristopher Setchfield, BA, Health Science
Natural Science Department
Castleton State College, Vermont
20 December, 2005
Review and analysis of Dr. Masaru Emoto’s
published work on the effects of external stimuli
on the structural formation of ice crystals.
This paper surveys the wealth of information that was uncovered during investigation of Dr. Masaru Emoto’s claim that human thought has a direct observable effect on the structural formation of ice crystals. Upon initial review of Dr. Emoto’s published findings, I became very interested in the implications of his research and developed the initial concept for this research project, which was to review Mr. Emoto’s laboratory methodology to learn if it would be possible to test his hypothesis and reproduce his results at Castleton State College. Since the human body is composed of between 50% and 80% water, I could not help but wonder, “If thought affects the molecular structure of water, then what effect might thought have on the human bodies?”
However, after many hours of investigation it became increasingly clear that a superior purpose for this project was to review Mr. Emoto’s procedures and results for scientific validity. This revision in the original intent for this project has been very eye-opening and the findings have grounded my opinion of Dr. Emoto’s work in a concrete of scientific rigor and skepticism.
Dr. Emoto became a Doctor of Alternative Medicine at the Open International University for Alternative Medicine in India in 1992, and he has become famous throughout the world in the alternative medicine realm for his 1999 self-published book, The messages of water. Since that time, his narrative and collection of photos of ice crystals has been picked up by independent publishing companies and has grown into subsequent works, such as The hidden messages in water (HMW). Recently his work was featured in a highly controversial movie titled What the bleep do we know!? (Bleep) and published in an essay in The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine (JACM). These thrust his work into the international spotlight and portrayed his work as proven scientific research. It was because of the notoriety gained by his books and the Bleep movie that I first learned of Emoto’s fantastic claim that he has found evidence that human thought affects ice crystal formation and that the structure and level of detail of an ice crystal is an indicator of water quality.
An ice crystal is a crystal lattice of solid water molecules that is often visible to the naked eye and commonly experienced as a snowflake. The crystal exhibits the hexagonal lattice structure that is characteristic of solid water, as illustrated in the picture on the left where two views are shown of the same ice crystal molecule–where the red balls represent the oxygen atoms, and the grey spokes represent the hydrogen atoms.
Fig. 1. Ice crystal lattice scructure (Libbrecht)
Fig. 2. Ice crystal faces
According to Kenneth Lebbrecht, chairman of the department of physics at Caltech and a leading ice crystal researcher, ice crystals form arms on the crystal faces (shown in the picture above on the right). The two hexagonal faces are known as basal faces, and the six rectangular faces are known as prism faces, and the overall shape of a crystal is determined by which faces grow arms. If the basal faces grow, a columnar crystal develops, and if the basal faces grow a plate shape will develop.
Lebbrecht’s morphology diagram below illustrates that ice crystal shape is a factor of both humidity and temperature. Temperature is the most important factor, and plates tend to form in the 0°C to -3°C and -10°C to -22°C ranges (red), while columns tend to form from -3°C to -10°C and below -22°C (green). Lower humidity tends to form simpler crystal shapes, while higher humidity tends to form more intricate crystals. It is currently not known why ice crystals form different shapes at different temperatures, as the physics of how the water molecules bond to a growing ice crystal are very complex and not well understood (Libbrecht).
Fig.3. Morphology Diagram of Ice Crystal Formation (Libbrecht)
Emoto’s hypothesis has evolved over the years of his research. Initially Dr. Emoto claimed that high-quality water forms beautiful and intricate crystals, while low-quality water has difficulty forming crystals. According to Dr. Emoto, an ice crystal of distilled water exhibits a basic hexagonal structure with no intricate branching, as shown in the photo below, taken from Dr. Emoto’s website www.hado.net (Hado). This basic hexagonal crystal is the simplest form of an ice crystal.
Fig. 4. Photo of Distilled Water Crystal (Emoto, Messages)
The following images (Emoto, Messages 119) show Emoto’s selected photos of ice crystal formation from tap water sources from Paris, London, and Tokyo, respectively in figure 5 and two spring water sources from Japan on the right.
Fig.5. Photos of Tap Water Crystals (Emoto, Messages)
Fig. 6. Photos of Spring Water Crystals (Emoto, Messages)
While these first claims of Dr. Emoto may seem to make common sense, his subsequent claims are ever-increasingly more controversial. After studying the variation in water crystals from samples taken from different locations around the world, Emoto decided to study what would happen to the formation of ice crystals from distilled water after the liquid was exposed to music.
Dr. Emoto reports that he found stunning correlations between the types of music played and the quality and beauty of the ice crystals that would form upon freezing. For instance, the crystal below on the left was observed in a sample of distilled water that had been played Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, and the crystal on the right was observed in a sample of distilled water that had been played so-called “heavy metal” music (Emoto, Messages 17). It is interesting to note that this claim closely mirrors the well-known pseudoscientific and so-far unsubstantiated claim that classical music has a beneficial effect on plant growth, and rock music hinders plant growth.
Fig.7. Distilled Water Crystals after Music (Emoto, Messages)
Following his study of the effects of music on ice crystal formation in distilled water, Dr. Emoto wondered if water crystal structure might be affected by other seemingly illogical external things, such as words written on paper. In the HMW prologue, Dr. Emoto states, “It didn’t seem logical for water to ‘read’ the writing, understand the meaning, and change form accordingly. But I knew from the experiments with music that strange things could happen.”
He began by writing phrases like “thank you” and “you fool” in various languages on paper and placing the paper under the distilled water samples, and his published photos below (Emoto, Messages 7) show a surprising result. Samples that had been exposed to the words “thank you” exhibited beautiful crystals, while samples that had been exposed to the words “you fool” would not form crystals at all.
Fig. 8. Distilled Water Crystals after Written Words (Emoto, Messages)
Encouraged by his findings, Emoto began studying the effects of prayer, blessings, and spoken words. Not surprisingly, his results indicated that water crystal formation was also sensitive to these things–yielding his current hypothesis; “Molecules of water are affected by our thoughts, words, and feelings.” (Emoto, Messages cover)
Dr. Emoto’s published method of obtaining photographs of crystals involves a relatively simple and inexpensive process. 0.5 mL samples of liquid water from a specific sample are placed on 100 petri dishes that are then frozen and stored at a temperature of -25°C for three hours in a freezer. A sample is removed from the freezer for observation under a microscope with a camera in a room with a constant temperature of -5°C. As the microscope’s light melts the top of the sample, crystals are observed and photos are taken (Emoto, Healing 2).
As quoted in an interview with Jon Woodhouse published in the Maui News, Emoto stated, “I did not start out with any modern scientific background. I did not even know the limit of science to stop me from giving this research a chance.” Not having been educated in the scientific community, Emoto has been happy to do his “research” without accurately employing the scientific method. While he does employ the spirit of the scientific method in his research design, he makes critical mistakes in its rigor. For example, Emoto’s research does employ observation of a physical phenomenon, formulation of a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon, and testing and revising the hypothesis, but he makes the critical mistake of failing to minimize the influence of the experimenter’s bias on the outcome of the research.
Dr. Emoto’s procedure for photographing crystals has no controlled means of ensuring that experimenter’s bias is prevented or minimized. For example, his methodology does not ensure that the obtained results are not selected consciously or subconsciously by the photographer. In fact, in the Maui News interview, Dr. Emoto specifically stated, “I do not require any blind tests on any samples,” but rather he believes that “the researcher’s aesthetic sense and character is the most important aspect when taking crystal photographs.” Emoto’s belief that ice crystal formation is sensitive to human thought lead him to select technicians who would not affect crystal formation with negative thoughts over technicians who had formal research experience.
While it is possible that he did, in fact, discover that water has an observable sensitivity to external stimuli such as prayer and words, Dr. Emoto’s experimental design and clinical procedures do not prove the claim. A double blind procedure in which a photographer would not know what water sample he or she was photographing would make the claim considerably more credible.
Emoto’s procedure, while simple and direct, does not eliminate numerous possible sources of error. Ice crystal structural formation is dependent on numerous environmental factors, the most important of which are temperature and humidity. While Emoto minimized some possible sources of error by conducting his studies in the same room with the same sample sizes, the same freezer and same microscope each time, other possible sources of error were not addressed. For example the Petri dishes were not sealed to prevent contamination or disturbance by the operator or environment; A simple thing such as the photographer’s breath while using the microscope could affect the warming rate of the frozen sample and temperature of crystal formation, thus affecting the structure of the resultant crystal.
As Dr. Emoto has not published the entirety of his photographs, it is unknown if he ruled out or ignored crystals that did not support his hypothesis. HMW and the JACM article only contain selected photos that support his claims, and we are left to wonder what the rest of the pictures look like. His procedures state that in any given test he will photograph 100 petri dish samples, yet only one picture per test is provided to the public. Emoto also fails to publish any findings that contradict his claim (or that were at least inconclusive). No errors are currently published in the JACM article, his websites, or his HMW book that my research has been able to uncover.
It is also worth noting that Dr. Emoto’s procedures indicate that his samples are frozen at -25°C, and his ice crystals are formed at -5°C. According to Figure 3, these temperatures should produce mostly column crystals rather than plate crystals, yet not one of Emoto’s published photos show a column crystal. This makes Dr. Emoto’s data suspect (as they appear to conflict with the findings of well-respected researcher) and indicates the possibility that Emoto excluded non-supportive data from his publications.
While Emoto has published his claim in one peer reviewed journal, it has neither been substantiated nor disproved by research scientists. It is worth noting that Emoto’s Journal article is not a scientific report, but a three page long “photo essay.” Dr. Emoto, himself, stated “Even though my book, Message from Water, was first published in 1999 and has been translated in over 20 languages, I have not heard of anybody else conducting similar research” (Woodhouse). His claims resonate with “Alternative therapists, religious leaders, spiritual researchers, artists, and musicians” (Emoto, Healing 3), but it appears that his work has widely been disregarded by traditional scientists as pseudoscience that does not merit further inspection.
The only published reproduction of Emoto’s work on record was conducted by Mr. Damian Nash’s AP psychology class at Durango High School in Colorado. Despite numerous difficulties reproducing Emoto’s procedure and controlling the temperature and sample freezing and melting rates, at least the class employed a blind experimental design to eliminate the possibility of experimenter’s bias when photographing the water samples. As published on the website of the Institute of Noetic Sciences on May 25, 2004, Mr. Nash states that the team “did not find sufficient evidence to refute or accept Emoto’s hypothesis that thought influences water crystal formation.”
There are innumerable companies today that make their livelihoods selling information and products that are supposed to be beneficial to human health. Ranging from miracle cures to last-ditch efforts, they are at best at least based substantiated ideas, and are at worst complete falsehoods. Unfortunately for his credibility with the scientific community, Dr. Emoto sells products based on his claims. For example, the products page of Emoto’s Hado website is currently offering “geometrically perfect” “Indigo water” that is “highly charged hexagonally structured concentrate,” and supposedly creates “structured water” that is “is more easily assimilated at the cellular level” for $35 for an eight-ounce bottle. Without providing scientific research references for the allegedly amazing qualities of his Indigo Water, Emoto’s commercial venture calls to mind ethical concerns regarding his intent and motivation—questions that would not be present if any scientist had published research supporting his claims.
At the very least Dr. Emoto’s claims are interesting thought stimulators. If they are true, then there are far reaching implications for the world, and the question that is posed in the Bleep movie becomes extremely important; “If thoughts can do this to water, what can they do to us?” Many people in our modern age want desperately to believe that we can affect our reality by our thoughts alone—a belief that is bolstered by Emoto’s claims. But if they are false, then he is misleading all of them and manipulating their hopes and view of the world.
Since Dr. Emoto is going it alone he receives much criticism for being a quack selling quackery. For example, the James Randi Educational foundation, an organization that offers a “one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event” (Randi, Challenge) has offered to give Dr. Emoto the prize if he will agree “to perform his tests in a double-blind fashion” (Randi, Water), yet Dr. Emoto has not responded.
It is this crucial lack of scientific foundation that prevents Dr. Emoto’s work from attracting interest by widely accepted and respected scientists at long-standing research institutions. This is unfortunate for the world if there is, after all, truth to his claims–as reproduction of his results by any scientist would lend much credence to his work. A little change in Emoto’s experimental design would do great things for the credibility of his claims. I recommend the following to ground his work in sound scientific principle:
* Eliminate the possibility of the scientist’s bias affecting the experiment’s results by implementing double blind procedures.
* Publish the entire collection of photos for all water sample tests that he has performed, not just the ones that support his claim.
* Minimize the sources of possible error in his procedures, such as variation in temperature and humidity between sample.
* Pay more attention to the time-tested methods of the scientific community rather than disregarding them. Emoto’s research could go much farther if he could interest scientists around the world in testing his hypothesis.
After the lengthy review of Emoto’s research methods and results, I have come to believe that Dr. Emoto is offering pseudoscience to the masses in the guise of defensible research. Only time and review by others will tell if there is any truth at the heart of Mr. Emoto’s claims, as Emoto himself thoroughly believes in his findings but does not value the scientific method or community. What is truly fearsome is the great numbers of people that accept his words as proven facts without looking deeper to find out if his claims are truly justified. While I respect Dr. Emoto’s desire to save the Earth’s water from contamination and pollution, unless he can produce a scientific paper and get it published in a scientific journal, I believe that he will continue to be ignored by the scientific community, and his claims will never be soundly proved or disproved.
Works Cited
Emoto, Masaru. “Healing with Water.” The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Volume 10, Number 1, 2004, pp. 19-21
—. The Hidden Messages in Water. Oregon: Beyond Words Publishing, 2004.
Libbrecht, Kenneth. “A Snow Crystal Primer: The basic facts about snowflakes and snow crystals.” Feb 1999. California Institute of Technology. Dec 2005. http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/primer/primer.htm
Nash, Damian. “Replicating the Water/Thought Experiment of Dr. Masaru Emoto.” May 2004. Institute of the Noetic Sciences. Dec. 2005. http://66.201.42.16/viewitem.php3?id=910&catid=510&kbid=ionsikc
Randi James. “Chiropractic Crackup, Talking to Water, Sylvia Emerges, Bidlack’s Lumps, An MS Miracle, and a Korean Magic Stone.” May 2003. James Randi Educational Foundation. Nov. 2005.
—. “One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge.” 2005. James Randi Educational Foundation. Nov. 2005.
Woodhouse, Jon. “Crystal Clear.” Maui News 13 February 2005.
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Thank you Kristopher, for your investigation. I wanted to see if I should include Emoto’s book on my website. As a result of this article, I won’t, and have pulled the book from my waiting area book case. While I believe that thoughts and intentions influence molecules, perhaps along the lines of what Emoto suggests, it would help the stewardship of this planet if the general public had a better understanding of the scientific method. Your article is an excellent example of the open minded thinking that we need.
If something seems to be to good, it probably is!
Thanks for your paper and critique on this vary important matter.
I hope that more of the science community will spend some time on these statements to confirm there validity.
I would love to find out more about this subject for myself.
I am planning to run the test Dr Emoto did with the rice grains in water as a starting point.
Thank you for your informed analysis of Dr Emoto’s work. I would truly love to believe in the claims and “research” into water crystals by him but also want the the research to be completed thoroughly.
I can’t understand that if there are all these calls for research into this fasinating subject why there has not been a landslide of follow-up studies to back up or disclaim?
“Many people in our modern age want desperately to believe that we can affect our reality by our thoughts alone.” Kristopher Setchfield, BA, Health Science, Natural Science Department, Castleton State College, Vermont.
I’ve been working on a non-fiction book called “Seeking Self: Our Biological Imperative to Create Narrative” since Mon 23 Nov, 2009. I will eventually organize it and submit it for publishing.
One of the important findings of my research confirms the above statement. For as long as we have been conscious of ourselves, there is a tendency to believe in the power of thought alone. This has led to some interesting revelations, showing that in fact we miss much that goes on in our environment and our own brains. We fill in the gaps with stories (unfortunately much of it lies). This is not a negative indictment of the human species; it’s simply a biological fact of our evolution. Sometimes, we can get the right answer for entirely the wrong reason. The truth about the brain is that sometimes we get lucky (see Dawkins’ theory of PETWAC). Most times, however, to effect real change, we’ve got to do more than just believe or think we can change or change things by thought alone. The need to believe we can change the world with thought alone is the product of a deep insecurity about our future (both personal and social) that it will become bad if we discovered that all there is to life is physical matter. The strange truth is that we do not yet know precisely what physical matter is, so we slip around that ignorance by believing we can influence matter with our minds because matter may be something intertwined with the deep mysteries of mind through processes that we will never understand. Then again, it may not.
My position as a scientist, is a skeptical one. This is the best position to be in – by far, because at the end of the day, nearly every event turns out to be more than we can learn about it, and most often, what appeared to be magical or special at the time was not really the event itself, but our state of mind towards it.
Photographers no doubt, are familiar with the special moments that photos can sometimes bring out. In the art of story telling, we call these micro-moments. A frog hanging by one arm from a leaf above a still pond about to fall in. This ability to freeze time, gives us the illusion that what happens in that moment is somehow iconographic of a deeper meaning, that it tells a story. This is not bad, it is just how we are wired up. If we could not place things in context and weave a story around them, we would not be able to make sense of the world. But there is such a thing as over-reading the world. Seeing more than actually appears. That over-reading phenomenon is an artefact of how our minds work, as gap fillers, as interpreters.
The pictures of Emoto water crystals are one such example. Quoting Nash, Institute of Noetic Sciences on May 25, 2004, we “did not find sufficient evidence to refute or accept Emoto’s hypothesis that thought influences water crystal formation.” You’d be surprised what a rigorous scientific study entails. When the common person says, “I conducted an experiment”, there is a world of difference compared to when a scientist says the same thing. Take a very simple scientific step that a common person would never take, but a scientist would always take as a given: autoclaving vessels, containers and transfer implements. Not to mention fume hoods, negative air pressue, temperature control, extremely accurate weighing of quantities, control group, these are just some of the things that scientists do that ordinary people never do. And scientists do much more. So when a proper scientific study has been conducted, it has to meet all these requirements that ordinary people simply cannot achieve in their own homes.
Thus, at the end of the day, what is more important to our understanding is not whether Emoto may or may not produce some interesting crystal patterns, but why humans have the need to tell stories about things that are not based on reality. Understanding why humans do this, is a far more important undertaking for the human species than Emoto water will ever teach us. It will take us deep into the structure of the human brain and human behavior and reveal possibilities for accepting what we are and changing those things that we can. No doubt, what we will be able to change, in time will change, so that in the future, it is highly likely that people will manipulate the genes that express the brain. In other words, designed humans.
I have a word of caution about that, but this is not the place to go into it.
Nice comment, very well organized idea. Im studying psichology and i cant say that i am scientist at all. But i would like to ask you what do you think of the of neuroplasticity of the neurons? A book by scientist Norman Doidge, called The Brain That Changes Itself, based on clinical research, claims that our atitude can change the way the brain works by slightly changing its phisiological “determinants” …its like, parts of brains damaged by strokes that are not capable to carry out its functions anymore are replaced by other parts through specific practices and these other parts become able to perform tasks they werent supposed to, according to the nature of the biology that determines its functions(we have specific areas of the brain associated to specific tasks like smelling, seeing or tasting that are not supposed to be able to do otherwise; we can only make a “tasting-neuron” become a “seeing-neuron” by sending it information to do so)). My point is, if what Norman Doidge’s claims are true( and i believe that there is some scientificity into its work), then isnt that proof that atitude can change biology? And what about the neuropsychoimunology, a phenomenon widely studied? In this case, somehow, our perception of the world, that results in a specific state of humor, influences our imuno-activity; the better the humor, the better our imunitary system works(i think this is something widely accepted even without knowledge of the research to it). There is an important control group in the clinical research made about the subject: the group is the group of the widows. Widows live in constant grief and sorrow after the departure of their loved ones and there is clinical data showing that the rates of cancer and other complicated diseases are more high in these group than in the general population. And again my question, isnt this some proof that our thought is affecting our biology?
The problem about skepticism is that, besides just being critic(wich is more easy than being creative) and not taking risks, it also castrates people’s attempts to be creative instead of encouraging the test of all possibilities. And dont get me wrong, im not being personal here, its just my perspective of what skepticism is.
Cheers
I think we all have differen’t SKILLS.For exampel I can relax my eyes and see a white line between the earth and the sky.This only happends between objects on earth that are natural mountains,Earth, trees.Not man made objects buildings cars ect.I have one picture I took of a mountain and the same white line I can see is on this picture and only this picture not on other pictures.I was told this is the Earths magnetic field.My point is I’ve learned about three levels in this life.Phyisical,mental and sperituall .It’s up to you to learn how to connect them.I know there’s more but life is to short for one person to learn them all.If you relax,un focus you’re eyes. Look with you’re eye lids slightly closed because this cuts down the amount of sunlight that enters the eyes.You will be superised.Read Radionics by David V. Tansley D.C.With a forward by Dr Ian C.B. Pearce.This book is hard to get. We are not humans.We are just people.
While plausible, it seems that there’s nothing even close to definitive concerning Emoto’s proffers.Furthermore he is a doctor of what? A Ph.D from where?. That might be a good starting point. While certainly there are all sorts of things that are either poorly or nor at all understood in our existential milieu but nonetheless do exist, Emoto’s methodology and what appears to be his self serving intransigence does this subject a very serious disservice. A prima facie presentation renders Emoto’s work interesting and even fascinating. However, scratching a bit beneath the surface seems to expose him as a self serving charlatan. While I want with all my heart to believe his findings (which means, of course, that I should never be one analyzing data. It seems that Emoto cares nothing for the maintenance of such objectivity), until he opens up his findings to a deeper scrutiny and a more broad analysis, I’ve no logical choice but to regard his findings as fuzzy. It strikes me that the exact same crystals may be there to be found in any one of the samples exposed to any one of the outside stimuli but it’s only the ones which back up Emoto’s posits from the different dishes which are displayed. Am I wrong here? While I did believe the the hype for quite a while, a very basic and not so through investigation (one needn’t go far) on my part revealed some serious trouble here. Dr. Emoto, this is a matter of basic integrity. Perhaps your findings are legitimate (and they very well may be). Perhaps not. Perhaps they move in the direction of legitimacy but yield nothing definitive. No one knows. Please open them up to a broad based review and replicate your analysis under rigorous conditions conducted by independent and fully unbiased assessors. Until then you appear to be selling snake oil to the unwary and unsuspecting and are doing so in a most shameful and unscrupulous manner. It does seem that you’ve become wealthy as a result of your “findings”. As m matter of basic decency, declare a moratorium on your sales and allow the engagement of deeper scrutiny. You may be right. However, at this juncture I find that a difficult leap to make. I ask you respectfully and even prayerfully to prove me wrong.
I wonder if something could be done to change – and improve – the quality of water which has become radioactive? Thanks if Dr. Emoto can answer this question…
With best wishes,
S. de M.
Hi,
I’m running a blog in Hebrew (Israel) on the subject of critical thinking.
I was looking for some good stuff and found your research work. I think it is great! I’ve seen this “Bleep” thing a few years ago, and vaguely remembered this strange, suspicious experiment.
do you have any problem if I translate parts of your post to Hebrew, mentioning of course that you are the source (+link to your blog)?
best regards,
Gilad
As a Professional healer…those who require demonstatable proof of thought focus energy…Watch this utube video…
Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F3ovb2kZ9Q&feature=related
Steve
That video isn’t proof, it’s a demonstration of talent. Whether that talent is the manipulation of a mystical energy or just carnival tricks is undetermined.
Hi Kristopher,
It’s a really good piece and have you now gone on to create rigorous, controlled experiments to determine the genuine effects of prayer/sentiment on water? Intention is being well studied in other area with extraordinary results and this seems worth further exploration done with the correct scientific protocol. It’s a shame to dismiss something and stop there rather than explore some of the potential anomalies that Emoto may have discovered.
Best
Joss Price
Hi Joss,
“Intention is being well studied in other area with extraordinary results ” – can you please give references? I’m interested.
thanks,
Gilad
As one who has witnessed bona fide miracles in the Christian community, it upsets me that Emoto fuses a basic Christian belief, that prayer changes things for the better, with the New Age belief that positive thoughts change things for the better, to sell a product. I think it does damage to Christianity when someone with a genuine Christian witness throws in the water crystal story as further proof of the power of prayer; it waters down their witness and people will tune them out.
Christian “witnessing” is bunk too….
http://deanradin.blogspot.com/2009/01/water-crystal-replication-study.html
Would seem to be relevant.
Radin, D., Lund, N., Emoto, M., Kizu, T. (2008). Effects of distant intention on water crystal formation: A triple-blind replication. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 22(4), 481-493.
An experiment tested the hypothesis that water exposed to distant intentions affects the aesthetic rating of ice crystals formed from that water. Over three days, 1,900 people in Austria and Germany focused their intentions towards water samples located inside an electromagnetically shielded room in California. Water samples located near the target water, but unknown to the people providing intentions, acted as “proximal” controls. Other samples located outside the shielded room acted as distant controls.
Ice drops formed from samples of water in the different treatment conditions were photographed by a technician, each image was assessed for aesthetic beauty by over 2,500 independent judges, and the resulting data were analyzed, all by individuals blind with respect to the underlying treatment conditions.
Results suggested that crystal images in the intentionally treated condition were rated as aesthetically more beautiful than proximal control crystals (p = 0.03, one-tailed). This outcome replicates the results of an earlier (double blind) pilot test.
.
Feel free to email me at the address above.
We are 70% water
Our brains are 70% Water
Water is the carrier of impulses through the nervous system
Our embryo’s are 99% water, it is the medium for all life.
It is an intelligence that is so much more powerful than your average ‘scientist’ gives it credit for.
Emoto’s work does not meet the criteria for today’s empirical scientific methodical analysis, granted.
But he has opened up the eyes of the word to the powerful intelligence that is water
There are 5 ancient elements- Water is one of them. It is powerful, and most ‘scientists’ have little clue as to how and why it works the way it does.
Time for some deeper analysis
The truth is is that in the ‘scientific’ mode of thought, skepticism and cynicism by the observer or ‘scientist’ as well as opptimism etc. therefore subjectivity play a huge role in what one wants to see and does not want to see… You choose not to see so established conditions to refute. I wonder why? I we analyze honestly, we must conclude that there is not one single benefit ever produced for humanity via western ideology within the ‘scientific method’. All impacts either directly or indirectly to the eventual destruction of some part of our ecology… thus causing suffering. I must wonder at why would any one choose skepticsim over deciding to maintain loving thoughts??????? no matter what the experimental rigours…. I would rather be seated next to Emoto than you because at know that he wishes me well. I wish you all scincerely well and hope you choose the Light. We have too much distraction from the original message and I am weary of so much cultivation of only one part of our intellect at the expense of the other – that of ‘gut intuition’ or the ‘spirit’ or whatever way you desire to define it. In the end, do you feel truly at peace with your ‘findings’? Wake up, stop missing the point!
I think the Dr. has some fascinating points to consider, and the counterpoints to his study are worth considering as well. Regardless of studies and counterpoints, I have no doubt that positive thoughts and positive energy can manifest positive things in the world. So studies and arguments against them make no difference to me. I don’t need anyone else to tell me what really matters in life. Let’s face it, there is no such thing as unbiased research. And that is because science explains very little about the universe (contrary to what the Age of Enlightenment would have us believe, which by the way was an extremely recent and short period in the history of mankind). A study that seemingly answers one question will lead to numerous new questions. I choose to trust myself. I am a scientist at heart and a lover of chemistry and physics, but I am also very spiritual, and I am well aware that these two topics are much more intertwined than post-Enlightenment society wants to admit or face. People might not say it out loud, but many will admit to me when prompted behind closed doors that they have beliefs or experiences that would seem “crazy” to others. It’s sad that humans have so much knowledge of the spirit that lies within, but a short period in history has caused us to turn away from our own intuition–to put down eons of knowledge of Native peoples of every continent and nation–and instead depend on others to do the thinking for us and tell us what is and what isn’t and what we should believe and what we shouldn’t based on “research”, and that it’s somehow unacceptable to admit to having beliefs that many others share behind closed doors! I hope I am making sense.
I’ve enjoyed the comments I’ve read so far, whether I’ve agreed or not.
Why don’t YOU conduct some experiments then Kristopher?!It’s all very well to be disrespectful of others findings when you have not actually told anyone anything that suggests otherwise.You clearly have no understanding of the universe or the enigma of life.And maybe if you did bother to find out a bit more you may become all the wiser.
I can’t believe there are scientists out there who are so stupid! Of course our thoughts create our reality. Good Lord what are we all made of?Everything is a buzzing vibratory frequency and if more people read Dr Emoto’s book on water what a better planet earth this would be!
As I said in the paper, the reason why I decided not to experiment was “After the lengthy review of Emoto’s research methods and results, I have come to believe that Dr. Emoto is offering pseudoscience to the masses in the guise of defensible research. ” I saw no tangible evidence to incline me to spend six to 12 months of my life designing, conducting and publishing a research experiment on the topic.
-Kristopher Setchfield
TO Kristopher Setchfield:
I think that you had better spend 6 to 12 months of your life to verify this experiment. Because that 6 to 12 months will change world!!!
I agree with W. M.Stelmachowicz.
My friend’s family name in Hitler.
how can water understand if I’m talking about my good inocent friend or about that Hitler who killed many people. ?!!!!!!!!! hahaha.
this experiment is tested by scientists and proved to be wrong.
you can check the Wikipedia to know why.
thanks
Ths is why i read your artical. “I set off to conduct a research project in the chemistry department of Castleton College in Vermont to see if I could find sufficient evidence and support for Dr. Emoto’s claims to merit conducting a deeper research project to try to reproduce his work.” then you say theres no point after you see some flaws in his method. Correct the flaws in the method and do the study!!!!! Please! Its kind of disrespectfull to do the bait and switch.
Your actual work does not actually prove that Mr. Emoto’s work is true or not. I was expecting to read something more substantial or even a true “Scientific” research, but you have not done so, what you only have done is trying to disprove the published work by Emoto. Peer review is not actually a real scientific method of proving something or not as any incoming theory has to be accepted by the common peers and again is subject to bias. The peer review is just a terrible way for the science to advance and it is the reason why discoveries are being made by “outsiders” rather than “scientists”. Peer review has just become a sort of religion or dogma, and a way of getting funded to do scientific research you have to go with the accepterd theory however nonsensical it might be. Again, it would have been interesting to see your own research on this subject and that you fixed all the problems in the research you found on Mr. Emoto, but maybe you were not brave enough to do it as it may have brought ridicule into your research career. It is very sad that the scientists are now becoming pseudoscientists and selling the people a dogma rather than a true discovery, we are seeing now that the discoveries are being made by others, but yet this is what has happened before and we have plenty of evidence of this in the past, just remember Galileo and others.