Mirror of the Soul

Masaru Emoto and the Messages of Water

In June, 1999, a Japanese entrepreneur named Masaru Emoto self-published a curious collection of photographs. They were images he had taken of water crystals under certain specific conditions. Describing his methodology in his 2005 publication The Hidden Messages in Water (Atria), Emoto states that after some trials with examining ice from a kitchen refrigerator under a microscope, he eventually built a walk-in refrigeration unit maintained at below freezing temperatures in which his researchers examined and photographed ice crystals in Petri dishes. He cites that:

I put fifty different types of water in fifty different Petri dishes…. I then freeze the dishes at -20° C (-4° F) for three hours in a freezer. The result is that surface tension forms drops of ice in the Petri dishes about one millimeter across. The crystal appears when you shine a light on the crown of the drop of ice.

Emoto, Masaru, The Hidden Messages in Water, Atria Books, 2005, Prologue

Commenting on his prolific collection of images of ice crystals, Emoto noted that the results tended to be varied – never consistent. The forms, shapes and regularity of the crystals differed widely, and, sometimes, no crystallization occurred at all. At first glance, it appeared, the circumstances dictating the ice crystallization were completely random and unpredictable. But further experimentation began to yield some remarkable results.

Initially, Emoto discovered that “natural water” derived at source from “springs, underground rivers, glaciers, and the upper reaches of rivers” (Ibid.) tended to yield better results than urban tap water. In the latter case, there was little or no crystallization of the ice. By contrast, natural spring, glacial and early river water formed complete crystal shapes in the ice.

Prompted by his researcher, Emoto describes trying a new strategy – exposing his water samples to music before attempting to crystallize the ice. Using distilled water he had purchased from a drugstore, he would position a bottle of the water between a pair of music speakers while playing music for some time before refrigerating the water. He descibed his results as follows:

All the classical music that we exposed the water to resulted in well-formed crystals with distinct characteristics. In contrast, the water exposed to violent heavy metal music resulted in fragmented and malformed crystals at best.

Ibid.

Emoto’s research team then experimented with writing words and phrases on pieces of paper wrapped around bottles containing distilled water, discovering that:

Water exposed to positive expressions … created attractive, well-formed crystals, but … water exposed to negative expressions … barely formed any crystals at all.

Ibid.

The results of his experiments with photographing ice crystals led Emoto to make some profound observations. Emoto came to believe that “water is able to memorize and transport information,” (Ibid.) though he points out that “this suggestion has been met with complete rejection by the medical community.” (Ibid.) He proceeded to make the following profound observation:

Water is the mirror of the soul. It has many faces formed by aligning itself with the consciousness of human beings.

Emoto, Masaru, The Hidden Messages in Water, Atria Books, 2005, p.38

Emoto claims that water, which composes around 70% of the human physiology, is, in fact, a profound, life-giving, mystical medium that has a subtle connection with human consciousness itself. Water is structurally influenced by a number of external factors – human consciousness, electromagnetic fields, music, fluid dynamics, contamination, etc. – and responds in subtle ways – ways that Emoto claims to have captured through his technique of photographing ice crystals created under various conditions.

The extrapolations of Emoto’s thesis, if verifiable, are profound. It suggests that water is not simply the “universal solvent” we know from laboratory experiments and with which we slake our thirst. While it is common knowledge that human life could not last more than a few days, at best, without water, it is, apparently, less well known that water seems to act, under certain conditions, as if it is alive and conscious itself. It appears, at least, to have a mystical connection to human consciousness in that it apparently reacts in subtle ways to such stimuli as human interaction, electromagnetic radiation, sound, flow, etc. These subtle factors appear to have a profound influence not only on the quality of the water we drink, but also on the very water in our bodies, and, by extension, our physical and mental health and well-being. Emoto believes not only that water can be “healed” through “healing prayer” and incantation, but that such water, in turn, has a profound healing effect on our own physical and psychological well-being.

Emoto suggests that water is a mystical medium that links the human to the Divine. Not only does it physically link all life, being one of the building blocks of life on earth, it, in fact, appears to be a reflection of human consciousness and the human soul in that it responds, in subtle ways, to human consciousness and the subtle energies and vibrations emanating from it.

Emoto came to believe that unless human beings come to realize the impact that human consciousness has on the water that surrounds us, we will inevitably poison ourselves by our own negativity – not merely spritually or psychologically, but physically, in a very real sense, by damaging and destroying the subtle, underlying structures in the very water we drink and that sustain life on earth. Emoto’s work is a wake-up-call to all of humanity to come to an awareness of how the human consciousness can affect reality – by either sanctifying or poisoning the very water we drink as a projection of our thoughts. Emoto’s message, clearly, is to change our ways and our thinking before we poison ourselves out of existence!