ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-8980-1I recently posted about my friend's gift of Masaru Emoto's "The Hidden Messages in Water" and now I can post to say I've finished the book. I enjoyed it and I'm glad I finally read it. In many ways, I sort of alluded to this in my previous post, it was more to me than just reading an interesting non-fiction text. I made my own memories and created my own meaning for these crystals, instead of only remembering our memories and our meaning. Very cathartic and also very appropriate for an approaching new year.
For those not familiar with Emoto's work, his basic premise is that all energy is vibration. "The entire universe is in a state of vibration, and each thing generates its own frequency, which is unique." He goes on to say that water visibly responds to words, music, and other vibrations by forming crystals. Positive words, music, images, vibrations, etc. form whole, clear crystals; while negative words, music, images, vibrations, etc. form incomplete, murky blobs. Emoto has photographed these crystals, or non-crystals in some cases, and he includes pages and pages of photos in this book (and more in two previous books he self-published years ago).Human beings are about 70% water and from there it is his proposition that we are impacted by words, images, vibrations, etc. just as the crystals. Furthermore, we in turn impact the entire planet (also mostly water) by our own words, music, vibes, and so forth. It's a beautiful concept and one by which I already live my life...but not with an understanding of the chemistry of crystals. It was interesting to read about his experiments and to see photographs of the perfectly-formed crystal that heard "Thank you" and the completely deformed blob that heard "You fool." One of my favorite moments was seeing the crystal that heard "Let's do it" compared to the one that heard, "Do it." I loved that.
He says that we start out as fetuses made of 99% water. Perhaps that is why babies en utero respond to Mozart piped through headphones on the mom's belly? Interesting thought. Another interesting point is his answer to the question of how to live a happy healthy life. He says, "purify the water that makes up 70% of your body. Water in a river remains pure because it is moving. When water becomes trapped, it dies. Therefore, water must be constantly circulated. [...] So when your emotions flow throughout your body, you feel a sense of joy and you move towards physical health." Nothing new to those who study chakrasana yoga or even some meditations, but I like how simply he phrased it. My interpretation of circulating emotions is giving and creating. In other words, getting the energy/movement/circulation outside your own body. "The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation!" (Jonathan Larson, anyone?)Emoto's message that it's up to us to pro-actively make a positive impact really resonated with me (no pun intended). He writes, "Pollution originated in our own consciousness [think the collective unconsciousness taught by Jung]. We started to think that we wanted a bountiful and convenient lifestyle at any cost, and this selfishness led to the pollution of the environment that now affects every corner of the globe."
