AK - Jeff, you might be interested in this text from "Swift - May 23, 2003, but I suspect you won't given the way you've villified the common sense postings of Funkyderek. You can find it at: http://www.randi.org/jr/052303.html
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A UK homeopath named Liz Miller fancies that she has discovered why the BBC tests of that quackery were negative. She writes:
I think you will be amazed at the pictures on www.mercola.com/2002/may/8/prayer.htm. They show that as in homeopathy, water can take on energy from our thoughts. This proves that in the BBC program on homeopathy, Mr. Randi's thoughts could have influenced the outcome.
I answered her: "Unfortunately for this theory, (a) I was not present when the BBC tests were done, and (b) I was not even aware that they were being done…." Then I looked at that site she'd touted. Amazing.
Try this on for credibility: A Dr. Masaru Emoto, who boasts certification from the Open International University of Alternative Medicine (???), has made remarkable discoveries about "the concept of micro cluster water." Floating along in his muddy stream of awareness, Dr. Emoto began to study the effect of altering water by various factors of "vibration" and "consciousness." These words are immensely popular with quacks, though they've no notion what they mean. Are you ready? He studied water that had been altered by music — healing music, classical music, heavy metal music, and so forth.
And he has "crystalline pictures" that reveal how water responds to these influences! As he says, this begins to reveal that water is alive, that it is conscious, and that it responds to applied force by a rearrangement of its inner crystalline properties. Wow! Ah, but that only got him started. It gets better….
Inspired by these revelations, he decided to study the impact of human consciousness on water and its crystalline order. Dr. Emoto believes he has demonstrated that human thoughts and emotions can alter the molecular structure of water. Now, for the first time, he says, there is physical evidence that the power of our thoughts can change the world within and around us.
We can see the distinct difference, for example, between crystals formed under the influence of the word, "prayer," and nasty hard rock music. How can we doubt?
Dr. Emoto found that water that had been consciously altered by the simple imprinting of a "word of intent," would change. Water that was imprinted by "love," "gratitude," and "appreciation," responded by the development of complex crystals — essentially "snowflake" crystals obtained by evaporation and cooling — and an excellent effect was produced by combining the words "love" and "gratitude," as any fool can plainly see in the illustration. But water that was mistreated by negative intentions became disordered and lost its magnificent patterning. In fact, it often took on grotesque forms of resonance, he says.
Then he really got into the swing of pseudoscience, simplifying matters by just writing words — in any language, of course — on pieces of paper and taping them to a clear glass container to see if anything happened. Positive words like "love" and "thank you" produced beautiful and delicate crystalline patterns, we're told. He tried "You Make Me Sick. I Will Kill You" and he observed distorted, frightening, muddied patterns. We show here the pattern produced by this last phrase. He even experimented with names like "Gandhi," "Mother Teresa," and "Hitler," and the same kind of results occurred. Wow, again!
And, not to our surprise, Dr. Emoto discovered that the water crystals dutifully form up in response to different ethnic versions of the languages impressed upon them. Here's the expression "thank you" in both Japanese and English. You can see the distinct variations, can't you?
Well, if that didn't convince you that Dr. Emoto might not have both oars in the water, try this, a quotation from him in answer to his thoughts on what the crystals are: "I came to the realization that these crystals are spirits." Okay. Where's the door….?
Let's spend a moment to wonder about how such a view can be brought about. Dr. Emoto might very well believe that he's doing science. But he's not. He does no double-blind procedures, for one thing, which dooms these amateur efforts, right from the beginning. If he were to be blind to which words were being used to influence the water crystals, his search through the results looking for confirmation, would be inconclusive. I'll risk the JREF million-dollar prize on that statement. If Dr. Emoto wants to win the prize, let him agree to perform his tests in a double-blind fashion, and I predict he'll get fuzzy results that prove nothing.
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Mackin
