Read an Excerpt
The Hidden Messages in Water
Chapter One
Of What Is the Universe Made? Understanding the fact that we are essentially water is the key to uncovering the mysteries of the universe. If you reexamine the world around you from this new perspective, you will start to see things as you have never seen them before.
The various events that unfold throughout a person's life are events reflected in water. The individual and society make up one enormous ocean; by adding our individual drops to this ocean, we participate in the formation of society.
I wanted as many people as possible to hear the message that water has for us, and so I decided to publish the photographs of the ice crystals. This act was only a small drop, but it created a ripple that resulted in an ever-expanding wave that has had enormous impact on my life, and the lives of many others.
I first published my photographs in 1999, six long years after I started out on this unusual venture. During those first six years, a mountain of photographs had accumulated and was just sitting there in my office.
To prepare the photographs for publication, I tried to put them in some sort of order, and as I did so I started to realize that there was a story unfolding before my eyes. I began to realize that there was a grand and marvelous story that each individual crystal was trying to tell me.
As soon as I latched onto the idea of publishing my photographs, I talked to several publishers about my idea, but no one seemed interested. Rejection didn't change my determination to have my photographs published, and so I decided that I would publish them on my own. But I soon realized that though I could afford to have the photographs printed and bound into a book, the restrictive distribution system in Japan wouldn't allow me to have the books sold in bookstores.
This seemed like a formidable obstacle, but I just decided not to worry about it. When the completed books arrived, we packed up the books for the few hundred friends and acquaintances who had reserved copies and sent them off. Not long after sending off these first copies, a strange thing started to happen. We started getting reorders from the people who had reserved copies. They had told their friends and acquaintances about the book, and those people had told others. Some people bought five or even ten copies and distributed them to their friends. It indeed seemed like the drop in the pond had become a fast-spreading ripple.
My expectations quickly expanded, and I next wanted people around the world to know what was in this book of photographs, and so I had a translation company translate all the explanations into English. Happily, people front around the world did see the book: Shizuko Ouwehand, a woman who would later serve as my interpreter, sent the book to friends in Europe and America, and this resulted in invitations from people who had seen the photographs to visit those countries and present lectures. Over the years, I have been blessed with opportunities to visit Switzerland, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, Italy, England, the United States, Canada, and many other countries to introduce the crystals to the people of the world.
Everything seemed to happen at just the right time. People are looking for a way to make sense of this world of chaos that we find ourselves in. This photograph album became a small but meaningful drop that created a ripple, which has since spread throughout the world.
I would like here to introduce only a small portion of the photographs that I have taken. Some of them are included in the work The Messages of Water, and some from the second collection of photographs called The Messages of Water II, and other photographs were taken especially for this book. You yourself will be able to clearly see the effect that words, photographs, and music can have on water.
These photographs were seen by Japanese as well by people from around the world, many of whom sent me letters with their opinions and thoughts. The pebble that I threw into the pond had indeed created a large ripple that now started to come back to me.
I was astounded to see that so many people were impressed by the effect that the energy of human consciousness and words had on the formation of ice crystals, despite the fact that this idea-that words and thoughts have the power to change water and other substances-may certainly seem like far-out religion or philosophy.
While some water resulted in crystals of grandeur, as if to symbolize all the beauty of this world, the crystals formed from other water were deformed or nonexistent, as if to tell us something about the dark recesses dormant within the soul.
When I give lectures, I use slides to show my photographs of ice crystals. The reactions to these slides are quite varied. I often hear people gasp in surprise and sometimes even see them shed tears. I have discovered that a single drop of water can have various ripple effects on an individual.
Manuela Kihm, the person who first invited me to give a lecture in Switzerland, expressed her feelings this way when she reacted to the photographs:
We can see the wonder of the water crystal photographs with our own eyes. As a result, our consciousness makes a rapid leap. This awakening of the consciousness happens almost instantly. The fact that things that we have thought and felt can be seen with our eyes accelerates this change.
Another Swiss participant responded,
Through the photographs, I could see that the energy of our consciousness and words can change things that we can actually see with our eyes. This is the first and only way that this elusive energy can be viewed. We don't believe what we can't see, but the ice crystals show us everything-it's no longer about whether you believe or disbelieve. Using this method, anyone can conduct their own experiment and prove it for themselves.
And a Japanese reader wrote,
Water is not just another substance-it is the life force of majestic nature. It made me once again realize the mysterious ability of water to cleanse and give life to all living. I can see that the soul, feelings, and vibration have an effect on the formation of ice crystals, and through this I can feel the importance of the soul and words. This information is extremely wonderful and uniquely impressive. It appears that ice crystals are closely and permanently linked to the human soul. When I think about why ice crystals have spoken to so many people, I know that it is because they contain the key to the mysteries of the universe, and this key can unlock the consciousness required to understand the proper order of the universe, and our role in it.
Water is the mirror of the soul. It has many faces, formed by aligning itself with the consciousness of human beings. What gives water its ability to reflect what is in people's souls? In order to answer that question, I would first like to make sure that you understand this fact: Existence is vibration.
The entire universe is in a state of vibration, and each thing generates its own frequency, which is unique. All that I have to say in this book is based on this one fact. My years of research into water have taught me that this is the fundamental principle of the universe.
It can be said in just three words, but for people who have never heard them, these are very difficult words to understand.
You might think, Existence is vibration? Even this table? This chair? My body? How can everything that can be seen and touched be vibration? It is indeed difficult to believe that things that you can pick up with your hands and examine-things like wood, rocks, and concrete-are all vibrating.
But now the science of quantum mechanics generally acknowledges that substance is nothing more than vibration. When we separate something into its smallest parts, we always enter a strange world where all that exists is particles and waves.
Let's imagine that you could reduce your body to microscopic size, and that you set off on an exploration to discover the secrets of this universe called you. You would soon see that each thing consists of nothing more than atoms, each atom being a nucleus with electrons rotating around it. The number and shape of these electrons and their orbits give each substance a particular set of vibrational frequencies. You would discover that whatever the substance, nothing is solid. Instead there is only a nucleus surrounded by an endlessly rotating wave.
Everything is eternally moving and vibrating-on and off, at an incredible speed.
According to the Hanyasbingyo, the Buddhist Wisdom and Heart Sutra, "That which can be seen has no form, and that which cannot be seen has form." We can now say that this strange contradiction, spoken ages ago by the Buddha, has been proved true by modern science.
Our eyes can see objects, but they can't see vibration. However, I'd like you to ask yourself if you haven't had an experience similar to the following:
You are talking with someone in a room, and the mood is warm, friendly, and free-flowing. Then another person enters the room. The moment they open the door, you notice a change in the atmosphere, and now instead of warmth filling the room, the space is encased in a dark and cold mood.
You look at the new arrival's face and see a haggard expression and humped-over shoulders, someone who looks like they are just tired with life. What could be the cause of this pain? Maybe a broken heart, a mistake at work, or just general disgust with life-I'll leave it up to you. What I want you to think about is why the mood in the room changed the moment that the door was opened.
Human beings are also vibrating, and each individual vibrates at a unique frequency. Each one of us has the sensory skills necessary to feel the vibrations of others.
A person experiencing great sadness will emit a sadness frequency, and someone who is always joyful and living life fully will emit a corresponding frequency. A person who loves others will send out a frequency of love, but from a person who acts out evil will come a dark and evil frequency.
This same principle also applies to objects and locations. For example, there are locations where accidents frequently happen, locations where businesses succeed, and locations that create happiness. And you might have heard about a jewel that brings tragedy to successive owners.
This applies not only to physical objects, but the various phenomena that go on in the world also emit characteristic frequencies. A change in the energy of the atmosphere results in lightning and storms. Intense energy will result in natural disasters, but we need to realize that these are not evil events. If we consider the enormous amount of evil energy being blown away, perhaps we should actually be appreciative of lightning and storms.
For another illustration, think about the fact that people around the world enjoy coming together to celebrate. When people gather, wear special clothes, sing and dance, and are festive, the result is that stagnant and evil vibrations are dissipated and joyous vibrations are created.
All things vibrate, and they vibrate at their own frequencies. When you understand this, you will significantly broaden your understanding of the universe. With this understanding, your eyes will open to things you have never seen before-things previously pushed to the back of your consciousness-and these discoveries and feelings will give new life to your soul.
The fact that everything is in a state of vibration also means that everything is creating sound.
This doesn't mean that we can hear every sound, although there are some people who apparently hear the voices of trees and who can communicate with plants. Whether we can hear the sound or not, we can say that the unique frequency of all objects can be interpreted as sound.
It is said that the human ear is generally capable of hearing frequencies from approximately 15 Hz to 20,000 Hz (Hz, or Hertz, indicates the number of cycles of the repetitive waveform per second). Actually, it's a good thing that our ears have such limits-otherwise we probably wouldn't be able to sleep at night.
The natural world is indeed well designed-everything is in balance. And as sound is created, there is a master listener to receive the sound: water.
Let me ask you to think about why crystal formation would be affected by music, and why completely different results would be reached depending on the spoken and written words water was exposed to. The answer is found, again, in the fact that everything is vibration. Water-so sensitive to the unique frequencies being emitted by the world-essentially and efficiently mirrors the outside world.
Music and spoken words are vibration, they are easily understood and interpreted by just about anyone. Sounds like the chant created by a human voice at a Buddhist funeral create a healing frequency.
But how can we interpret the phenomena of crystal formation being affected by words written on paper and shown to water? The written words themselves actually emit a unique vibration that the water is capable of sensing. Water faithfully mirrors all the vibrations created in the world, and changes these vibrations into a form that can be seen with the human eye. When water is shown a written word, it receives it as vibration, and expresses the message in a specific form. (You might think of letters as being a visual code for expressing words.)
But what, fundamentally, are words? The Old Testament states, "In the beginning there was the Word." This would mean that before the creation of the universe, there existed "the Word." My interpretation of this is that "the Word" created human beings, and human beings then learned words from nature.
In primeval times, when people lived within nature, they needed to protect themselves, and so they were sensitive to the frequencies and sounds generated by nature, in order to detect danger before it could sneak up on them.
The sound of the wind blowing, the sound of water flowing, the sound of an animal walking through the grass-the ability to understand these sounds and relay them to others using one's voice was required for survival. It is likely that these attempts at language were simple messages of a few words, but with the development of culture and accumulation of experience, our vocabulary expanded.
Why, then, are the languages that people speak so diverse? This is quite easy to understand if you consider that language is learned from the vibrations of the natural environment. The natural environment varies greatly with location, and each environment will create different vibrations.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Hidden Messages in Water by Masaru Emoto Copyright © 2004 by Beyond Words Publishing. Excerpted by permission.
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