Masaru Emoto

Masaru Emoto was a Japanese businessman, author and pseudoscientist who claimed that human consciousness could affect the molecular structure of water. His 2004 book The Hidden Messages in Water was a New York Times best seller. His conjecture evolved over the years, and his early work revolved around pseudoscientific hypotheses that water could react to positive thoughts and words and that polluted water could be cleaned through prayer and positive visualization. From 1999, Emoto published several volumes of a work entitled Messages from Water, containing photographs of ice crystals and accompanying experiments such as that of the ‘rice in water’ 30 day experiment. Emoto was born in Yokohama, Japan, and graduated from Yokohama Municipal University after taking courses in International Relations. He worked in the Nagoya Office (Central Japan Office) of the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper, then founded the International Health Medical company in 1986. In 1989, he received exclusive rights to market the Magnetic Resonance Analyzer, a device patented by Ronald Weinstock, which was alleged to be able to detect the magnetic field around a human hair, for example, and diagnose almost any disease. He renamed it the "Vibration-o-Meter," became an operator himself, and started a business dealing in vibrations. He was President Emeritus of the International Water For Life Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Oklahoma City in the United States. In 1992, he became a Doctor of Alternative Medicine at the Open International University for Alternative Medicine in India, a diploma mill which targeted quacks to sell its degrees and was later shut down. Emoto claimed that water was a "blueprint for our reality" and that emotional "energies" and "vibrations" could change its physical structure. His water crystal experiments consisted of exposing water in glasses to various words, pictures, or music, then freezing it and examining the ice crystals' aesthetic properties with microscopic photography. He claimed that water exposed to positive speech and thoughts created visually "pleasing" ice crystals, and that negative intentions yielded "ugly" ice formations. Emoto held that different water sources produced different ice structures. For example, he held that water from a mountain stream, when frozen, showed structures of beautifully shaped geometric designs; but that water from polluted sources created distorted, randomly formed ice structures. He held that these changes could be eliminated by exposing water to ultraviolet light or certain electromagnetic waves. In 2008, Emoto published his findings in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, a journal of the Society for Scientific Exploration that has been criticized for catering to fringe science. Emoto became ill in Shanghai, China, while on a world speaking engagement tour. His illness rapidly progressed to pneumonia and he was placed in critical condition for several weeks before he was declared stable enough to be air transported back home to a Tokyo hospital. He passed away at 12:50 am on October 17, 2014, with his wife Kazuko at his side. His last word was "Arigato" ("Thank you" in Japanese). He used to say, "Life is LOVE which is a gift from God and parents, and DEATH is gratitude for going to a new dimension". His legacy lives on through his water crystal photography and his books, which have been translated into many languages and have inspired millions of people around the world.