The water crystals also respond beautifully to classical music as well as to synchronized prayer

By Masaru Emoto
Atria Books 2005, 178 pp., $22.95

References to this book kept crossing my path, so when I was asked to review it for New Age Journal, I took this as a sign of some sort of synchronicity and accepted. I come to this review a bit handicapped, having not read the previous Emoto books: The Hidden Messages in Water or The True Power of Water.

The Secret Life of Water focuses on Emoto’s work with frozen water crystals and how they physically appear in response to positive and/or negative energy. In this case, the energy provided is in terms of messages that are thought silently or spoken aloud: “You’re beautiful,” “You fool!” for example. Emoto shows in the many photographs that are provided that the crystals that form in response to negative thoughts are misshapen; while the ones that are created with the positive thoughts are crisp and symmetrical. The water crystals also respond beautifully to classical music as well as to synchronized prayer.

Emoto also speculates on some interesting hypotheses: “In every minute of the day, about twelve comets, some as heavy as 100 tons, fall to earth. These comets are made up mostly of ice. When the ice reaches the atmosphere, it forms clouds and eventually falls to earth in the form of rain to fill the ocean. And since we are mostly water, in a sense we all come from outer space.”

The author admits that the study of ice crystals is a subjective, and not objective, science. Also, some ideas are not new to the New Age community – we’ve all heard that if you talk to plants in a pleasant fashion, they will grow faster and that people who are prayed for in hospitals seem to recover more quickly. And to say that Emoto is a water enthusiast is an understatement! The man seems to have studied everything there is to know about it. However, the study of the ice crystals (at least to me) is a new innovation and it is interesting to see the photographic evidence of how the crystals form in response to various stimuli.

The author writes much about hado – the subtle energy that exists in all things – and also adds a bit on lunar cycles, homeopathy and music as a channel for healing. All in all, I enjoyed the book’s positive message of the effects thoughts and words have on the physical plane with the focus on water as the source of life. If the reader can embrace Emoto’s philosophy, he or she will truly add a new dimension to the phrase “go with the flow.”

Reviewed by Diane Saarinen
Diane Saarinen is the new book reviewer for New Age Journal. Visit her website for her thoughts on writing, hunting for second-hand treasures, and – oddly – her cat.