Masaru Emoto

October 31st, 2006

Masaru Emoto is a Japanese pseudoscientist who claims that by directing positive or negative thoughts at water we can affect the shape of the crystals that form when it is frozen. As astonishingly untrue as this is, Emoto boasts a significant following, especially as he was featured in the hit crackpot film “What the Bleep Do We Know!?”. Emoto hasn’t submitted a single paper to a peer-reviewed journal, but he has published several volumes of a book containing pictures of his ice crystals next to their “words of intent”.Emoto also shares a great deal in common with TV copromancer Gillian McKeith, as he:

• holds a degree in International Relations
• has a PhD in alternative medicine from an unaccredited university
• pretends to be a scientist
• is a crackpot

Like many pseudoscientists, Emoto is an astute businessman and holds exclusive rights to market in Japan a device called the Bio Cellular Analyzer. He renamed it the Magnetic Resonance Analyzer, though I suspect it doesn’t employ Magnetic Resonance or analyse anything. Emoto also talks a lot about something called Hado Theory, which involves water and crystals and PayPal.

Emoto’s methods are to attach stickers with words such as “love” or “hate” to beakers of water, freeze them, and photograph the resultant ice crystals. Positive words, music or thoughts are expected to create ice crystals that are aesthetically pleasing. The most important part of this process is to ensure the technician looks long enough to find a crystal that will correspond to the tag. A double blind test could easily remove bias and prove the existence of this phenomenon. It would involve the technician photographing crystals without being told whether the samples were positively or negatively “charged”. To date, Emoto has not attempted a double-blind trial.
When questioned, Emoto responded that he didn’t “understand this double-blind too much”.

Entry Filed under: Bad Scientists

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