Skeptophilia (skep-to-fil-i-a) (n.) - the love of logical thought, skepticism, and thinking critically. Being an exploration of the applications of skeptical thinking to the world at large, with periodic excursions into linguistics, music, politics, cryptozoology, and why people keep seeing the face of Jesus on grilled cheese sandwiches.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Water of life

I bet you think that water is healthful.  I bet you buy the silly old scientifically-supported contention that plain, ordinary, clean water, direct from your tap, is the best thing for you, and that consuming enough water has been shown to reduce your likelihood of everything from high blood pressure to kidney stones.

Ha.  A lot you know.

There's been a whole industry that's arisen whose motto is, "My water is better than your water."  We have all of the bottled water companies, trampling each other to prove that their brand is the most Natural Clear Clean Mountain Spring Water you've ever drank, and everyone else's is the equivalent of drinking sewer effluent.  (You may want to know that four-year study, released in 2000 by the National Resources Defense Council, showed that in general, bottled water has poorer quality with regards to chemical and bacterial contamination than typical municipal tap water.)

Then you have your vitamin-enhanced water, your fruit-flavored water, your aroma-essence-infused water.  Many of these have enough sugar added that you risk type 2 diabetes just from walking past the display in the grocery store.  And every year, new brands crop up.

But the silliness doesn't end there.  Just yesterday, in rapid succession, I ran across two new, special kinds of water, and the wackiness of these two outstrips the claims of all of the other kinds of water put together.

Let's start with "Pi Water."  I don't recommend clicking on the link, because the website is equipped with some sort of extremely annoying graphic device that makes the text blink, and I wouldn't want anyone having a seizure because of me.  But anyhow, what is "Pi Water?"  At first, I expected it to have something to do with 3.14159 etc., but no:
Pi Water is the water that is very similar to your body water (Living Energy). Living energy means “the energy to live.” Do you know anyone who rarely gets sick or recover quickly when they get hurt? These people have strong living energy. Pi Water has the same function (energy) that your body water has.
My favorite part of this is the definition of "living energy."  It reminds me of the entry in the glossary of my favorite science spoof, Science Made Stupid:   "reasoning, circular (n.) -- see circular reasoning."

So, how was this "living energy water" discovered?  It turns out that a guy was researching plants, and just kind of stumbled on it:
Pi Water was discovered in 1964 during the study of physiology of plants by Dr. Akihiro Yamashita, a professor at the Agricultural Department, Nagoya University. He was studying about FLORIGEN. What makes the bud become a flower? Researchers thought it might be related with hormones. They had named the phenomenon FLORIGEN and studied it.

During the study, Dr. Yamashita discovered “body water,” which affects the difference of the bud change instead of hormones. He also discovered that the body water contains a very small amount of Ferric Ferrous Salt (Fe2Fe3) and the water has the function to control our body function normally. After that, through many studies and research, Dr. Yamashita succeeded to make the water that has the same function with your body water artificially and named it Pi Water.
So... if you give humans something that makes plants flower, we'll blossom too?

How might this work, you're probably asking?  I know that's what I asked.  Well, the site tells you, in great detail.  I apologize for the length of this passage, but you really should read the whole thing:
Pi Water is compounded with Fe2Fe3, which is effective when its quality becomes very small (2 x 10^-12 mol). At this level, Fe2Fe3 is an elementary particle, such as an electron, a proton and a neutron, and it works like a conductor of a medium to transmit energy and information to other substances. The following is the assumption of Pi Water principles at the present time:
Generation cycle of electron energy.


Substance generally consists of a group of molecules and a molecule is a group of atoms. An atom consists of atomic nuclei and electrons, and an atomic nucleus consists of protons and neutrons. The electrons circle, while spinning, around an atomic nucleus on a certain orbit. When the atom receives undulation of cosmic energy, the electrons start to spin faster and circle on farther than the usual orbit, causing the electrons to have high energy called, "erected state". However, the electrons cannot keep their erected state/high energy condition for too long, and they tries to get back to the usual orbit. In Pi Water, we believe that such energy creating cycles by the electrons are happening, and that the transmission of energy and information is very actively taking place.
Oh.  Okay.  What?

I have to admit that I may be having trouble understanding this because I was too busy laughing about electrons being in an "erected state."  I guess that in some sense, an erection is a type of excitation.  Given that today is Valentine's Day, it does open up whole new possibilities for geeky come-hither lines:  "Hey, baby, I'm in a highly energized quantum level tonight.  You want to help my electrons return to the ground state?"

After this, the site goes on to blather on about how the "Pi Water" process infuses water with the subatomic particle called a "pi meson," and at that point, I gave up.  (Go here to find out what a pi meson actually is.)

But we're not done here yet.  Because I found a second site, a site that makes "Pi Water" look like Nobel Prize material.  This site tells you how to make "Sun and/or Moon Water:"
Water was designed to carry the Sun’s sub-atomic nutrients (sound and color vibrations) to all living things. It was also meant to carry the cosmic energy of the moon, stars, and planets. This is referred to as The Music of the Spheres.  Structuring the water first (as described in Chapter 11 of Dancing with Water) makes it more receptive to imprinting but simply placing water in the Sun or Moon will imprint the water to a certain degree.
One more bit will suffice:
When making water in the sunlight, place it in a glass container directly on the Earth. This way, the gentler Earth frequencies will balance the strong solar energy. Depending on the position and strength of the sun, leave it exposed for no more than 10-30 minutes. (Direct sunlight on standing water will eventually rob it of its energy.) Drinking water that has been placed in the sunlight is a wonderful way to get the vibratory energy of the complete color spectrum. It is also very energizing...  Setting water out on the night of the full moon creates water that carries the feminine energy of the full moon. If you want to lengthen the influence of the full moon (or of a particular full moon) in your life, this is a good way to do it.  To program your water with the energy of the moon, stars, and planets, choose a clear night (it does not have to be a full moon). Place your covered, glass or egg-shaped clay container directly on the Earth in a place where it will receive the full night sky. (Glass allows the light of the moon and stars to penetrate the water better but the shape of the egg gathers cosmic frequencies just as efficiently—if not more so.)
There also a part later about how you can enhance your sun and/or moon water by using crystals, copper triskelions, and "tensor rings."  Just reading it made me pretty freakin' tense.

So, we're back to my usual question: how can anyone with an IQ higher than that of road salt believe any of this horse waste?  An average middle-school student knows enough science to recognize this as ridiculous.  But evidently this kind of woo-woo foolishness is becoming increasingly popular, and because of that, is big business.  Big lucrative business.  (Google "structured water" and see how many hits you get.  I dare you.)

I recognize that I'm probably shouting in a hurricane, here.  The people who fall for this kind of claptrap are not the ones who are going to be reading skeptical websites.  But still.  "Pi Water?"  Now with more pi mesons?  Sun water with the sun's "vibratory energy of the complete color spectrum?"  Egg-shaped containers to "gather cosmic frequencies?"

The whole thing just makes me want to give up water entirely.   I'm thinking of switching to scotch.

1 comment:

  1. I have to admit that I thought you were going to talk about Dune, the way you began this post....

    But drowning sandworms notwithstanding, it's amazing (and a little sad) that people can make money with things like this still.

    ReplyDelete