WATER CRYSTAL FORMATION

DOUBLE-BLIND TEST OF THE EFFECTS OF DISTANT INTENTION ON WATER

CRYSTAL FORMATION

Dean Radin, PhD,1# Gail Hayssen,1 Masaru Emoto, BA,2 and Takashige Kizu, BA2

The hypothesis that water “treated” with intention can affect

ice crystals formed from that water was pilot tested under double-

blind conditions. A group of approximately 2,000 people in

Tokyo focused positive intentions toward water samples located

inside an electromagnetically shielded room in California. That

group was unaware of similar water samples set aside in a different

location as controls. Ice crystals formed from both sets of

water samples were blindly identified and photographed by an

analyst, and the resulting images were blindly assessed for aesthetic

appeal by 100 independent judges. Results indicated that

crystals from the treated water were given higher scores for aesthetic

appeal than those from the control water (P
.001, onetailed),

lending support to the hypothesis.

(Explore 2006; 2:408-411. © Elsevier Inc. 2006)

INTRODUCTION

Experiments over the past four decades have investigated

whether intention affects properties of water. This question is of

interest to complementary and alternative medicine research,

and especially for therapies involving intention, because the

adult human body consists of approximately 70% water.1 The

question has been studied by comparing the effects of intentionally

“treated” water versus untreated control water on the germination

and growth of plants, including barley,2-4 wheat,5 rye,6

beans,7 cress,8 radishes,9 and lettuce.10 Other properties of water

that have been examined include rate of cooling,11 molecular

bonding as reflected by infrared spectra alterations,12-16 Raman

spectroscopy,17 scattered laser light,18 and pH level.19 Although

formal metaanalyses have not been performed on these studies,

overall, the experiments provide evidence suggesting that various

properties of water may be influenced by intention.

Interest in this topic has been rekindled recently by claims suggesting

that intentionally influenced water can be detected by examining

ice crystals formed from samples of that water.20,21 The

specific claim is that positive intentions tend to produce symmetric,

well-formed, aesthetically pleasing crystals, and negative intentions

tend to produce asymmetric, poorly formed, unattractive crystals.

As of this study, no experimental replications of these claims

have been published in peer-reviewed journals, so most critiques

have assumed that the simplest explanation for the claimed results

is either biased selection of crystal images or selective reporting

of results or both.22 This paper reports a pilot investigation

of the crystal formation hypothesis to test the claim under

double-blind conditions.

METHODS

Water Sample Preparation

In preparation for the experiment, the second author (G.H.)

purchased four plastic bottles of Fiji brand commercial bottled

water (Los Angeles, CA). This brand was selected because, unlike

many other bottled waters, after the Fiji label was removed, the

plastic bottle contained no words, symbols, or other shapes embossed

in the plastic. The first author (D.R.) randomly assigned

the