The Stupefy Spell?

"Vihjalmr, you just tried to disprove something you see as one person's perspective by relying on the viewpoint of what others consider beautiful."

No, I didn't. Please familiarize yourself with the idea in question before criticizing attempts to duplicate it. Masaru's idea is that certain intentions will create "beautiful" crystals; the study found that crystals created by these intentions were not rated as beautiful, on average, by anyone.

"The fact that they were judging the crystals on looks doesn't mean a thing."

Masaru was judging crystals on looks, so in fact it means a great deal!

"How in the world can they expect the water to change identically for people who have different feelings and intentions; not to mention different energy types and levels?"

They don't. They expect the water to change to be beautiful, as Masaru claimed. They found no change whatsoever, so even your claim that "see the great variences" seems of questionable validity.

You both seem to interpret my comment as some sort of "attack" on an "opinion"; it's not. It's a correction of a mistaken claim: that it has been "proven" that water crystals change when prayers are chanted over them. I don't know of any study conducted with chanted prayers, and the idea that water crystals change when intention is directed at them is dubious - not proven. That's all. It's no shame to be incorrect, so please don't get all upset. Everyone makes statements that are not 100% right; it's unavoidable. Even I do so.

You still don't get it, do you? The study meant to counter that is still retarded considering beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Stop digging yourself a grave by defending a messed up study, lol.

"You still don't get it, do you? The study meant to counter that is still retarded considering beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Stop digging yourself a grave by defending a messed up study, lol."

It seems like you still don't get it. Beauty being in the eye of the beholder would also invalidate Masaru's claim. That's why the study is talking about beauty: Masaru brought it up. I am aware of no other experiments that deal with intention affecting water crystals, so if Masaru is invalidated, it pretty much closes the book on the whole idea... unless you know of other studies?

But the point being made in the forums is that the crystals of the water can be changed through the prayer to support the post about spells taking effect on the coporeal plane. In other words, stop trying to change the subject to suit yourself and to draw attention away from the fact that the study actually has a valid point in this thread.

@Artemisia: If you have had personal experience with the changing of water crystals, well, that's different. I've never tried, so I don't know. What did you try?

However, regarding the article you have quoted: it doesn't say anything about the effects of thoughts or prayers on water crystals; it only repeats Masaru Emoto's claim, which I have already dealt with above. Just because a website says " [he] has proven" doesn't mean he has actually proven it, as you know; the study I posted explains exactly how they attempted to duplicate Masaru's effects, and what problems they found. That seems better, to me, than a single unsupported assertion like " [he] has proven" (as in the article). Masaru has also freely admitted that he is not a scientist himself.

In fact, numerous scientists are quoted by Wikipedia as criticizing Masaru - and the quotes are sourced, so we know they're not just made up. The criticism mostly revolves around his methodology, which he himself admits is more art than science. It's also worth pondering that what he claims goes against all known principles of chemistry and physics; there is no theoretical basis for it, so Masaru would have to provide a LOT of strong evidence, to overturn everything we know about physics and chemistry! (For instance, by what method are thoughts reaching water from the brain? At that distance, any effects of the electromagnetic energy in the mind would not be nearly enough to break or form any bonds between water molecules.) This is the principle that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I don't think he has provided extraordinary evidence.

Your point about "intents and hearts" is a valid one; the authors of the triple-blind study admit that there are difficulties in working with intentions, which could mean that Masaru's work is valid after all. That said, when one person - a businessman, note (Masaru) - provides no evidence for a claim except admittedly flawed "experiments" (more art than experiment), and another group of many people - scientists - cannot duplicate his work, it will take something more for the first person to have *proven* his conclusions. To say his work MAY be correct, sure; I think it's unlikely, but it's possible. To say it's been proven? Just plain false. I don't have a problem if you personally have proven it to yourself, though.

Now, about the article you have quoted. It doesn't deal directly with water crystals, but in interests of accuracy I will explain some problems I see with it. For one, Kozyrev did not say anything about human thoughts and emotions, to my knowledge; I can find no source attesting such - he was an astrophysicist, not a biologist, and in any case most of his work is long out of date. (It was out of date even when he was doing it, sadly, because he was wrongly imprisoned for a long time and was not up to date on advances made by other scientists, so much of his speculation was incorrect even at the time of speculation.)

That article was also not written by scientists - check out the base site; it's a bunch of random nonsense. Even the article seems of uncertain validity: electromagnetic imploding vortexes? How would "harmonically entrained" frequencies in the human body even create these, anyway? The base site even advocates "What the Bleep Do We Know?" as a "revolutionary new scientific documentary", when in fact it is not revolutionary, scientific, a documentary, or even new any more. It also references Dan Winter at the HeartMath Institute, when in fact Dan Winter has been publicly disavowed by the institute, and his own website has been seized as part of a court order against him; he's a scam artist. http://www.heartrelease.com/coherence-3.html

As for your comment on Wikipedia, the study posted can be verified from other sources and was conducted by scientists, not by Wikipedia or hobbyists. Also check this link out, if you don't trust Wikipedia: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html The gist is that it's accurate for scientific things, just not popular items like celebrities.

@woltrest: "But the point being made in the forums is that the crystals of the water can be changed through the prayer to support the post about spells taking effect on the coporeal plane. In other words, stop trying to change the subject to suit yourself and to draw attention away from the fact that the study actually has a valid point in this thread."

But the point I'm making is that the claim being made is that the changing of water crystals has been proven, and it has NOT been proven. Again, if you know of any study proving it, let me know. Until then, stop changing the subject to suit yourself and draw attention away from the fact that the "study" (if you refer to Masaru) is questionable at best... like I've provided a real study and links about.

I have not changed at the subject at all; my posts have always been about the same thing: whether or not it's been proven that water crystals changed when prayed over, or when intention has been directed at them.

You, on the other hand, change the subject with every post: first it was that the countering study is invalid because of beauty, now it's something about how my mentioning of Masaru's "study" is changing the subject... even though you go right on to contradict yourself and say that the study has a valid point. Which is it: am I changing the subject, or is the study relevant? Or is it that the study I posted is invalid because beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

I refute every point you make, yet you ignore it as if you had never posted it. Unless your next post tells me how a.) Masaru's study is valid, or b.) another way that water crystals have been proven to change with prayer, it is changing the subject and I may not respond. I don't want to waste time if you don't want to learn.

No, your post have been about whether or not the people in that study saw them as beautiful or not. Whether they changed into ugly crystals or not is of little concequence. The original study may not be correct on the beautiful part, but it does show that water crystals do change when prayed over. And even that is not what this thread is about. The thread is about whether or not battle spells that have a near instant effect are possible or even plausable. The crystals of the water do change when energy is poored into them through prayer, ergo spells can have an effect on the material plane that is visible (whether or not it looks pretty). As such, the original questions about whether magic can effect the corporeal world in a visible manner and without the roundabout process of letting the magic grow before the effect happens has more evidence (whether it is pretty or not to the general populace) to support it.

@wolftrest: Thanks for the polite and relevant post. (I hope I've been polite as well, though when things get heated it's hard to keep an even tone; so I apologize if any heat leaked through.)

"Whether they changed into ugly crystals or not is of little concequence. The original study may not be correct on the beautiful part, but it does show that water crystals do change when prayed over."

I see now why you had a problem with the stuff about beauty. It may seem irrelevant, but when you know how the original study (Masaru's) was conducted, you see why it was done that way. The original study purports to show that water crystals change to be more beautiful, so the "counter-study" studies that particular claim. Masaru's study does not show that water crystals change in general - AFAIK, he didn't do any "before and after" to see if they were changed, but just took pictures once they had formed and had thoughts of love and peace and so forth directed at them. He then claimed that these were more beautiful than normal water crystals, which he did the same with.

The triple-blind follow-up study did the same thing, except this time it made sure no one knew beforehand which was which, so they couldn't be biased. The water crystals came out looking the same, on average, no matter what intention was directed at them; though since the "intent" water crystals were actually found to be a bit uglier than the control group, it's possible they were changed to be uglier.

However, as far as I know, no one has done "before and after" studies to see if they change in general - to be either more beautiful or uglier - so that question is up in the air. Note, though, that the triple-blind study says the following: "An objective comparison of contrast did not reveal any significant differences among the samples." That seems like it detected no *systematic* changes, at least; though I think it was you who noted that different individuals could have different effects, meaning their results, if looked at as a group, might be mistaken for totally unchanged crystals.

Artemisia says she's had personal experience, so it's possible, but in lieu of a large, controlled study, I withhold judgment. Since it was found that Masaru's claim was most likely wrong, and since Masaru's claim is the one that started the whole water-crystal thing, I think it's evidence - though not proof - that they don't change at all.

"And even that is not what this thread is about. The thread is about whether or not battle spells that have a near instant effect are possible or even plausable."

That's true; I just wanted to explain to Artemisia and anyone reading along that the water crystal idea was mistakenly reported as proven by many news outlets, when in fact there are problems with the original study and it is, if not entirely disproved, at least in serious doubt. Thus, the claim that it's been proven is not correct and could be misleading to those who may not have heard about the follow-up study and general scientific doubt surrounding Masaru.

"As such, the original questions about whether magic can effect the corporeal world in a visible manner and without the roundabout process of letting the magic grow before the effect happens has more evidence (whether it is pretty or not to the general populace) to support it."

Entirely aside from our debate, do you know of any other ways magic has a physical effect? It's long been my holy grail to obtain direct physical evidence of magical efficacy, but excepting my work with certain grimoires, I've not had much luck.

I know that the mind can effect reality, and my proof is actually not magic, but simple techniques. If you look up japanese therapies, you are bound to stumble across those who use their chi to provide thermatherapy (not sure if that is the right word or not) by heating their hands up and moving them over their patients back that is covered in tin foil. While they do rub their hands together, that does not give enough explanation for the amount of heat that has been shown on heat sensery studies done on this type of therapy. To my knowledge, it is impossible to be able to generate enough heat out of your hands through simple friction to cause heat waves to show over the tin foil. I will look to see if I can find the link to the type of therapy I am tlaking about, but it was over 4 years ago, so I will have to browse for a while.
Another thing that provides support to the theory that magic being used to effect the corporeal plane is through the Christian religion. Miracles are nothing more than divine magic manifesting a change on our plane of existance, so it could be argued that miracles are proof to support the theory, although they could be used to say that only a divine being could effect that change.
Exorcisms (if you believe they actually work since I know that some people believe them to be hoaxes) are another example of of the spiritual power working to effect a near instant (in the prospect of it usually taking days) change in our plane of existance.
Each of these could be disproved seperatly to be suspect to be considered false, but when presented together with similarities, the best even a skeptic can achieve would be to say that it is unlikely, but at least plausable.
On another note, I personally know spells such as my personal shield that have worked for me before on a moments notice, but I cannot provide proof considering it is hard to have the materials for a scientific documentary to be handy at all times. Spells that are cast in the moment aren't very strong on average compared to rituals that take days or even months to facilitate on average considering that the energy is coming mostly from the caster, and they are very dangerous. If someone were to try a spell that has a quick effect on the corporeal plane (such as a psychic shield, or a spell designed to afflict an enemy) then they should bring their "A game". It requires great concentration, will power, and energy as well as not providing any room for error.

I'll try to find materials on the Japanese "thermatherapy" as well; it sounds interesting. I know chi-based techniques are often cited as causing physical effects, like some of those Chinese martial artists who can supposedly do stuff like touch someone and drop them, or even do it from a distance. It's definitely something to look into, although I've been stopped from pursuing it too far because, like most Eastern stuff, it has a lot of emphasis on received authority (i.e., "you must have a teacher").

Re: your personal shield, that's what I'm talkin' about! Have you actually deflected incoming objects, or is it designed for a different purpose? If you know of any other spells that cause a physical effect, I'd be interested to hear of them too. In my own researches, I've found telekinesis to be the most widely-claimed physical effect; there are tons of videos on YouTube, for instance. Unfortunately, it seems like it would take months or years to become proficient, and I'm not sure I'd want to take that much time on faith.

Another interesting route is Hermeticism; I'm thinking in particular of Franz Bardon's "Initiation Into Hermetics", which is a very thorough introduction. I like that it's step-by-step, which eliminates the guesswork, and he promises that you will be able to do things like light a candle with a spell. I don't know of anyone who has accomplished this, though.

And finally, as mentioned in my earlier post, I've had some luck with medieval grimoires; they're not conducive to easy experimentation, but I'm slowly putting together all the materials to work a particular one (which I don't like to reveal publicly, but if you're curious I'll mail the name).