ATER! Where do we begin our quest in search of the true nature of this remarkable substance, this wondrous, many-facetted jewel, which is both Life and liquid? So primordial, primeval and fundamental is the function of water that it begs the question as to which came first, life or water. Thales of Miletus (640-546BC) described water as the only true element from which all other bodies are created, believing it to be the original substance of the cosmos. It was the only real substance, because it was imbued with the quality of Being.
This view was also firmly held by Viktor Schauberger, who saw water as the 'original' substance formed by the subtle energies called into being through the 'original' motion of the Earth, itself the manifestation of even more sublime forces. Being the off-
spring or the 'First Born' of these energies, as he put it, he maintained and frequently asserted that "Water is a living substance!" a notion to which Goethe also subscribed in the above poem.1
As a living entity, Viktor saw water as the accumulator and transformer of the energies originating from the Earth and the Cosmos, and as such was and is the foundation of all life-processes and the major contributor to the conditions which make life possible. Not only that, but once mature, water is a being invested with the power of extraordinary giving and gives of itself to all things requir- ing life in the ECI's Great Plan. It is the ECI's faithful life-messenger and, in its eternal cycles, coils and twists in its natural move- ment about the path of evolution, like the serpents on Mercury's staff.
The Upholder of the Cycles which supports the whole of Life, is WATER. In every drop of water dwells a Deity, whom we all serve; there also dwells Life, the Soul of the 'first' substance - Water - whose boundaries and banks are the cap- illaries that guide it and in which it circulates.2 Viktor Schauberger
Water is therefore a being that has life and death. With incorrect, ignorant handling, however, it becomes diseased, imparting this condition to all other organisms, vegetable, animal and human alike, causing their even- tual physical decay and death, and in the case of human beings, their moral, mental and spiritual deterioration as well. With this awareness we can see just how vital it is that water should be handled and stored in such a
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way as to avoid such disastrous conse- quences. When we fail to perceive water as a living entity which nurtures all life, we arrest water's creative cycles, we stop life and water is transformed into a dangerous enemy.
Viktor Schauberger's understanding of water and what he achieved as a result is well exemplified in this quotation from his book, Our Senseless Toil, written in 1933:
It is possible to regulate watercourses over any given distance without embankment works; to transport timber and other materials, even when heavier than water, for example ore, stones, etc., down the centre of such water-courses; to raise the height of the watertable in the surrounding coun- tryside and to endow the water with all those ele- ments necessary for the prevailing vegetation.
Furthermore it is possible in this way to render timber and other such materials non-inflammable and rot resistant; to produce drinking and spa- water for man, beast and soil of any desired com- position and performance artificially, but in the way that it occurs in Nature; to raise water in a vertical pipe without pumping devices; to produce any amount of electricity and radiant energy almost without cost; to raise soil quality and to heal cancer, tuberculosis and nervous disorders.
... the practical implementation of this ... would without doubt signify a complete reorientation in all areas of science and technology. By application of these new found laws, I have already con- structed fairly large installations in the spheres of log-rafting and river regulation, which as is known, have functioned faultlessly for a decade, and which today still present insoluble enigmas to the various scientific disciplines concerned.3
But before going further, let us acquaint our- selves with some of the more commonly known facts about water. First of all, whence did water come? Obviously it cannot have come from the upper atmosphere, since as we saw in chapter 6 the water molecule is actually dissociated at high altitudes. Where else do we look then? If not above then per- haps below, because the atmosphere does not seem conducive to its formation. If below then where? Has it been contained in a crys- talline state in ore-bearing rocks since the Earth began? There is some evidence to suggest that it has.
In The Divining Hand4 Christopher Bird describes the pioneering theories and discov- eries of Stephan Riess in the United States, which like Viktor Schauberger's, completely contradicted established hydraulic theory. According to Stephan Riess under certain conditions the oxygen and hydrogen gases present in certain types of rock can be released due to the effects of geothermal heat and a process akin to triboluminescence, a phenomenon relating to the light given off by crystalline rocks under friction or violent pressure. This glow is attributed to the energy given off by the electrons contained the rocks as they return from a pressure- induced, excited state to their rest orbits. As a discharge it imparts free energy to the sur- rounding material, which could be sufficient to cause the hydrogen and oxygen released by the pressure to form new water under a process of cold oxidation.
Riess called this virgin water, and as a result of his knowledge he was able to tap straight into formations of hard rock of the right com- position and obtain very large quantities of water, in some cases as much as 3,000 gallons per minute. All this right out in the middle of the desert, where no water could be expected. Unfortunately, his efforts to provide needy areas with copious quantities of superb qual- ity, fresh water were sabotaged. As happened to Viktor Schauberger before him, Christopher Bird relates how Riess was slandered and his ideas brought into disrepute through the scur- rilous activities of certain high officials in the state of California, whose interests were threatened by Riess' discoveries.
As a liquid, water is chemically described as H2O and is a dipole molecule comprising
two hydrogen atoms, each endowed with a positive charge, and one oxygen atom con- taining two negative charges. Due to the dis- tribution of the charges around the nucleus, the angle between the two hydrogen atoms is 104.35°, as shown in upper right-hand inset in fig. 8.1. According to Kenneth S. Davis and John Arthur Day, pure water is actually a mixture of 18 different molecular compounds and 15 different kinds of ions, making a total of 33 different substances5. In this regard The Secret Doctrine comments:
Even on the next higher plane, that single element which is defined on our Earth by current science, as the ultimate undecomposable constituent of some kind of matter, would be pronounced in the world of a higher spiritual perception as some- thing very complex indeed. Our purest water would be found to yield, instead of its two declared simple elements of oxygen and hydrogen, many other constituents, undreamt of by our terrestrial modern chemistry.6
In its pure form, being a compound of the two gases hydrogen and oxygen, water could technically be described as an oxide of hydro- gen. Water is no self-contained, isolated sub- stance, however, for it possesses other characteristics according to the medium or the organism in which it resides and moves, As a molecule, water has an extraordinary capacity to combine with more elements and compounds than any other molecule and is sometimes described as the universal solvent, As such it is able to provide the basis for an intimate intermixture of substances which Victor referred to as an 'emulsion'. The more complex the make-up of constituents dis- solved or suspended in water, the more com- plex the emulsion and the broader the spectrum of its properties. Carbon, its so- called inorganic counterpart, has a similar capacity above and beyond all other elements. At a physical level water is to be found in three states of aggregation, solid (ice), liquid (water) and gaseous (water vapour) and in terms of its structure as a liquid, it tends more to the crystalline, as it continually forms and re-forms nodes of temporary crystallisation, exhibiting a space-lattice structure, such as is shown in figs. 8.2 & 8.3 taken from a homeo- pathic study of water by Dr. Gerhard Resch and Prof. Viktor Gutmann7.