Monday 30 November 2009

God and all His Works...



Well, it had to happen sometime. My God post, or 'How it's possible to have a good, fulfilling life without believing'. It's actually quite easy when it comes down to it and I still get to walk and eat and laugh and cry, have sex and love my fellow man and woman without any supernatural interference, divine punishment or having even one iota of faith. It's a goddamn miracle, that's what it is. Things could have gone so differently, if it hadn't been for one night in 1986 when I went to a Born-again Christian rock concert. More of that later.

                                       



Here's the story of my descent into unbelief and, eventually, I guess, hell. 


For most of my teenage years, I had subscribed to a very vague, unthought-out, knee-jerk Celtic-style Christianity, which consisted of saying that I believed in Jesus and God but that was pretty much it. And hassling heavy metal friends who wore upside-down crosses. This behaviour, to my ever-lasting shame, is the only true blue Born-again thing I did, thank God. In all other things, I remained in my obscure pseudo-Christian sect of one. 


The bible was bogus and deeply boring as far as I could see and apart from using it to predict the future, (a great no-no and a sin, I found out later,) I didn't read it. 
Apart of course from the infamous Persian porn poetry in Ecclesiastes- the Song of Songs. And even now, it's a genuinely sexy bit of writing, exquisitely beautiful, erotic and powerful. If you've never read it, I would urge you to do so. 
What male teenage believer hasn't secretly swelled and impurely lingered over the page chapters where the lover's breasts are compared to variously, two young gazelles, dates and grapes and imagined how that might look. 







You are tall,
          as tall as a palm tree.
          And your breasts are like its plentiful fruit.
          I said, ‘I will climb the palm tree.
          I will hold its fruit.’
          I would like your breasts to be like groups of grapes.
          I would like your breath to smell like apples.



Or wondered if Jesus rose on the third day solely because of reading verses three and four-

         My hair is damp because of the night.’
      I have taken off my dress,
          I do not want to put it on again.
          I have washed my feet.
          I do not want to make them dirty.
          My lover put his hand through the opening.
          I was excited because he was near.


Well goodness me. The Bible, ladies and gentlemen.


So, that concert. It was a bearded Christian singer by the name of Adrian Snell and for your delectation, I've tracked down a recording of Alpha and Omega from 1988. Two years earlier, it was the title track from the album he had just released as well as giving its name to The Alpha and Omega tour. This tour, a serious-faced American interpretive male dancer in a black leotard would be interpreting Adrian Snell's songs, infusing them with all the multi-media impact and gravitas of free-form expression. Unfortunately, as it turned out, it also looked incredibly and joyously gay. This, sadly, was the beginning of the end for me. 


So, to recap. Before the gig, I called myself a Christian, bought a ticket, walked up the spiral ramp into the auditorium, before finding my seat, feeling embarrassed that I wasn't wearing a V-necked jumper but anyway... The lights went down and...






...until half way through, when after an excruciating hour of smothering my giggles and the serious kissing ups to Jesus on stage, Mr. Snell said the words that turned me away from the light. This was to be my very own road out of Damascus moment, when the veil fell away from my eyes, pomegranates be damned.


'I want you to turn to the person sat on your left and tell them that Jesus loves them.'


It sounds so innocuous now, doesn't it, and yet the truth was that I'd never actually met a real, fixed-smile Christian in my life until that moment, just the ones in the nice coloured head-scarves from the Children's bible. The ones that pulled thorns from lions' paws and got Egypt through the famine. Except, weren't they supposed to be Jewish?


To be honest, someone trying to hold my hand for Jesus, scared the living bejesus out of me. To be around people who could be that cloyingly earnest, even after reading the Song of Songs un-nerved me. And so I did what any newly made godless fool would do and incredulously and loudly said, 'No!', snatching my hand away before beginning the desperate sideways shuffle past the neatly trousered knees into a fresh new world.


So, at twenty years old I was re-born into a world without God, without Allah, without Krishna, without Zeus, even without the Invisible Pink Unicorn, (though verily, Her loss I feel the most keenly, causing me pain both potent and grievous). 
The sweet relief I experienced when I finally surrendered the last tatters of the religious flag I'd thought to fly was a revelation. 


Without a god, I realised that I didn't need to hide any longer. 


I was free.  

Thursday 26 November 2009

Dowsing- the ups, the downs, the round and arounds...




When I was about six years old, my old next door neighbour decided I was ready to learn the ancient secret art of dowsing. He was a prolific dowser for our local council, had been for years, finding water for Yorkshire Dales farmers and homeless northern water sprites. So, over time, I learned to hold the sacred metal coat hanger wires too, a little loosely, one in each hand, attuning my mind to the silent song of the water. I practiced walking methodically around the garden, occasionally crossing wires with pride. Eventually, I could easily and expertly pinpoint the many water pipes beneath our lawn time and time again, even though there weren’t any. Dowsing’s great. It doesn’t like to disappoint anyone, ever.


Unfortunately, as it turned out, I hadn’t been tracking water at all. I’d been tracing the energy signatures of multiple ley lines, the life-energy that binds, intersects, bisects and slices through Mother Earth.


Except unfortunately, as it turned out, our lawn was flatly disguising a mess of rubbly landfill which had poisoned and disrupted the energy flow to such an extent that the magical conduits had shifted into pixie land many years before, never to return.


I had actually discovered, quite by chance, a way to physically measure the mystical outpourings of my hope and wishful thinking. It was set to revolutionise New Age thinking forever, heralding in a new age of New Age reality bias. 


That was until the Institute for New Age Non-acceptable Evidence heard of my findings. Through email correspondence I was informed that because I could repeat my discovery of measurable wishful thinking over and over again with accuracy, it was the opinion of the Institute that the evidence should be completely disregarded and my name struck off the register of Dowsers, Diviners and Soothsayers. If, at a later date, it was pendulum-dowsed that the subject of wishful thinking required further inspection and examination, the Lord High Dowser himself would conduct the trials and not some unbelieving boat-rocker. I was '...making a mockery of tried and believed pseudo-science.' And this wasn't all. 


They concluded with a caveat on the final page, writing curtly that I should '...desist from the production of any further anti-dowsing propaganda' as this could lead to 'repercussions.' 


In a chilling addendum to the final email this was made crystal clear. They informed me in no uncertain terms that they had a map and a pendulum and as Energy was their witness, they would not hesitate in hunting me down... 


And that was that. I dowsed no more.

Sunday 22 November 2009

Orb Hooch- How to Make Your Own Spirits





Here's a few cool photos of orbs, that funny and completely silly New Age obsession. I mean, really. So, just to prove the point, I spent a few hours last night duplicating the orbs I'd found on some of the more popular orb websites. Needless to say, part of the fun has been not faking the following pictures in any way. I took a gadzillion of photos to achieve these... I might be wrong, but I think they pretty much equal or trump the best that pro-orb sites can offer. Enjoy. 





A genuine, lovely, big, pure white orb with a very obvious auric flare. This is incontrovertible proof of a spirit orb captured on film. And not without a sense of humour either, appearing as it does by the spherical light shades.






Notice the super-charged orb in the centre of this church door. Orbs will often present themselves in profusion near places of death or high emotion. Note the clustering over the door compared to the walls. Extra proof if needed that there is some sort of aware intelligence at work here.







































A doozie of an orb picture. Notice the large orb going behind the gravestone, multiple orb on orb action to the right and the firm mass of the blue orbs towards the top of frame, showing that they're real orbs and not dust reflections.






A snap of an orb in flight beneath a 1700 year old yew tree.





A single fast moving orb, with a stationary super-charged orb and a blue orb, all beneath a beautiful ancient yew tree, the tree of the dead.






A collection of blue spirit orbs, multiple configurations, tracking lines, auric flares and three super-charged orbs. All above my pond, a sign that spirits are drawn to water.







One super-charged orb, partly behind a leaf, showing its placement firmly by the trellis and not near the camera lens. 







A face evident in the largest orb, and three cheeky equidistant orbs in the window, reminiscent of a Mandelbrot sequence.  







Meditation can also attract the orb angels. Check them out!







The purest proof of all. A blue orb hovering above Phay's hands, at the exact level of the Buddha's base chakra. Truly amazing. 





Here's a super-charged orb, caught in broad daylight. It's tracking through the branches of an ash tree, the tree of enchantment in Celtic mythology.





And just to finish off, these beautiful orbs. I think these could be the guardians of my home. Perhaps my ancestors, perhaps my angels. And amazingly, seen again in broad daylight.


So there we have it. Convinced? You should be.

Wednesday 18 November 2009

Cloudbusting for Fun and Profit



So, I'm back, still picking bits of Orgone from between my teeth as I begin to explore the very pipes and crystals of Cloudbusters/Chembusters. 







OK. A 1950s Weathermonger and Prophet by the name of Dr. Wilhelm Reich, invented the first weather controlling Cloudbuster by sticking long metal tubes in some water. The tubes were then able to suck out the living energy, or orgone, from clouds, that Reich knew held the fluffy things together. This allowed the water vapour to disperse, creating lovely, clear, orgone blue skies. These magic tubes were to be used only by trained believers. As an added feature, the Cloudbuster could suck in evil, electro-magnetically damaged orgone and convert it back into good orgone. This revolutionary idea was to change the world of his followers for ever. He also made Orgone Accumulators and Einstein had a go with one for a few hours.


Along with Reich was Trevor Constable, who dedicated many years to pointing Cloudbusters at stuff, taking part in loads of extra-curricular weather wrangling while also exposing the existence of the Sylph, a huge, living, invisible energy UFO. Reich and Constable then, belonged to the original orthodoxy, holding true to their faith. So far so unusual. But wait.  


Now, we jump forward thirty years. To the amazing Don Croft. He's Billy Graham to Reich's St. Paul, the quintessential New Age evangelising everyman. Part pariah, part messiah and freedom fighter, he is a seer of THE TRUTH, a lightening rod of a man, currently on the run from the Men in Black as They know that he knows THE TRUTH. Fortunately his wife is psychic so she can sense when they're about to come and confront him and stop him from 'gifting' his Holy Handgrenades around mobile phone masts. Unfortunately he's also a bit of a loony. 


He took Reich's eccentric work and ran with it, keeping bits he liked while stirring in jars of paranoia and New Age daftness into the mix until the original orgone ideas and Reich's name remain like flavour enhancers, to plump out and pull together what is essentially water soup. Cloudbusters remain, but they have also become Chembusters, cloud-ready but aimed at imagined chem trails that always used to be airplane contrails until fifteen years ago. Croft turned them into Chemtrails, that were spread by the military to poison and control the population so that the dark alien forces could rule. Those aliens. Gluttons for punishment. And he not only re-invented those Chem/Cloudbusters either. We now we have a whole array of his orgonomically and psychically inspired resin, swarf and crystal based objects, all competing for orgone's affections. And a world of crazy that's ripe and so ready to lap up the alien conspiracy, control, and black ops psi bull that comes with them, happily ignoring any sense. Croft's like a practically minded, richer version of our very own David Icke. 


It makes Reich sucking out magical life force from distant clouds with a copper pipe and a bit of water seem like the most normal thing in the world, doesn't it.

Tuesday 17 November 2009

On the Orgone Trail




















So, there I was, out in the field a couple of years ago and looking idly at a new age Cloudbuster just sat there, doing its thing, which lets face it, isn't an awful lot of anything. As I was told though, it removed clouds, or caused rain, or destroyed chemtrails. Something anyway. Anyone like me, disbelieving in the efficacy of the Reichian inspired machine wouldn't be able to get near it, let alone lift up the bucket and copper pipe sculpture and run around for five minutes hugging it to his chest without experiencing adverse effects such as extreme nausea. They're dangerous things, all that built up DOR energy and little old me an avowed skeptic. I wasn't going to let that bother me though. 
Stroke, rub, hug, run, run, run... drop it , taking down the horse with a magical burst of etheric energy by accident... run, run, run... getting bored...  


I truly felt nothing apart from a little stupid in case anyone saw me. 


Being skeptical is 'too easy', 'taking cheap shots', and 'why don't I try to be positive instead of knocking things down', 'look at the science before you dismiss it'... yes yes. So I researched Cloudbusters, only looking at pro sites. 
But really, after trawling through easily twenty different sites dedicated to the double blind worship of Wilhelm Reich and His spiritual son, Don Croft, it's hard to come away with anything but a headache. There's an overall feeling of a righteous new age version of Scientology when the websites talk about Orgone, Holy Hand grenades, The Men In Black, aliens, chemtrails, conspiracy and the Reichian believers' mainline access to THE TRUTH... There's such a wealth of confusion and wonderfully bizarre thinking here that I think I'll let cloudbusting take a back seat and enlarge on this fascinating area next time. This time, I'll let conspiracy briefly ease its overweight bulk into the driving seat and go for a ride.


Everything comes back to cover-up and conspiracy in the end. And there-in lies the longevity of some of Reich's crazier ideas. We all can feel a little distrustful of governments that can't help but act like all powerful groups with money, resorting to sneaky, underhand and illegal ways if and when it suits. So why not distrust them a little bit more? Of course those fake smiles and false words must surely hide the Machiavellian schemings of the New World Order and their hidden Puppet Masters, so scared of those freedom fighters who can see beyond the Matrix, armed with their HHgs (without an apostrophe, people) and Chemtrail killers. And so all Orgone research gets discredited and the world stays diseased and under control. It can't be proved that this doesn't happen, however crazy it might be, so therefore it's true, right? And things that would normally have faded into silliness, live in that grey area, re-inventing themselves, twitching with un-ending, fitful life.


OK. Accept for a moment, for example, that 'they' suppressed orgone research all those years ago because of its ability to end drought, provide free energy and cure ninety percent of diseases. Suppressed or not, there still should be some proof of these amazing claims somewhere, beyond the usual I knew a man who knew a man who was cured of... Finding some free etheric energy on tap, powering an electric light, just once. Or recording peculiar weather patterns focusing on the epicentre of each Cloudbuster with its 45 mile range of effectiveness. That nothing conclusive has ever been discovered or shown by both skeptical and believing researchers holding countless experiments must make anyone question the veracity of such a statement. But it doesn't.


Every skeptic, every law designed to prevent fraud and false claims, everything and anything holding a position counter to THE TRUTH must be suppressive. Big Pharma suppressed it, the CIA suppressed it, the Illuminati suppressed it. There always seems to be a bogeyman that wants to stop THE TRUTH from ever being heard by the masses. This 'us and them' attitude has been played out time and time again of course, every time a new, unsubstantiated pseudo-scientific miracle cure is trumpeted from the rooftops before being shot down by scientific marksmen. Reich's theories are no different, alas. 






Monday 16 November 2009

Emoto the Snowman










So I was wondering. If Emoto goes out and fancies a 99 ice cream cone can he make the flake become more shapely and delicious just by using positive intent?



This idle and essentially pointless thought discussion was in mid flow while I was hunting for any evidence of double blind experiments existing for his not weird, not outlandish, not at all freakishly unlikely in any way idea that water can be manipulated by thought and intent. Dogs are rubbish at this by the way, as are elk, fairy shrimp, moo cows, pygmy elephants, the star-nosed mole and in fact everything in creation except one insect. This single exception is the pond skater (Gerris lacustris), that can focus its intent to such an extent that it can stand like Jesus, defying science, pulling the water clusters to its feet to float freely above the unknown depths. 





It's frankly quite amazing, and the first tangible, solid evidence of the only being, other than man, capable of mentally manipulating water to its own ends.


But I digress.


Back to the elusive search for evidence. After much searching I found some, in the same way one might find evidence of a dog by looking on the sole of your shoe. Two experiments in fact, the second not even double-blinded, but triple-blinded! Well, I almost felt like I'd died and gone to heaven, which as an unbeliever was a deeply curious and mind-twisting experience. 
But sadly, the experiments conducted by Drs. Dean Radin, Gail Hayssen and Masaru Emoto B.A. failed overall to demonstrate much of anything.


Ok. Follow carefully. It's a bit like science because they use the words double blind. 


The first 'double blind' experiment involved four bottles of water. The two hero bottles were charged remotely with intent, three thousand miles away by two thousand of Emoto's followers in Japan by looking at a photo of the bottles in America. The other two were held separately in another room. Then all four bottles were dispatched to Japan where the great man's people froze and photographed fifty samples from each bottle, not knowing which was which. All in all, a selection of forty samples made their way back to America where Dr. Radin, a fan of Emoto's, showed the anonymous samples to a further two thousand people on the internet to be judged for their individual aesthetic appeal.


The result was deemed to be 'statistically significant' in favour of intent although how one experiment using just forty samples and loads of potential for bias, contamination, mistakes and luck can be deemed statistically significant in any way is a tad questionable. But we'll let that drift on by under the bridge of tries again.


So we come the second, a blinding attempt at a triple blind experiment, with just more criteria in place and pretty much the same technique. Both experiments still relied on doing everything 'in house' with Emoto running through every part of the process, safely enthroned in his Japanese ice palace. With the results published last year in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, they make less than impressive reading. Statistically the findings show no more than chance in all her glory, as the rough triple blind did take away a lot of the bias, hence the lack of any significance in the data. 


The treated samples scored a tiny bit higher in the beauty quotient than one set of controls, but then, the other control set marked highest of all. And none of the samples were felt to be particularly attractive anyway, scoring an average of 1.7 on a scale of an ugly 1 to the perfect loveliness of 6. And that's with three days of concentrated remote 'gratitude' focusing from around two thousand people at another bottle photograph. To reiterate- that's three days of two thousand intensely positive intent-pulsing believers, producing a statistical non-event. 


All this means is that chance had as ever, a large part to play, freezing any statistical benefit in its tracks before cheekily making an Emoto snowman. Dr. Radin still saw significance everywhere, against all the odds, who'd have guessed. Though at least, to his credit, he honestly tried to put in place a reasonable set of practices to compensate for Emoto's crazy ways. But as previously mentioned, the more bias was removed, the closer to chance the results become, as is often the way when pseudo-science is closely inspected. Often? I'm being kind. 


If gratitude, love, or writing 'I hug you' really could make water form prettier snowflakes than intent-free water, then I guarantee it wouldn't need a photo-finish and a steward's inquiry. But don't despair. The sky's full of millions of tumbling hexagonal crystals every winter and they're ever beautiful, all by themselves, no intent required. For that, we should be eternally grateful.



                   




Friday 13 November 2009

Going Round in Circles, Sufism in Glastonbury







Although Glastonbury is too small to whirl in, none-the-less, surprisingly, enough people shuffle carefully around in the right circles for a form of Westernised Sufism to flourish. This then, is a rough, simplified, non-inciting exploration of Islam and Sufism through the lens of the Alternative Types. 


Sufism is the mystical, very twiggy branch of Islam, responsible for inspiring much of the secondary growth of Islam across the world, yet persecuted for over a millennium by some of the harder-nosed religious orthodoxy for sounding intoxicated, not reading the Qu’ran in precisely the three, four or seven different ways allowed and for writing love poetry like pink khirqah-wearing girls. Sufis are normally very accepting and understanding about it all, preferring to smile in a thoughtful way, be nice and calmly side-step the thornier issues, leaving them more time to dreamily contemplate beautiful youths and get closer to the Beloved.


Seeking the Beloved has to be carefully achieved in case a mystical truth discovered on the way to bliss reveals ideas at odds with the Qur’an. This would be blasphemous and of course, blasphemy is still one of the worst sins ever, on a par with deciding Islam isn’t for you after all. Sufis have walked the fine line adeptly, adroitly and advisedly over the long years.


Originally, Sufism was the response to a need for spiritual depth lost in the drier interpretation and perceived worldliness of early Islam. They were known as Those Who Cry A Lot. In spite of this, Sufis got over it and moved on and they still explore that self-same mystical yearning, this time with a strong un-quivering lip. 
As with any follower of Islam, Sufis believe in the Way revealed through the Last Prophet and written down as the Qur’an. This is Allah’s last unveiling of all truth, only in Arabic, finally and for all time, that’s it, there you go, that’s your lot. For quite a while, that was enough for everyone- Caliph, beggar and desert nomad. But then, two centuries later, along came the Hadith, compiled from the well-remembered sayings, thoughts and perfect actions of Mohammed (peace and love be with him). And then, later still, the precipitous, un-climbable range of life-defining laws, the Sharia*.


Even so, the Sufi couldn’t resist adding a vast amount of poetic garnish, and thank the Beloved they did. For they created some of the most exquisitely profound, transcendent and heart-lifting prose and poems ever written down by a human. It is this quality more than any other that initially called Glastonbury hippies to the woolly folds of Sufism. 


It can be difficult for any would-be Sufi to decide which of the many lineages of Sheikhs they feel drawn to follow. Like breakfast cereals, Sheikhs are all slightly different, all slightly the same, with more or less similarly attractive packaging, each offering an equivalent spiritual nutritional base. It’s just about spotting the tastiest amongst the many sugary breakfast cereals on offer.




Lacking any form of spiritual insurance brokerage, the would-be Sufi may have to read many labels before reaching out for the right one.
Once poured into the empty bowl, so to speak, the chosen Master will begin to instruct his student by speaking at length and in detail about how to interpret the difficult, potentially opposing and confusing bits of Sufi and mainstream Islamic writing in the safest way. For he who would know Allah talks much. Then after years of learned thought and poetry, close to final understanding, the student may find their deep need to reach beyond words becoming unbearable. For he who would know Allah becomes silent. The chosen Sheikh then takes a step back, acting as a guide by dropping an occasional pithy insight for the student to follow. Eventually, if all goes well, the aspirant gets to bathe in the eternal love of Allah, (may His name appear in all manner of vegetables and fruit) and become Sufi proper.


Obviously, being a Sufi is kind of intrinsically bound to the experience of being a Muslim and has always been at the root of the Sufi faith. But the slow journey of traditional Sufism would never excite the buyers in the modern get-enlightened-quick religious marketplace of the West. A cleaned up, simplified, user-friendly Universal Sufism however, that down-played an observance of the Qu’ran and all that stuff, concentrating instead on the mystical journey towards universal love and poetry most certainly would. The pill is further sweetened by the thrill of getting a new name, a slinky headscarf and copious amounts of hibiscus tea without ever having to learn Arabic. This certainly helps in hitting the spiritual spot. It has actually become a studied fashion statement amongst some of the more spiritually discerning Glastafarian women. As one was heard to say, “This hijaby thing is so cool and decorous that now I just wouldn’t be seen out without it. And it works like magic. Men only see the headscarf and not the woman under it. That should keep their out of control, twisted, depraved,godless lust firmly in their hearts where it belongs. ”




* The iron constraints of Sharia, the unchangeable medieval system of Islamic laws can be made to fit everyone living in the modern world, even if there needs to be a judicious but kindly pruning of fingertips or chopping down of height first. Think on this.

Sunday 8 November 2009



Emoto the Miracle Man- turning water into fine wine dining...




So, Dr. Emoto is coming to Glastonbury on the 18th of November, bringing water revelations with him to share with eager Glastafarians. And revealings of such truths never come cheap. For £20, he will show you slides of pretty, love influenced snowfakes, sorry, my bad... snowflakes and sell you books, CDs, DVDs and bottles of magic water*. This is the man who has gained a wonderfully official sounding 'Dr.' title from the Open International University of Alternative Medicine in India. I kid you not. The man who believes that the ice crystals he photographs are actually spirits and that we came to this world in giant spheres of ice. That taking many photographs of crystals then choosing the one that most agrees with his idea, (that ice crystals, and by extension, water, can be affected on a molecular level by intent) is scientific. It's really, really not. Emoto is indeed a fascinating character.


*He was, on his website, until recently, selling something he calls Indigo water- a small bottle of 'highly charged hexagonally structured water' for $35 a pop. Which is water, charged with happy thoughts and which can 'super-hydrate someone better than normal water' because it's hexagonally structured. Um, yes... no surprise there then. I was going to remove a description of him as a consummate fraud and a fool as I felt I was being unduly harsh and he's probably a nice bloke but I think after seeing this sales pitch, I'll let it stand.


Here's an interesting yet scary link... "Conscious Water Crystals: The Power of Prayer Made Visible"  


The shape and complexity of ice crystals are directly linked to temperature and humidity as water vapour freezes. Also, water with a high particulate content will form crystals more readily than distilled water as the forming crystals are essentially seeded by the little bits of dust and matter. 
High humidity gives a complex six spiked star shape, low humidity, a simple hexagon. The same goes for temperature, as, according to the Caltech website, ice crystals form stars and plates at -2 C , giving way to columns and needles at around -5 C. These in turn give way to the hexagonal stars and plates again at around -15 C, then by -30 C we have a combination of columns and plates. That's the science but way back at Woo Central, Dr. Emoto is still immune to sense, logic or reasoning ability. 


And, existentially, just how are we supposed to measure or define 'Anger' or 'Love', as it hurtles its way towards the jar of unsuspecting water? These are anything but objective feelings and so can't be quantified. Emoto manages it though. Curiously, he can't replicate the shape of any ice crystal even though he might direct 'Ennui' three times at different water vessels. Aren't snowflakes supposed to be renowned for all being unique? Hmmm? Eh? (I'm trying to get his attention by poking him with an icicle.)
And he's discovered that writing words on a piece of paper and sticking it to the outside of the glass works too. When the water evaporates, the evil intent behind the phrase, 'I hate you,' makes the ice form into columns, needles and irregular shapes, while the loving intent of 'I love you,' makes the regular, aesthetically pleasing shapes that the esteemed doctor has decided are therefore good. 
The trouble is, as the water vapour cools down through the temperatures, guess what happens? Any vapour forming solidly below -4 C on the inside of each maligned glass jar doesn't become a beautiful star, but an ugly, evil intent filled columnar ice crystal mass and so on down the range. This can lead to difficulties if you're aiming for a beautiful rainbow crystal of care, joy or peace. 
In reality, any photographs taken can easily show a full range of ice formations. One can find the irregular shapes and the star shapes and everything in between and its only when that old daftie Emoto chooses his favourite one that books can be written, sales can be rung through and gullibility proved to be ever increasingly popular. 


So, on the 18th of November, I'll hopefully be there, pouring my negatively charged water of disbelief onto the credulous fire of righteous New Agers. Or maybe I'll just charge their drinking water with a healthy dose of incredulity and sit back and enjoy the show. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.


For those interested, here's another interesting article from a retired chemistry professor http://www.chem1.com/CQ/clusqk.html