TWELVE

SPIRALS, THE VORTEX, AND THE ETHERIC

In the beginning was the vortex.

DEMOCRITUS(460–370 BCE)

We live on a planet that is hurtling through space at a breathtaking speed while spinning on its axis, and we are also subject to gravitational and magnetic forces. Earth’s fluids are particularly affected by its spinning. As water is the most important constituent of life, the way it moves, its rhythms and pulsations, are at the heart of all life’s processes.

SELF-ORGANIZING SYSTEMS

The linear system of Newtonian physics that has dominated the natural sciences for three centuries studies only predictable phenomena, which is why we still know so little about water. Newton did not recognize that living systems behave in what seems like a random, unpredictable way.

The idea that organisms are self-organizing was first suggested by the research of Boris Belousov, a Soviet chemist. In 1959 his crucial experiment was to prepare a solution of some thirty chemical substances, from colorless liquid to one with brilliant colors, which, to his surprise, organized itself into regular patterns of spirals and vortices. These self-organizing oscillations in water demonstrated that its chemical reactions are unpredictable. Belousov’s research was not taken seriously, and eleven years elapsed before a young chemist called Anatoly Zhabotinsky repeated the older man’s experiment, which then became known as the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. Their findings were a challenge to the law of entropy, showing that from a disordered state spiral-forms emerge creating stable, oscillating patterns—order spontaneously emerges from chaos.

Ilya Prigogine (1917–2003), winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1977, believed that organisms, though stable, are always striving toward greater equilibrium.*37 He saw organisms in a state of constant change, responding to other organisms in order to achieve harmonious balance. He acknowledged that his ideas were inspired by the Chinese tradition of fluctuation between yin and yang, tending toward harmony of the Tao, the ancient Chinese path of wisdom. Nature’s imperative is to follow patterns that lead to equilibrium. This principle is also at the heart of Schauberger’s work with polarities.

An organism is not a fixed entity. As Mae-Wan Ho shows in her Quantum Jazz, organisms are in a state of constant flux, with a tendency to cooperate with other organisms to create an ordered reality and higher symmetry.

ORDER FROM CHAOS

The principle has been recognized by the philosophers of all the great civilizations—that change can come only from the failure of the status quo. Put another way: order must be preceded by chaos; the two are inseparable partners (see box). In the Chinese Tao Te Ching, the hexagram for “crisis” is the same as that for “opportunity.”†38

Chaos Precedes Order

Author Callum Coats gives a helpful explanation of dialectic thinking, which he insists is imperative for comprehension of the whole. Thus, yin is balanced by yang (yin x yang = 1), magnetism by electricism, frequency by wavelength, spirit by matter, and so on. Thus also, chaos x order = 1, or wholeness. Without chaos (undifferentiated, unstructured matter or energy; or unordered, unmetamorphosed unconditional love), there could be no basis for the creation of order (differentiated, harmonically structured matter or energy). Therefore, the foundation for order is chaos.1, *39

Water stage-manages life, but water itself is a disorganized medium. It seems to thrive on paradoxes. The asymmetry of its molecule is responsible for many of the strange anomalies that make it fit for life. This imperfect symmetry holds the secret of matter’s very existence, for instability and imperfect symmetry are the guiding laws of the universe.

Evolutionary initiatives seem to have a tentativeness about them, which translate as instability. It is the restlessness of water that gives living systems the ability to become ever more complex and to strive toward the perfection they can never attain. As the driver of evolution, water is a model for our own striving. It is the changeability and restlessness of water that drives evolution, for it allows life, by fits and starts, to become ever more complex. Organisms are self-organizing closed energy systems, but they also allow energy to pass through them.

We love to disparage meteorologists for getting their forecasts wrong, but weather systems are complex and nonlinear, and the watery domain, gaseous or liquid, is essentially unpredictable. Organisms based on water are in constant flux. They communicate with other organisms, as the overriding imperative in Nature is to bring about balance and higher order.

THE AMBIGUITY OF PATTERN, UNCERTAINTY, AND CHAOS

The Newtonian/Cartesian mechanistic worldview prefers processes to be predictable. But Euclidian geometry, straight lines, and boxed containers are alien to Nature. Yet Nature is not entirely unpredictable.

Classical societies identified patterns in the formation of natural organic systems, which they codified as natural laws, applying to them mathematical values out of which grew sacred geometry. Nature works harmoniously, with every living thing participating in a vast ballet or orchestra, which Mae-Wan Ho vividly described in the previous chapter. Nature’s intercommunication system is truly miraculous.

Mainstream science usually sees evolution as a meaningless random process, while, as we investigated in chapter 9, we can see patterns and trends in evolution that suggest a purpose.

Uncertainty is a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics. Restlessness is one of the primary features of water due, as we saw in chapter 3, to its unsymmetrical hydrogen bonds. It is constantly opening to new impressions, and consolidating them through turbulence, then chaos and restructuring.

The key to this new order is the fractal, the self-repeating structure that conveys to the smallest scale of life the patterns of the macro universe, through the action of the quantum field working through water.

Computers and abstract mathematics, working with the broader view of quantum physics, have given us a deeper understanding of chaotic systems. Contrary to what conventional physics might expect, this apparently random chaos is actually a precondition of higher order and intelligence.

You can extrapolate this idea into life in general. Any artist will tell you that inspiration does not arise out of the predictable but from the unexpected, the disturbing situation. A routine, predictable life lacks the creative spark that enables one to discover the best opportunities for growth.

Recognizing this can transform the distress of a relationship breakup or loss of one’s job into an opportunity for creative change. The ancient Chinese saying “Breakdown brings opportunity” is really quite apposite. This is what water teaches us, as turbulence allows water to transform toward increased complexity and higher order. Going with the flow means having faith that the life process has a wisdom about balance and growth. Are we able consciously to allow Nature to break down our collapsing and unsustainable human organizations with the belief that new, positive structures will evolve?*40

THE VORTEX

Earth’s rotation causes all fluids and gases to move in spirals. Water’s spiraling is most familiar because it is so visible. But it can be observed in smoke, mist, or a fog as it rolls up a valley. Spirals are a basic form of motion in Nature, but back in the 1930s, Schauberger recognized the vortex as the principal creative movement system in the universe, making it the core of his ecotechnology. The condition required to produce the vortex is turbulence, or chaotic motion. Turbulence increases with a small rise in the temperature of the water, which will disturb a fish and make it more likely to go for the fisherman’s bait. Turbulence is the precursor to chaotic restructuring of the water.

The vortex we see as bathwater swirls down the drain is comparable to the structure of whirlpools, cyclones, DNA, magnetic force fields, and galaxies (see plate 14). It is a concentration of spiraling and dynamically increasing energy. A healer’s subtle energy projects from his hands as a vortex of concentrated energy. A tornado’s energy increases with the narrowing of the cone down to the point, where the tornado’s destruction is greatest.

It was a Belfast physicist, Lord Kelvin (William Thomson, 1824–1907), who first proposed that atomic motion is vortical. This was picked up by James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879), a Scottish theoretical physicist; and by Sir Joseph J. Thomson (1856–1940), the British physicist and Nobel Prize winner who discovered the electron.*41

The idea fell into disfavor when the concept of the ether was discredited (the theory that atoms required a substance in which to move). The concept of wave motion took over, and the atom was demoted from its position as the smallest unit of matter.

It took the emergence of string theory in the 1970s and ’80s to bring back the idea of atomic movement in spirals. It describes how dynamic energy can create what looks like static matter by conceiving a ball of string composed of countless short threads, each forming spirals intertwined with left- and right-hand spins, echoing the electromagnetic polarities found throughout the universe. The vortex was rediscovered by quantum theory.

DNA is probably the most famous spiral in Nature. It is also the battleground between neo-Darwinists, who explain evolution through random mistakes in replication of DNA, and those who interpret evolution as an imperative process of Nature’s intelligence.

Science writer James Gleick, who popularized the ideas of chaos theory in the early 1980s, pointed out that life is created from chaos. Fluids are the ideal media of chaos because of their unpredictable and turbulent behavior. Water turbulence creates vortices and spirals in an energetic stream, with the flow direction constantly changing from left to right.

From the tornado to a growing plant, the vortex is Nature’s mechanism for increasing the quality of energy, raising it from a lower to a higher level. It is a powerful tool for evolution, and perhaps water’s most constructive role is to use the vortex for this purpose.

Ilya Prigogine saw that disorder creates simultaneously stable and unstable oscillating systems that are spiral-form in structure leading to order. This oscillation enables a dynamic homoeostasis (stability) to exist and to increase complexity and energy levels. This mirrors Schauberger’s practical research into the way a stream raises energy levels, which he applied to his ecotechnological applications. Prigogine sees the vortex as energy dissipating, in line with Schauberger’s view.

The vortex is a window between different qualities or levels of energy. Black holes can be thought of as vortices, gateways linking different parts of our universe, or even different universes. For Schauberger, the vortex and spiral were the key to all creative movement. As we shall demonstrate later, the vortex is most clearly seen with water, which uses vortical motion to purify and energize itself, introducing finer etheric energies to wipe the water clean of any negative energies from previous misuse.

One could use the image of a musty room that feels stale and unwelcoming. Once sunlight and fresh air are allowed to penetrate, the unpleasant atmosphere is quickly transformed. It is a natural principle that more refined energy always prevails over coarse. As Schauberger demonstrated, Nature’s evolutionary purpose is to continually refine and create greater complexity and diversity, the vortex being the key process in this endeavor.

EGGS AND VORTICES

Until relatively recent times, scientists and philosophers recognized the creative energy of Nature as sacred. They viewed Nature’s patterns and complex interdependences, often expressed in very specific shapes that could be described in geometric terms and ratios, as proof of God as architect of creation. Thus, they called these correspondences “sacred numbers” and “sacred geometry” (see plate 16).

Artists and architects sought true balance, perfect proportion, an aesthetically pleasing shape. The square seemed too mechanical, a long rectangle too awkward. The shape that seemed just right was the square rectangle with the proportions of 5:8, called the “golden mean,” usually described by the Greek letter phi (Ф). This turns out to be the magical proportion favored by Nature in her designs. It is also the key to the shape of the egg.2, *42

Schauberger was well aware that Nature uses the egg shape for creating and maintaining the dynamic energy of biological water. In Fertile Earth he wrote: “Every force . . . unfolds itself and springs forth from the original form of life, the egg.”

He also understood the importance of the electromagnetic polarity being activated in water. For example, when generating vortices in egg-shaped vessels as a way of developing powerful energies in heating and cooling applications and for high-potency drinking water, he placed the pointy end in an upward direction. This produced a negative, yin subtle energy, like the in-drawing of breath. When he used eggs for potentizing natural fertilizers, he placed the pointy end down, producing an out-breathing, yang subtle energy. He did not, as far as we know, experiment with two eggs used together, but he demonstrated that an egg with the pointy end down generates dynamic energy; whereas point up, it gathers, condenses, and concentrates energy.†43

Ralf Roessner, a German anthroposophical scientist, produced a model that ingeniously separates the yin and yang parts of the process, illustrating clearly what takes place. His process uses two glass eggs joined at their pointy ends by a short collar to produce high-quality drinking water (see plate 15). It is an ingenious system: the upper egg produces a fine vortex where the water accelerates and chaoticizes as it passes through the narrow neck. When it falls into the lower egg as turbulent and chaotic myriads of tiny electromagnetically polarized cyclones, liquid crystalline chains form and natural clustering takes place, which rebuilds the internal structure of the water at a higher dynamic energy level. The surfaces of the many layers in this laminar structure act like skins, or antennae, to absorb higher energy.

This dual system elegantly combines the energy-dissipating function of the vortex with the energy-enhancing mode of chaos in the lower egg. The natural egg shape (see above) in each case encourages the water body to circulate efficiently as a coherent whole. The natural coherence of water is amplified by the egg shape, helping it break through into the quantum domain, from which it can absorb higher quality subtle energies. Quantum coherence is much more dynamic than normal physical coherence.

Roessner spent ten years developing this double-egg system, with beautiful handblown eggs created individually by skilled glass craftsmen, to produce quantum water for domestic use.3 He points out that through this very personal, hands-on way of energizing water, we can communicate with the water being energized. As we are essentially quantum water, our own biological water is involved with the process of spinning the water in the eggs.*44

FLOWFORMS

We haven’t talked much about the rhythm of water. In the flow of a healthy stream there is a natural rhythm of movement from side to side, which keeps the electromagnetic charge of the stream in balance. In order to create this rhythm in an artificial stream, it is necessary to understand the mathematics of flow in relation to form.

While still a sculpture student, John Wilkes was introduced to projective geometry by the anthroposophist George Adams, a colleague of Theodor Schwenk, whose pioneering research we will discuss in the next chapter. He believed that the quality of water may be dependent on the rhythms of that water moving across a specific surface. From this theory emerged his idea of the flowform, which consists of a series of heart-shaped basins that introduce rhythmic movement into the water in a series of figure eights. It is usually built as a cascade of bowls, in a wide variety of shapes and in various materials, often in preformed concrete (see plate 17).

More than one thousand flowform projects have been set up in more than thirty countries. Their ability to invigorate the environment has made them popular in town centers, with large businesses, in parks, and in gardens (see plate 18). Their most practical use is in conjunction with water treatment plants, where they play a crucial role at the end of the purification process. They are also used in biological treatment systems, fish farms, and reed bed sewage systems.

THE GROUND OF ALL BEING

Goethe called water “the ground of all being.” The “being” he referred to is more than manifest life; it is also the ground of Bohm’s “implicate order.” By the law of polarity, all systems have a dual aspect. Thus, it is reasonable to suppose that cosmic principles and forms are conveyed to organic life as a partnership between water (yin) and the quantum field, or etheric (yang).

Both are media for the transmission of subtle energies. Whereas the etheric may have to do more with the mental level, water is perhaps the medium for communicating formative information. It seems that they work together in harmonious balance.

I suspect that the quantum field may be related to electromagnetic energies as they are generally understood, but on a higher dimensional level, and therefore subject to different laws; for example, while normal electromagnetic waves are interrupted by lead shielding or a Faraday cage, the etheric may not be blocked.

These are still early days of understanding the etheric field and its interaction with the water domain.