The flyer placed under my windshield wiper in the shopping center parking lot informed me that I had been specially selected (curiously, along with every other shopper) to receive an audiotape about an astounding scientific breakthrough. A “leading” scientist, a “Nobel Prize Candidate” (a nonexistent distinction), had discovered the secret to longevity, a secret that would be revealed on the tape that would be sent to me if I called the number provided. Why not? There are worse things than living to 120. That’s the age, according to the flyer, within our grasp. And so began my journey into the mysteries of “Microcluster Technology”—the “Nutritional Breakthrough of the Century”—and its inventor, Dr. Patrick Flanagan.
We first encounter seventeen-year-old Flanagan in the pages of Life magazine in 1962, hailed as “one of the hundred most important young men and women in the United States.” At the age of eight, he had a dream in which he was told to learn all about physics and electronics in order to help people. So he began to tinker at home and invented the “neurophone,” a device that he claimed would allow deaf people to hear, and also suggested that the same technology would one day allow blind people to see. The brash claims, quirky personality (Flanagan routinely stood on his head to help him think), and cocky nature caught the attention of the Life reporter, who said that the clever youngster could soon be looking at a million dollars from his inventions. The reporter was half right. The deaf are still deaf, and the blind are still blind, but Flanagan is a millionaire.
It seems, however, that it was not extensive formal education that paid off. Indeed, although he is widely referred to as “Dr. Flanagan MD,” it turns out that the MD refers to some ambiguous credit abbreviated as “Med. Alt.” He is no medical doctor. Insight, it seems, into the secrets of life came not at a university, but rather inside the Great Pyramid. It was while he wandered through the chambers there that he “discovered” the key to health. The magical dimensions of the pyramid somehow infused the body with “Zero Point Energy” that had remarkable preventative and curing properties. His 1973 book, Pyramid Power, was an amazing piece of work. It described how animals, plants, and humans could all benefit from the magical properties of pyramids. I recall the Toronto Maple Leafs’ attempt to avail themselves of this phenomenon by placing little pyramids under the players’ bench. It didn’t do them much good. They may have had Pyramid Power, but the Canadiens had “Flower Power.” Guy Lafleur was too strong a force for the pyramids.
Flanagan sold more than books. He sold “revolutionary flat pyramid power pendants.” He asked us to imagine the dimensions of the Great Pyramid “screwed down flat from the top until it looks like a crop circle.” We were further comforted to learn that “all the energy collecting and focusing ability of the pyramid remains with the additional benefit of being able to wear it on your body all day. The only Zero Point Energy device that is safe for continuous wear.” No more worries about those other Zero Point Devices produced by competitors, which obviously put our health at risk.
The Zero Point Energy device was not Flanagan’s greatest invention. That label has to be reserved for “Microhydrin Nanocolloidal Mineral Hydride,” which, according to the tape I received, is the secret behind health and longevity. But the amazing stuff has more mundane uses as well. If you slam a door on your finger, all you have to do is take some Microhydrin and the blood blister will disappear. This comes from no less an authority than Dr. Flanagan, who apparently makes a habit of slamming doors on his fingers. Oh, by the way, he also managed to cure his dog of a degenerated hip with his miracle supplement.
The story behind Microhydrin is even more captivating than Pyramid Power. It seems that way back in the 1960s, a Romanian physicist, Henri Coanda, discovered that snowflakes were alive. As Flanagan recounts, Coanda found that “snowflakes have a circulatory system like a living being; they have little tiny veins like little arms, frozen on the outside; water circulates in the center of them, and the life of a snowflake is as long as the water flows in the veins or until it freezes, and then it dies.” Coanda measured the life of snowflakes in different areas of the world (that must have been some grant application he wrote), and discovered that he could predict within five years the average death of people in a given area by just examining the water. There were five areas where people routinely lived to well over 100 (birth certificates please!), and they all drank special water that came from glaciers. Coanda could not solve the mystery of this water but gave his research to the child prodigy, Flanagan, whom he was convinced would one day create a machine that would make “Hunzaland water.” Hunza is a region in the Himalayas with legendary longevity. It is also notorious for its poor record keeping.
So Flanagan began his flaky research, which after some thirty years culminated in the discovery that glacier water in Hunza had tiny clusters of minerals that have a very high “zeta potential.” It is unclear how this ties in to the living snowflakes, since these are composed essentially of frozen rain, which has no mineral content. In any case, the mineral clusters in Hunza water change the way water molecules are attracted to each other and create a “quasi liquid crystal structure.” According to Flanagan, “when we drink ordinary water, which has no structure, our bodies have to convert that water into living water which has crystalline structure. . . . Hunza water already has that structure, so it is already biological.” What makes it biological? It has a lower surface tension. It spreads more easily. This is what the body needs. How do we know? The proof, Flanagan says, is in mashed potatoes. You can’t mash potatoes with room temperature water because the water doesn’t wet the potatoes, and they form clumps. Heated water has a lower surface tension and is wetter and can be used to mash potatoes. This we are somehow supposed to relate to health. I kid you not. I haven’t been blessed with enough imagination to make this stuff up.
Since most of us can’t get fresh Hunza water delivered from the Himalayas, Flanagan has created a “complete analogue.” All we have to do is swallow some capsules (and some truly convoluted science) which will reduce the surface tension of our internal fluids and which will also provide us with the ultimate magic in Hunza water, namely “negative hydrogen ions.” We are all deficient in negative hydrogen, as Flanagan says, and therefore prone to disease. Negative hydrogen, or “hydride,” you see, is the ideal antioxidant. It neutralizes free radicals. It can also reverse cancer. This time Flanagan quotes a French authority who claims that “cancer cells have no hydrogen in them. . . . [T] hey are the only cells in the body that have no hydrogen in them.” Of course, the microcolloids in Mycrohydrin, based on food grade silica (“sand” in common language), can restore our negative hydrogen balance. I guess I better hit my chemistry books again because I’m totally baffled by Flanagan’s discussions of bio-terrains, reduction potentials, and hydrogenated micro clusters—in spite of the fact that I’ve had a fair bit of experience working with hydrides in the laboratory.
Maybe my confusion stems from thinking too much about how these magical hydrides would withstand the onslaught of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Flanagan says that when people think too much they produce free radicals, and “often people can’t get rid of those free radicals, so their brains are actually becoming toxic and damaged.” This can even cause depression. The secret to mental clarity therefore lies in Microhydrin or, perhaps, thinking less. I guess Flanagan must also think too much. How else could he come up with the plethora of pseudo-scientific garble that oozes from his mouth? Maybe it comes with such ease because the microcolloids have reduced the surface tension of his fluids. Of course, if surface tension were the secret of life, a little soapy water would do the trick. This would be a lot cheaper than “nanocolloids.” Maybe “Dr. Flanagan” could investigate its beneficial properties. He could start by using it to wash his mouth.