The Water Wizard – The Extraordinary Properties of Natural Water

Viktor Schauberger, Callum Coats

• Publisher: Gill Books
• Year: 1999
• ISBN:
  9780717165384
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Conservation & Protection
• Index: Biological Sciences

More energy is encapsulated in every drop of good spring water than an average-sized power station is presently able to produce.
Viktor Schauberger (1885–1958) Water – all life depends on it. Yet how often do we stop to consider its true significance, its essential nature? The Water Wizard, the first volume of the Eco-Technology series which presents the original, passionate and convincing research of Viktor Schauberger in translation for the first time, looks at the importance of water to our daily lives. Schauberger was a pioneering genius who combined keen observation of Nature with intuitive brilliance and a sharp engineer's brain. One of the first genuine environmentalists, he was predicting ecological catastrophe when no-one else could see it coming. In the era of global warming, deforestation and desertification, Schauberger's predictions are now being proven right. A fearless exponent of natural energy who revelled in doing battle with contemporary orthodox scientists, his work is enjoying a worldwide revival because he was able to convey how an understanding of Nature's subtle energies is essential to our survival. Schauberger made a lifelong study of water – from mountain streams to river flows and from domestic supplies to advances hydraulics – developing profound and radical theories about its inherent energies, which earned him the name of 'the Water Wizard'. According to Schauberger, water is akin to blood in the human body – the most important life-giving and energy-empowering substance on the planet. Yet, with incorrect, ignorant handling, it becomes diseased, affecting human, animal and vegetable life alike, causing physical decay and, in the case of people, their moral, mental and spiritual deterioration as well. Sadly, the same extractive and water management policies that Schauberger indicts in The Water Wizard, which brought devastation and widespread pollution in his day, are still being practiced today, leading to a revival of interest in Schauberger's work. Themes covered in The Water Wizard include:

• The natural pulsation of water and how to maintain it
• How minute differences in temperature affect the natural function of water in the earth, in plants and in rivers
• How to regulate rivers without damaging their vitality and health
• The natural conversion of sea-water into fresh water
• The consequences of sterilisation and chlorination of water.

The Eco-Technology series makes available for the first time Viktor Schauberger's original writings and passionate debates. Callum Coats has painstakingly collected, translated and edited the material for what promises to be the most definitive study yet of this extraordinary man's life and work.

The Water Wizard: Table of Contents

• A Brief Introduction to the Natural Eco-Technological Theories of Viktor Schauberger
• The Nature of Water
• The Quantitative and Qualitative Deterioration of Water
• The Conduction of the Earth's Blood
• Temperature and the Movement of Water and Other Unpublished Texts on River Engineering
• Fundamental Principles of River Regulation and Status of Temperature in Flowing Water
• The Natural Movement of Water over the Earth's Surface
• The Rhine and the Danube
• The Dr. Ehrenberger Affair
• The Learned Scientist and the Star in the Hailstone
• Appendix: Patent Applications

The Natural Movement of Water over the Earth’s Surface

(The Atmospheric Cycle) and its Relation to River Engineering (Part 1)

[An article by Viktor Schauberger published in Die Wasserwirtschaft, the Austrian Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 9. 1931, pp. 131-136.]

Before addressing the actual theme, it is essential to make a few prior comments about hydraulics in general and its implementation in theory and practice.

“The term hydraulics in its broadest sense is understood to apply to all those structures erected in and around water – and in its narrower sense, those structures which serve for water-utilisation or for the prevention of damage by water. River and stream engineering on the other hand encompass all works which enhance the use of flowing water for navigation, and which serve to protect the riverbank against flooding and rupture.”

The science of hydraulics further asserts:

“A stretch of river in a state of equilibrium provides the river engineer with the reference point from which to establish a normal profile in a turbulent stretch of river, and to bring about a stable condition. If the flow is confined within the appropriate width (normal width), then it creates the normal profile itself, if it is given the means to achieve this by a skilful hand.”

According to these definitions, and in the light of innumerable existing structures, completed experiments and expert opinions, one would be given to believe that the management of water resources is nowadays very close to achieving its highest technical perfection. Every single drop of water would appear to be encompassed by mathematical formulae and therefore in cultivated areas there ought to be no waterway that could deviate by even a centimetre from its prescribed course.

What are the actual facts? What is the practical outcome of an already centuries-old brain-work in the domain of the Science of Hydraulics? Purely and simply, the sorry fact that in all areas of cultivation there is not even a single properly-regulated waterway in which a state of equilibrium has been achieved. Firstly, let us take the Danube whose regulation today has already swallowed up almost a million hectares of valuable farmland and enormous sums of money, and will swallow even more – in spite of the fact that navigation is just as fraught as before. To get some idea of the magnitude of this devastation, it should be pointed out that if the Danube “were given the means by a skilful hand” to form a normal profile itself, in these areas about 400,000 people could have found a carefree existence. With a deft flourish of the hand, enough land would be reclaimed in order to provide Austria’s unemployed with adequate farmland. The same also applies to regulatory works on the Rhine, and the fertile lowlands of Italy and southern France, where already hundreds of thousands of hectares have equally fallen victim to completely misguided river regulation.

Another very instructive example is provided by all our mountain rivers and streams [in Austria], which as waterways are in an exceptionally ruinous state, consuming vast amounts of tax revenue annually. In spite of all this, instead of bringing about an improvement, they exhibit even worse degradation than before, necessitating a constant increase in regulatory works.

The reason why all these present systems of practical river engineering and regulation projects are on, and must pursue, the wrong course is that today no one knows what water is!

Thales of Miletus (614 BC) described water, one of Aristotle’s four elements, as the only true element, from which all other bodies are created. Not only were the Greeks on the right path towards appreciation of the true significance of water, but they also provided us with information about the practices of long-vanished peoples, whose knowledge must have been considerably more advanced than theirs. Thus in his opus Timaeus and Critias, Plato relates that the inhabitants of erstwhile Atlantis regulated their waterways with the aid of cold and warm water. Only a complete understanding of the nature of water could have brought the Atlanteans to this method of river regulation – a science that sadly was already lost to the Greek sages, despite their intensive preoccupation with the medium of water. Even Thales of Miletus overlooked the fact that the regeneration and further development of bodies with the aid of water is also a question of temperature-associated processes. He failed to perceive the here decisive forces and energies which themselves are a product of the tensions arising from alternating phases of temperature.

In order even to speak authoritatively of the efficient management of water and a systematic build-up of cultivable land, it is first necessary to understand that water and properly-regulated phases of temperature are essential for all new formation, regeneration and further development. Furthermore, if humanity, ignorant of Nature’s laws, selects the wrong energy-form for the attainment of its goals, the energy-forms of water will become disorganised and the natural process of autonomous development will cease almost instantaneously and will actually degenerate.

Over the centuries humanity has therefore inherited an incomplete and false conception of the nature of water. Today, in our libraries and archives, we already have a vast amount of literature on water resources management – which bears silent testimony to a cultural advance that regrettably is only illusory. Until the most elementary principles concerning all evolutionary processes of vegetation have been completely understood it is impossible to speak of a real build-up of culture. The development of any culture is directly related to the understanding of its environment – both water and vegetation.

A brief review is necessary in order to understand what is to follow. Every new formation arises from the smallest first beginnings. Further development can only take place if circulation in the interior of the Earth proceeds correctly. In conformity with natural law, higher forms of vegetation build upon the preceding lower vegetation. This new growth is founded on substances contained in earlier vegetation which have been transformed into carbones through the effects of temperature – and which now will once more be decomposed with the aid of water and higher temperatures. In this process of decomposition, water will also be decomposed, resulting in a new mixture of gases which liberate carbon-dioxide⁶¹ as they stream upwards into the suffused and stirred-up salts. With the exclusion of air, this process not only creates entirely new conditions and compounds in the Earth’s interior, but also uncovers a new and hitherto-unknown conformity with natural law in the movement of water, which is completely opposite to the presently recognised law governing its movement.

The inner atmosphere of the Earth is created with the aid of water, carbones and temperature – and with further adjustments of temperature it can also dissolve and transport salts. Through the deposition of these salts at the right time and place, the inner atmosphere is able to create a wide variety of new forms of vegetation and new bodies, such as ore and rock – but, naturally, always under the precondition that the individual phases of temperature take place in the proper sequence.

From this it is possible to perceive the definite coherence between the vegetation that was formerly present and what is there today. On this basis the interrelationship between all mineral substances is also explained: how the substances are raised from the depths, transformed and refined through thermal processes which take place with the aid of water and its movement inside the Earth, following a hitherto-unknown natural law.

The correct energy-form of water, necessary for growth, was described above, but just what is this energy-form? It is the particular form of water-movement which, through the right mixture of Sun, Earth and water, results in a sequence of functions that lead to the refinement of primary forms after proper decomposition of basic substances has taken place. From these new and higher forms of vegetation are built-up by the shortest and straightest route. In order to explain the functions of the movement of water, it is first necessary to examine the concept of motion itself.

It is generally known that the motion of a pendulum consists of a constant alternation between energy-forms (kinetic and potential). The same phenomenon we also find in the case of electric oscillations which can only arise when two energy-forms, electrostatic (capacitative) and electromagnetic (inductive), interact. In the movement of water, one differentiates between laminar and turbulent forms of motion. Laminar motion is the stratified and unimpeded flow of water down an inclined plane. As long as the influence of temperature on the form of water movement is entirely excluded, one can readily speak of laminar motion. However, as soon as temperature is taken into account, any laminar (stratified, ideal) motion is absolutely unthinkable. One can only imagine what such a movement of water would imply: it would mean nothing less than the accelerating descent of water according to the law of gravity, which ultimately (at the lowest point on its path) would have to transfer to a motionless, almost rigid state of rest.

This example shows us how extremes come into being, since a state of absolute rest would then occur as a direct result of water’s constantly increasing velocity down the sloping surface – providing a clue to the researcher that he or she is here concerned with a strict conformity with natural law and an orderly sequence of functional processes. Hence the steadiness in the flow of water-masses down an inclined plane (gradient) is solely attributable to the influence of temperature. It thus follows that there can be no stratified, laminar movement of water unless systems of water conduction are specifically directed to this end. This movement corresponds to the kinetic aspect of the motion of a pendulum. It is therefore now quite superfluous to ask whether a second energy-form of water movement exists, corresponding to the potential component of pendular motion.

Turbulent motion then, is viewed as the second form of water movement. Since temperature has so far been excluded as a principal factor, for the same reason it naturally could not be acknowledged as a contributing factor in the proper understanding of the causes of the so-called turbulence of water. To date turbulence has been seen as a vortical phenomenon, attributable to mechanical effects alone – through which various quantities of water of different temperatures are mixed mechanically. A more precise analysis reveals that turbulent phenomena in water are nothing less than the counter-motion to laminar flow – arising from physical causes and generating vortical currents in flowing water, maintaining the steadiness of the descending flow through the creation of transverse currents. Inasmuch as laminar motion is the extreme condition of a real form of motion, the same can also be deemed to hold true for the turbulent motion of water.

In reality we are concerned with two new forms of motion which lie between both extremes and are reciprocally related. In both cases each seeks to approach its extreme condition, but cannot reach it without the intervention of favourable or unfavourable outside influences. For this reason excessively strong turbulence in water must lead to chaotic conditions which express themselves in larger and larger cyclonic storms, catastrophic flood-rains and ultimately in continuous downpours over the same area, while conditions of absolute drought will occur in other parts of the world. It thus becomes clear that in practice we are concerned neither with laminar nor with turbulent energy-forms, but with two other energy-forms: the positive and the negative energy-forms of water. A positive energy-form (positive temperature gradient) is the internal movement of water temperature that occurs when temperatures of various water-strata approach +4°C, and is therefore a laminar form of motion.

Conversely, the negative energy-form (negative temperature gradient) is the internal movement of temperature when the temperature of flowing water diverges from +4°C (39.2°F). Since a departure from this laminar zero or neutral point occurs when water graduates from +4°C towards 0°C (32°F), then the true zero-point of water is at +4°C, as distinct from all other bodies which contract with cold and expand with an increase in heat. Water expands above and below +4°C – in both instances its volume increases and specific weight decreases. Compared to other bodies, this results in an irregularity, the anomalous expansion of water – hitherto considered of minor consequence, yet playing a far greater role than was ever imagined.

Hence we see that two influences are necessary for either energy-form: the Sun’s influence on the Earth and water, and the Earth’s influence on water. Both forms of water movement, positive and negative (positive or negative temperature gradients), represent hitherto unknown magnitudes in the equation now to be solved – from which are derived not only the great fundamental laws of growth and synthesis, but also the equally important laws of destruction that result in the degeneration of all forms of vegetation. The world is not subject to random accident but is governed according to inner laws, only through the forces of Nature. Left to herself, Nature would have supplanted the earlier vegetation with newer forms, and not only would have transformed the world into a blossoming garden of immense fertility and stable temperature, but in addition would have renewed herself in cycles, as we shall see later.

The opinion that Earth would have been covered with vast forests were it not for humanity’s intervention is undoubtedly untenable. Here too, precisely because she would have been left to herself, Nature would not only have withheld the supply of nutrient salts from the vegetation at the appropriate moment, but she would also have ensured that the refluence of sap occurred at the right time. As an example of such self-regulation let us take the beech, when in high summer, due to the development of low temperatures from excessive evaporation in crown foliage, an immediate reflux of sap can be observed. The otherwise unrestricted further development would once again have been regulated automatically by an extremely simple reversal of temperature (change in energy-form).

For this reason optimum conditions, resembling Paradise, must have existed during periods when humanity was still unable to interfere.⁶² Only thus can we explain how extraordinarily fertile soil once existed in a large part of the north coast of Africa, where today wilderness and barren wastes are on the increase. According to the testimony of ancient scribes, in Carthage one could wander all day long in the shade of olive, pomegranate and almond trees. The Carthaginians were delighted to see their vines heavy with grape twice a year and their crops produce more than a 200-fold yield. In contrast to this legendary fertility, reports of the downfall of whole nations through colossal downpours and whirlwinds have also been handed down to us. Paradise and deluge are therefore not to be deprecated as mere fable. These catastrophes and upheavals were initiated by humanity alone, and we are still causing them today.

The purpose of the movement of water in plants, brought about by reversals in temperature, is to enable the uptake of nutritive material. The clear-felling methods of regeneration initiated by modern forestry must in any case lead to an inevitable and unwanted degeneration, and thus to the initial phases in the death of the high forest. The main reason for catastrophic decline throughout the forestry industry, which more than anything else has led to declining agriculture in upland areas, is none other than an involuntary reversal in the phases of temperature (temperature gradient) caused by the practice of clear-cutting. This results in the cessation of the vital transportation of nutrient salts, which then are inevitably deposited in the wrong places. Light-induced growth⁶³ is certainly no manifestation of increased growth. It is a fallacy for the detrimental enlargement of the trunk is caused not only by deposition in the wrong places, but also by the deposition of inferior matter, thus preparing the way for future degenerative development. This unnatural growth results in the formation of sinuosities and even in the spiral-like configuration of water-supply vessels – which under normal conditions would lead to the formation of straight, plumb and extremely narrow ducts.

Nature works uncommonly slowly. For this reason it is also impossible to observe the exalted processes taking place in Nature by way of laboratory experiments, since the proper relationships and preconditions are missing. Therefore, even in river engineering, the causes of resulting effects can only be observed in the field in Nature’s great examples – in a watercourse from source to mouth. Once it has been determined how a waterway was decades ago and how it is today, records of its continually-changing pattern of flow should first be made, and then and then only the causes of its destruction should be sought. Observations over several decades are essential in order to understand the i...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• A brief introduction to the natural eco-technological theories of Viktor Schauberger
• The Nature of Water
• The Quantitative and Qualitative Deterioration of Water
• Water Supply and the Mechanical Production of Drinking Water
• The Conduction of the Earth’s Blood
• Temperature and the Movement of Water
• Fundamental Principles of River Regulation
• The Natural Movement of Water over the Earth’s Surface
• The Rhine and the Danube
• The Dr. Ehrenberger Affair
• The Learned Scientist and the Star in the Hailstone
• Appendix
• Glossary
• Notes
• Copyright
• About the Author
• About Gill & Macmillan