Philosophers From Austria

"A child might be overawed by a great city, but a civil engineer knows that he might demolish it and rebuild it himself. Husserl's philosophy has the same aim: to show us that, although we may have been thrust into this world without a 'by your leave,' we are mistaken to assume that it exists independently of us. It is true that reality exists apart from us; but what we mistake for the world is actually a world constituted by us, selected from an infinitely complex reality."

"No one in our century has raised the call for philosophy as a rigorous science with such clarity, purity, vigor, and breadth as Husserl."

"A new fundamental science, pure phenomenology, has developed within philosophy: This is a science of a thoroughly new type and endless scope. It is inferior in methodological rigor to none of the modern sciences. All philosophical disciplines are rooted in pure phenomenology, through whose development, and through it alone, they obtain their proper force."

"To every object there corresponds an ideally closed system of truths that are true of it and, on the other hand, an ideal system of possible cognitive processes by virtue of which the object and the truths about it would be given to any cognitive subject."

"First, anyone who seriously intends to become a philosopher must "once in his life" withdraw into himself and attempt, within himself, to overthrow and build anew all the sciences that, up to then, he has been accepting."

"Whoever wishes to define the conceptual invariants of natural beauty would make himself as ridiculous as Husserl did when he reports that while ambulating he perceived the green freshness of the lawn. Whoever declaims on natural beauty verges on poetastery. Only the pedant presumes to distinguish the beautiful from the ugly in nature, but without such distinction the concept of natural beauty would be empty."

"We have never... thought to question the influence that continual exposure to unnatural straight lines may exert on our mental, intellectual and emotional processes, on the energies that motivate and animate us and cause us to behave... Such is the desensitizing effect that we will perhaps have to change our living spaces in order to make possible the leap to the next higher state of awareness, to be able to appreciate Nature's processes and attune ourselves to them. No doubt it was for all of these reasons the Viktor Schauberger so joyfully declared: "In the whole machine there is no straight line or circle". By this he meant that the overall design and shape of his devices were founded on completely different parameters to those of current design. Gone are the mortifying elements of Euclid. ...[T]hese machines incorporate the swirling spirals and sinuosities, the open elements of non-Euclidean geometry so prevalent in Nature."

"He tries to explain the puzzle of how a trout can make a standing jump several meters high against the enormous force of a waterfall. His conclusion: the spiraling free-falling water... creates a wake at the center. The trout searches out this counter-current... the mass of the falling water opens... a gap for a fraction of a second, it slips through and, sucked up the center by the countercurrent... is thrown up... This makes it easy to visualize the inner energy... in... clouds... wind and the water. Birds behave... much like trout..."

"[I]t seems timely that the radical departure in energy concepts presented here, should be available now, when the tide of human development is turning and the impetus of this renewing flood can be harnessed to launch Viktor Schauberger's pioneering discoveries into a world more ready than ever it implement them. At a time also, when the activities of humanity are increasingly seen to be on a head-on collision course with Nature's processes."

"His fundamental realization was that hydrologists (with the exception of a small group he was... able to convince) do everything backwards."

"Viktor Schauberger has observed water and seen and recorded more than all the scientific instruments put together so far."

"Schauberger... arrived at the opinion that the "explosion technology"... of burning and destroying, is... wrong and... in contradiction to nature. He opposed... internal combustion engines, "the fire-breathing monsters," with that of the power of "implosion." ...[I]nternal combustion worked centrifugally, destructively and detrimentally to life, it changed natural products of high quality ...as coal and oil into waste products ...which place an enormous burden on the environment and... will ...lead to its destruction. ...Nature ...only uses disintegrating forces to decompose sick, weak or unviable elements, in the form of spoilage and decay... the starting point for the development of new, more important life. In burning and combustion, this "sacred principle" is interrupted... In contrast... implosion is ...product refinement ...material ...is transformed into something of greater worth. ..."Nothing explodes in a plant," said ...Schauberger."

"He... became interested in the behaviour of trout and salmon in mountain streams. The... trout could lie motionless... in the strongest current. ...He ...organized his woodsmen to warm up about 100 litres of water and pour this in ...upstream ...The meagre 100 litres ...did not noticeably warm up the stream. However, ...the trout ...until then ...motionless ...was only with considerable effort able to maintain its position. This convinced Schauberger... that there was ...a connection between the water's temperature and the trout's behaviour. ...[A]lso ...the trout's ability to jump up high waterfalls with little apparent effort. ...[H]e saw evidence for his theory that the trout exploited some hitherto unknown source of energy within the water."

"[T]he Upper Austrian forester, naturalist and natural philosopher, Viktor Schauberger... is without a doubt one of the most fascinating figures of this century."

"Contrary to centrifugal explosion, implosion works inwards, towards the center, centripetally. It concentrates the power towards the center where it... becomes... strongest. ...In the water, the wind, in the sap... and in the blood... movement ...take[s] ...an implosive [course] ...concentrating itself at the center. Bodies of water left to flow naturally turn within themselves, make winding movements that breathe and shelter life. They... regenerate waste water... and... revitalize it. And in the whirlwind... spiral motion is present with a vacuum and low temperatures in the inmost core. The same system is seen in... the universe as spiral nebula. Schauberger recognized this principle while observing in water."

"Viktor Schauberger's early appreciation of the intimate relationship between water and forest, and their dual influence upon water resource management, the landscape's health within particular precipitation areas—is undoubtedly correct. ...Schauberger's theories about Europe are, in the tropics, ...verified in a convincing and shocking way. We, in the temperate regions will, in the long run, experience similar damage... if harmful ecological measures are allowed to continue..."

"You may have lived a calm and contented life—but from the moment you come face to face with the ideas of Viktor Schauberger, you will never again have peace in your soul."

"This is not the place to discuss the validity of his theories... only a small number of them have been able to be tested. ...[I]f his central theme is correct... this embodies a revolutionary discovery of crucial importance. ...Schauberger wished to make practical use of nature's reconstituting principle of 'cycloidal spiral motion' ...However his theories may be regarded, ...he was a great friend of Nature and a man with original, grandiose and often revolutionary ideas. Many have been moved by his ideas about Nature and his philosophy of life..."

"Water was his consuming interest. He set out to discover its laws and characteristics and the connection between its temperature and its motion. He noticed how water running from a mountain stream was at its greatest density, the so-called 'anomaly point' of +4°C, and [apparently] at its highest quality. Salmon and trout, during spawning, drive themselves towards these sources, and he found the richest... vegetation in these spots."

"How can it be easy to understand Father Schauberger's language—his work belongs to the future."

"Nothing falls entirely! Nothing dies away completely! Nothing can totally deprive another of its rights! On the contrary, the deeper the fall, the higher the reactive upswing!"

"The essential nature of growth is none other than the overcoming of earthly weight."

"Water is a living organism!"

"Whoever exploits retrograde oxidising processes must inevitably inaugurate a scarcity and shortage of food, raw materials and fuels"

""Unfortunately, catastrophes or scandalous disclosures always have to happen before humanity realises that it is only its own mistakes that have led it into misfortune. These are all the more difficult to rectify, because in the main they have been made by the authorities, who will not commit suicide themselves, but in order to save their own skins, they would rather that all Life should perish before they acknowledge their errors.'"

"My dear friends! We move everything back to front. What we are doing is wrong and contrary to Nature. Nature moves in other ways. She primarily employs drawing, i.e. sucking energies, since these are indispensable to Nature for the growth and maintenance of life. Nature uses pressure energies and explosive forces only for reducing quality and destruction. Atomic physicists also work upside down. They would be more correct if they started with simple nuclear fusion. They should set about the cold transformation of hydrogen into helium, as Nature has done over the millions of years of Creation. Today's technology has a tiger by the tail, because it splits the heaviest atoms with the greatest development of heat and an enormous expenditure of energy."

"How else should it be done then?", was always the immediate question. The answer is simple: "Exactly in the opposite way that it is done today!"

"For a person who lives 100 years in the future, the present comes as no surprise."

"Science views the blood-building and character-influencing ur-organism "water" merely as a chemical compound and provides millions of people with a liquid prepared from this point of view, which is everything but healthy water."

"It is important for human beings and animals to drink healthy water. Chemically purified water, chlorinated or ozonated water is no longer living and healthy water. Good water, full of life and rich in energy, is synonymous with strong and healthy life. Bad water is synonymous with sick life. No water is the same as no life."

"Is it therefore so illogical to recognise the Will of Nature in the rapid increase in the number of human beings? Surely several hundred million more people are needed, who with their energy and strength can help restore this ravished lump of excrement, the Earth, to its former glory!"

"A healthy forest, untouched by forestry technology, is made up of a strange mixture of vegetation. Alongside well-defined areas of noble trees, conditions of apparent chaos can be found, which can best be described as irregular confusion. People who are not aware of the importance of the balance in Nature, of which the forest is a part, want to clear areas of everything they do not consider to be useful. A great deal of sensitive concern and observation is necessary to begin to understand why Nature depends on an apparently chaotic disorder."

"The damage caused by modern forest technology is so devastating, because this energy interchange cannot evolve as it does in a natural forest. When there is a variety of tree types and undergrowth, energy is created in the whole forest area."

"Each green leaf or each needle is in effect a remarkably well-regulated metal factory. Its operation can be demonstrated experimentally. With the falling of the leaves or needles this supply of metals is scattered by the wind, and the more undergrowth there is, the greater is the dispersion of organic metal salts, which during the winter are pressed down hard by the snow."

"...As time passed I began to play a game with water's secret powers; I surrendered my so-called free consciousness and allowed the water to take possession of it for a while. Little by little this game turned into a profoundly earnest endeavour, because I realised that one could detach one's own consciousness from the body and attach it to that of the water. When my own consciousness was eventually returned to me, then the water's most deeply concealed psyche often revealed the most extraordinary things to me. As a result of this investigation, a researcher was born who could dispatch his consciousness on a voyage of discovery, as it were. In this way I was able to experience things that had escaped other people's notice, because they were unaware that a human being is able to send forth his free consciousness into those places the eyes cannot see. By practising this blindfolded vision, I eventually developed a bond with mysterious Nature, whose essential being I then slowly learnt to perceive and understand..."

"The majority believes that everything hard to comprehend must be very profound. This is incorrect. What is hard to understand is what is immature, unclear and often false. The highest wisdom is simple and passes through the brain directly to the heart."

"Naturally moving water augments itself. It improves its quality and matures considerably. Its boiling and freezing points change, and wise Nature makes use of this phenomenon to raise water, without using pumping equipment, to the highest mountain peaks, to appear as mountain springs. This conception of raising water is not to be taken literally, since in this context it is concerned with the natural process of propagation and purification. This in turn helps towards the expansion of air by creating an air cover, which serves to develop a higher form of life."

"Actually, the mysteries of water are similar to those of the blood in the human body. In Nature, normal functions are fulfilled by water just as blood provides many important functions for mankind."

"Natural phenomena undisturbed by man point the way to the realization of a new technique. One needs a keen sense of observation. We must understand Nature before we can adapt its way of working to our needs."

"Herr Reich Chancellor, present-day science is following a wrong and dangerous path. First and foremost it concerns the treatment of water - the principal agent of life. The existing methods of water control, power stations and forestry are ruining water - the earth's blood. It becomes diseased, and so affects all its surroundings. Instead of progress, the future promises catastrophe. With your four-year plan, and the technological methods employed, you are demolishing Germany, instead of building her up. In this way, Germany will sink within ten years.."

"They call me deranged. The hope is that they are right! It is of no greater or lesser import for yet another fool to wander this Earth. But if I am right and science is wrong, then may the Lord God have mercy on mankind!"

"From my observations I noted how an increased water level resulting from a thaw builds up mud banks, which are then partially dispersed during clear cool nights when the water temperature drops. I then waited for an increase in the strength of the water current. This takes place in the early hours of the morning, when it is coolest, and particularly during full moon, in spite of the fact that the actual volume of the water is then apparently less, because of its contraction through cooling. I arranged for the timber to enter the water at the right moment, and in one single night 1600 cubic metres of timber were all brought down to a temporarily constructed pond in the valley."

"Far back in history, there is evidence that men who have attempted to solve the riddle of water have been bitterly attacked. Every attempt to explain the nature of water in old books has been demolished in the later editions. In any case, maintaining the sense of mystery about water ensures the prosperity of the capital intensive economy, for financial interest thrives only on a defective economy. If the riddle surrounding the origins of water were solved, it would be possible to make as much pure water available as required at any location; in this way vast areas of desert would become fertile. As a consequence, the selling values of the produce would sink so low that there would be no more incentive to speculate, or to develop agricultural machinery. The concept of unrestricted production and cheap machine power is so revolutionary, that the way of life all over the world would experience a change. Maintaining the mystery of water, therefore, maintains the value of capital, so every attempt to come nearer to an explanation is attacked."

"We need no science of formulae, but a science of forms."

"We must look into unknown dimensions, into Nature, into that incalculable and imponderable life, whose carrier and mediator, the blood of the Earth that accompanies us steadfastly from the cradle to the grave, is water."

"It has been proven psychologically that human beings can only appreciate or apprise, i.e. comprehend and understand, something new, if they can succeed in raising up the subconscious immured in their brain cells into their higher consciousness. If this cannot be achieved, then all preaching is useless. And even the eye has first to learn how to see everything new; it too must therefore be awoken from its latency before it can grasp the seen. Above all, there must be readiness to consider even supposed wonders as the forerunners of forthcoming realities, for only thus can the foundations be laid upon which rational mind can calculate and analyse."

"As best demonstrated by Nature in the case of the aerofoil maple-seed, today's propeller is a pressure-screw and therefore a braking screw, whose purpose is to allow the heavy maple-seed to fall parachute-like slowly towards the ground and to be carried away sideways by the wind in the process. No bird has such a whirling thing on its head, nor a fish on its tail. Only man made use of this natural brake-screw for forward propulsion. As the propeller rotates, so does the resistance rise by the square of the rotational velocity. This is also a sign that this supposed propulsive device is unnaturally constructed and therefore out of place."

"If we wish to influence our own life in a particular direction, which is constantly threatened by the danger of the emergence of alien life-forms, and protect it from deterioration, then we must either allow Nature to rule or, if we wish to intervene, we must first acquaint ourselves with the simplest principles of life."

"Whoever accelerates the media of earth, water and air centrifugally perishes unconditionally, for in so doing they reduce the Blood of the Earth (water) to a pathogenic state and make it the most dangerous enemy of all living and growing things."

"Equivalence signifies uniformity and thus immobility."