Stirwands and Purple Plates

(AKA Plastic and Aluminum)

Mystical-quantum gizmos + your water = plain ol’ water

I first heard of the Stirwand when Dr. Deagle, in his Granada Forum lecture, mentioned “special wands from Global Light Network that can actually change the structure of water to help ease specific conditions”.

This sounded like yet another structured water scam, so I investigated and found this website. The Stirwand is basically a plastic stick with a hollow handle that contains flakes of “high-matrix minerals”. For some reason, the product descriptions repeatedly point out that these minerals are naturally occurring. All minerals are naturally occurring.

So what are high-matrix minerals? After reading the product descriptions and watching an interview with David Schneider, the co-creator of the Stirwand, I still don’t know. Water is supposedly improved by the minerals by “accepting their imprint” – without these minerals touching the water. How does this work? The site offers only gibberish: The minerals somehow enter a “High Matrix lattice”, elevating themselves to “exhibit their exceptional qualities”, and alter the water with “noninvasive resonance”.
“These various manifestations of matter exist because their individual consciousness [sic] identify with different points within the matrix, those specifically which they consider to be real.”
I think what they’re trying to tell us is, “It works if you believe it works”.

However, the Stirwand does have predictable (if not exactly quantifiable) results, and there are many different kinds of Stirwand. The Gourmet model “enhances the vibration from food and beverages”. The Olympian “optimizes athletic performance”. The Gardener “enhances the vitality” of plants. The Calming wand can make alcholic beverages taste “significantly improved”. Etc.

A set of 8, with a carry pouch and “SP Sensor Balancing and Imprinting Plate”, costs $549.95 without shipping/handling. For that price, you could buy 3300 swizzles sticks at your local dollar store. Same diff. How do I know? Well, the “research” supporting the efficacy of the Stirwand is less than awe-inspiring. There’s something about “invetro test results” (if you can’t spell it, you can’t study it). And a “new clinical trial shows an average increase in hydration of 23.5%” after drinking Stirwand-treated water. An increase over what? Not drinking any water at all?
There are also a few tests you can perform at home, after you’ve purchased your Stirwand, like holding 8 oz. of treated water under your nose/chin for 30 seconds. “Be alert for anomolous phenomena…For those sensitive to subtle energies, these tests will illustrate that the water has a remarkable amount of…radiant heat and/or vortex patterned energy imitating from it [sic].”

Or you could be having an acid flashback.

What else does the Stirwand do?

– Like structured water and various other kinds of bogus bottled water, it supposedly makes water “more hydrating”. Admittedly, “Convention [science] will debate this, as inert objects traditionally do not produce substantial results in water. In this case, however, a quantum phenomenon trumps a Newtonian fundamental; Stirwands effects [sic] are varied, significant, and thought-provoking”. In other words, “We don’t know why this works, because it is scientifically impossible.”
– It cleans more effectively than ordinary water. It’s also more resistant to mold and bacteria.
– It “thickens” water and makes it smoother, though I don’t really see any benefit to this.
– Like all New Age products, its capabilities “greatly exceed the known potentials” of its actual components (plastic and some mineral flakes).

In my opinion, paying $75 to make my drinking water “thicker” and “more hydrating” wouldn’t be worth it, even if the Stirwand could actually do these things. Which it cannot. Whether its designers think it works or not, it’s a swizzle stick clumsily marketed as a magic wand.

But the Purple Plates are even goofier. Yesterday, over brunch, I watched a friend take a thin rectangle of mauve-coloured, anodized aluminum out of her purse and place it beneath her water bottle. She explained that these things are supposed to energize water, de-alcoholize alcoholic beverages, and de-caffeinate caffeinated beverages as well as heal cuts and scrapes within minutes, using “Tesla technology.”

Purple Plates were introduced in the ’70s and later popularized by pop astrologer Linda Goodman, in her book Star Signs. Here’s what one Amazon reviewer had to say about them: “I would be extremely surprised if even the most diehard skeptic tried it and felt nothing change for the positive in their energy…I have healed many an ailment or imbalance with the Chi that Reiki energy is, but these Purple plates are like Reiki energy X 100…”

I was less than six inches away from one of these super-powered plates for at least an hour and a half, and I noticed no changes in my energy. I was relaxed and happy, but some conversation and a good soy latte on a Sunday afternoon will do that to me every time. No aluminum required.

But why do the plates “work”? Well, for basically the same reasons as Stirwands don’t do. They were designed by Ralph Bergstresser, an alleged assistant to Nikola Tesla (the unofficial mascot of Woo).

This is really a subject for another post, but I’d just like to point out that if every person who claimed to be a protege of Tesla actually had been a Tesla protege, Tesla could have staffed a facility the size of CERN with his lab assistants. For this reason, it’s actually easier to believe that crackpot inventors are channeling the spirit of Tesla.

According to purpleplates.com, the “atoms and electrons of the aluminum have been altered so that the plates are in resonance, or in tune, with the basic energy of the Universe. They function as transceivers . . . creating a field of energy around themselves that will penetrate any material substance by osmosis.
The items are made with materials characterized by naturally orderly lattices – such as aluminum, sand and certain plastics. These lattices are energetically forced into a still more homogeneous and regular patterns and molecular characteristics.”

In other words, “We don’t know why this works.”
As one Amazon reviewer wrote of Linda Goodman’s Star Signs: “The big purple plate actually worked for a very big problem, so how can I be anything but a believer? I understand that not everyone approaches this with an open mind, and that might be the reason nothing works for them. After all, the power of each individual mind works to bring about our own realities.”

Basically, if you don’t expect it to work, it probably won’t work. This is odd. Penicillin, vitamins, pencils, humidifiers, and teakettles will work whether you “believe” in them or not. By this reviewer’s logic, if I pick up a purple crayon and say, “Crayons don’t exist”, then apply the alleged crayon to some very real paper, the crayon might not work.

I couldn’t find anything about de-caffeination, but purpleplates.com does warn us that a Purple Plate placed under a martini will render the drink tasteless “like water” after about 3 minutes, apparently removing all alcohol from the glass by osmosis. Sure thing.

Purple plates can do all the same things a Stirwand, or a QLink pendant, or structured water will definitely not supposedly do: Energize and refresh, heal cuts and burns quickly, perk up houseplants, relieve pain, etc. However, the Tesla magic has made these little pieces of aluminum so “resonant” that, according to Linda Goodman’s Star Signs, they have been known to dematerialize from time to time. And they don’t always re-materialize, either. Buyer beware!

At about $25 for the standard model, at least Purple Plates won’t set you back as much as a Stirwand. But they won’t do anything for you, either.