Water, the lifeblood of the planet and all living things, possesses extraordinary properties. Water is the only substance on the planet that exists in three states - as a solid (ice), a liquid and a gas. And now we are discovering that water has a unique role as medium for communication of information throughout the living world.

Scientists understand gases to a large extent through the laws of classical physics, but are still largely ignorant of the actual workings of liquids and solids — that is, any sort of condensed matter. Gases are easy because they consist of individual atoms or molecules which behave individually in large spaces.

Where scientists have trouble is with atoms or molecules packed tightly together and how they behave as a group. Any physicist is at a loss to tell you why water doesn't just evaporate into gas or why atoms in a chair or a tree stay that way, particularly if they are only supposed to communicate with their most immediate neighbour and be held together by short-range forces.

Water is among the most mysterious of substances, because it is a compound formed from two gases, yet it is liquid at normal temperatures and pressures. The late Giuliano Preparata and his colleague Emilio Del Giudice, two Italian physicists at the Milan Institute for Nuclear Physics, demonstrated mathematically that when closely packed together, atoms and molecules exhibit a collective behaviour, forming what they have termed 'coherent domains'. They were particularly interested in this phenomenon as it occurs in water. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, Preparata and Del Giudice demonstrated that water molecules create coherent domains, much as a laser does.

Light is normally composed of photons of many wavelengths, like colours in a rainbow, but laser photons in a laser have a high degree of coherence, a situation akin to a single coherent wave, like one intense colour.

These single wavelengths of water molecules appear to become 'informed' in the presence of other molecules — that is, they tend to polarize around any charged molecule — storing and carrying its frequency so that it may be read at a distance.

This would mean that water is like a tape recorder, imprinting and carrying information whether the original molecule is still there or not. The shaking of the containers, as is done in homeopathy, appears to act as a method of speeding up this process. So vital is water to the transmission of energy and information that a number of studies, particularly those of the late French biologist Jacques Benveniste, demonstrate that molecular signals cannot be transmitted in the body unless you do so in the medium of water.

In Japan, a physicist called Kunio Yasue of the Research Institute for Information and Science, Notre Dame Seishin University in Okayama, Japan also found that water molecules have the ability to organize discordant energy into coherent photons — a process called 'superradiance'.

This suggests that water, as the natural medium of all cells, acts as the essential conductor of a molecule's signature frequency in all biological processes, and that water molecules organize themselves to form a pattern on which can be imprinted wave information. Water appears not only to send the signal but also amplifies it.

Another group of Italian scientists has confirmed Preparata's and Del Giudice's findings, that certain electronic resonant signals can create permanent changes in the physicochemical properties of water.

Benveniste also found that water appears to 'memorize' the unique signature frequencies of molecules. If you expose water to a chemical, and then dilute the water so that none of the original molecules remain, the water sample could nevertheless be used in place of the chemical to effect a reaction.

Heparin, an anti-coagulant drug, prevents blood from clotting. In one study, Benveniste took a test-tube of this plasma then added water exposed to the 'sound' of heparin transmitted via the signature digitized electromagnetic frequency. The signature frequency of heparin works as though the molecules of heparin itself were there: in its presence, the blood was more reluctant than usual to coagulate.

The fact that water acts as an information highway of living things is extraordinarily significant when you consider that water is basic substance of the planet (70 per cent of which is made up of water) and indeed the basic substance of life. Water comprises 70 per cent of animals and virtually 100 per cent of plants.

If we can change the 'tape' of polluted water through our latest Intention Experiment, we will not only demonstrate that thoughts can clean up the polluted waters of our world. We may also have the first evidence that conscious thoughts can change the tape of all of life.

The next Intention Experiment is now set for November 30. Physicist Konstantin Korotkov and Lynne McTaggart will be testing whether the pH of polluted water can be changed and the water purified through the power of intention. To participate, please register in advance on her website: theintentionexperiment.com

Lynne McTaggart is a journalist and the award-winning author of the bestselling book The Field. Her latest book is The Intention Experiment. She also publishes several alternative health and spirituality newsletters. For more information: livingthefield.com & theintentionexperiment.com