C:  Were there moments in which you were without thoughts?

M:  Let me clarify that.  The entire process of thinking was not thinking in the sense of how I must think right now, or as you are doing now. Simply put, consciousness was strengthened.  I distinguish between thinking and consciousness.  Thinking lies within consciousness, but there is another process that thinking does not encompass, in which the everyday thinking, the short and long term thinking, is not involved. Therefore I wouldn’t say that I was unaware; it was a new, elevated plane of consciousness. I personally prefer this to an unaware spacing out. What I found very pleasant was the elegance of the body, which I experienced more consciously than before.  With age, people lose this sense of elegance in movement. In water, this wholeness of movement is restored. When the head is submerged a tangible full body integration occurs, right to the tips of the toes. I imagine that if one couldn’t hear the loud underwater noises of the pool, if it were completely silent like in the depths of outer space, there would be a sense of slow motion.  This could be one of the best ways to stop time for people, allowing them to experience time in another way.

C:  You observed two therapists giving sessions. What changes did you notice in the energy fields of the givers and receivers?

M:  Just to observe sessions is quite moving. It is wonderful to observe what takes place. Firstly, I saw that after about four minutes both you and the other therapist entered into a reciprocal “conversation”, a feedback or dialogue with your clients.  Secondly, I saw that both of you entered very quickly into a meditative state, becoming one with the water and with the process. Thirdly, in both of you (you probably have given a great many water treatments), a lot of energy was arising in the still moments when not so much movement was happening. I have the feeling that you sometimes rely too much on movement sequences. And then there were times when you entered into a oneness with your receivers by synchronizing your breath with them.  As for the receivers, what happened first was an expansion of their etheric bodies, but only to the extent of three or four millimeters.  In the body rolls that turn the head, the right and left halves of the brain synchronized. And after an additional five or six minutes, the mental layer of the aura was strongly activated. After the passing of fifteen minutes, the etheric body once again expanded. I then began to observe what was going on with the mental layer of the aura.  The longer the treatment continued, the more the frequency in the mental level altered, a veritable reorganization of the mental structure and the brain waves. According to what I have witnessed in your clients, the mental aura determines what happens afterwards in the physical body.  Ultimately this determines whether you have a changed perspective after the session.  This new structure, this reorganization in the brain, remains for about six hours.

C: Do you notice a difference in the effect on the energy field in water therapies in comparison to that evoked by land based therapies?

M: In shiatsu, in all forms of massage and techniques such as acupuncture, etc. which work on the body, the etheric body expands; indeed not just four millimeters as in the water, but five to six centimeters.  For example, when the meridians are worked, only the etheric body is affected as the energy flow is strengthened. What stands out for me in the water is that the mental aura is activated first.  I find that most significant. What is exciting is how the work influences the mental aura first, and from there, through the brain, affects the physical and etheric bodies. If my observations are accurate, that would mean that in this body therapy, which simultaneously alters the thought patterns, physical change is achieved more quickly than in land based bodywork.  Of course, the therapists of land based body work will not want to hear this… The reason for this phenomenon, this influence on the mental structure, we find in a few influences of water in combination with movement. We are still sea creatures consisting of 80% water. The brain has the highest percentage of water of all the body’s tissues, and requires the most oxygen.  In this type of work the breath and with it the oxygen supply to the brain are influenced in a various ways by the many movements in the session which support the “flexible movement” in the brain. 

C:  Where, in your opinion, lie the dangers in our work?  Are there counter-indications?

M:  Every condition that tends toward psychosis.  In psychotics, the energy flow reaches only to the solar plexus chakra.  Acting upon the brain as your work does, it could resolve a psychosis, or on the other hand, strengthen one, even precipitating an acute episode.  You see, you cannot control the mental plane. With shiatsu on land or with acupuncture, you have better control and only activate quite specific things. In the water work, however, you cannot control the alterations that occur in the brain. You can perhaps leave out movements which would have a negative effect, but even so, how can you determine in the long run exactly what happens on the mental plane?

C:  For which people or for which disease symptoms would you recommend water therapy?

M:  For healthy people, and above all, for our society, where thinking is rather blocked. Feeling and thinking are related. I would also recommend it for the reactivation of feeling states. In that connection, I believe that autistic children, for example, could profit from the water work.  Handicapped children, as well.  I would hypothesize, based on what I have seen, how the etheric body is first activated and then primarily the mental aura, that you could treat dyslexia with relatively quick success.  That would have to be tested. A biofeedback machine would provide a good means of verification, taking a reading both before the session and about two hours afterwards.

C:  Is it important that I tell clients that the process continues on after the session?  That reaction time is slowed down?  That the dreamlife can be affected, etc.?

M:  Coming from my experience of the submergings, two things occur to me: Firstly, this source of Light that arises, and secondly, even with my face submerged, I left my mouth open, not even thinking of it.  Logically, one closes the mouth reflexively when going under water.  That did not happen with me, though.  There are moments in this reorganization of the brain, where, and I am certain of this, new synapses suddenly arise.  In a six hour period afterwards you have the possibility of forming new ways of thinking. If you don’t take advantage of this, the option vanishes. So let people know that they should remain for six hours afterwards in a meditative state, in which a new consciousness may arise, that with time will remain by virtue of the flexibility created by the new mental organization.  What I have also ascertained in relation to this, is that after ten or twelve minutes, once the mental aura is functioning strongly, a part of the energy system integrates.  After an additional 40 minutes the energy system once again strengthens and reorganizes, like when we awaken from a refreshing sleep.  After these 40 minutes the etheric body begins to pulsate more strongly.  This is what some people perceive as colors, but which has nothing to do with the aura.  This pulsing is light, and will be perceived as various light patterns.  The emotional level of the aura will not be influenced at all. 

C: What is it then, when people enter into emotional processes, when sadness and other feeling come?

M:  This is purely a mental reorganization.  The emotional structure is only an extension of the mental structure and needs much more time before it affects the emotions.  Thus, when we work on the mental plane, the emotional plane in time will be touched.  I find this important to understand, because people tend to be confused here.  When this reorganization begins, let us say, your client tells you after the session that he is very relaxed and inwardly peaceful.  Then going home, three hours later he flips out over something trivial, something emotional.  Most people then have over time the feeling that this therapy doesn’t help, for they become emotional again.  Yet they don’t understand that the emotional aura is like a lake, and the mental aura is like the wind.  When the wind blows, waves arise, and when the wind stops, the waves are not still, they don’t simply cease.  And when you now have a reorganization, much more time is required before the emotional aura reacts to the new.  Only after much, much later, two or three months, sometimes one or two years later, is the new emotional expression there.

C:  We place great value on bonding, closeness, holding, trust, an ‘I’ and a ‘You’.  It surprises me when you now say that the emotional aura is not so affected.  Indeed, we say that the emotional aspect of this therapy is most important, that themes such as abuse and crossing of boundaries are very important in the therapy. 

M:  But that is important in every therapy.  Presence is always important, and you can physically cross a boundary in the water, insofar as you want to force someone or insist on your opinion; that is always a boundary violation.   But essentially that has no influence emotionally, for the emotional aura is always a mirror of the mental aura.  If you would commit a boundary violation, it would first register mentally and not emotionally.  I think it far more important to see that in the moment you are in the water, by what I have observed, you are no longer personally connected to the receiver.  The personal aspect is lost, and therefore the emotional plays no role.  The personality structure falls away. Above all this occurs in the embryo position; there the receiver withdraws into himself.  There it is not about “is she holding me or not”?  That plays absolutely no role any longer.  There is simply someone who guides me through this dance, who makes this experience possible—everything else is a projection of a mother figure, etc.

C:  In your view, how many sessions should people have in their treatment?  I at times recommend ten sessions.

M:  That depends very much on the individual.  There are those who change after four treatments, others need twenty.  It also depends on the therapist, if the chemistry with him is right. It requires at least two to three sessions for you to adjust to the living water element, until you come into relation with the unfamiliarity of it. Then the process really begins, and I believe that for a mental reorganization to occur, ten treatments is relatively few. Then there is the age of your client to consider. Knowing that the formation of the mental aura is completed only by the age of 28, it means that up until the age of 28 years one requires 20 to 25 treatments.  In the age range of 28-50 one could have results with 10-15 treatments.  For those over 50 years of age, one would require 25-30 sessions, for the mental aura stagnates in this period.

C:  Many clients encounter prenatal feelings or pictures, and even birth experiences.  What is happening here actually?  Is it important?

M:  Based on what I see in the energy system (and that is the only basis for me, what I see in people), then I question very much all birth trauma stories.  When I witness how nature functions and what happens in the aura,  there is only one person in 100,000 in whom one can recognize a traumatic birth experience in the aura. One sees again and again, that directly following birth, even a dramatic one, all levels of the aura build up within twelve hours, and if there should happen to be a hole in the etheric body, it regenerates quite quickly.  The healing power of small children up to the age of four is enormous. You must not believe that the first four years in the development of a child are the most important. The same applies to birth traumas.  I think people actually experience something completely different.  They experience this only in their present setting; the setting is translated onto the birth trauma. What they really experience, is what they always experience. Something that is found between the out and in breath, namely the pause, which we refer to as the Zero Factor. That is to say, the tunnel experience that occurs at death, does not necessarily take place, rather the brain translates this Zero experience, giving it a structure. This structure can be a tunnel or birth, but in principle, it is the release of a part of consciousness. The brain has accustomed itself over millions of years to interpret this structure as a pattern, so it has nothing to do with birth trauma. You can experience it in dying, in birth, and in a deep meditation.  It happens every time you come from a narrowness into an expansion. It is none other than an expansion of consciousness. If you want to personalize it, thinking “this is my birth trauma”, you can, but I can detect absolutely no birth trauma in the aura. When someone describes to me such a birth experience, I say to them that they have had a mystic experience and should notice in the future what this experience means for them, instead of personalizing it as “I and my birth trauma”. Then suddenly an entirely new world opens up.  What it also, above all activates, if one looks to the mental aura, is what we call the “quality aura”. (You will hardly have any client, I suppose, in your experience, who doesn’t occasionally have fear, and afterwards experiences the feeling of greater strength and confidence.) If you reduce it to a birth trauma, identifying and taking it personally, putting it in a frame, then you also reduce exactly that which you actually wanted to reach.

C:  What role do you see water playing in therapy in the future?

M:  That depends on the development of our society.  For one simple reason:  society is constantly becoming more comfortable. The great disadvantage of this therapy is that it requires a large expenditure. A client steps into my consultation room and describes what the problem is, and that’s it.  Here I have to drive to where there is a pool, change into a bathing suit, shower, enter the water, get out, etc. Secondly, it depends on whether this society will rediscover that the body not only means sex, rather that it is a medium for something else. And in this connection it also depends on how your therapist presents the work to you. If it is portrayed as just another bodywork, it won’t be enough.

C:  Would you place more emphasis on the expansion of consciousness?

M:  Yes, and on the extent to which energy and awareness are involved, that which some people say about dolphins, drawing near to the consciousness of dolphins. If you present it to them only as a means to relax the muscles a bit, etc., the therapy will not survive in the long run.

C:  In years past much was researched about dolphins and speculated about their special abilities, such as their healing power. Do you see a tie or connection here with our work?

M: I haven’t observed them myself, so I don’t know that dolphins are really so different. There are handicapped children who transform in work with horses, for instance. I know too little about this, I am simply speculating.  From what I have read of dolphin research (for example, that of John Lilly) I am certain that something happens. Certainly they have a highly developed structure and way of communicating, but I am skeptical to assert that they are the most highly evolved animal.

C:  What changes in me when I am in the water so much, and why do you think I have chosen this work?

M:  I am convinced from my experience that when a person’s energy field alters it has an immediate effect on the energy field of others. A client whose energy field alters also influences the therapist’s energy field. I believe that the water element is very meditative for all who work in the water, affecting their nervous systems. More or less the same as if you would do yoga daily.  Why you personally work with the water element has to do with this harmony, which I noticed in you from the first time, and which you always seek.  I understand that your work in water derives from this harmony, but you should take care that you do not limit yourself to this. I don’t mean this as a judgement, rather that you unify bodywork on land and water. Your character is not that of a fighter. Therefore you feel good in water, because there is no fighting there. In water more of your qualities stand forth: to want to communicate, to bond, to be soft, playful, and elegant, to express this joy, this erotic playfulness (hah, hah, hah) I don’t mean sex, something much greater than that.

Manuel Schoch