[8] He was President Emeritus of the International Water For Life Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Oklahoma City in the United States.

[12][13] Emoto claimed that water was a "blueprint for our reality" and that emotional "energies" and "vibrations" could change its physical structure.

[16] Commentators have criticized Emoto for insufficient experimental controls and for not sharing enough details of his experiments with the scientific community.

[9][18] Biochemist and Director of Microscopy at University College Cork William Reville wrote, "It is very unlikely that there is any reality behind Emoto's claims.

"[9] Reville noted the lack of scientific publication and pointed out that anyone who could demonstrate such phenomena would become immediately famous and probably wealthy.

[20][2] Writing in The New York Times Book Review, literary critic Dwight Garner described it as "spectacularly eccentric", and said its success was "one of those 'head-scratchers' that makes me question the sanity of the reading public.