Few images convey nature’s wholesomeness
so well as that of a babbling mountain stream. At each stone the water whirls and draws in air. The water breathes. In the spiralling of water the Austrian natural
scientist Viktor Schauberger recognized a basic form of movement in nature. His aim was to imitate the spinning movement
in technical devices and thus produce naturally-inclined, environmentally friendly energy. Schauberger developed revolutionary propulsion
units with which, for example, aeroplanes are not pushed but drawn forward. Viktor’s son, Walter Schauberger, searched
for a mathematical formula to explain his father’s findings. He designed a funnel, based on the hyperbolic
spiral, in which the stream of falling water formed a dramatic spiral pattern. Seen from above, it looks like a spiral nebula
in space. Further down in the hyperbolic Schauberger-funnel
the pulsating double helix reminds us of the DNA spiral. A coincidence? The turbulence creates a stable, pulsating
structure out of swirling chaos. A pattern of natural self-organization there for us to understand and then copy, in Viktor Schauberger’s view. ‘Faithful to the silent forests’ was the
maxim of his ancestors. Viktor Schauberger was born on the 30th of June 1885, son of a forest superintendent. The house where he was born, in Holzschlag, in the Mühlviertel region of Upper Austria. Viktor attended forestry school and graduated in 1904. In remote districts Viktor could observe the
woods in all peace, areas as yet untouched by humans. His observations over many years in this natural environment crucially shaped his later life’s work From early on the forester turned his attention
to the mountain streams - and to the trout in them. Viktor Schauberger recognized that the fish
do not only swim against the stream, but that the water itself can flow in opposite directions. He himself started to go against the tide
of the current doctrine. Simple forester that he was, Viktor, here
with his wife Maria, and son Walter, was soon to astonish the scholars. The border between Austria and the Czech Republic
runs not far from the house where he was born on the edge of the Böhmerwald Wood. Over many kilometers the Schwarzenberger Schwemmkanal marks the national border. In Viktor’s youth wood was transported down this stream to the Danube, where it was loaded onto ships. However the channel could not carry entire
treetrunks, but only logs. Viktor Schauberger was to become well-known for his logging flumes with a much greater carrying capacity. This small pond is what remains of a storage
lake. A few years ago it was still full of water
– Lake Taschl. And 80 years ago, innumerable felled trunks floated in it, especially in the spring. In 1929 a documentary was filmed here. "The forester Schauberger used his knowledge of the powers inherent in water to build a modern logging flume in the Mürz valley in
green Styria.” Approaching the weir from the valley. Beneath the intake gate a steep chute accelerates the departing timber. In man-made channels heavy trunks floated down to the valley – even logs heavier than water. How was this possible? „The first intermediate dam is reached. Due to the fact that cold water carries better than warm, the water that has been warmed up by sunlight, velocity, and frictional force
along the way has to be replaced by new cold water." Today, there are only ruins left from the
intermediate dam. But Viktor Schauberger became well-known for his logging flumes far beyond the Austrian borders. Similar log chutes were built to his designs
in former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. It is not documented whether this man with
the flowing beard is actually Viktor. Final destination: The sorting plant in Neuberg on the Mürz. Another little marvel. “The big trunks slide over a drop and the
smaller ones fall through.” The lumber plant at Neuberg on the Mürz is
going to be partly rebuilt for demonstration purposes. This is worthwhile, because as a construction
for water regulation it was unique in the world. In the only sound document of Viktor Schauberger’s,
from the year 1955, he explains the most important underlying principle. But what did Viktor mean by „ moving in
a certain way “? His grandson Jörg Schauberger offers further details. “These logging flumes all meandered down
to the valley. There were further structures along the way, which swirled the water within the channels. This enabled the water to carry even heavier loads. Many people have tried to build similar structures– but my grandfather’s logging flumes were the only ones that really worked.” Viktor Schauberger received many patents for aspects of his logging flumes – as well as for natural watercourse regulation devices. And for the guide vanes that divert the water
into the middle of the river, preventing damage to the banks. In the Pythagoras-Kepler School in Bad Ischl Viktor’s grandson Jörg and his wife Ingrid have held numerous courses and workshops on the topic ‘The nature and movement of water’. In his own way, Viktor Schauberger analysed the meandering movement of a natural watercourse and described it in detailed drawings. His conclusions are valid for all rivers. However, Viktor’s unorthodox proposals for
regulation of the Rhine and Danube were ignored by the experts. Even on a smooth window pane, water doesn’t flow straight down, but starts to meander. A pulsating space curve develops. According to Schauberger a river doesn’t just flow, but winds itself forward. A river rotates in its bed. Put simply, it swirls. In the bends the current is fiercest, ripping
up and grinding the boulders in its bed. In Viktor’s words, the river chews up its
stones. The minerals contained in them are food for the water. When the turbulence diminishes the sediments slowly settle down again. Where the river deposits the most a ford is
formed. Now the river starts to curve the other way
around and accelerates its space curve until the next opposite bend appears. Viktor Schauberger called this alternation
between the left- and right-hand curves with fords in between a curve- or river-generator. The Swedish engineer Olof Alexandersson, now ninety years old, published the first book about Viktor Schauberger in the nineteen-seventies. He is still investigating the river generator. "And then I said to myself: If a charge
has built up here, then maybe it can be measured with an ammeter. And then I inserted a copper plate here – which was firmly soldered to a cable – and here another plate. I used a copper cable about 10 meters long. I got a registration. Here I had a pulsating direct current. It was a generator! – I also measured in a straight stream. And there it was very bad. It was like a dead river. There were long stretches that had no charge at all.” According to Schauberger, temperature variations are crucial for the energy processes in a watercourse. Even the slightest differences in temperature cause the different layers in the water to flow faster or slower. The water rubs against itself, bringing about ripples and vortices. A positive consequence is that the river slows itself down. In 1930 the Austrian Academy of Sciences confirmed the receipt of a sealed envelope entitled “Turbulence”. In it Schauberger described his theory about the interdependence of water temperature and movement. The Academy kept the document under seal for fifty years. A confession that the time was not yet ripe
for unlettered Schauberger and his practical perceptions from nature. Thanks to the distinguished work of the Styrian hydraulic engineer Otmar Grober this has since changed. "Here we have a river bank that was protected massively against floods but Viktor Schauberger said: One regulates a river through itself
from its centre.” Normally, hydraulic engineers shore up the
river banks with stones. Grober does it differently and the incidentally more cost-effectively. He places the boulders in a river. Like here in the Salza. The stones are deposited to form a chute. And then Grober had the idea of building an
even larger chute in the longest river in Styria, the Mur. The rocks, each weighing a couple of tons,
are mechanically placed into the riverbed at low water. Grober is a professional and monitors the
position of the rocks with a GPS. The rocks have to be accurately placed if
the chute is going to fulfil its purpose of drawing the water away from the banks to the centre of the stream. This chute was designed and built with unconventional methods in that it is the first scheme to be built from the inside out, to direct the
energy from the banks towards the middle. That means that I don’t have to destroy
or disturb the banks at all, as all of the work is done in the river itself. Building the channel not only stabilises the
banks but also improves the water quality. Grober doesn’t see himself as a river manager, but rather as a river liberator. His chute accelerates the water in the middle of the stream. The river bed is then eroded by the increased flow velocity in the middle, and this again results in uneven depths in the middle of
the river. And so the large Huchen, also called the Danube Salmon, which live here, are able to find a habitat that corresponds to the needs of
their species. That means different water depths with different flow velocities. At normal water levels the boulders are no
longer visible. The funnel-shaped current is recognizable. At low water, the channel becomes clearly visible. Shortly after the construction Grober had
the current measured with a hydrometric vane apparatus. Further measurements were taken by Graz University of Technology. The measurement data ended up with Christine Sindelar, at the Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Water Resources Management. She is a mathematician and as part of her
doctoral thesis is working on the complex flow conditions in Grober’s hydraulic constructions. We have completed several trials and noted the changes to the river bed. Here you can see a cross section before the construction of the channel. You can see that it is pretty even. After the installation of the channel and
after a tremendous flood the riverbed changed like this: You see here very strong dynamics within the riverbed. In this area potholes were formed, that are
very good for the fish, because here they find calm resting places. And what is more, the riverbank stayed sound, so it was safe from the floodwater. The profile of the Mur riverbed after it has
been changed by the channel now looks like a natural river profile, as drawn by Viktor
Schauberger in the thirties. Christine Sindelar does not just sit at the
computer. Here she takes precise measurements at another of Otmar Grober’s river construction sites. In the Stübmingbach brook he built a kind
of stairway – a pendulum channel. A new building method for managing a steep gradient, in which the sections of the riverbed restore its original swinging movement to
the water. With floods it swirls inwards and instead
of the swinging movement, it develops a flowing plume, a plait of water. That means that I have a convex flow pattern–contrary to the conventional chutes, where you have a concave flow profile that attacks the banks on its edges. This is going to be tested now at the Hydraulic Engineering Laboratory of Graz University of Technology – with a 1:10 scale model. It is three meters wide and 18 meters long. After it is built there will be a series of
tests, for example flood simulation. For the first time Schauberger’s methods
for the regulation of flowing water are going to be subjected to sophisticated tests at
the renowned Institute of Hydraulic Engineering. The head of the Institute is Professor Gerald Zens. We would like to find out more about nature, especially nowadays, when we attach particular importance to the natural environment, to
natural water run-off, and we have a specific scientific interest in considering energy
flow. And so we are completely in tune with Schauberger when we say we want to find out how nature works. We want to study and learn about different
volumes of water, its effect on the stability of the riverbed, can we let different quantities of water generate energy in a controlled way. As engineers it is our job to make things
safe, so that even with floods there is no danger, the river and its banks are not damaged– and the population is safe. In practice the pendular chute has already
proved itself. The tests on the scale model are to give us
a sound scientific basis –not least for the construction of more new channels. On the Großen Tulln near the Wienerwald – in Neulengbach – an old weir system is to be replaced by a pendular chute as part of the
restoration project. This will enable the fish to move freely through the waters again. And at the same time a forest is planned on the flood plain – and in this alluvial forest a Viktor Schauberger Park is to be established. A pendular chute in a Schauberger Park would be the crowning achievement of Otmar Grober’s professional career. Here he analyses the electromagnetic frequencies in the water of the pendular chute with a new measuring instrument. Different aspects of his hydraulic engineering measurements have already been the subject of theses at the Graz and Braunschweig University of Technology. The time finally appears to be ripe for a
Schauberger-style river regulation system. Very early in his career as a forester, Viktor
Schauberger recognised the great significance of the woodland in the never-ending water
cycle. According to Schauberger, temperature differences play a crucial role in this process. In the shade of the trees the forest soil
stays relatively cool. When warm rainwater hits the cooler soil it
sinks into the ground more easily, replenishes the water table and comes back up to the earth’s surface some time later. It evaporates, clouds form, and then rains
down again. Schauberger calls this the complete or full
water cycle. But the full cycle is increasingly disrupted
– for example by forest clearance. Without the tree covering the ground is now warmer than the rain falling on to it. The rainwater does not penetrate into the
ground, but flows along the surface into brooks and rivers, causing floods. On the other hand, the water table sinks. In summer this surface water often evaporates from there, causing clouds to form and so leading to more rainfall. One flood leads to the next. Schauberger calls this the half water cycle. On a hotplate it can be seen in a dramatic
demonstration how the drops of water roll off. In a similar way it can also be observed on
hot asphalt. Today this is known as the problem of sealing of natural surfaces. “Today, basically, water goes through only
half of the water cycle. It can no longer penetrate into the ground,
stay there and regenerate. Viktor Schauberger wanted to solve this problem mechanically, and so developed a machine for the production of spring-water-like drinking
water. In 1935 he obtained a patent for it. In this machine the water would go through
the whole cycle again. The water is cleaned, cooled down, run through vortices, enriched with minerals, and then it comes out of the machine like fresh spring water – like the water we know from our mountains.” Viktor Schauberger believed that without a
healthy woodland there is no healthy water, which he called “the blood of the earth”. The shade-giving canopy of natural mixed woodland allows an incomparable variety of species to flourish in the understorey. A thick humus layer develops. A good woodland soil is a good water reservoir. It can retain up to 90 percent of the rainwater that falls upon it, and so dramatically reduces the risk of flooding and erosion. A healthy woodland soil can absorb six times more water than bare ground. The cooling shade of the trees is just as
important for a river. If humans do not interfere the shade providers grow by themselves on the riverbanks. Viktor Schauberger was probably one of the first people to talk of “the dying forests”. As early as the 1920’s he warned about radical deforestation and the replanting of trees in plantation monoculture. It is a tragic consequence of Viktor’s life’s
work that his ingenious water channels led to the massive deforestation that took place in Austria and elsewhere. If one cuts a swathe into the wood, then the trees which were previously in the middle of the wood immediately become border trees. They are suddenly exposed to direct sunlight and their bark gets scorched. These border trees are badly damaged. This was a problem that Viktor Schauberger also described. Is it a coincidence that the soil is dry at
the edge of this wood? As with river regulation, Schauberger’s
insights into forestry are more relevant than ever. From forestry it is only a small step to agriculture. Viktor Schauberger saw a cause of declining yields in agricultural machinery made of iron. Basically, Viktor considered the formation
of rust in the water or the soil to be a life-destroying process. For this reason he turned to the noble metal copper. Viktor and his son Walter Schauberger obtained many patents for agricultural implements made out of copper. Instead of rust from the iron, copper and
copper alloys contain trace elements which are brought directly into the soil through abrasion. Susanne Niedermayr has been using copper tools in her garden for several years. On a small scale she observed similar results to those documented in the nineteen-forties in large-scale field trials in the Salzburg
region and the Tyrol: an increase in soil fertility. Susanne Niedermayr tests the spade – comparing an iron spade and a copper spade. “Well, with the copper spade I have to say
it just goes into the ground more easily. With copper tools it seems that the trace
elements also get into the soil. It seems to me that the soil in the whole
garden has become homogeneous, so we don’t have so much trouble with snail damage. It simply makes the work a lot easier. I recommend it.” Viktor Schauberger developed a special plough for loosening the soil which turned the soil inwards, centripetally, rather than outwards,
centrifugally. Unfortunately there is only one model of the spiral-plough, also known as the “bio-plough”. Klaus Rauber of the Association for Implosion Research in the Schwarzwald explains how it works. With his “bio-plough“ Viktor Schauberger
copied the way of a mole, faithful to his principle, “comprehend and copy nature”. This plough works like a mole, which moves the soil centripetally, and so moves through it with hardly any resistance. Electron microscope photographs have recently shown that sharks’ skin has a similar structure - enabling the shark to plough its way through
the water with hardly any frictional resistance. Viktor Schauberger certainly had not seen
such pictures in his time. This plough turns the soil twice; first by
turning it at this edge and then turning it back again, so that the layering of the earth
remains intact. The merits or demerits of ploughing in agriculture is ever more frequently debated. Viktor Schauberger’s backwards-turning plough could be the way to leave microorganisms in the soil layer where they belong. The Kudu-antelope horn is an outstanding ear-trumpet
for sound amplification. But Viktor Schauberger was interested in another characteristic. For him the Kudu-horn was the ideal model
for water pipes – because of its twisted spiral shape. In many countries Viktor and Walter Schauberger obtained patents for their spiral pipes. Such pipes are not easy to make. Felix Hediger of the Association for Implosion Research heats up copper pipes in order to bend them. With a roller he made himself he can twist
the now flexible copper pipe. Another variant is a pipe which is not twisted but dented– the so-called Neumann pipe. Despite the fact that the pipe is straight
the water whirls in on itself The water flows in a spiral space-curve –in Viktor Schauberger’s view, the ideal water flow pattern The Association for Implosion Research produces not only spiral pipes, but builds whole apparatuses following Viktor Schauberger’s original
plans. Here is the latest version of a sophisticated
water appliance to revitalize distilled water, from the year 1958. With this sophisticated device Viktor Schauberger attempted to combine several technical aspects. He built a small-scale wave diaphragm. There the water pulses through and meanders in the same way as it does in a natural watercourse. The whole is covered by a lid, so that light
is excluded. Carbonic acid is added to the air space. The carbonic acid is incorporated into the
water during the vortexing process, and high quality salts are also added to it. The entire process has to run approximately half an hour with a positive temperature gradient, that is, the water has to cool down to 4 degrees Celsius. After half an hour the water is taken out. It should rest a day until it has the maturity
of good spring water, possibly even – we will test this in experiments – the maturity
of healing water. Back to Felix Hediger. He builds his spiral pipes into a huge water
revitalizing machine. It is not yet finished, but parts of it are:
the hyperbolic funnels are already used in many ponds. The whirling air bubbles reduce the formation of algae in the pond – like on this golf course in the Taunus near Frankfurt. There is also a smaller funnel, a tabletop
unit for enlivening drinking water. Jens Fischer has conducted numerous Schauberger vortex experiments. He sells the first water vitalizing equipment, which has been produced in great numbers since 1980. The so-called Martin-Whirler was developed after a suggestion to Viktor’s son Walter by a hydraulic engineer. Several thousand devices are also in use in
different applications. Numerous bakers report the improved rising of dough and the retarded mould development. The Whirler has also been used in hydrotherapy for many years. According to medical opinion the whirled water can relieve tensions in the neck and shoulder areas as well as ease rheumatic pain. The patients are treated with water that has itself been treated. The water treatment appliances that Viktor
Schauberger built himself in the thirties were likewise used successfully for therapeutic purposes. Unfortunately none of the devices from his
water laboratory have survived. At the Schauberger Congress in Höör, in
Sweden, with participants from 15 nations. Klaus Rauber and Jörg Schauberger demonstrated the functionality of Viktor Schauberger’s original suction coil. A kind of pump that sucks the water rather
than pushing it. The water is carried smoothly, its flow is
not interrupted by paddles. The Swedish hosts have specialized in vortex appliances. They make use of the reciprocal pressure and suction effects within the vortex for different applications. But then Murphy’s Law comes into effect: After the camera is dry again: A visit to
nearby Malmö. Jörg Schauberger meets his Swedish friends. In the background is the new Malmö landmark, “The Turning Torso”, a twisted multistorey building. Although this building behind me doesn’t
have anything to do with Schauberger, it still makes me happy to be able to show how something so alive, like a turbulence, a twist, can be made out of something so rigid. Here in Sweden, Malmö is the home of a group which intensively investigates water turbulence. Research into Schauberger and the vortex is well established in Sweden. Because here Olaf Alexandersson wrote his
book: 'Living Water', one of the standard works about Viktor Schauberger. Here the legendary IET Malmö-group, Curt
Hallberg and friends, have continued their researches and they are very close to new
discoveries about vortexed water and its applications in everyday life. Curt Hallberg and Anders Ive demonstrate in the laboratory how a whirl jet nozzle can add air into water already at a low pressure. This process is also reversible – to remove
air from the water. The jet nozzle has a hyperbolic form and generates a very strong vortex. The air bubbles are drawn into the centre. Then a vacuum is created in the centre of
the vortex. The jet nozzle has proven itself in practice. The vortex generator is built into a cylinder
and marketed by the company “Watreco”, created for this purpose. “Small, small bubbles in the water float
towards the center as the rotation will generate a sub pressure. This is very beneficial for example making
ice. As the ice that will be made or frozen by
the water treated with the vortexer will have less air inside. It is very good also for altering the floating
tendencies of water or the dynamic viscosity. As the water floats better out in the ice,
filling cracks and bores especially when you have an ice arena where people are skating
and there is a lot of stress on ice.” In this ice rink a Watreco vortex generator
is attached to the water pipe. Degassed tap water flows into the water tank of the ice preparation machine. The new ice is denser and more resistant,
so it lasts longer. This also saves energy. Water is normally heated up to make ice, since
one of the many anomalies of water is that warm water freezes more quickly than cold
water. "Before we had installed the system the
water needed to be heated up to 45 degrees, sometimes some people use 55 degrees. And as you put out around 10 cubic meters
a day this means that a lot of energy is put into heating 10 cubic meters from say 10 degrees from the tap water to 45 degrees. Today we use only 20 degrees which mean actually you have cut the energy cost by 50 percent.” Small wonder then that several ice making
machines run with vortexed water. The “Real Ice”-technique of Watreco has
been installed so far in 25 ice rinks, 20 of them in Sweden. Back at the Schauberger Congress in Höör. The American Dan Reese presents his vortex machine. It consists of a series of linked cylinders
and purifies the water without any chemicals whatsoever. “I read ‘Living Water’ – this is how
I got into this. I read a book called ‘Living Water’ by
Olof Alexandersson. And Viktor Schauberger was the main person in this book. And he wanted clear water for everybody.” First, Reese uses the vortex tubes to remove iron and sulfur from the groundwater in his native Texas. Now he is trying to desalinate seawater with this energy saving technique. “I know it is possible. It is just a matter of time now. We are pretty close. Just getting a chloride removal is very close.” Dan Reese has left one machine there. The Swedish team has installed new jet nozzles in order to optimize the development of the vortex. In Malmo yacht harbour Curt Hallberg pumps seawater into a large can. In the laboratory the water runs through the
vortex tubes. With the initial trials they achieved a significant reduction in the salt content and also the pH-value. In the 1930’s Viktor, and later his son
Walter, experimented with the so-called Kelvin Generator. When falling through copper spirals, thin
strands of water produce high electrical voltages. Tiny water droplets suddenly change their
direction of fall – contrary to the laws of gravity – and move back upwards. This levitation is a phenomenon that had already been investigated in the 19th century by the Nobel Physics Laureate Philipp Lenard at waterfalls in the Alps. The tiniest water droplets carry an electrostatic charge. They form a very fine spray that can easily be seen and inhaled. Waterfalls have a positive effect on human
health, particularly easing asthmatic complaints. Although over 10.000 volts was generated in the water-thread experiment no significant electrical current was produced. Viktor and Walter Schauberger halted their
experiments into alternative energy generation. In the beginning of the 1950’s they started
a new approach – based on the spiral pipes. They had already used these as the optimum curved shape for their water channels. In 1952 Viktor Schauberger’s patented spiral pipes were tested at the Stuttgart University of Technology – the legendary Pöpel Experiment. “Schauberger’s frequent attacks on academic science, especially on water resources management, caused a number of politicians to commission Prof. Pöpel to test Schauberger’s pipes. The aim was to confirm or disprove Schauberger’s ideas once and for all. For these measurements Schauberger provided Franz Pöpel with some pipes. Amongst others there was a straight copper pipe, as well as a double coiled spiral pipe. The aim of these measurements was to test and compare the vortex flow processes within the pipe, in order to determine whether or
not this shape of pipe enables the water to pass through with reduced friction. With these measurements the relationship between friction and the flow velocity within the pipe was determined. There were clear differences between the straight and the spiral pipe. With the spiral pipe in particular a sort
of critical resonance point was discovered, at which the water flowed through the pipe
without any apparent resistance. However, some interpolations were made which at a closer look would not stand up to scientific investigation. In his preliminary investigations Prof. Pöpel
did not take enough measurements, especially around those fascinating resonance points. For this reason the Association for Implosion
Research decided to set up the experiments again and repeat the tests. At the time, however, Viktor Schauberger was encouraged by the Popel Report to make the spiral pipes the core of his own energy machines– for example in his home power station from 1955.” This allows energy to be produced from water and air. For Viktor Schauberger, conventional explosion technology was the technology of death. With his home power plant he hoped to stimulate atomic conversion processes through implosion, fulfilling the dream of a non-polluting energy converter that is economical with natural resources. Water jets of enormous force develop in the spiral pipes. But on the very first test run the pipes burst. A second prototype was drawn up by Viktor’s collaborator Scheriau and built later in Canada. Now this suction turbine has been brought
to Germany for closer investigation. “Firstly, it is powered by a motor until
it reaches a working speed of rotation. After this, water is run into the turbine
and the tangential rebound of the water jets with these nozzles causes the rotor to turn
by itself, so that the drive suddenly starts to run on its own – generating enough electricity to supply a household. The regulation for this entire process is
in the lower section. The water flow is controlled with this nozzle. With this small knob we regulate the power
output of the generator. Here we have the intake vents. In the center of this fixed part is an ascending coil, with a built-in suction coil – another core piece of Schauberger’s machines.” But first several components have to be revised and adapted – especially the links between the motor and the generator. Only then can the turbine be accelerated gradually up to 3000 revolutions per minute. July 2007. At a convention of the Association for Implosion Research Jörg Schauberger and Klaus Rauber unwrapped a long lost piece of equipment. It is the last Repulsine that Viktor Schauberger ever built. In 1958 it was lost in America. The Repulsine was constructed at the time
of the “miracle weapons” of the Third Reich and became a legend after the war. One specimen allegedly took off from the workbench and shattered on the ceiling. From this story the mythology grew that Viktor Schauberger had built the first flying saucer. But what really was the Repulsine? According to a technical drawing of the prototype from 1940 the Repulsine could, among other things, silently power an aeroplane without
the need for fuel. A look into the interior of the first Repulsine. A replica that was found in the cellar of
the Pythagoras Kepler School in Bad Ischl. In the turbine there are two wavy plates,
one on top of the other. Air was drawn in through gill-slits between
the two plates. Here Viktor Schauberger wanted to
mimic the energy processes that are generated in the curves of a riverbed. “And then air is sucked in here through
the slots and brought into the diaphragm inside. So that the air flows around here in a circle.” “Now we just remove the ring, so that we
can see it a little more easily.” "Here the air escapes between the discs
and is rotated with these earlobe-shaped guide vanes.” “Schauberger’s central approach here was
the principle of matter transformation. The elements of the air, particulate matter
and gases are converted in this Repulsator, which is what he called the core of this Repulsine. With this transformation the different elements group together and are separated out. One part escapes through the ring rotator. And the radiation energy – Schauberger talks about synthesis electricity – is emitted through the central axis. That is why he also planned to incorporate
this machine in aeroplanes as an alternative to the propeller, for propulsion. Basically, the Repulsine creates a biological
vacuum along the axis in front of it, into which the aeroplane is sucked. Like the trout that is basically sucked through a vortex.” A revolutionary propulsion concept. The question of what happened to Viktor Schauberger‘s last Repulsine becomes even more interesting. In June 2002 the American Richard Feierabend appeared unexpectedly at a seminar in Bad Ischl. He showed pictures of the Repulsine which
he had rediscovered in Texas. Feierabend was a US Marine pilot. Colleagues had told him the mythology surrounding Viktor Schauberger’s flying discs. One of the speakers at the same seminar was the Englishman Callum Coats. He and Feierabend got to know one another, as Coats had written the first English-language book about Viktor Schauberger. Callum Coats is an architect and Schauberger researcher who lives in Australia and who translated numerous of Vitkor’s texts into
English. Viktor’s wording was specific and very often difficult to understand, so it was a tough undertaking. In the chapter „What happened in America“
Coats reconstructed the exact events of the summer of 1958. In the Schauberger archive in Bad Ischl Ingrid Schauberger presents Viktor’s correspondence from that time. These are the last original documents from
Viktor Schauberger’s life. With this knowledge his grandson Jörg went to America in April 2004. First stop was Fredericksburg in Virginia
– the home of the Feierabend family. Richard Feierabend had unfortunately since
died. Jörg Schauberger was welcomed by his widow Patti. Patti Feierabend showed all the documents
which her husband had been able to secure and which have not yet found their way to
Europe. "Here are all the original documents that
Dick Feierabend had collected from Texas. I am very surprised about the abundance of
the material. One can see here some original photographs, as well as the legendary Pöpel-Report, the paper that was written at the University of
Stuttgart in 1952. We have seen copies of it, but this paper
has the original signature of the professor on it, so it is also of great interest to
Schauberger research.” It was already late when Jörg Schauberger
said goodbye to Patti Feierabend. But he had not yet seen the Repulsine. The journey continued the next day – to
Austin, the state capital of Texas. Jörg Schauberger visited an Institute that
specializes in future technologies. The research ranges from cold fusion to so-called zero-point energy. Its client list includes the American Space
Agency NASA. And here it stands on the test bench: Viktor
Schauberger’s Repulsine from the year 1945. Richard Feierabend had brought the machine back to Texas shortly before he died. He wanted to know whether it could produce a “lift”, in other words, overcome the force of gravity. Hal Puthoff, Head of Institute and a renowned experimental physicist showed Jörg Schauberger the test stand. Puthoff’s colleague Scott Little used a
stroboscope lamp to test whether the material would be deformed with a rising speed of revolution. At 2000 revolutions per minute the tests were aborted. There was concern that the half-century old
machine would fly apart. “I must say one of the things I was impressed with was the quality of the construction considering it was from the forties. For example when we put it on its bearing and spun it around it spun very freely as good as in modern bearings And so I could see that the function was to generate some kind of vortex airflow. And so what we want to do is to see if when it was spun at high speeds whether we generate any lift.” “What was the result of your test?” “Unfortunately we didn’t see any lift. Now, the two aspects of this that we wondered about after the defect, and that is: We only had pictures of the device before we received it and there were at least two parts of the device that were not provided us. One of the parts we had pictures of,
photographs of and so we were able to fabricate that part of the device to add to what was sent to us. And then there was another smaller cap that we had no information on its structure. It wouldn’t look like to play a major role but you know you can’t be sure. So when we didn’t see a good effect we didn’t know if perhaps we were still missing a significant part.” For the first time Jörg Schauberger saw the
interior of his Grandfather’s last Repulsine. What is his conclusion? “Well, what we had hoped for from ‘Schauberger’s flying saucers’ did not happen, unfortunately. But it has to be said that not all the parts
were there. Viktor Schauberger had said that the catalysts in particular were essential for his machine to move in a way that corresponds to Nature, and these were missing. We should have been able to obtain energy
without wasting resources, with machines that run on only water and air. We will see what comes out of this. So, it will be back to the drawing board for
a while before we can publish new findings.” Jörg Schauberger has a different aim at the
moment. He is following his father and grandfather’s
footsteps to the Texas Oklahoma border – to the Red River of western movies. On the first of July 1958 Viktor boarded an
aeroplane from New York to Dallas, Texas, accompanied by his son Walter, and his son-in-law, Doctor Walter Luib. Some American business people had invited them to stay. Especially the German-born American Karl Gerchsheimer. He saw that there was no future in explosion technology. He had heard of Viktor’s concepts of virtually free energy production. He wanted to develop and market these ideas
in the ‘land of opportunity’. With the backing of a wealthy US financier,
the project could start in Texas. So in the summer of 1958 Viktor and Walter Schauberger came to a remote semi desert area in the North of Texas. 73-year-old Viktor had difficulty with the
oppressive heat. But he hoped to be able to complete his life’s work here. Grandson Jörg looks for clues. The only photograph of his father and grandfather together in Texas. Jörg goes on to Denison, the birthplace of
the former US president Dwight D. Eisenhower. "This is a postcard of the house president
Eisenhower was born in. It shows the house as it looked in 1958, when my father wrote this card to us back home. It was July 1958 where he wrote ‘We are
doing really well, we are in high spirits’. So that was the beginning of the expedition
to the USA, my grandfather’s and father’s American adventure.” Jörg drives into the small town nearby, Sherman. Karl Gerchsheimer had a business associate here, Harald Totten. He owned a foundry that produced tubes and drill pipes for oil and gas production. The firm is still owned by the Totten family
and is still called the “Washington Iron Works”. “When I got out of the car and walked into
the office of the ‘Washington Iron Works’ for the first time I felt a little uncertain. We had tried to get in touch via e-mail, but
we didn’t receive an answer. So I was not sure what kind of welcome I would get.” But the chief executive of the firm was friendly and Jörg could move freely around the factory. He found the old factory shed where Schauberger’s machines were to be built. Unfortunately, this never happened. The prototypes from Austria arrived only after a two month delay and were not handled with care. A few pieces ended up later in Karl Gerchsheimer’s garage, where they were found by Richard Feierabend many years later. Wally Totten, the current boss of 'Washington Iron Works', showed Jörg his manufacturing plant, where they make precision parts out
of aluminium. Wally Totten can still remember Viktor Schauberger very well– because of his full beard, which had reminded him rather of Santa Claus. As he was a trainee at that time, he could
not remember the project itself. His father told him some details later, especially about Karl Gerchsheimer, the initiator of the project. “My father was very bitter about the way Karl handled particular the relationship because he really felt that Karl was the one that caused the project not to work Nobody really knows why but my father was very, very convinced that Karl was a very negative influence on the whole situation and as he say Karl also seemed to spread some discourse among the other people.” Jörg Schauberger is not surprised because
he knows that the Texas project ended in a fiasco. After a few weeks, communication problems and misunderstandings led to the breakdown of mutual trust. Viktor refused to stay here in Texas any longer than three months. In this diner Viktor and Walter Schauberger
used to have their breakfast. Afterwards, boss Wally Totten takes Jörg
in his Porsche to his family’s former country home, about 10 km outside Sherman. This is where the Austrian inventors stayed. The Totten family sold the property some 20 years ago. Today it is pretty run-down. Wally Totten was sorry about that because
in 1958 it looked quite different. "At that time my father kept it very much like a golf course. There was a wooden rail fence around the property. We skep moved on train. We had horses and cows and that was everything. It was working farm But very unique unlike you see it now. It breaks my heart to see it this way. I’m glad my father can’t see it.” Here Viktor and Walter Schauberger spent most of their time during their stay in Texas. They wrote letters and essays and drew Project sketches – but the Americans seemed suddenly to have lost interest in them. “In the first days and weeks they were still
very optimistic and full of confidence that the project would provide the breakthrough
and that they would be successful here in the USA. As the weeks went by and with nothing to do out here the letters got more and more pessimistic until a point was reached where it could not go on any more. In the end my grandfather signed a contract, in which he transferred the rights to all his ideas, all his patents, and thoughts to
an American consortium, just so that he could fly back home again. And as is known, five days later, after he
was back at home, he died.” "I saw him as a man of great insight. In the thirties or even later if people had
listened to Viktor Schauberger, we would have been spared all the disasters we have today and which we are expecting to have. It cannot be different. Nobody could see the problems of life so comprehensively as he did. We cannot live without a living Nature. That is quite clear.” Viktor’s son Walter was an engineering graduate who tried to put together his father’s empirical insights into a mathematical theory. He studied the monochord – a stringed instrument that Pythagoras played to make audible the harmony of the universe. When you cut a string in two, it sounds twice as high. When we now take a third of a cord, it sounds three times higher. When we divide it into quarters, four times
higher. And so on. From this pattern my father Walter Schauberger derived his law of sound. For him it was a universal law – the law
of the universe”. If one depicts this law graphically one gets
a hyperbola – a curve that comes out of infinity and goes back into infinity. If we rotate the hyperbola around the y-axis
we get a hyperbolic cone. Walter Schauberger called it the “Tone tower”. If we turn that cone upside down we have a
funnel – a hyperbolic funnel. We already know this funnel with its spiralling water vortex inside. In 1986 the funnel was produced. In August of the same year Walter Schauberger conducted the first test runs with it. A stable pulsating structure develops out of a wobbling chaos. Walter Schauberger calls this vortex ‘Nature’s energy program’. “It is controlled by frequency, this double
helix. And instead of frequency we say the number of revolutions - And then it is white at the bottom!” Innumerable gas bubbles spiral around the
plait in the centre. A characteristic energy vortex pattern. In a natural river course longitudinal vortices form up like this. Walter’s father Viktor declared that this
spiralling motion also appears in the three-dimensional helix around a hyperbolic cone. When it is cut along the diagonal one obtains an oval section plane, which corresponds to a natural egg-shape. As far back as 1609 the astronomer Johannes Kepler suspected that the planets moved in oval courses, but he described them as ellipses, because elliptical equations were already known back then. Thus the hyperbolic cone, the “tone tower“,
is a link between the harmony of Pythagoras and the astronomy of Kepler. Walter Schauberger summarized his mathematical theory under the term “Pythagoras Kepler System” – known as PKS. For Walter – here in movie shots from the
year 1972 – the egg-shape was the ideal form for technical equipment, in which mixtures, solutions or emulsions can be produced. An egg-shaped reactor would offer new possibilities for energy generation. But a lack of money put an end to the trials. Walter Schauberger received many patents for spiralling treatment systems for fluid and gaseous media. One such machine was used at the Hamburg Water Works in 1967. The department manager at the time, Gerhard Sprekelmeier, can still remember the tests. Schauberger’s parabolic-shaped stirring
machine was at the bottom of the tank. An underwater motor turned a propeller to
produce a vortex. “We tried to add chemicals into it, since
the chemical balance in water is always tricky to manage. And we had good results. We welcomed Mr. Schauberger gladly, a well-rounded and open-minded man. We gave him the nickname ‘Schlauberger’,
which means something like ‘clever mountain man’. So we carried out our tests here, but we didn’t need them in the end, because we found other ways to adjust the chemical balance.” Despite the success with the reduction of
the chemical input the Hamburg project ended ingloriously. The parabolic-shaped bowl was put to a different use– a two-metre wide plantpot. Walter Schauberger was not only a bio-engineer, but also an early environmental activist. In 1949 he founded one of the first environmental protection organizations in Austria, the “Green Front”. Reforestation was a priority. Schauberger maintained close contacts with the “Men of the Trees” in England and with the German Woodland Protection Association, here at a meeting with the German president Theodor Heuss. In 1970 Walter Schauberger founded the Pythagoras-Kepler-School PKS in Bad Ischl. The seminars and lectures aimed to promote natural technologies. The engineer and journalist Gottfried Hilscher was often a guest at PKS and was the first German author to describe Walter Schauberger’s approach to energy generation. “If a tornado was a machine then it would
not work. Because our textbooks tell us that we can’t
obtain propulsion energy from environmental heat. A tornado, however, obviously does exactly
that! Nature’s method of movement and energy generation is implosion not explosion. That means suction instead of pressure, movement directed inwards not outwards.” Walter’s wife, Ingeborg Schauberger, now
an old lady, can still remember his brave words. “Don’t parrot what is explained in books
in such detail, but think in the opposite direction instead. As the father had told his son: Walter, when
it is about technology, you just have to think 180 degrees differently – then it turns
out right!” In 1996, two years after Walter Schauberger’s death, the seminars resumed. Among the first contributors and supporters were: Kurt Lorek, Norbert Harthun and Uwe Fischer, Maximilian Mack, Konrad Richli, and Wilhelm Martin. Ingrid and Jörg Schauberger have run the
PKS Seminars since the year 2000. In 2006 the English hydrodynamics researcher John Wilkes was a guest lecturer. He developed flow forms, in which the water pulsates rhythmically over bowl-shaped cascades. They serve to enliven the water and are also artistic landscape architecture. Today, one such flow form is installed in
front of the PKS-villa in Bad Ischl. The form of the biotope is appropriate for
a Schauberger institution– egg-shaped. The vision of the trout turbine. The concepts and applications of natural eco-technology are very wide-ranging and not yet fully explored. Jörg Schauberger’s view: “Viktor and Walter Schauberger’s insights should be seen as an invitation to be inspired. So the point isn’t to stick to the literal
meaning, but develop one’s own ideas and thoughts. For a future with and not against nature. Maybe we can add a third ‘c’ to my grandfather’s ‘c&c’ motto, ‘comprehend, copy and cooperate with nature.” Otmar Grober in Styria has been cooperating with nature for a long time by building his river constructions, which protect the riverbanks and vitalize the water at the same time. After he retires Grober plans to develop a
water power turbine. It is to be a bio-turbine according to Viktor
Schauberger’s principles, which achieves a greater energy output without damaging the water and which lets the fish carry on swimming upstream. In Sweden the Malmö Schauberger group vitalizes numerous public and private ponds with its vortex systems. With visible success. Watreco’s new Super-Vortexer adds tiny air-bubbles into the water and so produces almost the contrary of fog: not small water droplets
in the air, but air bubbles in the water. An efficient and promising method, for example, for aerating filter beds. The Association of Implosion Research is going to conduct further Repulsine tests with catalysts such as silica gel. Where this fisherman is standing, Felix Hediger’s water vitalizing machine “Belebula” is making its maiden voyage. The pond contaminated with algae can take a deep breath now, (after human intervention) “For this water vitalizing machine we need
four pumps in all. We have developed our own pump. These pumps are designed to transport water in a correct natural way. They don’t smash up the water as conventional centrifugal pumps do. One can see that the rotor is screw-shaped
and formed into a spiral. That is typical of the Schauberger way. To this extent, this pump is also inspired
by Schauberger and Schauberger technology.” The solar-powered pumps bring up cold water from a depth of three meters. First, it comes into vortex-eggs, which have
had minerals inserted. Then the water rises further upwards in spiral pipes, and then either falls through a hyperbolic funnel or falls back on itself as a jet of
water. What would Viktor Schauberger have said of this water vitalizing machine? We don’t know.
