Скачать или смотреть Holy, curing water in Lourdes, France (taken from the TV-doc. "A Journey in the History of Water").

Many millions visit Lourdes in southern France every year to take what is considered the city’s holy water. Sick and disabled pilgrims in their millions have come here from the whole world in search for cures for their problems or strength to endure them.

I also went ​there to see ​how water is ​seen as the “​water of life” -​ as a religious ​symbol and as ​an affirmation ​of God, and as ​God’s medium. ​It is, of ​course, ​interesting ​that this ​attitude to ​water exists ​and thrives in ​France, the ​country where ​modern ​rationalism ​celebrated its ​first victories.​

On the square in front of the basilica, in among the motley, multinational crowd, surrounded by people who linked to their wheel chairs are moved by their helpers from the holy springs to the holy baths, while the religious hymns are song and chanted prayers for help seem to infuse the entire place, it is hard not to be moved. It is a manifestation of the power of faith and of prayer in forming collective activities and ideas: the people who come here in the many thousands cling, visibly and intensely, to what might be their last hope – that the water here will heal them.

This TV-documentary was purchased by National Geographic, Discovery Channels, Al Arabia channels and was shown in about 150 countries. It also won the Grand Prix as the best environmental film in the world in Festival international du film d'environment in Paris (1999). The Series was produced by NRK in cooperation with the University of Bergen.

See also my book "A Journey in the future of water", translated into Chinese, Ukranian, Danish, Norwegian, German and Chinese, and the nine volumes series "A History of Water", see https://www.uib.no/sites/w3.uib.no/fi....

For more books and films on water, including the open access publication "Water and Society, Changing Perception on Societal and Historical developments", London: Bloomsbury), https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/water-a....

For other books on water, history and development, see my homepage https://terjetvedt.w.uib.no/.