The Forgotten Visionaries: Early Voices on Minerals, Water, and Health.

A century of visionaries said the same thing: life needs more minerals than we ever imagined. They drew the map… and Shimanishi later found the treasure.

Okay, mineral minions—did you notice I gave you a day off? Although there is no such thing as too many minerals (your body largely takes what it needs and dumps the rest), I felt you needed time to reflect and “re-charge” (pun absolutely intended). Know this post also appears as Chapter 8 in the Table of Contents of “From Volcanoes to Vitality.”

---

The Pull of Medical History

Throughout my career, as I repeatedly dove into researching transformative therapies, I developed a deep appreciation for the history of medicine, in that I loved reading academic papers from 100 to 150 years ago—the sheer depth of knowledge always amazed me. How did they know so much back then? With such primitive scientific tools?

What they uncovered through simple, careful clinical observation was often nothing short of profound. And what fascinated me most was the prescience of early visionaries. Every time a treatment or practice eventually proved transformative, there was always—somewhere in the archives—a lone, often ignored voice calling out decades earlier for its potential value.

Of course, the darker side of that realization is harder to ignore: the countless visionary physicians and researchers whose insights were dismissed, discredited, or deliberately silenced. But let’s not go there just yet—I’m trying to stay on my best, most positive behavior here.

This chapter highlights the people who saw the “bigger picture” around trace minerals and purified, structured water before most. From soil scientists to Nobel Prize–winning chemists, all tried to show the world that missing trace minerals—silent and unseen—were shaping everything from crop yields to chronic disease.

Note From the Author: The Visionaries I Overlooked

This chapter was written weeks ago, and only after it appeared on Substack did some readers point out that I had failed to acknowledge earlier contributors in this field (or worse, appeared to have plagiarized their ideas). To my surprise, I discovered that some of the arguments I had made were not novel. Strangely, I felt both humbled and validated. I had arrived at these conclusions (or more accurately, gathered the most recent and robust scientific data to support them) without knowing others had done similar work before me.

The truth is, I never set out to write this book, nor did I enter mineral science with any systematic research plan. Instead, my journey began with an introduction to Shimanishi’s extraction of a historically unique, primordial mineral complex. I first learned of it through interactions with a colleague, Kacper Postawski. Then, as I began researching and trying to understand it, I quickly became overwhelmed by its potential to massively impact the health of soils, plants, animals, and humans. Thus, I started “backwards,” driven by the one skill I’ve ever felt made me somewhat unique, as suggested in the Preface.

From that spark of inspiration, I followed random gems of knowledge — Elmer Heinrich’s “The Untold Truth” — and countless nudges towards subject areas from mineral experts like Matt Bakos. Only after readers commented did I realize I had reached conclusions others had already articulated.

So, let me take a moment to humbly acknowledge scientists like Forrest Nielsen, Walter Mertz, and Bruce Ames, who long ago argued that many “non-essential” minerals are, in fact, essential—and that even minor deficiencies can disrupt biology. Most relevant is Albert Earl Carter’s The Miracles of Minerals, written over 30 years ago, insisting that human physiology relies on far more elements than textbooks admit.

Thus, I am not claiming to be a visionary or a pioneer. My contribution is narrower, but I believe it is historically unique: despite a century of research into mineral depletion and trace-element physiology, no major scientist, researcher, or author has ever written about Shimanishi’s discovery.

How did that happen? As far as I can explain it, it is because Shimanishi worked in another world; not only did he live and work in Japan, but his focus was on patents rather than medical journals, and on industrial testing rather than academic conferences. His primary focus was on deploying his minerals in agricultural and water treatment applications.

Thus, little is known of its benefits to health outside a tiny circle of practitioners, one of whom you will meet later in the book, Dr. Hisatake Nojima, who wrote five books about his use of Shimanishi’s minerals in his practice, one of which was translated into English and can be found on Amazon.

Thus, knowledge of his minerals in medicine is held by only a precious few, with no published studies of their health benefits. As a result, the one mineral technology capable of delivering dense, bioactive ionic sulfates— with global implications for water, soil, and human health—has remained invisible to the very medical and nutritional communities searching for such a solution.

I believe mine is the first work to pull Shimanishi’s breakthrough out of obscurity and into the light of science and medicine. However, this discovery did not come from me; it came to me, and then through me. At least, that is my sense of everything that brought me to this point.

So, hang in and hold on. First, we’ll pay tribute to some of the visionaries who came before. Then, on Saturday—after a few days of well-earned minion rest—we’ll cross the threshold into the frontier that Shimanishi opened.

---

Early Trailblazers of Broad Mineral Repletion