Water is considered a purifier in most religions.

Faiths that incorporate ritual washing (ablution) include Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Judaism, Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, Shinto, Taoism, and the Rastafari movement. Immersion (or aspersion or affusion) of a person in water is a central sacrament of Christianity (where it is called baptism); it is also a part of the practice of other religions, including Judaism (mikvah) and Sikhism (Amrit Sanskar). In addition, a ritual bath in pure water is performed for the dead in many religions including Judaism and Islam. In Islam, the five daily prayers can be done in most cases (see Tayammum) after completing washing certain parts of the body using clean water (wudu). In Shinto, water is used in almost all rituals to cleanse a person or an area (e.g., in the ritual of misogi).

Water is mentioned in the Bible 442 times in the New International Version and 363 times in the King James Version: 2 Peter 3:5(b) states, "The earth was formed out of water and by water" (NIV). In the Quran it is stated that "Living things are made of water" and it is often used to described Paradise.

Masaru Emoto (江本 勝, Emoto Masaru^?, born July 22, 1943) is a Japanese author and entrepreneur, best known for his claims that human consciousness has an effect on the molecular structure of water. Emoto's hypothesis has evolved over the years of his research. Initially Emoto claimed that high-quality water forms beautiful and intricate crystals, while low-quality water has difficulty forming crystals. According to Emoto, an ice crystal of distilled water exhibits a basic hexagonal structure with no intricate branching. Emoto claims that positive changes to water crystals can be achieved through prayer, music, or by attaching written words to a container of water.

Since 1999 Emoto has published several volumes of a work titled Messages from Water, which contains photographs of water crystals next to essays and "words of intent." In addition to his books, Emoto also sells various water products from his websites and catalogs, which are purported to have healing properties derived from his research and experiments.

The term black people is used in some socially-based systems of racial classification for humans of a dark-skinned phenotype, relative to other racial groups represented in a particular social context. Different societies apply different criteria regarding who is classified as "black", and often social variables such as class and socio-economic status also play a role, so that relatively dark-skinned people can be classified as white if they fulfill other social criteria of "whiteness" and relatively light-skinned people can be classified as black if they fulfill the social criteria for "blackness" in a particular setting.

As a biological phenotype being "black" is often associated with the very dark skin colors of some people who are classified as "black". But, particularly in the United States, the racial or ethnic classification also refers to people with all possible kinds of skin pigmentation from the darkest through to the very lightest skin colors, including albinos, if they are believed by others to have African ancestry, or to exhibit cultural traits associated with being "African-American". As a result, in the United States the term "black people" is not an indicator of skin color but of socially based racial classification.

Mehdi Hasan is a British journalist who has worked in television current affairs and the national press.

After graduating from Christ Church, Oxford in 2000, with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), he began his working life answering the phones on the ITN newsdesk, before working as a researcher and then producer on LWT's Jonathan Dimbleby programme, with a brief period in between on BBC1's The Politics Show. He then became deputy executive producer on Sky's breakfast show Sunrise before moving to Channel 4 in June 2007 as their editor of news and current affairs.

He has appeared four times on the BBC Question Time: on 13 May 2010, 23 September 2010, 10 February 2011 and 8 December 2011. He also makes frequent appearances on the Sunday morning programme The Big Questions.

He has been appointed as a new presenter on Al Jazeera's English News Channel and will be presenting the new series of "The Cafe" starting in July 2012.

He was appointed senior editor (politics) at the New Statesman in the late spring of 2009, but left the post in May 2012 to take up a post as political director at The Huffington Post website. Political Correspondent Rafael Behr replaced him at the Statesman, although Hasan will continue to write a weekly column.

Richard Rohr, O.F.M. (born in 1943 in Kansas) is a Franciscan friar ordained to the priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church in 1970. He is an internationally known inspirational speaker and has published numerous recorded talks and books.

Rohr was the founder of the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1971 and the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 1986 where he currently serves as the Founding Director.

Scripture as liberation, the integration of action and contemplation, community building, peace and social justice issues, male spirituality, the Enneagram of Personality and eco-spirituality are amongst the many subjects addressed in his writing and preaching. He is a contributing editor and writer for Sojourners magazine and a contributor to Tikkun magazine and the Huffington Post. He was one of several spiritual leaders featured in the 2006 documentary film ONE: The Movie. Rohr also founded the international movement known as Men As Learners & Elders (M.A.L.E.s), which focuses on ritual and rites of passage to encourage men to greater spiritual consciousness.