Levitation occurs when someone appears to defy gravity and begins to float into the air, or when someone claiming to have psychic powers concentrates on an object and causes it to rise into the air. Many believers in levitation say that this phenomenon is caused by psychokinesis, whereby a person’s mind can affect the physical world. However, levitation usually occurs while the experient is in a trance, whereas psychokinesis usually occurs while the experient is in a normal waking state. Consequently, some believers say that some other, unknown phenomenon might be responsible for levitation.

One person who became famous for levitating in public was Daniel Dunglas Home, a British medium who lived during the mid-nineteenth century and who would sometimes rise into the air during séances. The first written account of his levitation feats appeared in 1853, when he levitated several times without seeming to be able to control his movements. Later, however, he seemed to grow skilled at choosing where, when, and how he would levitate, even giving demonstrations before large audiences. In his most famous demonstration, which occurred in December 1868, he went into a trance, rose from a chair into the air, floated out a window, and then hovered outside the window for a few seconds before floating back inside, landing on his feet, and sitting back down in the chair. Home’s séances also involved the levitation of tables, chairs, and other objects, as did the séances of many other mediums of his day. At the time, this was attributed to spirits who were called into the séance room by the medium.

Skeptics suggested that Home used some kind of mechanical device to levitate himself and various objects in the room, or that someone had in some way caused the witnesses to experience hallucinations. There is no proof, however, that cheating of this sort occurred. Moreover, witnesses insisted that they had not been having a hallucination when they saw Home go out the window. Adding credibility to this insistence is the fact that three years later, one of the most esteemed scientists of the nineteenth century, Sir William Crookes, saw Home levitate and declared that, as hard as it was to believe, he knew that his eyes were not lying.

For centuries, levitation has also been associated with religious, mystical, or magical practices. For example, according to Catholic tradition, some individuals who were later declared to be saints were said to levitate when in a trance or state of ecstasy or rapture. According to some accounts, 230 saints had this ability to varying degrees. Saint Teresa of Avila (1515– 1582), for example, wrote about how she would levitate in church, and Saint Joseph of Cupertino (1603–1663) was said not only to levitate but also to fly about once airborne. In some Eastern religions, levitation is said to be a skill developed by practicing certain breathing techniques and mental exercises to produce the altered mental state necessary for self-levitation.

Skeptics suggest that instead of triggering actual levitation, the altered mental state is causing hallucinations that make the experiencer only think that he or she is able to fly. This does not explain, however, why witnesses to public levitations insist that they saw the experiencer rise from the ground.

SEE ALSO:

• Daniel Dunglas Home
• Physical and Mental Mediums
• Psychokinesis
• Séances

SOURCE:

The Greenhaven Encyclopedia of Paranormal Phenomena – written by Patricia D. Netzley © 2006 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning