levitation - The Skeptic's Dictionary

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<div class="logo"> <img src="_images/logo_01.png" alt="The Skeptic's Dictionary" width="270" height="60" border="0" />           <br /> by <a href="http://skepdic.com/refuge/bio.html">Robert Todd Carroll</a> * est. 1994 </div> <div class="slogan"> <img src="_images/slogan_01.gif" alt="A Collection of Strange Beliefs, Amusing Deceptions, and Dangerous Delusions" width="362" height="30" /> </div> </div> <div class="menu"> <ul> <li></li><li><a href="http://skepdic.com/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/news/">Newsletter</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/feedback.html">Feedback</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/faq.html">FAQ & Interviews</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tour.html">Site Map</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="middle"> <div class="left"> <h2>Topical Indexes</h2> <ul class="nav_1"> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/tialtmed.html">Alternatives to Medicine</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/ticriticalthinking.html">Critical Thinking</a></li> 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href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Y">y</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Z">z</a></li> </ul> <webContent><h1>levitation</h1> <p align="left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Levitation is the act of ascending into the air and floating in apparent defiance of gravity. Spiritual masters and <a href="fakir.html">fakirs</a> are often depicted as levitating. Some take the ability to levitate as a sign of blessedness. Others see levitation as <a href="http://www.magiccty.com/selflev.html">a conjurer's trick</a>. No one really levitates; they just <em style="font-style: normal">appear</em> to do so. Clever people can use illusion, "invisible" string, magnets, and other trickery to make things or people appear to levitate.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">There are people in <a href="tm.html">Transcendental Meditation</a> who will sit cross-legged and hop up and down on their butts, claiming that they are flying. Perhaps they are: for a fraction of a second, a few inches off the ground, until gravity brings them back to earth.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home" name="home">Daniel Dunglas Home</a> (1833-1886) allegedly levitated several times, according to eyewitnesses. It is more likely that the witnesses were deceived than that Home actually floated through space unassisted. Magician and debunker of mediums Milbourne Christopher (1970: 174-187) duplicated some of Home's feats, though there is no way to know for certain exactly how Home accomplished his performance. Christopher writes:</font></p> <blockquote> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">How could Home levitate himself in a room with the lights out? One method used then, and later, by mediums is most convincing. In the dark the psychic slips off his shoes as he tells the sitters his body is becoming weightless. The sitter to the medium's left grasps his left hand, the one to the right puts a hand on the mystic's shoes, near the toes. Holding his shoes together with his right hand pressing the inner sides, the medium slowly raises them in the air as he first squats then stands on his chair. The man holding his hand reports the medium is ascending; so does the sitter who touches the shoes. Until I tried this myself, it was hard to believe that spectators in the dark room could be convinced an ascension was being made. (p. 185)</font></p> </blockquote> <p><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>See also</b> <a href="faith.html">faith</a> and <a href="indianrope.html">Indian rope trick</a>.</font></p> <p><span style="text-align: left">A magnet levitated by the powerful magnetic field of opposite polarity generated by a copper-oxide superconductor cooled by liquid nitrogen. Wikimedia Commons - Mai-Linh Doan </span></p> <p> <img border="0" src="graphics/levitatingmagnet.jpg" width="429" height="310" alt="photo by Mai-Linh Doan"></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>further reading</b> </font> <p style="text-align: left"><b><font face="Arial" size="3">books</font></b><p style="text-align: left"> <font size="3" face="Arial"> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0690268157/roberttoddcarrolA/"> Christopher, Milbourne. <i>ESP, Seers & Psychics </i>(Thomas Y. Crowell Co. 1970).</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"><a HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=1573921610/roberttoddcarrolA/">Keene, M. Lamar. <i>The Psychic Mafia</i> (Prometheus, 1997).</a> </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0879751983/roberttoddcarrolA/">Randi, James. <em>Flim-Flam!</em> (Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books,1982), chapter 5, "The Giggling Guru: A Matter of Levity."</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0486255514/roberttoddcarrolA/">Rawcliffe, Donovan Hilton. <em>Occult and Supernatural Phenomena</em> (New York: Dover Publications, 1988).</a></font><p style="text-align: left"><b> <font face="Arial" size="3">websites</font></b><p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.alltm.org/YFlying.html" rel="nofollwo">Yogic flying</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_rope_trick">Wikipedia on the Indian Rope Trick</a></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><a href="http://www.time.com/time/potw/20020726/5.html"> <font size="3">Seeing is believing!</font></a></p> <p></webContent>Last updated 19-Dec-2013 </p> </div> </div> <div class="right"> <div class="right_it"> <div class="search"> <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="domains" value="skepdic.com" /> <input type="text" name="q" maxlength="255" value="" size="20" /> <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" /> <br /> <div class="search_2"> <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="" /> Web     <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="skepdic.com" checked="checked" /> Skepdic.com <br /> <img src="_images/logo_google.gif" alt="Google" width="48" height="19" /> </div> <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3542920166946725" /> <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" /> <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" /> <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" /> </form> </div> <div class="center"> <p align="right"><a href="http://skepdic.com/authorpage.html"><strong>Books by R. 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