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peggyhill · Jan 30, 2008, 04:42 PM

My neighbor's daughter just turned 16 & I used to babysit her and all, so I went over to give her a birthday present. She was telling me that she did this levitation thing with her friends called 'light as a feather, stiff as a board". According to her, you get a bunch of people to put their fingers under someone and say "light as a feather, stiff as a board" 13 times and they are supposed to float and levitate. She was all freaked out because she had done this at a slumber party and swore that it worked. I think these kids had to be playing a joke on her. She said that one girl held another up with one finger a couple feet off the ground.

Has anyone ever heard of this? I think they are teasing her and making her think it was real. Just curious. I had never heard of this before.

N0help4u · Jan 30, 2008, 04:47 PM

Other than illusion tricks or somebody that does astro projection OBE
I don't think that the average person can levitate like that.
Ask them to let you watch and see what it is
I remember my kids telling me about it years ago
I think it is some illusion trick if they even do it

peggyhill · Jan 30, 2008, 04:51 PM

Yeah, that's what I told her. I think there were more people holding the girl up or something. She was all worried because she told her youth pastor and he told her it was demons. I told her if it scared her that much, just don't do it anymore.

Capuchin · Jan 30, 2008, 04:55 PM

It's probably some kind of delusion, she was worked up and expecting to see something, so she interpreted the smallest motion that might hint at levitation as being true levitation.

Of course nobody can levitate without wires or magnets or such :)

peggyhill · Jan 30, 2008, 05:01 PM

Yeah, I think she believed in it so much that she saw what she wanted to see. She was all worked up about the demonic stuff, crying and thinking that God was mad at her, and all. I told her that I really thought it was a trick and that if she was truly that worried, to just say a little prayer and then forget it. I understand that the youth pastor was trying to get her to stay away from the occult and all, but he had her so convinced that demons picked this girl up, it kind of made me mad because I do believe in the devil, but I don't think that's what was going on here.

Capuchin · Jan 30, 2008, 05:03 PM

I don't know why anyone would be afraid of the devil if their version of the devil just goes around scaring kids with party tricks... but still some people seem to be.

I would be much more afraid of a devil who creates war and famine and pestilence :p

shygrneyzs · Jan 30, 2008, 05:30 PM

I saw an example of levitation when I was a freshman in high school. There was a back to school, welcome freshmen, dance and social. One of the priests who taught at our school was demonstrating it. It really did happen. He did this with two of my classmates. Maybe it was all an illusion - but if it was, how did those two classmates get off the ground? No wires, no hidden beams.

s_cianci · Jan 30, 2008, 05:41 PM

I've heard of it but I think it's a crock.

Capuchin · Jan 30, 2008, 05:51 PM

Here is some discussion of what the OP described. It's nothing more than a trick. Light as a feather, stiff as a board - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shy, I'm curious to know how the illusion was set up when you saw levitation?

Fr_Chuck · Jan 30, 2008, 05:55 PM

There is the ability, though hyponsis to make a person as stiff as a board, in doing that, you can suspend them between two objects, like the edge of a chair, by just their feet and head, Same way as making a arm stiff where it can not be bent

So if this was a trick using a version of this, there is no actual lifting off the surface, but there is the ability to suspend a person with very little visible support, but the people holding her would be supporting the weight, but also the idea that the "thought" that they feel less and less weight is a easy hypnosis trick, we used it all the time to make a person with nothing in their hand believe they were holding a stack of books or a ballon with helium in it. So a over all group can trick thierself in believing this very easily.

This is not satanic but merely a mind trick that is misunderstood by those doing it. But with that note, of course doing things that are Satanic and involving demons are of course danagerous to the Christian ( not really to the unsaved, since they already belong to the devil anyway) But we need to always consider if Jesus would want us doing what we are doing.

shygrneyzs · Jan 31, 2008, 06:50 AM

What Fr. Chuck says makes sense. What I saw could have been a form of hypnosis. I don't know how our parish priest set this up - he only had his hands and his words as tools. When he was asked how he did this, he never did explain it to us. Said he did not want us running around and attempting what we were not capable of understanding.

I did see another example of this when I was in college but it was at a magic show so I never put much into that.

Jackie D Star · Feb 10, 2008, 10:35 PM

Originally Posted by peggyhill

My neighbor's daughter just turned 16 & I used to babysit her and all, so I went over to give her a birthday present. She was telling me that she did this levitation thing with her friends called 'light as a feather, stiff as a board". According to her, you get a bunch of people to put their fingers under someone and say "light as a feather, stiff as a board" 13 times and they are supposed to float and levitate. She was all freaked out because she had done this at a slumber party and swore that it worked. I think these kids had to be playing a joke on her. She said that one girl held another up with one finger a couple feet off the ground.

Has anyone ever heard of this? I think they are teasing her and making her think it was real. Just curious. I had never heard of this before.

Ahh! Ive done that, It doesn't have to be 13 times, we did it 9 times and The girl said she just got up smoother than normal. She probably just was fooling around but it probably was a Joke.

Leo Z · Mar 12, 2008, 05:10 PM

Levitation is possible, but I don't think it was levitation. Looks more like an illusion or something. Don't worry it's just a trick.

Casieopea · Jun 28, 2010, 12:02 PM

I "played that game" at a number of slumber parties - several where I was the "sleeper" or person being raised and others where I was one of the ones sitting around. For whatever reason - yes - it works.. and no it is not a "trick" - in the sense that it didn't really happen.
There are theories about it being a hypnotic sort of state, or that there are so many people that lifting happens with 2 fingers per person very easily.. all I can say is that I have done it - and watched as people went up to almost the ceiling.