Chapter 21
Human levitation
We have seen that some psychics are able to slide objects about
on a surface without the use of touch. I have not seen, but have
heard, reliable reports of the occasions on which Jean-Pierre
Girard has held small objects levitated above the table surface
for a period of several seconds; this was also reported to be
without the use of touch or fraud. We might suppose that a paranormal
quasi-force field was operating, such as electromagnetic forces
operate in the normal levitation of metal objects above current-carrying
coils. If a psychic quasi-force field can act on small objects,
why can it not also act on the human body and allow it to levitate?
There have been several reported instances of religious mystics
levitating themselves slowly off the ground during prayer; the
most famous are St. James of Compostella and St. Joseph of Copertino.(59)
The nineteenth-century psychic, Daniel Dunglass Home, was reported
by responsible investigators and scientists to have floated about
the room and, on 13 December 1868, out of a window and back again.(60)
Other reported cases of levitation are those of Sister Maria Vilani,
Veronica Giulani St. Bernadino Realino, St. Theresa of Avila,
St. Francis of Assisi, Stainton Moses, Florence Cook, Eusapia
Palladino, (Not all of these in this list are of equal sanctity,
and it will be recalled by students of psychical research that
Eusapia Palladino enjoys a particularly poor reputation in the
matter of fraudulent phenomena. It appears that what especially
disenchanted the British researchers with Eusapia was her conviction
of being caught cheating on the croquet field!) Maria Vollhardt,
Willi Schneider, Schrenck-Notzing's 1927 anonymous subject(40)
and the Eddy children of Chittenden, Vermont. I have seen an interesting
short moving pictures(61) made by a German journalist named Ohlsen
portraying the levitation of a West African priest Nana Dwaku
above burning coals. Human levitation is one of the 'siddhis'
or powers supposed to be available to Hindu mystics, and attempts
have been made to teach their development in Europe. Photographs
of airborne meditators have been widely publicized, but of course
still photographs provide much less information than moving pictures.
It is believed that in the first stage the subject experiences
a violent but slow vibration of the entire body - these are almost
muscular twitches; a more advanced subject becomes able to make
small leaps from a bodily position in which leaping would normally
be impossible - the lotus position, seated cross-legged on the
ground. In the final stage, the subject becomes able to levitate
his body steadily at will.
Probably the nearest thing to levitation encountered by psychic
researchers is the throwing about of human bodies in a poltergeist
attack. There are accounts of this in the literature, and in 1977
in England witnesses reported this phenomenon in the Enfield poltergeist
case, which is in course of documentation by Maurice Gross and
Guy Playfair. There have been instances of sleeping child metal-benders
being found on top of wardrobes, etc., complete with bedclothes;
climbing would have been just possible, but the presumption, not
well proven, is that the bodies were levitated up to their new
situation. In 1979 the throwing about was again reported in the
Midlands. There is also the possibility of teleportation, and
of composite processes of successive teleportations and levitations.
One witness at Enfield (Mr B.) claimed that he was lifted out
of his chair and that the feeling was as though a cushion of air,
not a draught, pushed him upwards. There was also a twisting motion,
which rotated him almost half a turn in the process. I can only
conjecture at this stage, but I think it at least reasonably likely
that in some poltergeist cases bodies have been thrown about.
In British schools 'levitation games' are sometimes played by
children. A ritual is occasionally followed (e.g. running round
and round a seated or lying child and chanting, 'He is ill; he
is dead' etc.); after the ritual a number of children attempt
to raise the body, each placing one or two fingers underneath
it. The game starts with many children, who find the task easy,
using only normal forces. The number is reduced one by one, and
the continuing ease might suggest a paranormal contribution. The
unexpected success has sometimes caused worried teachers to forbid
the continuance of the game. I have found many children who insist
that the body suddenly seems to lose weight.
But occasionally the lifters press their hands downwards before
the lift, and the relaxation of this muscular tension makes the
lifting seem easier than it would otherwise be. If we are looking
for a paranormal rather than a physiological effect, then obviously
this pressing of hands should be avoided.
I have been impressed by taking part myself in the lifting of
fifteen-year-old Gill Costin by Kim Griffiths and her schoolfriends.
Gill makes her body go rigid, and it certainly takes an effort.
to get her off the ground. But when she is off the ground she
sometimes appears to become lighter. Sometimes her raised body
glides forwards or sideways, and the lifters have difficulty in
preventing this. Naturally the idea comes to mind that one or
more of the lifters are pulling or pushing her horizontally. All
the lifters deny this, and changes in arrangement of the lifters
make no difference.
This children's game is sufficiently strange to be worth further
investigation with the aid of instruments, the lifters standing
on a chart-recording weighing machine.
One of the metal-bending children, Willie G., has told me that
he was able to levitate himself, but only when quite alone in
his bedroom. I asked him to levitate up to his bedroom ceiling
and write and put his inked fingerprints on it; he was also able
to carry a Polaroid camera up with him, to photograph himself
in proximity to the ceiling. All these tasks were done successfully,
but of course do not represent good validation. Willie's reported
levitation still remained a very private activity, and it would
not take place when other members of the family were in the room,
let alone myself. Since Willie's home was far away, but his father
often visited London, I decided to video-tape Willie in my laboratory.
I attempted to instrument possible apparent weight loss when Willie
was lying on his back on a special mattress. If he was unable
to reach either the floor or any furniture, then weight could
be lost either by jumping up off the instrumented mattress - a
rapid loss or by levitation, which might take place with a more
gradual weight loss. The instrumentation, similar to that used
earlier by Dr King and myself in experiments with Graham P., consisted
of an inflatable rubberized mattress connected to a recording
differential capacitance manometer. On the mattress was placed
a wooden board, and initially the mattress was connected by rubber
and glass tubing to both arms of the differential manometer. After
Willie had taken up his position flat on his back or kneeling
on the board, a stopcock in one arm of the tubing was closed,
so that the reference pressure in that arm of the differential
manometer was now fixed. Any change of pressure in the mattress,
due to a change in weight compressing it, could be recorded.
Pressure changes also arise from:
(a) differential temperature changes, by transmission of body
heat, by cooling after the heating of the gas during inflation,
or the heating due to actual compression;
(b) real or virtual leaks in the system;
(c) mechanical relaxation process in the material of the rubber
mattress;
(d) shifts in position of the subject on the board.
The first three causes can readily be studied in independent experiments,
and the typical instrumental drifts on the chart-recorder analysed.
The fourth factor cannot of course yield long-term pressure changes,
but provides plenty of noise of short time constant, as the rubber
and the air readjust themselves to the movement of the subject
on the board. When the subject shifts his position there is no
permanent deflection but, rather, a pulse of about one second
duration, usually followed by ringing. A continual violent wriggling
or writhing yields a chart-record such as that shown in Figure
21.1b.
In experimental sessions with Willie the results were negative;
not only did he fail to get off the ground, but even the chart
records failed to show really unambiguous weight losses; all the
signals which were recorded could possibly have been attributed
to other causes. Moreover the absence of videocamera left me unsatisfied.
I have more recently had the opportunity of getting to know how
human levitation is approached by parapsychologists in the Soviet
Union; it is known as 'partial death', a term which indicates
a rather different conceptual approach. In 1977 a young Russian
physicist, Auguste Stern, defected to the West and related some
of his experiences in parapsychology. He had worked in the Siberian
science city of Novosibirsk, at the Institute for Automation and
Electrometry. The parapsychology department of the Institute housed
about fifty scientists, but Stern was perturbed about the intended
use of the hypnotism techniques on which they were working for
'mind control'. In previous years he had himself participated,
he claims successfully, in 'partial death' experiments, being
himself able to produce effects.
According to Stern, the technique used in the Soviet Union to
induce human levitation is to enclose the prone subject within
a cube of mirrors. The multiple images, apparently stretching
in all directions to infinity, have the effect of disorientating
the subject, who then levitates if he has the ability.
During the summer of 1977, mirrors were set up for Stern by film
producer Alan Neuman,(30) who wished to record this phenomenon.
I placed my mattress equipment inside, with the necessary rubber
tubing leading out through a corner. Dr Stern lay on a large wood-backed
mirror which completely covered the mattress; thus he could see
nothing but images in mirrors, except for one side wall which
was covered with black cloth. The moving picture cameras photographed
him through holes in this cloth.
Dr Stern was disappointed that he did not leave the mirror completely.
He had not attempted 'partial death' for some years and was disturbed
by the resilience of my mattress. A film record exists of his
squirming motions, which contributed to the noise on the chart
records of Figure 21.1e. However, there are inexplicable features
in at least two places in the half-hour of recording; these are
periods during which a loss of more than a kilogram occurred for
several seconds at a time. Such effects could have been produced
if the subject had pressed his hands over the edge of his mattress
and forced himself up from the floor. But the film record shows
that he could not have done this: rather, he squirmed about, shifting
his weight to different regions of the mirror. According to Dr
Stern, the squirming is not typical of 'partial death' sessions,
but was produced because he was unused to the insecurity of my
rubber mattress support.
Figure 21.1 Chart-records with instrumented rubber mattress.
(a) Mattress calibration pulses of 2- and 5-kg weights. (b) Short-lived
pulses produced by sitting upright and violently bouncing up and
down. (c) Pulses produced by rolling over from the back to the
chest. (d) Pulses produced by strongly arching the back, so that
only the head and feet touch the board. (e) Part of levitation
experiment record.
I have made laboratory tests of the 'muscular noise' which is
produced by squirming on the mattress. Since rubberized material
can expand, the pressure will remain constant only when the areas
of contact between mattress and board (and mattress and ground)
remain constant. For example, rolling the body over onto one side
of the wooden board distorts the mattress, producing pressure
changes as shown in Figure 21.1c. Sitting on the wooden board
and bouncing up and down produces the artefacts shown in Figure
21.1b, the apparent weight reductions being larger than the 5
kg calibration pulses shown in Figure 21.1a. Arching the back
or doing press-ups expends energy in elastic bending of the wooden
board, so that a temporary reduction of pressure is found as shown
in Figure 21.1d.
My experience of these and similar effects has led to the rejection
of nearly all of Dr Stern's chart record as evidence of paranormal
weight loss. But there remain two sets of signals, one of which
is reproduced in Figure 21.1e, which when taken in conjunction
with the film record are difficult to explain in normal terms.
My assessment of them is to take them sufficiently seriously to
warrant the planning of further research. The cube of mirrors
seems to be a powerful psychological support for the subject,
but it is difficult to construct with sufficient attention to
safety.
Levitation of furniture and humans might be supposed to take place
in various ways, of which I mention only two. First, there is
the possibility of a continual rapid series of teleportation events,
each to a position very slightly removed from its predecessor;
this would produce the appearance of continuous movement or suspension.
Second, we would hypothesize a tube of quasi-force reaching from
the body to the floor, similar to the 'cantilever theory' of table-lifting
advanced by Crawford.(24) This careful but little-known experimenter
of fifty years ago (Crawford is still remembered by seniors at
the Queen's University, Belfast) found quantitative evidence for
the concept of quasi-force in the form of a tube or cantilever
stretching from the medium's body to the table which she was lifting.
Additional weight was assumed by the medium's body whenever the
table was lifted without touch. Imprints of the 'cantilever' were
recorded in wet clay, etc.
It is notable that the concept is somewhat similar to the fibres
of Carlos Castaneda's (probably fictitious) sorcerer Don Juan.(62)
At about the same time as Crawford was researching, the Berlin
engineer Fritz Grunewald(63) was performing similar experiments
with a platform resting on a system of springs, the displacements
of which were transmitted by variations in electrical resistance
to a recording galvanometer. His results indicated mainly losses
rather than gains in weight.
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