Levitation

I have just finished reading Human Levitation by Preston Dennett, which covered both East and West, from Catholic saints to eastern mystics, Spiritualist mediums and spontaneous cases of various sorts (childhood, crisis, sleep etc). He also points out other cases where people don’t actually fly but achieve weightlessness or negate the effects of gravity somewhat – walking on water or fast running, where people cover vast areas of ground in double quick time and without exhaustion, like a string puppet suspended above the surface (Nijinsky the Russian ballet dancer defied gravity in his dancing but never actually flew or levitated).

In yogic tradition these skills can be consciously developed, but elsewhere it seems to be unconscious. However, in both East and West asceticism seems to be practised to achieve the necessary state for such phenomena to occur. There are links to poltergeist activity and other psychic manifestations, such as telekinesis or bilocation (body in one place, spirit in another).

In fact, Saint Stanislaw seems to have controlled the weather, like the American Indian Rolling Thunder was seen to do.

Related to levitation itself is the ability to create the opposite effect of becoming heavier than normal gravity’s effect on the body allows, so the person cannot be budged – or to nullify it, so that the person weighs nothing at all (see the deathbed measurement experiment, where someone was weighed just before and just after death, revealing a slight loss of weight). Light is also associated with levitation, in about half the cases described in the lives of Catholic saints and indeed in some other cases, meaning that light in both senses is applied to these cases – light in body and luminescent in appearance, hence halos being associated with saints. Is it any coincidence that saints are bathed in light and that the dying are encouraged to head there by spiritual healers? In mathematics we are told to find the common denominator. The same point made by Sherlock Holmes in one of the fictional character’s most famous quotations: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

So what can be said about the phenomena? St Joseph of Copertino showed that it had nothing to do with either God or the Devil, but with reaching an ecstatic state when in the presence of religious symbols or the natural world in all its beauty. In other words, his open enthusiasm for life launched his enthusiastic flights of fancy. Demonic or angelic? We see people persecuted as witches for exhibiting the same skills as those exalted as saintly. Authority either condemns or praises these abilities – shoots them down or allows them to fly unheeded.

Explanations vary across cultures, but the phenomenon remains the same, indicating the cause is not known, but unconscious ability occurs anyway. Beliefs about causes are not the same as causes themselves. In altered states you are being, not doing or thinking. When you stop the self, you see that the world is moving (energy in motion). Being is direct experience, hard to verbalise effectively. Being there and engaging with what exists in the here and now is making a stand, to stay present.

Dennett gives the case of a woman who twice fell down stairs and halted in mid-flight. This is like the effect you see in films, where time stands still. I believe this relates to the Oz Factor as described by Jenny Randles, in cases of UFO sightings and other weird events.

Bavadjee Natts believed that levitation was caused by positive and negative flow, directed by the mind (concentration of attention down and in, or dispersal of it up and outwards); in other words, it is electrical energy that brings control (see The Electric Universe Theory, Wallace Thornhill et al, and Eric Laithewaite’s attempts to build a railway engine that levitated, suspended above the rails through EM energy). The other world is one of energy as this one is more of a congealed form of this (matter). Hence perhaps this could explain why children find this ability easier than most adults, as they have come more recently from this other realm (on YouTube is a short video of a Russian child floating along a forest track, illustrating this ability). To recapitulate, we make things more solid through concentration and less solid (lightweight) by dispersal of attention; a cannon ball sinks in water but a balloon floats in air.

Levitation and other psychic powers are different from earthly (grounded) ones. Spirituality is more about wisdom or what you do with what you have and why. This is the reason psychic abilities are seen as much as distractions on the path to enlightenment as earthly desires (Tibetan religion calls this spiritual materialism). This is why dissociation is associated with this phenomenon in all cases as is the need for renunciation of an ordinary lifestyle and the adoption of a more ascetic one instead. It also explains the modesty and wish to hide such abilities by adepts. Spirituality works in the background as materialism hogs the limelight. Watch the British TV series Merlin, where this theme is reenacted in most episodes.

On the question of whether you have to be possessed to levitate or whether it is of your own volition, think of someone operating a lift for you versus you doing it yourself or having a co-pilot until you have learned to fly yourself. Poltergeist activity is uncontrolled energy as training leads to conscious control of that energy (think of a hose flapping about all over the place, shooting water everywhere as opposed to a fireman grabbing hold of it and directing the flow.) By the way, think of channelling as possession, but only on a temporary and voluntary basis as opposed to grand theft auto.

There may be a crossover into the field of UFOs as Gersi noted, in a power drain effect around electrical devices, which has also been seen around some flying saucer incidents, and indeed in hauntings (yes, the electrical connection again). Likewise, light phenomena are associated with UFOs in some cases and aliens are sometimes seen to float above the ground as in fast running cases in humans, rather than walking, leaving no footprints despite the ground being either sandy or muddy. Then there is their ability to walk through walls like a ghost, teleportation or becoming invisible, all mentioned as traits in the case of some levitators. Are the videos seen on YouTube human beings levitating (sorcerers or saints) or aliens… or maybe even both?

Tony Sandy

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