Can people really use yogic powers/their mind to levitate?

[courtrigrad]

Can people really use yogic powers/their mind to levitate? How do they do this?

 

[turbo]

Yes. I do it every day whenever nobody is looking. I can teach you how to do it, but it will cost you. This is a valuable talent, the knowledge did not come cheap and I still owe my yogi.

 

[DaveC426913]

I saw some guy who claimed to be able to do that. The film footage sucked the intrigue out of it.

1] He was inside a large closed box. He would make the *box* levitate. You could not actually see *him* levitate.

2] This is speculation, but I'll bet that he best he has ever *actually* levitated is about a half second. (Note that when you hear abvout someone levtitating, you assume he can do it for a duration lonf enough to show unequivocably that he is in fact hovering.)

In the film, he was unable to succeed - not the right kind of chai flow or whatever. But it did look a whole lot like he was throwing himself around inside the box - it would jump off the floor several times.

I imagine that a really skilled person, with the right technique and a good grip and the right kind of jumping could conceivably make a box hang suspended in the air for a half second.

 

[Rach3]

Of course! And stage magicians are real too. You'd think they're just using slight-of-hands and hidden tricks to deceive a paying audience for entertiainment. But in actually they're merely exploiting natural physical laws that no one else knows about and that must not or can not be replicated under controlled circumstances. It's a secret, you know!

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Can people really use yogic powers/their mind to levitate?

If anyone could and we knew about it, you would see "yogic force" listed with the other forces of nature.

I wonder if it would go as the inverse square of the distance from a point yogi...?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Okay, the bit about the yogis motivated me to close the thread. I too have seen some of these guys bouncing on their butts and claiming to defy gravity. Frankly, it was embarrassing to even watch. But there are claims of levitation found throughout history. Here is one link that mentions some of the more famous claims.

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/l/levitation.html

Also, recently we have seen video trickery in this regard.

The thread is open.

 

[scott1]

Which field force would be responible for doing this? EM is the only one I can think of.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

No way to know. But the question is not how levitation might work, the question is whether or not anyone has ever levitated. I have heard of one or two seemingly compelling stories, but AFAIK, most claims involve religion.

 

[Averagesupernova]

Of course! And stage magicians are real too. You'd think they're just using slight-of-hands and hidden tricks to deceive a paying audience for entertiainment. But in actually they're merely exploiting natural physical laws that no one else knows about and that must not or can not be replicated under controlled circumstances. It's a secret, you know!

Oh thanks. Now you've ruined it for me. Here all this time I thought it was sleight <sp?> of hand. The magic is all gone for me now.

 

[scott1]

This http://users.erols.com/igoddard/paranorm.htm" seems to have a good explantion. It doesn't say anything about levitation but I think this could explain levitaion.

 

[Moonbear]

not the right kind of chai flow or whatever.

I don't do so well without enough caffeine myself.

 

[zoobyshoe]

I have an old book called "Mental Fascination" I found at the swap meet a few years ago which has a very interesting explanation of levitation and other remarkable things. I've been thinking about starting a thread on the subject.

 

[courtrigrad]

so you think David Blaines street magic is genuine? Or is it just sleight of hand?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Come on, do you really think that something like this could be genuine and repeatable without being the headline on every newspaper in the world?

 

[3trQN]

...I still owe my yogi.

Pay in picnic baskets?

 

[Tony11235]

I have this aunt that says she once levitated while meditating and claims she can do it again. I get soo tired of these people who claim they do this. I'm like "Ok, then let me know the next time you plan on doing this, or at least video tape it!". Never happens of course. Gee i wonder why. lol

 

[scott1]

I have this aunt that says she once levitated while meditating and claims she can do it again. I get soo tired of these people who claim they do this. I'm like "Ok, then let me know the next time you plan on doing this, or at least video tape it!". Never happens of course. Gee i wonder why.

Look my previous post. The link in it might have a possible explantion.

 

[Tojen]

I have this aunt that says she once levitated while meditating and claims she can do it again.

That would be auntie-gravity.

 

[zoobyshoe]

so you think David Blaines street magic is genuine? Or is it just sleight of hand?

I think David Blaine is an especially talented, but conventional magician. The stuff this book describes is of a completely different nature.

The main reason I haven't started a thread about it yet is that it would require typing out a lengthy quote from the book, and digging up some links to supporting info.

 

[brewnog]

That would be auntie-gravity.

Someone tell Evo to take that banner off Danger, we have a new contender!

 

[turbo]

Pay in picnic baskets?

No, Yogi does non-sequiturs, and I have to write them. They make my head hurt.

 

[Tojen]

Someone tell Evo to take that banner off Danger, we have a new contender!

Thanks for the boost, Brewnog, but one post does not a banner earn. Besides, I wouldn't want to encroach on the turf of someone named Danger.

 

[bioactive]

I saw a video of yogis levitating.

They were crosslegged and on an athletic pad about 15 feet across. They would rock forward, springing with their legs, and hopping about 6 inches off the pad again and again until they hit the other end and then turn around and do it again to get back where they started. I think both the technical and muystical term for this behavior is "bouncing."

I didn't have a stopwatch but I think they fell back from the top of their bounce at about 32ft/sec/sec.

The only thing amazing about it is that they thought they were doing something interesting, useful, or gravity defying. It was a study in denial.

 

[Evo]

I saw a video of yogis levitating.

They were crosslegged and on an athletic pad about 15 feet across. They would rock forward, springing with their legs, and hopping about 6 inches off the pad again and again until they hit the other end and then turn around and do it again to get back where they started. I think both the technical and muystical term for this behavior is "bouncing."

I didn't have a stopwatch but I think they fell back from the top of their bounce at about 32ft/sec/sec.

The only thing amazing about it is that they thought they were doing something interesting, useful, or gravity defying. It was a study in denial.

I remember seeing that. They were just bouncing, no different from anything anyone else can do. It was ridiculous.

 

[zoobyshoe]

The only thing amazing about it is that they thought they were doing something interesting, useful, or gravity defying. It was a study in denial.

This is an activity that comes out of the Transcendental Meditation movement, and I thought is was one of the most embarrassing things I'd ever seen them do.

However, it's a bit more interesting than it seems. I had it described to me by a teacher of TM and it was clear that the thing about it that all these people hypnotized into thinking they were performing the first stages of levitation is the fact that the thrust they make with the legs to jump is involuntary. They are given a special mantra for this, and when they silently repeat the mantra it results in an involuntary spasm of the legs and butt muscles. That being the case the subjective experience of it could seem like a split second of 0 gravity, or of being lifted by a mysterious force, or some such. Something easily exploited as being mystical in origin.

I don't have any good explanation for why the mantra causes the muscle spasms, but I know from having taken TM classes 30 years ago that the mantra they give you for straightforward meditation does cause involuntary relaxation. This other mantra somehow causes the opposite.

 

[Stevedye56]

There are 3 forces, gravitational, neuclear, and magnetic. Neodymium Earth magnets are rare but by far the strongest in the world. Generally there is something under the ground to create the same charge of the magnets (usually planted on the sole of the shoe). Since like charges repel the person is repeled upward at a controlled rate. When it looks like he falls off of a circle he essentially does becasue the magnetic force is circular. Yogic powers don't exist

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Four Forces: Strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational, although I guess that we do now consider the weak and electromagnetic interactions to be the unified electroweak interaction.

 

[Chronos]

I saw a clip of this guru dude teasing a cobra with some sort of flute. The cobra got bored and decided to strike at the guru's leg. Talk about levitation.

 

[J77]

There are 3 forces...

...in the sub-standard model

The qi thing's interesting - the strength those kung-fu moks an put into their bodies is incredible but another thread...

 

[zoobyshoe]

I saw a clip of this guru dude teasing a cobra with some sort of flute. The cobra got bored and decided to strike at the guru's leg. Talk about levitation.

Cobras won't tolerate a boring performance. Flute majors at Julliard have to pass the "Cobra Test".

 

[courtrigrad]

yeah, I guess it is all fake then

 

[ownedbyphysics]

one of my teachers claimed to have seen Muhammad Ali levitate O-O

 

[Zelos]

before i blow the levitation myth to pieces i want to know from you who believe in it. Is it simple that youre not falling by gravity?

 

[Stevedye56]

before i blow the levitation myth to pieces i want to know from you who believe in it. Is it simple that youre not falling by gravity?

not me, its got to be electromagnates.

 

[planish]

so you think David Blaines street magic is genuine? Or is it just sleight of hand?

Or "sleight of foot". His type of levitation was "Balducci Levitation - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balducci_levitation . He would appear to rise a few inches, which is what the street audience saw, but what the TV audience sees is augmented by post-production video trickery.

There are a few other techniques, but they pretty much all involve lifting yourself up on one foot. Some of them use a shoe and pantleg that appear to be regular items but have openings at the back (or front), hiding the leg that slips out and then is able to step up on a stair step or rung of a stool.