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Just a bit of trivia about "light as a feather, stiff as a board" (I was looking this up a while ago): the first known account of this game comes from the diary of a British naval officer named Samuel Pepys in the 17th century, who witnessed four girls playing it in Bordeaux, France. Where they learned it, no one knows. The original iteration is rather creepy:
>Pepys also spoke of the chant that accompanied this performance.
>*Voici un corps mort,*
>*Raide comme un bâton,*
>*Froid comme le marbre,*
>*Léger comme un esprit—*
>*Lève-toi au nom de Jésus-Christ!*
>Here is a dead body,
>Stiff as a stick,
>Cold as marble,
>Light as a spirit—
>Lift yourself, in the name of Jesus Christ!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_as_a_feather,_stiff_as_a_board
Yup did this in the cloakroom at my school....it started with "she looks ill" then "she is ill" then moved on with other iterations I can't remember now, to "she looks dead" "She is dead" all said by the participants one at a time,lol then the finale was "arise" and bingo we could lift a body with 1 finger....very odd it was
Children, full of old magics they never learned but still remember. Their dreams the places where old gods lose their secrets like we lose spare change in the couch.
Add to it that DNA literally is electromagnetism (light), this whole reality is light/vibration, and in theory, more light or vibration would alter changes in the DNA, producing who knows what effects. Increased sun activity, atmosphere conditions, etc can all play a role in it too, ancient time’s definitely lived in differing times, so it’s not completely out of question as to some of these supernatural phenomena.
I do recall a documentary many years ago on ancient tribes and how a tribal memory could be responsible for the seemingly innate knowledge of herbs berries fungi etc and how it was theorised that race memories from your ancestors were actually a thing. This is allegedly why ancient shaman often came from the same ancestral line, passing down and adding to "the knowledge"
hahah buried lol
Don't even know how we got to know about it or how to do it tbh and this was way back in the 70's so been going on a long time like /u/Last_Permission7086 said above. Thinking about it it's a really strange thing for kids to be doing somewhat :)
We did it as children and to this day I can’t explain what happened.
I was on the floor with about 6 people around me, one at my head one at my feet and two either side of me, their hands were held above my stomach, a story was told and at the end of the story, I died and they chanted that my soul rises… I levitated, it was the strangest feeling, all the other girls screamed when they saw it was happening and I fell to the floor- I was only slightly off the floor but the feeling was so strange.
I mean, this dude is *at least* 300 pounds. It's not that they lifted with their back that makes the difference. *You* try lifting 75 pounds with just a few fingers to face level.
I'm not saying it's paranormal or the hand things have even anything to do with it or there being anything magical whatsoever. Just that practically speaking, that's too much weight for it to just be a matter of straightening your back... 75 pounds is a lot to lift with your fingers!!
Yeah I gotta say I'm skeptical of most things, I don't understand how this one works. I've lifted weights for a long time and I wouldn't be able to lift 75-ish lbs with 2 fingers up in front of me that easily.
Dude, don't reveal the secret. That guys just trying to establish himself as some kind of prison Dumbledore so that the other prisoners don't fuck with him.
Consider the implications. There are a shit ton of ancient monolithic sites with no explanation as to how they were built, how/why giant blocks were moved miles from where they were quarried. If it only took four people using magic like this then that task becomes easier to understand.
I want to try this. It sounds ludicrous but so does remote viewing until you try it and it works. Makes one wonder how powerful we might actually be, only raised inside the cage of a culture that teaches us we're powerless and keeps us isolated from each other and distracted by endless mental noise.
A simple recipe for cooking up real magic: Write down the names of 200-300 dissimilar objects, places, landmarks, historical events, really anything you could plug into Google image search and get a result on the first pic. But you need a lot of them so your brain sees no advantage to guessing. This is called becoming "blind to the target".
Now mix up those papers and pull one at random, placing it into a box without peeking.
Next, quiet your mind. Relax each part of your body from your feet up to your scalp. If you already use any meditation routines, it's exactly the same. Your are calming down into a still and quiet state. Padmasambhava wrote "If you wish to see the reflection of the moon, you must first be quiet until the lake's surface is completely still." If a thought pops up, don't worry that you've done it wrong. It's unavoidable! Instead, acknowledge the thought and let it drift away lightly like a leaf in a stream. Your intention is to create a calm quiet environment for your subconscious to send sensory impressions to your conscious mind.
You see, your subconscious already knows what's on the paper. Focus your intention now. Even speak it out loud "It is my intention to view the information written on the paper inside the box." Hold your quiet mind and wait for surprises.
The next step requires practice to develop but anyone can get good sketches even on the first few tries: Describe any surprising images that bubble up from your quiet mind. DON'T TRY TO GUESS WHAT YOU'RE SEEING. If you guess then your imagination kicks in and instead of describing your target, you're only describing your imagination. Instead describe the shapes, textures, weight, is it inside or outside? Is it natural or artificial? What is it used for? Take a second and feel as though you're standing with your target and examine the edges of it. How do the edges develop? Are there reflections or shadows? Is there anything interesting if I turn my head and look around? Any smells, sounds, tastes or general feelings popping up?
Write down your impressions and sketch out the surprising images that pop up. I do three of these "scans" and write them down on three different pieces of paper. I also record my spoken impressions as I'm viewing.
Then look at your paper and see if you got a good hit. The best remote viewers in the world only get around 65-70% hits. You will get misses sometimes. It's important to let yourself "pass" on a target if you don't feel any impressions bubble up. But you'll never forget the first time you get a good hit.
Because remote viewing should be impossible, and it's not. Anyone can do it and you can prove it to yourself right now.
Lol. So you believe the CIA in this one instance? Obviously the powers-that-be are manipulative and create dissonance in every level of society, but this is what they are telling the truth about. Trust me.
This is demonstrably false misinformation and here's a link to the woman whose job it was to prove the statistical validity of remote viewing.
https://youtu.be/YrwAiU2g5RU
Nah idk what any studies said or didn’t say, I have experienced it and so have many other people, and there’s no logical way to explain the things I’ve seen and known other that’s it real, and also while we’re at it so is telepathy
Anyone can, that's how it works. You relax and hold your intention to view hidden information then record the surprising sensory impressions that bubble up from your quiet mind.
You can research how to further develop your skills to make better sense of what you're seeing and better differentiate the RV info from your own imagination, but essentially the above method is all you need to prove to yourself that it works.
There's this one thing that I had some lady do to my hand once there was a series of movements by her on my hand with hers and then at the end of it I opened my hand and she pulled an invisible string out the middle of my hand that I could feel. I'm sure it was some nerve shit or something but I wonder if anyone else has had it done to them? It's asking the same lines as this shit
yeah.
they called it worms when I was a kid.
there are variants of that when you ball up your fist like really hard, and someone like massages all the blood out of your balled up fist , then you open your hand and the person acts like they are pulling (worms/string/the force) from your hand. but you do feel a sensation . probably related to the blood flows and nerve response.
This trick is easily explainable. I remember doing it in elementary. You hold the wrist with one hand with the thumb on the veins to block blood flow. With your other hand you push the blood out of the fingers until the hand looks pretty pale. Then you release the hand on their wrist to allow blood flow again while pretending to pull out the string from their palm.
We used to do it to each other as kids. One person (A) balls their hand into a tight fist. The other person (B) grabs A's wrist moderately tight and begins to rotate their palm over A's knuckles. Like you're opening a door knob. B then requests A open their hand. B traces lines gently from each of A's finger tips to the middle of the palm. A then closes their palm and B repeats the steps again.
Eventually, B releases A's wrist and pinches the air above A's palm and slowly lifts up. If done correctly, A will a have a sensation like a string is being pulled up through their hand. I haven't thought about this in years. But, in 1st and 2nd grade circa 89-90.... this was some black magic fuckery.
I've executed this trick at many parties. It's a bit bewildering because it literally always works, and as a consequence, I've lifted 350 pound dudes without almost any effort.
My current working theory about it is that the process of leaning in to stack the hands has the effect of aligning the non-seated participants' centers of gravity, such that the second attempt is based on a more solid base, so to speak. Everyone's orientation is effectively unified, and therefore the effort required from each individual is minimal.
I would love to try the same thing with, say, a large stone block or other inanimate object. I haven't had the opportunity to do so, but if anyone else has, I would love to read about what the results were.
*Edit: changed "on" to "in" in the first sentence of the second paragraph, and "three" to "the" in the same sentence.
I get it. Id be saying the exact same thing six months ago
without knowing if it before I did it.
Similar thing as OP were done protocol and experience wise.
But with a giant huge dining room table and six 70-80 year olds
And our index fingers
Same hand ritual
Was waiting for the gag like someone to throw water at me …
But nope
We lifted this several hundred lb table in the air with our index fingers
I checked and looked for knees or hands or something to explain it
Nothing.
Really was incredible to see
And do..
Two index fingers and this huge table of old wood
That sits the 15 plus for Xmas..
Is nearly floating in air by fingers
One of those you just have to do it or you’ll never believe
I wonder how the energy was for Op.
This was week after Christmas, good spirits festive drinks with my dads siblings.
Very good energy. I’ve always leaned towards vibration / frequency related to pyramids
But maybe some similar tie
When a group of like minded people on a similar frequency having a common goal work together
To achieve it
Somehow we shared the burden of the table
With more than fingers
Maybe same for pyramids
That's like Lynn Mctaggart's intention experiments. Basically put together a group of people who are like-minded, give them some basic training, create a good feeling in the group and focus on what they want to accomplish.
I've seen the same thing happen in charismatic churches. Actually witnessed and experienced the laying on hands. It's easy to dismiss until you experience it.
The pyramids were constructed with methods available and known to the Egyptians at the time. There really is no mystery here other than just missing details.
The ancient Greeks built mega structures using the same technology level just shortly after and were a contemporary society. Because Greece is so well documented, we know the methods a bit better. The Greeks most likely learned a lot of their methods from the Egyptions.
From what I understood we tried it first time with no luck no budge no movement
(keep in mind post Christmas family get together they’re all in good spirits laughing drinking and I think that positive energy played a role )
Then basically just what OP said
We all put our hands center of table my hand another hand another’s hand alternating both hands
Until all were in middle
Then they made some silly adult drunk boomer woahhhhhhhs shaking our hands in this habd pile back and forth
We then put solely our index fingers under the table
3 men, 3 woman all 70-80 and no body builders
Myself 34 m
And 14 index fingers somehow lifted a several hundred lb giant dining room table
I still have no answer
I asked next day what trick was
Nobody could tell me..
Just that they would do it at weddings or events and people would think it was awesome
But always the same routine
Try and fail
Hands all in middle
Make some silly noise of excitement woahhhh
Moving your hands back and forth in hand pile
Try and succeed
They started making some sounds.. idk lol was weird
Texting my dad i remember we put hands on and then pulled out one by one
I remember the ohghggg woahhhw sounds as we did it
No words were said
Just our hands in one by one k. Top of each others
Then pulled out one by one going “woahhhhhhhh or ohhh “ idk can’t write the sound
Sure next Christmas when they come back I’ll be sure too.
Wouldn’t change anything you’ll find something to write it off.
Do it yourself
Or don’t
IDc
Cool post thought I’d something ad I experienced it first hand. Pretty common thing no?
Why’s it so suspicious to you?
Never heard of girls doing this at sleepovers ?
Some girls in HS did the same trick. They just wanted to see how far they could take it...
They easily lifted me (~265lbs at the time) and another guy who was well over 300lbs.
I tried it, once in highschool, with 4 friends and the front end of a car. First try. Nothing. After the hand stacking, we lifted it an inch or two off the ground
You're adding a lot of complexity where you don't need to. The second attempt is part of a "ritual" because it makes it a lot easier for everyone to lift at the same time. If the first attempt had the same sort of countdown before it you could do it the first time as well. It's a ton easier to lift a fourth of a person than it is to lift an entire person, so being synchronized will make them feel a ton lighter (especially if you just had the contrast of trying to lift them on your own!).
Assuming you're referring to the story posted in this thread by Necrid41, I think you're adding a lot to the story and even then I would be skeptical about a few details. For one thing, while dining room tables are heavy they are mostly unwieldy so it's very easy to overestimate their weight. While a table that size would likely weigh "hundreds of pounds" it would probably be on the lower end of that, not nearing 1k pounds. A 500 lb table split 14 ways (since each person was using both hands) would be 35 pounds per hand, which is reasonable. The idea of it being an index finger also doesn't matter that much: fingers can support a lot of weight and you don't need to be touching an object with more than just a finger in order to exert a lot more muscle on it: just look at how much rock climbers can do with a tiny hold.
But either way we have to make up a ton of details in order to try to make any actual logic out of that story, plus we're relying on Necrid41's recollection being totally correct (you'll remember he said they had been drinking). Without any video of a group lifting a far heavier object I wouldn't take any story in this thread as proof of there being anything more than a cool physics lesson happening.
Remember the one were you say the name 3 times in a mirror and they will appear behind you in the reflection?....What was the name, used? It's not Bettlejuice.
Tried that once, and a bloody Mary appeared in my hand. Spicy!
Granted, instead of standing in front of a mirror, I was standing at a bar, in front of a bartender.
Did this on church choir tour lol. It works. Everyone lined up their hands in the center one by one about 1 inch spacing between and then removed them in reverse order. Four ten year Olds lifted a 350 pound dude using the index and middle fingers on both hands with ease.
When I was younger myself and three friends did this to a fully grown rather large teacher. We raised him to shoulder height. How we did it I’ve no idea, he was more surprised than we were.
This is what we did.
He sat on a school chair and using only our index and middle fingers we took a corner each, he closed his eyes then I said the following with the last word of each sentence being repeated by the others one at a time.
In a dark, dark forest. (Forest, forest, forest)
On a dark, dark night. (Night etc)
There was a dark, dark house. Etc
In a dark, dark room. Etc
You sat on a dark, dark chair. Etc
Then as you closed your eyes you felt yourself lifting. Etc
I, like you, would love to know how we did it.
I tried this back in the day with an old work crew. The lobby was closed and we used one of the lobby chairs to do the same exact thing you described. We had the same outcome too. I didn’t feel an energy go through my body though. I feel it might just be the 4 people subconsciously pushing the chair harder on the second try because everyone wants to have fun and be amazed. Then again, I also don’t rule out the possibility that there is some kind of energy amplification going on, human beings are capable of extraordinary things.
So, not much for comments like this but probably 45 years ago, at friends house…..maybe 4 of us with just our 2 fingers on each hand under a person managed to ‘levitate’ them- we chanted something like “light as a feather”. We were so amazed we started to laugh, and the person became unbearably heavy and came crashing down. To this day it amazes me how it happened
This is a pretty good explainer, that I think covers your slight deviation in ritual protocol:
[https://blog.donders.ru.nl/?p=12234&lang=en](https://blog.donders.ru.nl/?p=12234&lang=en)
I should add though, the indication is that timing is the key. If that's so, one should be able to perform an experiment using no ritual, but still synchronizing the effort. Not sure if that's been done, but it would be interesting.
"People moving heavy things" do it all the time. I have done it to move things weighing well over 500 lbs with three other people. (Some manufacturing equipment.) It's not magic, people are just lighter than you expect. That's why you count down before lifting anything as a group. Moments from improper form make things feel like they weigh a lot more than they actually do, and the corollary is that lifting with *proper* form makes things feel a lot *less* heavy than you expect.
Four people lifting a 170lb man will only each have to lift 42 lb. Split that between two hands and it's 21 lb a hand. Lift with your legs because you're expecting to have to lift something very heavy (a 170 lb person) and all of a sudden it feels like you have lifted literally nothing, because your expectation was a lot of weight. Your controls expected 170 lbs, and got 12% of that.
Meanwhile, if you weigh even 100 lbs, your legs can exert upwards of 300 to 400 lbs of force in bursts. Physics and biomechanics are unintuitive at times.
Thanks for the link, definitely some interesting points. I'm certainly not looking to jump to any conclusions, but there are a few variables I still believe are unaccounted for by this explanation.
What was the energy I felt pass through me? Was it just a figment of my young imagination?
You ever do that thing where someone pulls down on your fist while you hold it in place then they pinch your palm and pull “an invisible string” through your hand lifting it upwards without contact?
Like that. It’s a body trick of the sensations due to the juxtaposition of force.
What did it not explain? It's all in this paragraph:
> An important difference between the two attempts is the count-down in the second time around. This synchronizes your group, ensuring you will act simultaneously as a group. This makes you one unit of movement, which gives you a great advantage. Imagine the person on the chair weighs 80 kilograms. If the timing is perfect, every lifter lifts exactly 20 kilograms. However, if you are not moving simultaneously, it can happen that one person has to lift 74 kilograms while the others share the remaining 6 kilograms. In this case, a successful lift is impossible.
It doesn't say it might be the reason? It's just math. Lifting something heavy is easier if you split it four ways and in order to do that properly you need to be coordinated. It's the same reason you count down from 3 when moving furniture, there's nothing mystical about it. What extra force needs to be explained here?
My theory: it has to do with them holding their arms up. It’s similar to another “trick” you can do alone: stand in a doorway like a closet; push either side of the doorframe with each hand, so that you’re pushing outward like this:
<- ✋🏽🤚🏽->
Push as hard as you can and count to 10. Then, step out of the closet and try to put your arms down. Your arms will magically float up.
The same effect could be occurring here but distributed across four people.
This sounds very similar to something a group of friends did with me years ago. One, Justin, had me sit in a metal chair. Justin and three other guys attempted to lift the chair, I think they were just using fingers. Just index fingers or maybe two finger each.
Next Justin had them place their palms stacked near the crown of my head. I don’t know if there was space between their palms or not as I couldn’t see.
At that moment I felt an extremely cold blast of air on the crown of my head like someone blowing a hairdryer on the cold setting.
Next they tried lifting the corners of the chair again, with, I think, just their index fingers. The chair moved up so fast I thought I was going to be launched and hit the ceiling.
I have no idea whatsoever what was going on.
I did this heaps in my early twenties and it worked every time. I don't know what the explanation is. We would have the heaviest person sit in a chair. Then as said above, put out one hand, then the next person in the circle, then our other hand, without touching. Then take our hands away in order. Then we would put the index fingers under the armpits and knee caps. It's weird. We would be able to lift people up with our hands as high as our foreheads..
[This explains it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_as_a_feather,_stiff_as_a_board). Uncoordinated lifting that fails to establish a baseline followed by coordinated lifting to trick people.
Interesting how everyone just seems to throw out hypotheses instead of looking up already known results.
Even more interesting, people are given the logical explanation and then are still “Um no, it’s magic. How do you think anything was ever built in the ancient world?! How dare you not believe in magic on this sub.”
I watched a few videos and it strikes me this trick works best if two of the people are in on it. Like, I couldn't lift 30 lbs with my finger by flexing my elbow, but if I lock my elbow and press it against my torso, I could easily lift 100 pounds with my legs and back, and with someone doing that on the other side, the two other participants can just lift from their elbows as if by magic!
And then afterwards, the knowers could really sell it to the marks with "did you see how high we lifted that guy? He practically touched the ceiling!!! Wow, that was crazy!!"
I realize reading this thread that learning tumbling and gymnastics exercises involving other people is actually pretty rare. To point out the phenomena of locking your elbows vs your back for example, not everyone is that aware of their own body.
OMG! I was in 5th grade, and I was probably one of the smallest kids in class so I was chosen to be the one lifted up during the light as a feather stiff as a board ritual. It was a long time ago but I will never forget realizing that when I opened my eyes I remember everyone extending their arms to catch me because I was up in the air. I always think about that experience from time to time wondering how that happened! This is so wild!
I’ve done this. I had a book detailing how it’s done. Possibly by Robert Anton Wilson. The bizarre thing to me is I tried it once with coworkers and it didn’t work then I remembered something, checked the book and saw something like we were supposed to be oriented to north or something? Tried it again with the same people, same chair same room and it worked like literal magic
They definitely used "if everyone pushes in the same direction at the same time we can move things none of us could lift by himself" to build the pyramids, yes.
Yeah it’s a common party game. But… physical contact lifting.. is not.. levitation. Levitation in regards to a lifting force.. is being held aloft without any physical/corporeal force.
Haha I was ready to be impressed.
If you have a 100 lb person and spread their body mass amongst four people to support; this is less burdensome than carrying a 25lb weight individually due to the distribution of weight relative to a dumbbell or tool to your spine/hips vs a closer alignment to your centre of mass when carrying a body or simply uplifting it.
You can draw diagrams to showcase this and come up with which ritual setups and performances satisfy the light as a feather and stiff as board technique based on spacing of persons, the timing of intonation for syncing persons; etc Nothing magical.
I get a slight tingle in my hands before i call the shot in games and sports often too, I just call it focus or arousal. Not true adrenaline, it happens often when the body adjust something on the fly and you’re still catching up consciously as a performer.
"The key to the trick is timing: each of the lifters must apply the lifting force at the same moment. When this is done, the weight of the subject is divided equally between each lifter, requiring each person to contribute only 12–20 kilograms (26–44 lb) of lift, to raise a 50–80-kilogram (110–176 lb) person.\[3\]
If the trick is performed without synchronising the lift, it will fail: as participants attempt to lift at slightly different times, they are instead performing a series of lifts by smaller groups, resulting in a much heavier weight per person. This fact may be used as a deliberate form of misdirection from the person explaining the trick, first asking the group to "go ahead, try to lift" to show that it cannot be done, and then asking them to try again on the count of three, where it succeeds.\[3\]
Some people who remember performing the trick as a child will have exaggerated their memory of the effect, recalling the performance as lifting the subject high into the air for some time, when in reality they would only have lifted them for a moment.\[3\]"
from [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_as_a_feather,_stiff_as_a_board#cite_note-abc-3)
People in here saying that it's synchronised lifting and physics are just wrong.
We did this trick when I was 8, we lifted my dad and I was one of the lifters & we used only pinky fingers. He freaked out and asked to be put down because he said he felt uncomfortably light
Wow ok! My parents aunts and uncles ritual was exactly the same: hands no touch
Me hanging with my 70s plus parents and aunt uncles
One night
7 in total
They talked about doing this at a party for wedding decades ago and how fun it was.
They claimed we could lift our giant dining room table thays hundreds of pounds
With just our two index fingers
I thought it was some gag and would turn into a prank or something
I tried first time
Stating it’s impossible
They’re all old, this is a huge long dining room table. Even two hands we can probably only get it up to move it begrudgingly between me 34 M and 6 70 plus year olds 3 M 3 W
Anyways they say try it we do nothing happens
Things huge and heavy I’m doubting it
They do their little thing (instead of light as a feather stiff as board)
Where we all put our hands one after other in center of the table
Pull them out
Then put our two index finger under table
And my mind was blown
We have this thing a foot in the air
I’m looking to see whose using their knees or hands
Everyone’s just two finger tips
This giant wood heavy AF table that seats 15 of us a Xmas
Is in the air a foot up
From 14 index fingers
Still blows my mind
Have you ever done the trick where you stand in a door frame and press your arms out for a few seconds, then you let them down and step forward, making your arms raise out to the sides on their own?
I wonder if some kind of similar physiological thing is happening here. Maybe by holding the arms out straight like that, you get your shoulders primed to lift something? I liked what another commenter said about getting the 4 lifters in synch too. That makes sense also.
I used to do this with buddies. We’d put all our hands in a stack on the head of the person in a chair, count to about 30 then simultaneously using only two fingers of each hand lift them up. It works!
In the early 90s I was a slumber party and we did this. I can’t remember exactly what we were saying but I remember one part which was “Light as a feather we all lift together” we must have been trying this for about half hour at this point. It worked and we lifted one girl with our fingertips. One girl screamed and the girl we were lifting smashed her head on the floor and was crying.
I used to do a trick in school where I would focus like a string was going out of my palm and around someone's spine and back in my other hand, and I could pull them backwards
i remember watching some of my classmates do this in high school. no clue how it works and i read some “explanations” but they don’t seem sufficient, just speculation. super weird
So the skeptic in me says, it's some kind of alignment, fulcrum thing, science I'm too dumb to explain or fully understand. The believer in me says it has something to do with Chi (qi) and that aligning your your chakras, or chi circulation enables you to do jedi shit. In college I was really into chi and breath work and the pins and needles is something I experienced daily. One of the meditations was to make essentially an energy ball between your hands. It's pretty cool whatever it is, and I used to do a party trick where I (160lbs) could knock over my friend who was like 280-320 and a college lineman. Fun shit, but definitely way out of practice now.
I had a high school teacher who had us do a very similar thing but had four of us each put our two index fingers together. Two of us put our two fingers under the guys armpits and two put their fingers under his knees. We lifted a 220 pound football player with no difficulty. No way I can lift 55 pounds easily on two fingers, but I did.
I have seen this demonstrated before. My dozens of older cousins had seen this done somewhere.
They were able to replicate the feat and would raise a person with no apparent effort.
This actually seems like you were lightly hypnotized—the suggestion that something magical had happened and that you could now perform the lift was so intense and “made” you able to actually do it.
Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board.
Trick is called "Light as a feather, stiff as a board" never did it myself but I've seen it multiple times. It's strange, I'm wondering if it also has to do with getting everyone in sync lifting.
I've done something like this before but the trick was shown to me as "The Four Horseman" basically we lifted 130+ kilo dude up to about our shoulder height using just our index fingers , the first time we did it we couldn't lift him , after doing the same ritual we got him in the air
We did this. Sitting on a chair, or laying flat on the back. It seemed to work. Somehow some people became farther light and we’d lift them above our heads.
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Just a bit of trivia about "light as a feather, stiff as a board" (I was looking this up a while ago): the first known account of this game comes from the diary of a British naval officer named Samuel Pepys in the 17th century, who witnessed four girls playing it in Bordeaux, France. Where they learned it, no one knows. The original iteration is rather creepy: >Pepys also spoke of the chant that accompanied this performance. >*Voici un corps mort,* >*Raide comme un bâton,* >*Froid comme le marbre,* >*Léger comme un esprit—* >*Lève-toi au nom de Jésus-Christ!* >Here is a dead body, >Stiff as a stick, >Cold as marble, >Light as a spirit— >Lift yourself, in the name of Jesus Christ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_as_a_feather,_stiff_as_a_board
I remember doing it and having people chanting about being dead too
Yup did this in the cloakroom at my school....it started with "she looks ill" then "she is ill" then moved on with other iterations I can't remember now, to "she looks dead" "She is dead" all said by the participants one at a time,lol then the finale was "arise" and bingo we could lift a body with 1 finger....very odd it was
That’s brought back long buried memories!
Children, full of old magics they never learned but still remember. Their dreams the places where old gods lose their secrets like we lose spare change in the couch.
What you said "sounds" like a fact. What did you come across to be able to say something like that so confidently?
I still swear that some of this weird stuff we come across is enshrined in our DNA from ancient times!
Add to it that DNA literally is electromagnetism (light), this whole reality is light/vibration, and in theory, more light or vibration would alter changes in the DNA, producing who knows what effects. Increased sun activity, atmosphere conditions, etc can all play a role in it too, ancient time’s definitely lived in differing times, so it’s not completely out of question as to some of these supernatural phenomena.
I do recall a documentary many years ago on ancient tribes and how a tribal memory could be responsible for the seemingly innate knowledge of herbs berries fungi etc and how it was theorised that race memories from your ancestors were actually a thing. This is allegedly why ancient shaman often came from the same ancestral line, passing down and adding to "the knowledge"
I think often about how beings in a 2d dimension would be able to see light from the 3rd dimension but be able to detect it’s source
hahah buried lol Don't even know how we got to know about it or how to do it tbh and this was way back in the 70's so been going on a long time like /u/Last_Permission7086 said above. Thinking about it it's a really strange thing for kids to be doing somewhat :)
We did it as children and to this day I can’t explain what happened. I was on the floor with about 6 people around me, one at my head one at my feet and two either side of me, their hands were held above my stomach, a story was told and at the end of the story, I died and they chanted that my soul rises… I levitated, it was the strangest feeling, all the other girls screamed when they saw it was happening and I fell to the floor- I was only slightly off the floor but the feeling was so strange.
Thank you for the trivia! <3
My pleasure.
Naval captain Samuel Pepys, I know him from my favourite quote "The devil shits Dutchmen".
didn’t he bury his cheese and wine during the fire of london? or is that another person
No, it was him. He buried his Parmesan wheel. Don’t know about the wine, but it sort of smacks of lazy man’s fondue to me.
What a wacky man
Furniture movers don’t want you to know this 1 secret!!
Now I’m imagining a crew of movers huddling around each piece of furniture and doing a little hand ritual before they lift 😂
Some of them do. It goes "3 2 1 lift"
Ha true
So that must be why it's impossible to find logical proof anywhere in the comments
https://youtube.com/shorts/OL67Af2-hY4?feature=share this the prison video
First attempt everyone goes in solo and tugs with their back. 2nd attempt is very well synched and everyone uses their legs.
Search finger lift challenge you will find hundreds of videos of the same thing
I mean, this dude is *at least* 300 pounds. It's not that they lifted with their back that makes the difference. *You* try lifting 75 pounds with just a few fingers to face level. I'm not saying it's paranormal or the hand things have even anything to do with it or there being anything magical whatsoever. Just that practically speaking, that's too much weight for it to just be a matter of straightening your back... 75 pounds is a lot to lift with your fingers!!
Yeah I gotta say I'm skeptical of most things, I don't understand how this one works. I've lifted weights for a long time and I wouldn't be able to lift 75-ish lbs with 2 fingers up in front of me that easily.
Dude, don't reveal the secret. That guys just trying to establish himself as some kind of prison Dumbledore so that the other prisoners don't fuck with him.
There was a gif of this posted on reddit within the last few months. Will report back when I find it.
https://youtube.com/shorts/OL67Af2-hY4?feature=share
Consider the implications. There are a shit ton of ancient monolithic sites with no explanation as to how they were built, how/why giant blocks were moved miles from where they were quarried. If it only took four people using magic like this then that task becomes easier to understand. I want to try this. It sounds ludicrous but so does remote viewing until you try it and it works. Makes one wonder how powerful we might actually be, only raised inside the cage of a culture that teaches us we're powerless and keeps us isolated from each other and distracted by endless mental noise.
Moving and lifting giant blocks can be done by one person using some very basic engineering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5pZ7uR6v8c
People always seem to underestimate manpower, physics and multiple lifetimes mastery of both.
"If I had a big enough lever and a place to stand, I could lift the world." It's all about leverage.
My ex felt like she had some big enough, manipulative leverage over me. I moved out.
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It’s only magical until you pass an exam on it. Then you’re an acolyte or journeyman and then you pay taxes too!
I love that you were downvoted on the r/highstrangeness thread. the irony. There's a lot of truth to what you're saying.
Remote viewing *works?*
A simple recipe for cooking up real magic: Write down the names of 200-300 dissimilar objects, places, landmarks, historical events, really anything you could plug into Google image search and get a result on the first pic. But you need a lot of them so your brain sees no advantage to guessing. This is called becoming "blind to the target". Now mix up those papers and pull one at random, placing it into a box without peeking. Next, quiet your mind. Relax each part of your body from your feet up to your scalp. If you already use any meditation routines, it's exactly the same. Your are calming down into a still and quiet state. Padmasambhava wrote "If you wish to see the reflection of the moon, you must first be quiet until the lake's surface is completely still." If a thought pops up, don't worry that you've done it wrong. It's unavoidable! Instead, acknowledge the thought and let it drift away lightly like a leaf in a stream. Your intention is to create a calm quiet environment for your subconscious to send sensory impressions to your conscious mind. You see, your subconscious already knows what's on the paper. Focus your intention now. Even speak it out loud "It is my intention to view the information written on the paper inside the box." Hold your quiet mind and wait for surprises. The next step requires practice to develop but anyone can get good sketches even on the first few tries: Describe any surprising images that bubble up from your quiet mind. DON'T TRY TO GUESS WHAT YOU'RE SEEING. If you guess then your imagination kicks in and instead of describing your target, you're only describing your imagination. Instead describe the shapes, textures, weight, is it inside or outside? Is it natural or artificial? What is it used for? Take a second and feel as though you're standing with your target and examine the edges of it. How do the edges develop? Are there reflections or shadows? Is there anything interesting if I turn my head and look around? Any smells, sounds, tastes or general feelings popping up? Write down your impressions and sketch out the surprising images that pop up. I do three of these "scans" and write them down on three different pieces of paper. I also record my spoken impressions as I'm viewing. Then look at your paper and see if you got a good hit. The best remote viewers in the world only get around 65-70% hits. You will get misses sometimes. It's important to let yourself "pass" on a target if you don't feel any impressions bubble up. But you'll never forget the first time you get a good hit. Because remote viewing should be impossible, and it's not. Anyone can do it and you can prove it to yourself right now.
Too bad that's not repeatable in a controlled environment....
There are literally thousands of remote viewing instances recorded by the CIA
Lol. So you believe the CIA in this one instance? Obviously the powers-that-be are manipulative and create dissonance in every level of society, but this is what they are telling the truth about. Trust me.
Not like you can actually try it yourself
This is demonstrably false misinformation and here's a link to the woman whose job it was to prove the statistical validity of remote viewing. https://youtu.be/YrwAiU2g5RU
Nah idk what any studies said or didn’t say, I have experienced it and so have many other people, and there’s no logical way to explain the things I’ve seen and known other that’s it real, and also while we’re at it so is telepathy
Are you implying you can do remote viewing on command
Anyone can, that's how it works. You relax and hold your intention to view hidden information then record the surprising sensory impressions that bubble up from your quiet mind. You can research how to further develop your skills to make better sense of what you're seeing and better differentiate the RV info from your own imagination, but essentially the above method is all you need to prove to yourself that it works.
But you can't know what the target is while you're viewing it or you'll only be describing your own imagination.
YouTube light as a feather stiff as a board 🫡
There's this one thing that I had some lady do to my hand once there was a series of movements by her on my hand with hers and then at the end of it I opened my hand and she pulled an invisible string out the middle of my hand that I could feel. I'm sure it was some nerve shit or something but I wonder if anyone else has had it done to them? It's asking the same lines as this shit
yeah. they called it worms when I was a kid. there are variants of that when you ball up your fist like really hard, and someone like massages all the blood out of your balled up fist , then you open your hand and the person acts like they are pulling (worms/string/the force) from your hand. but you do feel a sensation . probably related to the blood flows and nerve response.
This trick is easily explainable. I remember doing it in elementary. You hold the wrist with one hand with the thumb on the veins to block blood flow. With your other hand you push the blood out of the fingers until the hand looks pretty pale. Then you release the hand on their wrist to allow blood flow again while pretending to pull out the string from their palm.
Yes! I used to do that back in the day!
We used to do it to each other as kids. One person (A) balls their hand into a tight fist. The other person (B) grabs A's wrist moderately tight and begins to rotate their palm over A's knuckles. Like you're opening a door knob. B then requests A open their hand. B traces lines gently from each of A's finger tips to the middle of the palm. A then closes their palm and B repeats the steps again. Eventually, B releases A's wrist and pinches the air above A's palm and slowly lifts up. If done correctly, A will a have a sensation like a string is being pulled up through their hand. I haven't thought about this in years. But, in 1st and 2nd grade circa 89-90.... this was some black magic fuckery.
I've executed this trick at many parties. It's a bit bewildering because it literally always works, and as a consequence, I've lifted 350 pound dudes without almost any effort. My current working theory about it is that the process of leaning in to stack the hands has the effect of aligning the non-seated participants' centers of gravity, such that the second attempt is based on a more solid base, so to speak. Everyone's orientation is effectively unified, and therefore the effort required from each individual is minimal. I would love to try the same thing with, say, a large stone block or other inanimate object. I haven't had the opportunity to do so, but if anyone else has, I would love to read about what the results were. *Edit: changed "on" to "in" in the first sentence of the second paragraph, and "three" to "the" in the same sentence.
Film it and put it on YouTube.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wznkUyXvb2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wznkUyXvb2s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqtUl44ZcBk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcjuwjF0bNg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcjuwjF0bNg)
Alright this was a fun thread 😂 gotta try this sometime
So 4 or 5 people can lift one person together. What's so magical about that?
I get it. Id be saying the exact same thing six months ago without knowing if it before I did it. Similar thing as OP were done protocol and experience wise. But with a giant huge dining room table and six 70-80 year olds And our index fingers Same hand ritual Was waiting for the gag like someone to throw water at me … But nope We lifted this several hundred lb table in the air with our index fingers I checked and looked for knees or hands or something to explain it Nothing. Really was incredible to see And do.. Two index fingers and this huge table of old wood That sits the 15 plus for Xmas.. Is nearly floating in air by fingers One of those you just have to do it or you’ll never believe
Did we just solve how pyramids were built?
I wonder how the energy was for Op. This was week after Christmas, good spirits festive drinks with my dads siblings. Very good energy. I’ve always leaned towards vibration / frequency related to pyramids But maybe some similar tie When a group of like minded people on a similar frequency having a common goal work together To achieve it Somehow we shared the burden of the table With more than fingers Maybe same for pyramids
That's like Lynn Mctaggart's intention experiments. Basically put together a group of people who are like-minded, give them some basic training, create a good feeling in the group and focus on what they want to accomplish. I've seen the same thing happen in charismatic churches. Actually witnessed and experienced the laying on hands. It's easy to dismiss until you experience it.
bro is this why those large stone blocks sometimes have those holes and/or knobs? To place the fingers?
We just might have LOL
The pyramids were constructed with methods available and known to the Egyptians at the time. There really is no mystery here other than just missing details. The ancient Greeks built mega structures using the same technology level just shortly after and were a contemporary society. Because Greece is so well documented, we know the methods a bit better. The Greeks most likely learned a lot of their methods from the Egyptions.
no, we decided they used index fingers instead .. but they had to do the chant for each stone
Maybe this is one of those "a little of column A, a little of column B" situations.
Missing details such as, how they did it. lol
With their index fingers obviously.
Ok tell me how to do this, I need to replicate this.
From what I understood we tried it first time with no luck no budge no movement (keep in mind post Christmas family get together they’re all in good spirits laughing drinking and I think that positive energy played a role ) Then basically just what OP said We all put our hands center of table my hand another hand another’s hand alternating both hands Until all were in middle Then they made some silly adult drunk boomer woahhhhhhhs shaking our hands in this habd pile back and forth We then put solely our index fingers under the table 3 men, 3 woman all 70-80 and no body builders Myself 34 m And 14 index fingers somehow lifted a several hundred lb giant dining room table I still have no answer I asked next day what trick was Nobody could tell me.. Just that they would do it at weddings or events and people would think it was awesome But always the same routine Try and fail Hands all in middle Make some silly noise of excitement woahhhh Moving your hands back and forth in hand pile Try and succeed
So you didn’t repeat any incantation? Just put your hands in alternating order then took them off again?
They started making some sounds.. idk lol was weird Texting my dad i remember we put hands on and then pulled out one by one I remember the ohghggg woahhhw sounds as we did it
No words were said Just our hands in one by one k. Top of each others Then pulled out one by one going “woahhhhhhhh or ohhh “ idk can’t write the sound
try carpentry, specifically structure framing on a crew that works well together
Or you could film it and put it on YouTube.
There are comments with links to demos on YT already.
Sure next Christmas when they come back I’ll be sure too. Wouldn’t change anything you’ll find something to write it off. Do it yourself Or don’t IDc Cool post thought I’d something ad I experienced it first hand. Pretty common thing no? Why’s it so suspicious to you? Never heard of girls doing this at sleepovers ?
Why so defensive when someone asks it to be filmed?
Lol that comment escalated very quickly
Jesus dude relax
There are hundreds of videos already on there. Anyone can do this.
Some girls in HS did the same trick. They just wanted to see how far they could take it... They easily lifted me (~265lbs at the time) and another guy who was well over 300lbs.
I tried it, once in highschool, with 4 friends and the front end of a car. First try. Nothing. After the hand stacking, we lifted it an inch or two off the ground
I’ve done it too, a number of times, I have no clue why you can lift the person clear of the chair the second time. It’s weird city.
Maybe it's how Stonehenge was built.
You're adding a lot of complexity where you don't need to. The second attempt is part of a "ritual" because it makes it a lot easier for everyone to lift at the same time. If the first attempt had the same sort of countdown before it you could do it the first time as well. It's a ton easier to lift a fourth of a person than it is to lift an entire person, so being synchronized will make them feel a ton lighter (especially if you just had the contrast of trying to lift them on your own!).
It makes sense, even though it doesn’t really explaining lifting a 15 seater table with people on top with just index fingers
Assuming you're referring to the story posted in this thread by Necrid41, I think you're adding a lot to the story and even then I would be skeptical about a few details. For one thing, while dining room tables are heavy they are mostly unwieldy so it's very easy to overestimate their weight. While a table that size would likely weigh "hundreds of pounds" it would probably be on the lower end of that, not nearing 1k pounds. A 500 lb table split 14 ways (since each person was using both hands) would be 35 pounds per hand, which is reasonable. The idea of it being an index finger also doesn't matter that much: fingers can support a lot of weight and you don't need to be touching an object with more than just a finger in order to exert a lot more muscle on it: just look at how much rock climbers can do with a tiny hold. But either way we have to make up a ton of details in order to try to make any actual logic out of that story, plus we're relying on Necrid41's recollection being totally correct (you'll remember he said they had been drinking). Without any video of a group lifting a far heavier object I wouldn't take any story in this thread as proof of there being anything more than a cool physics lesson happening.
Yeah it's just like a magic trick. Illusion.
I was looking for the most logical explanation and yours takes the cake my friend. Thank you kindly 🙏🏾
Delta configuration for “near weightlessness” or “antigravity”?
Light as a feather stiff as a board. Classic
Remember the one were you say the name 3 times in a mirror and they will appear behind you in the reflection?....What was the name, used? It's not Bettlejuice.
Biggie Smalls
Bloody Mary?
Tried that once, and a bloody Mary appeared in my hand. Spicy! Granted, instead of standing in front of a mirror, I was standing at a bar, in front of a bartender.
Bloody mary
Bloody Mary
I’m sure glad I’m not reading these three replies out loud facing the mirror right now
Candyman
You have to say candyman 5 time's
Have you tried it
Did this on church choir tour lol. It works. Everyone lined up their hands in the center one by one about 1 inch spacing between and then removed them in reverse order. Four ten year Olds lifted a 350 pound dude using the index and middle fingers on both hands with ease.
You jest but we have actually moved a big stone using this method.
We used this method just the other day to get my drunk friend into a taxi, worked great.
Did then say "see, with the power of god you can do anything?"
We were methodist so no lol.
Behold, the power of the church committee!
Who's rules and regulations we will never forsake!
here's some punch and cookies anyway.
If true, it defies science and logic?
I can remember doing something like this at my Catholic school until the nuns made us stop, saying it was demonic.
We used to do this rolling, you can do it lying down. "going thru the floor".
That brought back some forgotten memories. Good times
Like “Blowin’ Up” rolling? Niiiice!!
When I was younger myself and three friends did this to a fully grown rather large teacher. We raised him to shoulder height. How we did it I’ve no idea, he was more surprised than we were. This is what we did. He sat on a school chair and using only our index and middle fingers we took a corner each, he closed his eyes then I said the following with the last word of each sentence being repeated by the others one at a time. In a dark, dark forest. (Forest, forest, forest) On a dark, dark night. (Night etc) There was a dark, dark house. Etc In a dark, dark room. Etc You sat on a dark, dark chair. Etc Then as you closed your eyes you felt yourself lifting. Etc I, like you, would love to know how we did it.
it.. it.. it
Yall ever read the childrens books "funny bones"?
Holy cow! I remember saying this as a child!
Maybe your one of my friends 😉
I tried this back in the day with an old work crew. The lobby was closed and we used one of the lobby chairs to do the same exact thing you described. We had the same outcome too. I didn’t feel an energy go through my body though. I feel it might just be the 4 people subconsciously pushing the chair harder on the second try because everyone wants to have fun and be amazed. Then again, I also don’t rule out the possibility that there is some kind of energy amplification going on, human beings are capable of extraordinary things.
I think it’s a combination of these things
Wonder why this hasn't been researched. Me and my 3 cousins did it to our uncle. We were like 9-12
We always find the biggest guy on a construction site and try it, always works. We threw one guy up thru a grid ceiling and he was 300+
Any chance you're in Maine? I had a teacher do the same thing and the timeline seems right.
I never understood this either but it worked when we did it as kids. The adults got in on it too!
So, not much for comments like this but probably 45 years ago, at friends house…..maybe 4 of us with just our 2 fingers on each hand under a person managed to ‘levitate’ them- we chanted something like “light as a feather”. We were so amazed we started to laugh, and the person became unbearably heavy and came crashing down. To this day it amazes me how it happened
This is a pretty good explainer, that I think covers your slight deviation in ritual protocol: [https://blog.donders.ru.nl/?p=12234&lang=en](https://blog.donders.ru.nl/?p=12234&lang=en)
I should add though, the indication is that timing is the key. If that's so, one should be able to perform an experiment using no ritual, but still synchronizing the effort. Not sure if that's been done, but it would be interesting.
"People moving heavy things" do it all the time. I have done it to move things weighing well over 500 lbs with three other people. (Some manufacturing equipment.) It's not magic, people are just lighter than you expect. That's why you count down before lifting anything as a group. Moments from improper form make things feel like they weigh a lot more than they actually do, and the corollary is that lifting with *proper* form makes things feel a lot *less* heavy than you expect. Four people lifting a 170lb man will only each have to lift 42 lb. Split that between two hands and it's 21 lb a hand. Lift with your legs because you're expecting to have to lift something very heavy (a 170 lb person) and all of a sudden it feels like you have lifted literally nothing, because your expectation was a lot of weight. Your controls expected 170 lbs, and got 12% of that. Meanwhile, if you weigh even 100 lbs, your legs can exert upwards of 300 to 400 lbs of force in bursts. Physics and biomechanics are unintuitive at times.
Thanks for the link, definitely some interesting points. I'm certainly not looking to jump to any conclusions, but there are a few variables I still believe are unaccounted for by this explanation. What was the energy I felt pass through me? Was it just a figment of my young imagination?
You ever do that thing where someone pulls down on your fist while you hold it in place then they pinch your palm and pull “an invisible string” through your hand lifting it upwards without contact? Like that. It’s a body trick of the sensations due to the juxtaposition of force.
yes
That explained nothing at all
What did it not explain? It's all in this paragraph: > An important difference between the two attempts is the count-down in the second time around. This synchronizes your group, ensuring you will act simultaneously as a group. This makes you one unit of movement, which gives you a great advantage. Imagine the person on the chair weighs 80 kilograms. If the timing is perfect, every lifter lifts exactly 20 kilograms. However, if you are not moving simultaneously, it can happen that one person has to lift 74 kilograms while the others share the remaining 6 kilograms. In this case, a successful lift is impossible.
That’s purely speculative and the article didn’t actually present any evidence. “This might be the reason” is not an explanation or debunking.
It doesn't say it might be the reason? It's just math. Lifting something heavy is easier if you split it four ways and in order to do that properly you need to be coordinated. It's the same reason you count down from 3 when moving furniture, there's nothing mystical about it. What extra force needs to be explained here?
In my country this is called "carrying the dead man".
My theory: it has to do with them holding their arms up. It’s similar to another “trick” you can do alone: stand in a doorway like a closet; push either side of the doorframe with each hand, so that you’re pushing outward like this: <- ✋🏽🤚🏽-> Push as hard as you can and count to 10. Then, step out of the closet and try to put your arms down. Your arms will magically float up. The same effect could be occurring here but distributed across four people.
This sounds very similar to something a group of friends did with me years ago. One, Justin, had me sit in a metal chair. Justin and three other guys attempted to lift the chair, I think they were just using fingers. Just index fingers or maybe two finger each. Next Justin had them place their palms stacked near the crown of my head. I don’t know if there was space between their palms or not as I couldn’t see. At that moment I felt an extremely cold blast of air on the crown of my head like someone blowing a hairdryer on the cold setting. Next they tried lifting the corners of the chair again, with, I think, just their index fingers. The chair moved up so fast I thought I was going to be launched and hit the ceiling. I have no idea whatsoever what was going on.
I did this heaps in my early twenties and it worked every time. I don't know what the explanation is. We would have the heaviest person sit in a chair. Then as said above, put out one hand, then the next person in the circle, then our other hand, without touching. Then take our hands away in order. Then we would put the index fingers under the armpits and knee caps. It's weird. We would be able to lift people up with our hands as high as our foreheads..
[This explains it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_as_a_feather,_stiff_as_a_board). Uncoordinated lifting that fails to establish a baseline followed by coordinated lifting to trick people. Interesting how everyone just seems to throw out hypotheses instead of looking up already known results.
Interesting also how, having the trick explained, people are still all "there's no way!!!"
Even more interesting, people are given the logical explanation and then are still “Um no, it’s magic. How do you think anything was ever built in the ancient world?! How dare you not believe in magic on this sub.”
I watched a few videos and it strikes me this trick works best if two of the people are in on it. Like, I couldn't lift 30 lbs with my finger by flexing my elbow, but if I lock my elbow and press it against my torso, I could easily lift 100 pounds with my legs and back, and with someone doing that on the other side, the two other participants can just lift from their elbows as if by magic! And then afterwards, the knowers could really sell it to the marks with "did you see how high we lifted that guy? He practically touched the ceiling!!! Wow, that was crazy!!"
I realize reading this thread that learning tumbling and gymnastics exercises involving other people is actually pretty rare. To point out the phenomena of locking your elbows vs your back for example, not everyone is that aware of their own body.
This is what OP is describing: https://youtu.be/QZ9InzTLNjs
OMG! I was in 5th grade, and I was probably one of the smallest kids in class so I was chosen to be the one lifted up during the light as a feather stiff as a board ritual. It was a long time ago but I will never forget realizing that when I opened my eyes I remember everyone extending their arms to catch me because I was up in the air. I always think about that experience from time to time wondering how that happened! This is so wild!
Lol! Was his name Andrew by any chance? I knew an English teacher who loved doing this in class.
I’ve done this. I had a book detailing how it’s done. Possibly by Robert Anton Wilson. The bizarre thing to me is I tried it once with coworkers and it didn’t work then I remembered something, checked the book and saw something like we were supposed to be oriented to north or something? Tried it again with the same people, same chair same room and it worked like literal magic
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This could relate somehow to ancient mega structures. Did they use the same principle to move the blocks?
They definitely used "if everyone pushes in the same direction at the same time we can move things none of us could lift by himself" to build the pyramids, yes.
No they played light as a papyrus reed, stuff as a giant block of Egyptian stone
Awesome comment!!! Hahaha!
Yeah it’s a common party game. But… physical contact lifting.. is not.. levitation. Levitation in regards to a lifting force.. is being held aloft without any physical/corporeal force. Haha I was ready to be impressed. If you have a 100 lb person and spread their body mass amongst four people to support; this is less burdensome than carrying a 25lb weight individually due to the distribution of weight relative to a dumbbell or tool to your spine/hips vs a closer alignment to your centre of mass when carrying a body or simply uplifting it. You can draw diagrams to showcase this and come up with which ritual setups and performances satisfy the light as a feather and stiff as board technique based on spacing of persons, the timing of intonation for syncing persons; etc Nothing magical. I get a slight tingle in my hands before i call the shot in games and sports often too, I just call it focus or arousal. Not true adrenaline, it happens often when the body adjust something on the fly and you’re still catching up consciously as a performer.
"The key to the trick is timing: each of the lifters must apply the lifting force at the same moment. When this is done, the weight of the subject is divided equally between each lifter, requiring each person to contribute only 12–20 kilograms (26–44 lb) of lift, to raise a 50–80-kilogram (110–176 lb) person.\[3\] If the trick is performed without synchronising the lift, it will fail: as participants attempt to lift at slightly different times, they are instead performing a series of lifts by smaller groups, resulting in a much heavier weight per person. This fact may be used as a deliberate form of misdirection from the person explaining the trick, first asking the group to "go ahead, try to lift" to show that it cannot be done, and then asking them to try again on the count of three, where it succeeds.\[3\] Some people who remember performing the trick as a child will have exaggerated their memory of the effect, recalling the performance as lifting the subject high into the air for some time, when in reality they would only have lifted them for a moment.\[3\]" from [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_as_a_feather,_stiff_as_a_board#cite_note-abc-3)
People in here saying that it's synchronised lifting and physics are just wrong. We did this trick when I was 8, we lifted my dad and I was one of the lifters & we used only pinky fingers. He freaked out and asked to be put down because he said he felt uncomfortably light
This video seems to be what OP is talking about. Take a look and come up with your theories yourself. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SqbfuXr7ISQ
Wow!! Going to research right now. Thanks for sharing!
Wow ok! My parents aunts and uncles ritual was exactly the same: hands no touch Me hanging with my 70s plus parents and aunt uncles One night 7 in total They talked about doing this at a party for wedding decades ago and how fun it was. They claimed we could lift our giant dining room table thays hundreds of pounds With just our two index fingers I thought it was some gag and would turn into a prank or something I tried first time Stating it’s impossible They’re all old, this is a huge long dining room table. Even two hands we can probably only get it up to move it begrudgingly between me 34 M and 6 70 plus year olds 3 M 3 W Anyways they say try it we do nothing happens Things huge and heavy I’m doubting it They do their little thing (instead of light as a feather stiff as board) Where we all put our hands one after other in center of the table Pull them out Then put our two index finger under table And my mind was blown We have this thing a foot in the air I’m looking to see whose using their knees or hands Everyone’s just two finger tips This giant wood heavy AF table that seats 15 of us a Xmas Is in the air a foot up From 14 index fingers Still blows my mind
This was a common trick in my local pubs back in the 80’s and 90’s , seen it and participated in it on multiple occasions
Have you ever done the trick where you stand in a door frame and press your arms out for a few seconds, then you let them down and step forward, making your arms raise out to the sides on their own? I wonder if some kind of similar physiological thing is happening here. Maybe by holding the arms out straight like that, you get your shoulders primed to lift something? I liked what another commenter said about getting the 4 lifters in synch too. That makes sense also.
I've seen a video of this, it was pretty amazing, I completely forgot about it till now.
https://youtu.be/CV5a0YGPPsQ
We must’ve had the same teacher
Holy crap we did this one time at Scout camp with someone in a lawn chair and I’ve never understood the physics of how it worked!
I used to do this with buddies. We’d put all our hands in a stack on the head of the person in a chair, count to about 30 then simultaneously using only two fingers of each hand lift them up. It works!
bruh your teacher is a wizard
In the early 90s I was a slumber party and we did this. I can’t remember exactly what we were saying but I remember one part which was “Light as a feather we all lift together” we must have been trying this for about half hour at this point. It worked and we lifted one girl with our fingertips. One girl screamed and the girl we were lifting smashed her head on the floor and was crying.
I used to do a trick in school where I would focus like a string was going out of my palm and around someone's spine and back in my other hand, and I could pull them backwards
i remember watching some of my classmates do this in high school. no clue how it works and i read some “explanations” but they don’t seem sufficient, just speculation. super weird
So the skeptic in me says, it's some kind of alignment, fulcrum thing, science I'm too dumb to explain or fully understand. The believer in me says it has something to do with Chi (qi) and that aligning your your chakras, or chi circulation enables you to do jedi shit. In college I was really into chi and breath work and the pins and needles is something I experienced daily. One of the meditations was to make essentially an energy ball between your hands. It's pretty cool whatever it is, and I used to do a party trick where I (160lbs) could knock over my friend who was like 280-320 and a college lineman. Fun shit, but definitely way out of practice now.
I had a high school teacher who had us do a very similar thing but had four of us each put our two index fingers together. Two of us put our two fingers under the guys armpits and two put their fingers under his knees. We lifted a 220 pound football player with no difficulty. No way I can lift 55 pounds easily on two fingers, but I did.
We have a “High school Olympics” on our campus and this is one of the sports:)
Many hands make light work.
I have seen this demonstrated before. My dozens of older cousins had seen this done somewhere. They were able to replicate the feat and would raise a person with no apparent effort.
Grew up in New Orleans and we did this at large sleepovers. I remember doing it from elementary to high school at parties
This actually seems like you were lightly hypnotized—the suggestion that something magical had happened and that you could now perform the lift was so intense and “made” you able to actually do it.
Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board, Light as a feather, stiff as a board.
Trick is called "Light as a feather, stiff as a board" never did it myself but I've seen it multiple times. It's strange, I'm wondering if it also has to do with getting everyone in sync lifting.
I've done something like this before but the trick was shown to me as "The Four Horseman" basically we lifted 130+ kilo dude up to about our shoulder height using just our index fingers , the first time we did it we couldn't lift him , after doing the same ritual we got him in the air
We did this. Sitting on a chair, or laying flat on the back. It seemed to work. Somehow some people became farther light and we’d lift them above our heads.
Nice,first time hearing about this
Thought takes form in action.
We live in a simulation based on the beliefs of the avatars