Definition: The raising of a body into the air without mechanical aid1 or the hallucinated sensation that one is floating on air, such as that which occurs in dreams2.

Magician, Doug Henning defines levitation as a “stabilized pure consciousness in activity, a result of perfect mind-body coordination,”3 but although shamans, yogis, and magicians have tried to reach that state for centuries, no successful attempt has ever been documented.

Still a favorite manifestation at séances and popular with stage magicians, levitation is a “mind over matter” idea that has mystified humans since before biblical times. Stephen Wagner, the paranormal guide at About.com speculates that perhaps the great blocks that make up the Egyptian pyramid and the great stones of other megaliths, such as Stonehenge, were placed through levitation4.

While the theory is interesting, there is no genuine evidence that anyone has ever levitated so much as a grain of sand. Even Levitation.Org, a site devoted to levitation admits there are but two kinds of levitation5:

1.The “real” kind where you meditate and supposedly levitate.
2.Levitation created through illusion.
The first kind of levitation was highly promoted in the 1970s by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. He claimed that humans were able to levitate themselves through using Transcendental Meditation (TM). After offering a series of quite expensive TM courses, the Maharishi held a levitation exhibition in 1986 at the Capital Convention Center in Washington, DC. Although the Maharishi claimed to have 40,000 enrollees in his classes, just 22 of his students performed for the press. Although, spring like, the 22 bounced up and down upon mattresses, the assembly of over 100 journalists attributed their efforts to the buoyancy of the bedding and not the efforts of the students6.