Twilight Shadows (North) Paranormal

How does table tipping work?

 

The first time that I ever experienced table tipping (that actually worked) was during an investigation in an old antique shop in Salisbury.

 

There were quite a few of us at an investigation.  We were all sat around a very big (and very heavy) solid oak table).  Not much happened to begin with (which is normal) and I was not expecting anything to happen (as usual).  After about 20 minutes of each of us taking turns to ‘call out’, something a bit out of the ordinary happened.  One by one our video cameras (which were dotted around the room in various places filming) switched themselves off.  The room then became icy cold and the table started to make creaking and popping noises.  I glanced at Maria (founder of Twilight Shadows) who seemed to be completely calm about this, so I inwardly took a deep breath and concentrated on what was going on.  We then heard what sounded like someone’s finger nails being scraped along the underside of the table (right where mine and Maria’s hands were) which physically made me recoil in terror.  I glanced at Maria again who was looking at me and I could tell she was just as alarmed as I was; however, we were both the lead investigators and could not be seen as being absolutely terrified.  Somehow we kept our composure and steered the team through a very successful table tipping experiment that had this massive table move around the room and also saw this table tilt up on 2 legs.

 

Since this investigation, we have had another massive banquet table move and tilt with just the 5 of us sat around it (including hearing footsteps all around the table at the same time), we have had a plastic craft table move (which we weren’t even using for tipping at the time)  move with one of us led on it. We have been danced around a hall by a table (like a massive planchette), We have experienced all mighty thuds like the table has been kicked from underneath (I hate it when it does that) and once or twice, we have witnessed so much activity while this is happening I am convinced that something is going to grab my leg at any point.  We don’t always have success with the table tipping experiments however and sometimes we don’t so much as get a tap or a creak.

 

So what exactly is going on?  How does table tipping work? 

 

Table tipping became a popular activity during the late 1800’s with the arrival of spiritualism.  From a psychological perspective, the creation of spiritualism was a stroke of genius.  Whereas the established churches had tried to combat the rise in rationality by stressing the importance of faith, spiritualism changed the very nature of religion.  In an age that was obsessed with science and technology, spiritualism no only offered proof of an afterlife but, on a good night, allowed people to apparently communicate with their deceased loved ones.

 

It was a Quaker called Isaac Post who had the idea of using a table to communicate with the dead.  During a séance with the now infamous case involving Kate and Margaretta Fox, Isaac decided to draw the alphabet onto pieces of paper and positioned them on the table.  He then asked the spirits to spell out a message and to tap when he pointed to the appropriate letter (to enable the spirits to spell out their message).  From this point on, variations on this experiment evolved from just using the table with everyone sat around it with their hands placed on the surface to the development of the Ouija board.  From there the writing planchette was born and from that Automatic writing began being practiced by some.

 

For centuries, many have tried to come up with an explanation to what is going on.

 

Michael Faraday (inventor of the Bunsen burner) and investigator of many eclectic topics chanced upon table tipping.  In 1852, he assembled a group of successful table tippers and carried out a very precise plan.  In the first stage, Faraday glued together a collection of materials bundled together and secured them to the top of a table.  He asked his team to put their hands on top of a bundle and embark on their séance.  The experiment went ahead with the table moving and tipping which meant the materials he has used did not hamper the spirits from communicating.  He then set about constructing several strange bundles.  Each had 5 postcard sized pieces of card interleaved with small pellets of specially formulated glue.  The glue was strong enough to hold the cards in any position required yet weak enough to slowly give way to a continued force. 

 

Faraday carefully positioned the cards around the table, attaching the bottom layer to the table top and drawing fine lines down the edges of cardboard layers.  This was brilliantly simple.  He reasoned that if a mysterious force was truly acting on the table then the table would move before the hands of the sitters.  This would result in the lower layer of the cards slipping under the upper layer.  If the participants’ hands were responsible then the upper layer would move before the lower layer.  After the experiment it was found that the upper layers had moved. 

 

What Faraday had stumbled upon was something now called ideomotor responses which would much later be proved by a Joseph Jastrow in the 1930’s.  A good example of an ideomotor response is when a person is asked to think of the Eiffel tower.  The participant will automatically look up (though won’t be aware they have) or if a participant is asked to imagine jumping high in the air, their leg muscles suddenly show signs of responding.  It is thought that the subconscious expectation of the group sat around a table will eventually cause the table to move with these minute ideomotor responses.

 

I kind of buy this to a certain extent and if indeed it is a collective effort by a group of completely independent individuals, acting on their own but in complete unison then this surely must display some sort of ESP at work?  I also buy that this may make the table ‘shift’ or ‘creak’, but how does it make the table tilt?  You can see with many of the tables we have used that it requires extreme effort to manipulate the table to rise up on 2 legs.  If a person was pushing the table on purpose or even trying to lift the table, the others would be able to see the straining the ‘cheater’ would be displaying.  (This is something I am always watching out for when we attempt to tilt the table).  Another question I find myself asking is, if it is down to ideomotor responses, how do we create the massive bangs we witness from time to time on the underside of the table (which are so powerful, you can feel the impact of the thud on the surface of the table)?

 

Another thing we have noticed during these experiments are the knocks, raps and (for want of an explanation) style in which the table moves and lifts (can appear) to change, like it is someone different having a go at communicating.  It’s almost like the energy we can sense is the alleged spirits signature. I quite often notice we say that the energy feels different, (feels like) a male/female, child, adult etc.  I also have noticed that the activity during these experiments seem to be on a rough cycle of 10 minutes, peaking about around 7 minutes then dying away and building again.  If the energy does die away completely we also find that by talking among ourselves or sharing a joke gets the energy going again (almost like the spirit is annoyed that we are not paying attention). 

 

If this is not spirit, then what exactly is it?  How does it work?  Will we ever know?  Maybe we are not supposed to know.  Maybe the whole intriguing subject of the paranormal is not for us to find out our answers to our questions (until we too have crossed over onto the other side).  Ideomotor responses or spiritual energy, whichever (if any) of these two explanations are correct, I still find and will continue to be fascinated by the phenomena of table tipping. If indeed this is just our own ideomotor responses acting in unison and causing the table to move, isn’t this still amazing? I for one think it is a collection of both of the 2 working together.  Will I ever be able to prove this?  I doubt it.  Will this put me off trying?  Absolutely not.  Now, where is the nearest table?

 

J Wicheard ©

 

Information sourced from books Paranormality by Professor Richard Wiseman and the Element Encyclopaedia of ghosts and hauntings Theresa Cheung