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Multiple People, Each Using One Finger, Lifting A Person

I don't think our version was quite the same although the rubbing of temples and:

You are dying, dying, dying
You are dead, dead, dead
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sound familiar. Now you mention it I think 2 fingers were used for lifting. Regardless, it wasn't at all heavy.

Quite freaky now I think of it.
 
I first encountered this party trick around 1969 or 1970. In my experience it was most often done with 4 'lifters' and one seated 'liftee'.

The procedure was always done in 2 steps:

(1) An initial (failed, ineffective) attempt
(2) A second (better-coordinated, decisive, effective) attempt

... separated by a lapse of no more than circa 15 seconds, during which time some sort of distractive ritual mumbo-jumbo was performed.

I've seen it done with the lifters each using 1 hand / 1 finger, 2 hands / 1 finger each (touching), and 1 hand / two fingers.

Part of the decisive effect seems to derive from simply telling the lifters it's going to work (suggestion). Another key element is ensuring the lifters move briskly and in unison on the 2nd attempt.

These elements of suggestion and coordinated action are the ones most often cited as underlying the trick.

However ... When I first saw the trick (at a party) the person who presented it mentioned that the 15-second lapse between attempts was also critically important. He claimed it gave the lifters' muscles time to absorb (react to; whatever ...) something biochemical produced as a result of their straining on the first / failed attempt.

I've heard and read descriptions of the intervening 'ritual period' that mention the lifters knowing they're ready to try again when they feel tingling or warmth in their lifting arms and / or hands (apparently symptomatic of this biochemical response).

Here are some additional references that popped up on a cursory Google search:

http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/sutra380892.php

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... 257305.htm
 
Now that you mention it, i think my school version may have started with a 'failed' attempt before the ritual bit too, which usually invoved been told it was going to fail too.

Wiki page entry on Light as a feather, stiff as a board, which seems to be the more popular US version? of the trick.

One participant lies flat on the floor, and then the others space themselves around him or her, each placing their fingers underneath his or her body. The person closest to the head commonly begins by saying "Once the roads were icy and cold", which the others repeat; then "A woman lost control of her steering wheel" is spoken and repeated back. Finally the last sentence "When they found her she was light as a feather, stiff as a board" is said and the phrase is chanted by the others repeat. Some people report[1] that the apparent weight of the person lifted seems lower than expected or that the person becomes completely weightless.

One of the best rational explanations for such reports is that the participants are tricking their minds, by way of the chanting, into believing that the person being lifted is "light as a feather". The body still reacts to the command from the brain, but the mind perceives it differently. Simply put, five (example) people can easily lift one person, especially when those five people are tricking their minds into thinking that the person is light-weight.[dubious – discuss]

In one variation the person being lifted is told a story about their death and asked to imagine it happening to him or her. It serves the dual purpose of "freaking out" the participants and convinces the participants that it will be easier to lift this person.

In many versions, each of the (in the example) five people lifting the other person uses only one or two of his or her fingers on each hand to do the lifting. It is particularly easy to lift a heavy weight when it is evenly distributed amongst a group of four people. The phenomenon of the weight seeming less on the second try around or after some sort of ritual is due to increased focus and the "lifters" being more in sync with one another.[2]

Another reason for the apparent success of the levitation is the "self fulfilling prophecy" concept. The lifters know it's supposed to be heavy and not work the first time so subconsciously they don't put in the effort required to do the lift the first time around. The second time around they are focused and putting in the effort in order to prove to others (and even more so themselves) that it actually works.

The game or party trick has been covered in mainstream media.

This game could be seen played in 17th century London during the plague outbreak. Samuel Pepys, a naval administrator noted this being performed as a sort of ward against the disease. In his conversation with his friend Mr. Brisband on July 31, 1665, he talked of the chant that accompanied the performance:

Voici un corps mort
Royde comme un Baston,
Froid comme Marbre
Leger comme un esprit,
Levons te au nom de Jesus Christ[citation needed]

"He saw four little girles, very young ones, all kneeling, each of them, upon one knee; and one begun the first line, whispering in the ear of the next, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and she to the first. Then the first begun the second line, and so round quite through, and putting each one finger only to a boy that lay flat upon his back on the ground, as if he was dead; at the end of the words, they did with their four fingers raise this boy high as they could reach, and he [Mr. Brisband] being there, and wondering at it, as also being afeared to see it, for they would have had him to have bore a part in saying the words, in the roome of one of the little girles that was so young that they could hardly make her learn to repeat the words, did, for feare there might be some sleight used in it by the boy, or that the boy might be light, call the cook of the house, a very lusty fellow, as Sir G. Carteret's cook, who is very big, and they did raise him in just the same manner." [3]

Another variation of the game is: the heaviest person of the group sits in a chair. Four volunteers agree to stand around the sitter; two on the sitters left hand side and the other two on his/her right hand side. Each of the four choose a hand to lift with and only use their index and middle fingers to lift with. On the left hand side, a lifter places their two fingers under the arm pit of the sitter and the other lifter on the left hand side places their two fingers under the sitters knee. The same order goes for the lifters on the right hand side.

First they attempt to lift the heavy sitter using only their two fingers. After the sitter remains in his seat, one of the lifters will place their left hand over the sitter's head. Going counter clockwise, the other lifters will place their left hands over each others (making sure not to touch anyone else's hands) then goes the right hands in the same order. After everyone's hands are stacked above one another, the top hand is removed until no one's hands are hovering over the sitters head. The lifters then retry lifting the sitter the same way as before.

The sitter will seem remarkably lighter and in some cases, weightless.
Click to expand...
 
We just used to chant "The witch is dying, the witch is dying, the witch is dead" around our circle (one child after another) a few times then lift. Obviously the abridged version of the chant, there - it was all we could afford! No pressing down at all, though.
 
We used to do this in primary school. The 'dead' person would lie on her (this as a girl thing) back on the ground, and the 'living' girls (usually 4) surrounded her, on their knees, with two fingertips on each hand under the 'corpse'. We then chanted, 'you're heavy as lead, heavy as lead', then 'you are as light as a feather, light as feather'. Then we chanted 'you are as stiff as a board, stiff as a board', and the corpse would stiffen. It was then very easy to lift the corpse with just our fingertips. Worked every time. It was great fun at sleepovers, just before the seance.
 
I expect I have posted on this before, but, as mythchaser is asking about it I'll post again.
I recall doing it back in the early 80s. One version was with the person sitting on a chair. In silence you placed your right hands over their head in turn, then your left hand, to make a stack. It was vital that hands didn't touch each other or the person.
Then you removed your hands in turn. Once this has been done you put your index fingers under the seat of the chair and lift it. As children I recall lifting a grown man above our heads.
The other way was with 6 people and involved the participant lying on the floor. A person stood at their head chanted things along the line of, 'he looks ill, he is dying' and you had to repeat the chant. You then lifted the person with your fingers under them.

I agree that this hardly counts as an urban legend as many people recall doing it.
 
My recollections are from the same era, middle school so cira 1978-82.

Did anyone do it before that? Or is it all 80s and later?
 
It was being done in the sixties! I recall being at a party in about 1962 /3 when I saw a fellow teenager lifted, seated, off her chair by the two "lifters" putting hands on her head then two fingers each, under her armpits!

We also did a bit of table lifting at the same party.
I bet both tricks are as old as the hills!
 
We did it in the mid to late 1960s, and I am sure it came from sometime earlier. It seemed very well established.
 
Tried the lifting a person wth the fingertips stunt with friends at various schools and other places, watched other people do it, abysmal failure every time.
 
escargot said:
Tried the lifting a person wth the fingertips stunt with friends at various schools and other places, watched other people do it, abysmal failure every time.
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Interesting ... I've never seen it fail. It requires more effort sometimes, and it's not uncommon for the liftee to slip off one or more fingers, but I've never seen it fail.

Did your attempts include the all-important short pause between the first (failed) and second (usually successful) lifts?
 
EnolaGaia said:
Interesting ... I've never seen it fail. It requires more effort sometimes, and it's not uncommon for the liftee to slip off one or more fingers, but I've never seen it fail.

Did your attempts include the all-important short pause between the first (failed) and second (usually successful) lifts?
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No, in the attempts I saw/participated in there was just one attempt and it was abandoned with lots of giggling.
 
I associate these "lifting" sessions with Ouija boards. I decided against the Ouija, but I did participate in the lifting, and they had the same supernatural cachet.
 
I've seen and done the lifting trick, at school when there was a bit of craze for a few weeks, and in an acting class as trust exercise. It worked more often than it failed, and usually failed because either the liftee wouldn't relax or wriggled, or one of the lifters got the giggles...
 
I tried this with a few friends and it worked really well. I think we all took turns to be lifted and in one particular instance the sitter actually flew up into the air as if catapulted and (although memory might be faulty) seemed to momentarily be separated from our fingers.
 
Diary of Samuel Pepys, 31 July 1665

This evening with Mr. Brisband, speaking of enchantments and spells; I telling him some of my charms; he told me this of his own knowledge, at Bordeaux, in France. The words these:

Voyci un Corps mort, Royde come un Baston, Froid comme Marbre, Leger come un esprit, Levons to au nom de Jesus Christ.

He saw four little girls, very young ones, all kneeling, each of them, upon one knee; and one begun the first line, whispering in the ear of the next, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and she to the first. Then the first begun the second line, and so round quite through, and, putting each one finger only to a boy that lay flat upon his back on the ground, as if he was dead; at the end of the words, they did with their four fingers raise this boy as high as they could reach, and he [Mr. Brisband] being there, and wondering at it, as also being afeard to see it, for they would have had him to have bore a part in saying the words, in the room of one of the little girls that was so young that they could hardly make her learn to repeat the words, did, for fear there might be some sleight used in it by the boy, or that the boy might be light, call the cook of the house, a very lusty fellow, as Sir G. Carteret’s cook, who is very big, and they did raise him in just the same manner. This is one of the strangest things I ever heard, but he tells it me of his own knowledge, and I do heartily believe it to be true. I enquired of him whether they were Protestant or Catholic girls; and he told me they were Protestant, which made it the more strange to me.
 
This stunt worked well at slumber parties when I was a child. We'd chant "She's dieing. . . she's dead. . . she's light as a feather. . ." There may have been a gruesome backstory about a car wreck on some occasions. Chants over, four or more children easily lifted a prone kid to three or four feet up using a couple of fingers.
But I always thought, looking back, that the stunt may have worked because children don't weigh much. It's interesting to see college and adult accounts. I am enjoying a second schoolgirhood, having connected with old friends, and we often have girls' day ins that are not, in attitude, that different from slumber parties. Attempting the stunt now might result in mystery or hilarity. Beer, wine, and the weight of 60-somethings add new factors since we were tweens.
 
We tried this with a car. It wasn't entirely successful, as there were only three of us, we were hooting drunk and it was 1 a.m. , but it did distinctly lift a little.
 
we did this a few weeks ago in work, four male work colleagues - myself included - lifted another work mate- (approx 18 stone rugby player) who was sitting on a chair, using just our index fingers. it didnt work the first time but seemed rather easy on the second attempt
 
ghughesarch said:
Voyci un Corps mort, Royde come un Baston, Froid comme Marbre, Leger come un esprit, Levons to au nom de Jesus Christ.
Click to expand...

This means something like 'Here is a dead body, cold as a (dunno), cold as marble, light as a spirit, rise in the name of Jesus Christ.'

When we did it we did a sort of chant, with the 'lead' person saying the phrase first and the others repeating it in turn -

She looks cold
She is cold

and on a bit like that, can't remember the details, until

She looks dead
She is dead

and then at a command we all tried and failed to lift her with our fingertips.
 
I have done it a few times at teambuilding seminars.
For some reason I do not understand, the liftee also controls the exercise. If the liftee envisions himself as light and levitated he goes up easily. If he concentrates on himself being heavy and immovable the lifters cannot move him, or at least with difficulty.
 
Dr Karl (an Australian science guy on the radio) to the resuce:

Why is it so?

There are three answers — timing, poor memory, and the natural underestimated strength of your fingers.

First, the timing. There are lots of videos of this Finger Lift on YouTube. One of them claims that "it's an old Romanian trick", while others have Chinese or Africans doing it.

But they all have the timing in common. For the first doomed attempt to lift the subject, there was no effort to get everybody to do the lift at the same instant. In fact, there was deliberate vague misdirection, along the lines of "so go ahead try to lift".

And in all of the videos on YouTube, you can see that the lifters are very much out of time with each other.

That means that for the brief instant each person is trying to lift the subject by themselves, they are fruitlessly trying to lift the entire 50–80kg weight of the subject on one (or two) fingers.

But for the second successful attempt, the timing is very precise.

The purpose of the chanting of the numbers, or the prayer, or song is not to Unleash the Power Within — it's really to synchronise the four potential lifters into one single lifting unit.

And there is usually a countdown to the final lift. So all four lift as one, and so each one has to lift only 12–20kg with the chosen finger or fingers.

The second factor is the very fallible human memory. Every person who has described this to me has described the strange mystical power that gave them the ability to not only lift the subject into the air, but also, to effortlessly hold them there.

But every time I have seen it done, the lifters just barely lifted the subject, and could not hold them there, and in fact, almost dropped them in their haste to get them down to the ground again.

And that is what you will see on YouTube.

And the third and last factor is that your fingers are actually very strong. Louis Cyr, the old-time French Canadian strongman (1863–1912) could lift 553lb (250.2kg) with a single finger (his right middle).
Click to expand...

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/05/27/2257305.htm
 
ghughesarch said:
Er, no. Wishful thinking on the part of Australian science guy on the radio, there.
Click to expand...

Well, I just watched the first 4 videos on YouTube that came up on google search. A few seconds is all they lasted, and on one or two, they nearly dropped the guy.

Any better vids out there that make it look a bit more magical?
 
I definitely remember doing this at school but being warned against it because it was using "evil forces".
 
We did it at school but I seem to remember only having 2 lifters
one finger under the knee and the other under the armpit each
and that the weight got greater after a few secs so they sank back down.
 
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