Table-Tilting Divination

[Flar's Freyja]

Materra requested information on this one, as she grew up around it. Thanks, Materra!

This is a method of divination which requires a group of open-minded individuals. Apparently, it is the energy of the group that will cause the table to shift, move, or even levitate!

When I did a search, I found that there is very little information out there. I'm very interested in hearing from anyone who may have had some experience with this method of divination.

This is the only site I found:

http://paranormal.about.com/gi/dynam...bletilting.htm

[materra]

Wow...who knew?
Okay, here is my family tradition of "table" work:

Day or Night didn't matter.
Any Aunt or Cousin could do this, 2 people or more, and in any location we were gathered at. It was a female tradition, only one male cousin ever tried it. And once he got older, thought it was dumb, and made fun of us. Until an Uncle kindly told him to mind his "P's and Q's" as he wanted our answers. Oh and the girl cousins had all started their menstruation to be at the table, but could observe until then anytime.

We used any wood table including a very old round pedistal oak table of my grandmother's. Not light **lol**took all of us to move it back into place after it "walked" the room. And "walked" it did...sometimes 15 feet or more. We touched it, rubbed it actually. We would ask questions of it, and one knock was yes, two was no, and it would spell very simple words with knocks, but that was very hard work...and we would get exhausted.

We only asked questions of "importance" to us.

I just grew up knowing our "family"did this, and water witching. If it had a "natural" element to it, we could divine with it. Water in a bowl, wood table, green stick, rock or plant. The "chants" were always very simple and direct. "rise table, rise" and once risen, we would ask and it would answer.

Nothing fancy, just us folks. Blessed be.

Oh, this was from my Mother's side, English, Welch and Scottish, with some "French Canadian" mixed together.

[Flar's Freyja]

That sounds fasinating - and fun. May I ask what is your family's ancestry? Curious to know which culture this comes from.

[Azure]

Sounds a lot like 19th century Theosophy and spiritualism. V. cool family tradition.

[Flar's Freyja]

Love family trads like that. Have a Swedish friend who says they set out pictures of their ancestors on the table after supper and converse with them.....

[Earthcup]

Very cool! I've never tried that but it sounds interesting... I know some guys who work for the DOT who dowse for water mains... works too!

That sounds really interesting... Glad you shared that with us, materra.

[Mithrea]

This all sounds vaguely familiar and I don't know why . . .

[Silver Venus]

That sounds very interesting, boy I wish my family had great traditions like that, hmm maybe I can be the first to start some off
I have heard of table knocking before but never knew what it was really or how one went about doing it. I thought it was set out like a circle and the leader would ask if any spirits were there and then go from there, so I guess I assumed right in a very vague way..
..did you all join hands while asking these questions and chants to join and raise the energy?
Its very interesting that your tradition was nature, maybe in the old, old times they used to do this with a tree stump or even tree!

[materra]

You know what? I didn't know what a "great family tradition" this was until I got alot older. It is funny, but almost every family has something wonderful and terrific you don't recognize until someone else lets you know what they think. I actually thought it was old fashioned and kinda silly to talk to tables. I never brought it up anywhere, and in fact didn't know it wasn't done in other households. So, give it time...you may have a great family tradition you don't quite recognize yet. And keep your eyes and ears open, there are wonderful opportunities to adopt one. I adopted one from a friend which is to have a tea party, with costumes for celebrating special events. Mad hatter, move aside.

In case you want to adopt this one; we didn't hold hands. Our hands were flat, palm down on the table. We moved them in a small circle on the surface while chanting "rise, table, rise" until it started to move about. Both hands move up, around and down, meeting in the middle again and starting over. Touching very lightly, only the top of the table, with flat hands in a smooth and even flow.

It would raise the hair on your body, and not long after that the table would slide and even kinda hop about. You would ask your question, and it would rap the answer. We did sit quietly before the chanting. We had to find " the right frame of mind". I know now, it was a trance state, similar to meditation in the emptyness of the universe. So that's pretty much it...tables walked at our house and answered questions. If we needed details they used a ouiji board, with a small wooden plancett...LOL. we were into the naturals weren't we?

Hope this is what you wanted to know.....Blessed Be.