table-turning
Sign in to saveAlso known as table-tipping
Table-turning (also known as table-tapping, table-tipping or table-tilting) is a type of séance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations. The table was purportedly made to serve as a means of communicating with the spirits; the alphabet would be slowly spoken aloud and the table would tilt at the appropriate letter, thus spelling out words and sentences. The process is similar to that of a Ouija board. Scientists and skeptics consider table-turning to be the result of the ideomotor effect, or of conscious trickery.
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- necromancy
- Image
- Tables Tournantes - L'Illustration, Paris, 14 May 1853 (page 1 crop).jpg
Show 3 more facts
- investigated by
- Michael Faraday
- Commons category
- Table-turning
- described by source
- Encyclopædia Britannica 11th edition
via Wikidata · CC0
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
6 sectionsContents
- History
- Scientific reception
- Trickery
- References
- Further reading
- External links
Table-turning (also known as table-tapping, table-tipping or table-tilting) is a type of séance in which participants sit around a table, place their hands on it, and wait for rotations. The table was purportedly made to serve as a means of communicating with the spirits; the alphabet would be slowly spoken aloud and the table would tilt at the appropriate letter, thus spelling out words and sentences. The process is similar to that of a Ouija board. Scientists and skeptics consider table-turning to be the result of the ideomotor effect, or of conscious trickery.
==History==
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “table-turning” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.