Up Mystery Creek ...with a table and no paddle

Your heart's desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery.
~ Cormac McCarthy, "Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West".

Husband, during a chat about his grandparents, whom he hardly knew, described a stray memory he has retained, involving his grandmother - and his mother. In his childhood, one evening, they took him along to a family gathering; it'd have been sometime in the mid to late-1940s. The gathering took place in a long room lit by rows of old fashioned camping lamps. About a dozen relatives were there, seated around a very large circular wooden table - of the style with one huge central "stem" holding up the tabletop. Husband, and the rest of his relatives were asked to place their finger-tips of both hands on the table top. His mother told him he must think hard on the words, "Table lift !...Table lift!" He still recalls that he squeezed his eyes closed and concentrated very hard on those words of command.

The table lifted.

Coming from husband, I found this a strange story. He has, and as far as he knew his mother had, no interest whatsoever in such things as spiritualism, the mysteries, psychic phenomena...even astrology (pshaw!)

After typing that, I searched and found a video depicting one such experiment. This one was conducted by a professional magician. A few commenters on this video have the trick solved, it appears. If a similar thing had happened in the case of husband's childhood experience, he must have had a magician and assistant among his relatives!

I have no such tabular experience to relate, though I've always had an interest in mysteries of all kinds.

Excerpt from a June 2008 post:

In my younger years, in the UK, I experimented with spiritualism, attended several different spiritualist churches and meetings. I was moderately interested in it all, but not sufficiently so to continue the experiment for more than a year or two. I do understand its attraction, but it just wasn't right for me. One side of me was drawn to it while the other side remained too doubtful to accept it.

I remember an occasion, when working in a previously unvisited part of the UK, I sought out a spiritualist church, attended an evening meeting. Several of the congregation eyed me with suspicion, making me feel decidedly uncomfortable. After the meeting members approached me and asked if I was representing some monitoring or "watchdog" body from a governing association. I immediately set them straight. The incident did bring home to me how insecure the people felt. I doubt that established traditional churches have watchdogs monitoring their proceedings. It's an example of how people who follow ideas and beliefs outside the mainstream can feel vulnerable. I guess this kind of thing can happen to professional astrologers too.

And, from 2012, which was part of a re-posted item from 2007
(blogs have cycles too!):

Any evidence to prove to me that certain areas of mystery, such as clairvoyance, using crystal ball, tarot, spirit world, etc. have actual validity, has been scant, but there have been a few scattered experiences of that nature - albeit spanning a very long period. These have been just sufficient that I can't quite close the door, and my mind, on the idea that there is something mysterious going on, other than human wishful thinking and vivid imaginations. For instance, I can find no logical explanation for any of these:

1 ~~~ A tarot reader, who was probably also a medium in the 1960s, in Devonshire, UK, told me that someone was speaking to her, and that he had a peculiar way of using the expression "it was real" in his conversation (meaning that something was very good). I immediately recognised this person. He wasn't anyone close, simply an acquaintance, but his idiosyncratic way of using the word "real" always used to amuse me. He had died in a car accident some years before. I hadn't even thought about this person much, but was very surprised to recognise him immediately from the reader's description.

2 ~~~ Many years ago (1970s), I persuaded my late partner to accompany me to a spirtualist meeting. The speaker there pointed to him during the meeting and said, "Do you know Peter, wearing RAF uniform?" He gasped, "Yes". "Well, he is saluting you", the speaker said. I knew already that my late partner had had a close friend called Peter, in his youth, during WW2, in the Royal Airforce. Their plane was shot down over France and they escaped together. Sadly, Peter's wife had been unfaithful while he was away in the forces, and he commited suicide just after the war ended.

3 ~~~ Many Moons ago, when I was still a young teenager, a fortune-teller told my mother that I would marry someone "from over the sea, and end my days abroad". That wouldn't sound too unusual nowadays, but in the 1950s before air travel was common, computers still unheard of, it was extraordinary! Anyway, the prediction has been vindicated three times. The second time wasn't a marriage, but a 33 year relationship. # 1 husband was from Italy. # 2 from Northern Ireland. # 3 current husband is American. And here I am, ending my days abroad (hopefully not too quickly). I'm pretty sure that this wasn't what's known as "a self-fulfilling prophecy". I did harbour thoughts of retiring to Spain, which might have been seen as such, I guess. I never could have envisioned what actually did happen!

4 ~~~ A fortune teller told me, back in 1973 or thereabouts, that there would be 3 men in my life. I was already aware of two - an ex-husband and a current partner. This prediction worried me for a long time. I took it as a sign that I'd somehow lose my partner. I did, but not for another 30 years! Then # 3 appeared.

Nature, at times leaves footprints of its inverted sense of humor leaving only hope to laugh at its mysterious humor.
~ Rangam Thoitak Chiru

NOTE ~~~ Our air conditioning system bit the dust yesterday - hottest day of the year too: 100* and likely to stay that way for at least 2 or 3 more days! Posts could be intermittent for a while, until we can get system replaced (Yikes!) We will probably de-camp to a motel shortly, my northern blood protests too much, can't think straight! Perhaps we'll take a wee trip while husband's A/C expert son does the necessary for us. Haven't decided yet where or when. We'll have a laptop with us, so maybe I'll scribble something here and there.