Table Tipping, Tapping, and Rapping


Table tipping can be either totally boring if nothing happens or a rollicking good séance with the table vibrating, tapping, tipping, and jiggling all over the place. I have had personal experience. The first one, and most memorable, was one that both my husband and I attended. Through my association with a Seth group in Berkeley, California, we were invited to attend a table tipping years ago. 

Between 15 and 20 people gathered around four card tables. My memory is fuzzy, and there might have been five tables. I know the room was absolutely crowded with people. Technically, I suppose, you’d need four people per table, but we all jammed in willy-nilly. I remember at our table, folks were hanging off the corners once the energy got moving. (Somebody just said to me, “Spooks, Dear. Not energy. Spooks.) Oh, well. Like I have said before, Spirit can also be very humorous.

The people hosting the table tipping that evening had us put our hands flat on the surface of the table and “get in the mood”. How to get in the mood? Well, I sought a semi-meditative state. I wasn’t able to go full-meditative just because there were so many people around, but I sought something other than normal. I reached for the light. This is something you do as a psychic when you are trying to access the best and highest part of Spirit that is available. I don't know if it really works, but it was what I was taught, and I've pretty much done it anytime I wanted to talk to Spirit.

I remember someone starting to chant “Om,” and we all joined in. That did help to raise the vibrations in the room. I suppose, in hindsight, that’s what we were seeking. Raise the vibrations. What does that mean? Still, it is a mystery to me, though, at times I’ve felt “different”. Could it be I’d raised them without really knowing what I was doing? The guides say yes. They have said to us that a child learns to walk without knowing what the mechanics are in the actual locomotive process. So, we raised the vibrations. These days, I will sometimes use a Tibetan singing bowl to help me with changing and raising my vibrations. Other times I listen to music.

It took about 10 minutes for “things” to start happening. Which isn’t bad considering I’ve spent much longer at it by myself with subsequent attempts at tipping that never resulted in anything of note. Anyway, it was about 10 minutes. The first thing that began to happen (with eyes closed and concentrating on raising vibrations, attaining an other-than-normal state of mind and chanting Om) was that I felt and then began to hear sharp knocks coming from the underside of the table directly beneath my hands. That was wild because I’d never heard of table tapping before I attended that evening.

We were there for a table tipping, and something different was happening. So, a series of pretty sharp knocks; we’re not talking milk toast knocks, we’re talking loud knocks that you can both hear and feel. The table began to feel mushy under my hands. I still had my eyes closed, but the surface of the table felt like Jell-O to me. And, not even firmly set jello. Just the real mushy stage where you’re going to want to mix in your bananas and nuts. 

Fascinated, I began to wiggle my fingers. They felt like they were smooshing in and out of the table. I have no idea what things actually looked like because my eyes were closed. Also, the lighting in the room was rather dim, coming from a number of candles set about to create an ambiance. Then, as the minutes passed, the table began to vibrate, which was also very cool. But the most exciting part was yet to come.


You’re talking to the world’s greatest skeptic. I like to pride myself on being firmly rooted in reality. Which, as I learned to become a channel, really pushed the envelope. Well, so did my first table tipping. And now? Well, reality is a broader thing for me these days. As the minutes passed and it appeared we were getting some spirit action going on at the table, our “leader,” the person who had both invited us to attend and was in charge at our table, started saying in a loud and firm voice, “Table Up!” He said this over and over again. We took up the chant. I thought the chanting seemed like a rude thing to be saying to Folk in Spirit. The way I figured it, if they were going to tip the table, they were going to tip the table, and no amount of cheering was going to move the process farther along. I may have been wrong.

The first odd thing that happened was that the corner of our table lifted off the ground just a little bit. By then, my eyes were open. It might have been an inch, just a little bit. We almost weren’t sure anything had happened. Chanting continued, and the same corner lifted off the ground again. From there, it was a walk in the park because the other corners began to lift off the ground. The lifting got higher and faster. 

I remember the table really rocked. The action got so lively that we could no longer remain sitting. Also, we’d taken off our shoes to get comfortable, and our toes were in danger of getting smashed. So, we all wanted to move away, but we thought we had to keep our hands touching the surface of the table. As we were forced to stand back because of the motion of the table, many of us had to take one hand off the table, and that did not seem to impede the action.

None of us was pushing, pulling, or moving any of those tables around. There were just too many people. It was almost pandemonium with folks giggling, hooting, and laughing at what we were witnessing. We had tried to be serious enough to have a conversation with Spirit. We laid some ground rules with Spirit for communicating with us, essentially stating that when one corner raises, it means ‘Yes’ and when the opposite corner raises, it means ‘No’.’ But things just moved along too fast. Someone also said that you could set up a system where the alphabet might be spelled out either with raps (one rap means A, two raps mean B, etc.) or with the movement of the table, but we never got that far. It just all dissolved too quickly into a rollicking good table-tipping.

I’ve never come close to experiencing what we saw that night again. I’ve tried, though, but my husband and neighbor only had so much patience to spend with Pauline on a table tipping. Somehow, it just gets spoiled as they laugh at my feeble attempts to get Spirit to tip a table. Hey, you’d figure that I can channel up a storm, why can’t I get some of the Folks in Spirit I talk to, to tip a table or two? My take on it these days is that I’m not running enough psychic energy. There must have been some folks well-grounded in meditation practices and psi stuff to really get the energy of the group moving. So, something for me to work on.

There are various ways to connect with Spirit and multiple ways to communicate. Table tipping is a decidedly fun way. It is also a physical manifestation of the ability to talk to Spirit. Normally, my channeling occurs telepathically in my mind. Sometimes, I will do verbal channeling where Seth or whoever is speaking just speaks. But a table? Moving around? With no wires or gadgets attached? A stupid card table? Yes, that is impressive.

This is an email I received:

Email Comment: I have done some table tipping with friends. I personally can’t do it on my own. I don’t have the energy. But my best friend and her mother can. And I mean wow. I’ve seen the table move all over the room with just our fingers on the table. I have seen it spin so fast it almost floated off the ground. They don’t even have to sit and wait anymore, once they put their hands on the table. They use the same one for that purpose, and it just starts to lift from one end. I can only sit there in awe when I see it.

My Answer: I’m the same way as you are. I just can’t get it to dance when I’m the only one there. It reminds me exactly of what went on when I was trying to learn to use the Ouija board. The planchette (a plastic arrow pointer) wouldn’t move for six months. Then, it finally moved. My guide and I spent 10 days talking on the board, and then I started channeling, as I do now, in my head. I wonder if you sat there every single afternoon with your hands on a small table, meditating, asking for a guide to move the table, so that it might eventually move? The only thing about table tipping is that it is not a really efficient way to communicate with the other side. The only place I did see huge success, like you and your friend and her mother enjoyed, the people participating in the table tipping “demanded” that the table go, “Up, up,” and I never really thought that was very respectful. However, it worked for them. Anyway, the communication part was an arrangement between the head tipper and our ghostly guest that we would mostly ask, “yes” and “no” questions. If that corner of the table moved up then the answer was “yes” and if the opposite corner moved it would be a “no”.

They also moved easily into table tapping and there were lots of taps going on before the tipping started. They attempted to institute a series of “code” taps to spell out words. The Head Table Tipper Person would start reciting the alphabet and when the appropriate letter was reached our ghost would tap. Except that was really laborious and I eventually plain got lost on the message being tapped out.

I’ve had minimal success working a table with a neighbor. It almost felt goofy to me to say the things that they said during the one table tipping that worked. Now, from what you’ve said, it seems to me that the “script” doesn’t need to be said, and what I felt with the “Up, up” was right. Maybe you don’t have to say those things at all. As we sat quietly with our hands on the table, I moved into a semi-meditative state, and the surface of the table began to feel like Jell-O. It felt to me like I was moving my hands slowly into the jello.

You’ve actually given me hope that I might do this on my own someday. Sometimes, as with folk who want to learn how to channel, it’s the small realizations that are all they need for the larger breakthroughs to happen.

Note about this page. I don't know how old this page is. I found a reference to table tipping I'd written back in 2008, but I believe this story began soon after I learned how to channel in 1993. I am hoping this is the last time I'll need to move this page around and that Talking to Spirit has found its forever home at Blogger. What I would like to mention is that as of 2025, I still haven't found that I can make a table tip. I purchased the sweetest red, round pedestal table for our porch for the purpose of table tipping. So far, it needs a new paint job, but other than being a catch-all for the things that don't make it into our house, it sits waiting. I will let you know if I ever am able to channel enough energy, if that is what it is going to take to get it to start tipping.

Oh, and manifesting physical energy? I've heard of Shamans doing it creating windstorms in closed rooms. I practice Reiki and have felt the heat coming off the palms of my hands. I've heard of old Chinese grandmothers balling up energy in QiGong to hurl off into the audience. So, yes, manifesting energy is a thing.

Thank you for reading.

🌺 Pauline Evanosky 🌺





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