lift the person sitting in the chair; doing the rest of the ritual as so, but holding at the four main points of the body (under the knees on each side and under the shoulders). Explanation of the trick The key to the trick is timing: each of the lifters must apply the lifting force at the same moment. When this is done, the weight of the subject is divided equally between each lifter, requiring each person to contribute only of lift, to raise a person. If the trick is performed without synchronising the lift, it will fail: as participants attempt to lift at slightly different times, they are instead performing a series of lifts by smaller groups, resulting in a much heavier weight per person. This fact may be used as a deliberate form of misdirection from the person explaining the trick, first asking the group to "go ahead, try to lift" to show that it cannot be done, and then asking them to try again on the count of three, where it succeeds. Some people who remember performing the trick as a child will have exaggerated their memory of the effect, recalling the performance as lifting the subject high into the air for some time, when in reality they would only have lifted them for a moment. History The oldest known account of levitation play comes from the diary of Samuel Pepys (1633–1703), a British naval administrator. Pepys’s account of levitation play comes from a conversation with a friend of his, Mr. Brisband, who claimed to have seen four little girls playing light as a feather, stiff as a board in Bordeaux, France. Pepys’s account of Mr. Brisband’s experience reads: Pepys also spoke of the chant that accompanied this performance. The next recording of the game being played comes from The Magician’s Own Book (1857). This account differs from that of Pepys, as it is a direct account of the game being played. Also, this account focuses on a different version of the game than the version played by the girls in Samuel Pepys’ account. In this account, the heaviest man at a party in Venice, Italy, sits in a chair, and is unable to be lifted by six other persons, initially. However, after coordinated hand-clapping and synchronized inhalations and exhalations, the man in the chair is able to be lifted on the forefingers of the six lifters.