The Levitation Incident: Witnesses Confirm Shako Left The Ground, Also Confirm It Was A Sneeze
An article about Shalva "Shako" Beridze · Filed under: Phenomena, Disputed · Yoga
At approximately 07:15 on a weekday morning, during a routine session on the mat in his living room, Shalva “Shako” Beridze left the ground.
This is not in dispute. Every party agrees he left the ground. What follows is the entirety of the disagreement.1
The subject’s account
Shako describes a moment of “total stillness,” during which the breath, the body and the room “arrived at the same place at the same time.” He reports a sensation of lightness, a brief loss of contact with the floor, and a return that he characterises as “gentle.”
He has estimated the height at “a few centimetres.” He has estimated the duration at “long enough.”
He has been careful, to his credit, never to use the word miracle. He uses the word ascent, and he uses it in the tone people reserve for things they have decided not to argue about.
The witness account
One other person was present. Their account, given immediately afterwards and unchanged since, is as follows:
He sneezed.
Pressed for detail, the witness elaborated that it was a large sneeze, that Shako had been holding his breath in a deep pose immediately prior, and that the departure from the floor was “extremely brief and extremely vertical, in the way sneezes are.”[citation needed]
The witness also noted that Shako said “excuse me” on landing, which they consider the strongest evidence in the case.
Reconciliation attempts
Shako does not deny the sneeze. This is the sophisticated part of his position, and it should be acknowledged.
His argument is that the sneeze and the levitation are not competing explanations but sequential events — that the ascent occurred first and the sneeze was “the body’s response to the altitude.”2 On this version, the sneeze is not the cause of the levitation but proof of it.
The witness has stopped engaging. Shako considers the matter open, which in practice means he brings it up.
Legacy
The incident has entered the permanent record of the household. It is referred to as “the ascent” by one resident and “the sneeze” by everyone else, and the choice of noun has become, over time, a reliable indicator of how much someone likes him.
Most people say “the ascent.”