The spiritualists and religious communities tend to interpret mystical levitation as the result of supernatural action of tuning in to the Holy Spirit, spiritual energy, a deity, or sometimes from the influence of a poltergeist. Levitation is an aspect of psychokinesis. Yogic masters claim that mystical levitation can occur as a siddhi during higher levels of consciousness, such as mystical rapture, euphoria, or astral projection.

However, the scientific and empiricist communities traditionally attribute such incidents to trickery, illusion, auto-suggestion, and unseen natural causes.

However, on the side of the yogi's, Yogi Subbayah Pullavar, was reported to have levitated into the air for four minutes in front of a crowd of 150 witnesses, June 6, 1936. He was seen suspended horizontally several feet above the ground, in a trance, lightly resting his hand on top of a cloth covered stick. Pullavar's arms and legs could not be bent from their locked position once on the ground.

Shirdi Sai Baba an Indian yogi is described in the Sri Sai Satcharitra to have mastered the art of levitation while sleeping.

The Transcendental Meditation movement claims that practitioners of the TM-Siddhi program of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi achieve what they call "Yogic Flying". They say that there are three stages on Yogic Flying - hopping, floating, and flying - and that they have so far achieved just the first stage. Transcendental meditation groups have held annual "Yogic Flying Contests" to see who could hop the farthest or the fastest. Proponents say the hopping occurs spontaneously with no effort while skeptics say they appear to bouncing in the lotus position with the use of their thighs, and no actual levitation has occurred.

At the Tantric News, we don't have a dog in the fight. We just believe that careful scientific principles must be used to investigate such phenomena. For example, some physicists think that levitation, if it is the case that the phenomenon could be scientifically confirmed as a real occurrence, could be the result of the mind "tapping into" the quantum vacuum zero point energy in an altered state of consciousness. [As reported by Bob Toben, in conversation with physicists Jack Sarfatti and Fred Alan Wolf. Reference: Space-Time and Beyond, Page 81 and pages 125-159.]

Here's a great video that debunks levitation by fake fakirs: