All Paranormal Games That You Should Not Play

Light As A Feather

On Oct. 12, Hulu will deliver another entry into the TV horror genre with Light as a Feather, based on Zoe Aarsen’s Wattpad story of the same name. The show centers around a group of teen girls who play the “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board” game at a cemetery. Not long after, a curse takes down the group, one by one, as each girl dies according to whatever was read in her prediction.

“Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board” is a game commonly played by young people (usually teenage girls) at slumber parties. The game usually involves a group of people lifting one single person using just their fingers while the person’s cause of death is read aloud (or simply the phrase, “she is dead”) before repeating the words, “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board.” At some point, the person in the middle will levitate.

As British naval administrator and Member of Parliament Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary from his days of youth in the 1600s, a friend of his witnessed four little girls playing the levitation game in Bourdeaux. Pepys’ diary includes accounts of the coronation of Charles II, the Great Plague of 1665, and his day-to-day in London.

He saw four little girls, very young ones, all kneeling, each of them, upon one knee; and one begun the first line, whispering in the ear of the next, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and she to the first. Then the first begun the second line, and so round quite through, and, putting each one finger only to a boy that lay flat upon his back on the ground, as if he was dead; at the end of the words, they did with their four fingers raise this boy as high as they could reach…

He saw four little girls, very young ones, all kneeling, each of them, upon one knee; and one begun the first line, whispering in the ear of the next, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and she to the first. Then the first begun the second line, and so round quite through, and, putting each one finger only to a boy that lay flat upon his back on the ground, as if he was dead; at the end of the words, they did with their four fingers raise this boy as high as they could reach…

HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY DO IT?

With a small group of friends (four to six people is great), have one of you lay flat in the middle. Once everyone’s got their giggles out of the way, have the person in the middle cross arms while everyone else slides two fingers from each hand under the body. Then start the chanting:

“She’s ill” (or “She’s looking ill”) x3

“She’s looking worse” –x3

“She’s dying” –x3

“Light as a feather, stiff as a board” – as many times as you want until the person is lifted