Enchanting Table

An enchantment table is a block that allows players to spend their experience point levels to enchant tools, books and armor.

Obtaining
Enchantment tables can be mined using any pickaxe. If mined without a pickaxe, it will drop nothing.

Usage
The enchantment table is $3/4$ blocks high. Players can walk off its edge when sneaking on it.

They cannot be moved by pistons. If an enchantment table is placed on ice, the player will slide on it as though it is an ice block, just like slabs.

Enchanting


The enchanting table's main purpose is to enchant items. Bookshelves surrounding the table, with a block of air in between, will increase the maximum enchantment level. The table will enchant all tools and armor except the hoe, shears, flint and steel, lead and horse armor. The hoe and shears cannot be enchanted by the enchantment table and require an anvil and an appropriate enchanted book.

Standard Galactic Alphabet
The arcane glyphs that float from bookshelves to the enchanting table and the cryptic runes in the enchantment table's interface are written in the Standard Galactic Alphabet, which is a simple alphabet substitution cipher used in the Commander Keen series of computer games.



The runes are randomly constructed from the following list of words:

the elder scrolls klaatu berata niktu xyzzy bless curse light darkness fire air earth water hot dry cold wet ignite snuff embiggen twist shorten stretch fiddle destroy imbue galvanize enchant free limited range of towards inside sphere cube self other ball mental physical grow shrink demon elemental spirit animal creature beast humanoid undead fresh stale

Three to five words are chosen from the list and appended to each other, then displayed in the Standard Galactic Alphabet. The words chosen are random and are purely cosmetic: they have no relation to the enchantments that will be applied to the item and are not saved on the enchanted item (meaning they will tell you nothing about what the resulting spell will be), and they are only displayed in the enchantment table. They are just decoration for a choice among random enchantments, for each of which only the cost and one of the enchantments is known.

Data values
Enchantment tables have the ID name, and a data value of 116.

Video
Note: This video is outdated, as the enchanting process has been changed since 1.8.

Trivia

 * The enchantment table actually produces the particles emitted from the bookshelves. These particles originate inside the Enchantment table and are relocated to the bookshelf almost immediately, but travel slow enough to be briefly visible. The particle that enters and leaves the bookshelf is always the same "letter", but the ones traveling into the bookshelves are black.
 * Enchantment tables are mostly made of obsidian, and thus have a blast resistance of 6,000 and cannot be destroyed by TNT.
 * Enchanting tables are midway between slabs and full blocks height-wise, so they could be potentially used as a TNT cannon's range-amplifier instead of slabs or trapdoors
 * When you place a light block (such as glowstone or a lit redstone lamp) and place an enchantment table on it, the light stays.
 * When the player is invisible, the enchantment table can still "see" the player and open up.
 * The phrase "klaatu berata niktu" is a reference to the 1951 movie The Day The Earth Stood Still.