A BOOK REPORT ON CHARLES FORT

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The four published books about the paranormal, written by Charles Fort, are: THE BOOK OF THE DAMNED, NEW LANDS, LO!, and WILD TALENTS. He is not some boiled-shirt Victorian, although sometimes he can be suffocatingly overwrought. In his writings he is time and again quite humorous; he is a master of the "gotcha". Please feel free to laugh out loud!

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To rephrase his ideas in my own words: The key word for Fort is "continuity". Fort says that "scientists" tend to become too comfortable with their ideas of what constitutes what is normal and real (a universally accepted concept -- dogma -- of a continuum of events that is written up in scholarly textbooks). Opposed to their tidy dogma is the paranormal (continually occurring events that don't fit into the scheme of things as enshrined in scholarly textbooks, and either "described away" or ignored altogether).

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All of the books are wonderfully chock full of documented reports of paranormal occurrences that have been ignored by scientists. Here you will find "poltergeist girls", non-textbook interpretations of the teachings of Newton and Einstein, hypothetical fishmongers, UFOs, falls of small frogs and rocks from the sky, vanishing crews of ships and aircraft, tiny women in music halls who lift incredible weights, and often smelly, red sandy "stuff" that probably did not originate in the Sahara Desert.

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Addendum: I have added a scan of a 1932 crayon sketch of Fort to the photos section of this website.

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FOOTNOTE: "I THINK WE'RE PROPERTY"

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In the portmanteau collection of all four books named above, published by Penguin, mostly on page 163 and the top of page 164, that is where you will discover the entire text from which is drawn Fort's most often-quoted pronouncement: "I think we're property. I should say we belong to something." Further down page 163, is this comment: "Pigs, geese, and cattle. First find out that they are owned. Then find out the whyness of it."

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"...All this has been known, perhaps for ages, to certain ones upon this earth, a cult or order, members of which function like bellwethers to the rest of us, or as superior slaves or overseers, directing us in accordance with instructions received -- from Somewhere else -- in our mysterious usefulness."

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Is this unnerving? Yes. Can and/or should we humans do something about it? Very definitely. Fort implies that we have been the fools of this Somewhere else long enough. Humankind has a right to its individuality and freedom from outside control. How are humans to break the kinds of chains that we cannot see that surround us? Who will make the first step? What will it be? Not to sound like a totally ga-ga person with lots of questions (which I am about many things), but I have learned many answers by following the postings here at P&M. Now, if I can just get up the "oomph" to get something started...