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Charles Hoy Fort (6 August, 1874 - 3 May, 1932) was an American writer and researcher into anomalous phenomena. (According to some sources he was born on 9 August.)

Jerome Clark writes that Fort was "Essentially a satirist hugely skeptical of human beings' — especially scientists' — claims to ultimate knowledge". (Clark 2000, 123) He describes Fort's writing style as a "distinctive blend of mocking humor, penetrating insight, and calculated outrageousness". (Clark 1998, 200)

Fort's books sold well, and remain in print. The term Forteana or Fortean is sometimes used to describe various anomalous phenomena.

Biography

Charles Hoy Fort was born in 1874 in Albany, New York, of Dutch ancestry. His grocer father was something of an authoritarian: Many Parts, Fort's unpublished autobiography, relates several instances of harsh treatment — including physical abuse — by his father. Some have suggested that Fort's distrust of authority has its roots in his father's treatment. In any case, Fort developed a strong sense of independence in his youth.

While still rather young, Fort was a budding naturalist who would collect sea shells, minerals, and birds. Curious and intelligent, the young Fort did not excel at school, though he was quite a wit and full of knowledge about the world — yet this was only a world he had read of.

So, at the age of 18, Fort left New York on a world tour to "put some capital in the bank of experience". He travelled through the western United States, Scotland, and England, until finally falling ill in South Africa. Returning home, he was nursed by Anna Filing, a girl he had known from his childhood. They were later married on 26 October, 1896. Anna was four years younger than Charles, and was non-literary, a lover of films and of parakeets. She later moved with her husband to London where they would go to the cinema when Charles wasn't busy with his research. His success as a short story writer was intermittent between periods of terrible poverty and depression.

Fort wrote ten novels, though only one, The Outcast Manufacturers (1906), was published — critics said it was ahead of its time but it was commercially unsuccessful. In 1915, Fort began to write two books, entitled X and Y, the first dealing with the idea that beings on Mars were controlling events on Earth, and the second with the postulation of a sinister civilization extant at the South Pole. These books caught the attention of writer Theodore Dreiser, who attempted to get them published, but to no avail. Disheartened by this failure, Fort burnt the manuscripts, but was soon renewed to begin work on the book that would change the course of his life, The Book of the Damned. The title referred to "damned data" that Fort collected, phenomena for which science could not account and was thus rejected or ignored.

Fort's experience as a journalist coupled with a contrarian nature prepared him for his real-life work, mocking the pretensions of scientific positivism and the tendency of journalists and editors of newspapers and scientific journals to rationalise the scientifically incorrect.

Fort and the unexplained

Fort's relationship with the study of anomalous phenomena is frequently misunderstood and misrepresented. For over thirty years, Charles Fort sat in the libraries of New York and London, assiduously reading scientific journals, newspapers, and magazines, collecting notes on phenomena that lay outside the accepted theories and beliefs of the time.

Examples of these phenomena include many of what are variously referred to as occult, supernatural, and paranormal — for instance, teleportation (a term Fort is generally credited with coining), poltergeist events, falls of frogs, fishes, inorganic materials of an amazing range, crop circles, unaccountable noises and explosions, spontaneous fires, levitation, mysterious appearances and disappearances, giant wheels of light in the oceans, and animals found outside their normal ranges (see phantom cat). He offered many reports of OOPArts or "out of place" artifacts: strange items found in unlikely locations. He also is perhaps the first person to explain strange human appearances and disappearances by the hypothesis of alien abduction, and was an early proponent of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Many of these phenomena are now collectively and conveniently referred to as 'Fortean' phenomena (or 'Forteana'), whilst others have developed into their own schools of thought, for example, UFOs into ufology, or the reports of unconfirmed animals classified as cryptozoology.

Fort in his lifetime must have taken tens of thousands of notes — he is said to have compiled as many as 40,000 notes, though there were no doubt many more than this. The notes were kept on cards in shoeboxes. They were taken on small squares of paper, in a cramped shorthand of Fort's own invention, and some of them survive today in the collections of the University of Pennsylvania. More than once, depressed and discouraged, Fort destroyed his work, but always began again. Some of the notes were published, little by little, by the Fortean Society until its dissolution.

From these researches Fort wrote seven books, though only four survive. These are: The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932); one book was written between New Lands and Lo! but it was abandoned and absorbed into Lo!. Understanding Fort's books takes time and effort: his style is complex, violent and poetic, satirical and subtle, profound and occasionally puzzling. Ideas are abandoned and then recalled a few pages on; examples and data are offered, compared and contrasted, conclusions made and broken, as Fort holds up the unorthodox to the scrutiny of the orthodoxy that continually fails to account for them. Pressing on his attacks, Fort shows the ridiculousness of the conventional explanations and then interjects with his own theories.

Fort suggests that there is, for example, a Super-Sargasso Sea into which all lost things go — and justifies his theories by noting that they fit the data as well as the conventional explanations. As to whether Fort believes this theory, or any of his other proposals, he gives us the answer: "I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written." (In other words, facts are underdetermined: for any given collection of facts, more than one theory will explain them adequately... this is widely accepted now, but was extremely controversial at the time Fort was writing.)

In the face of these examples, some skeptics and critics have frequently called Fort credulous and naïve, a charge his supporters deny strongly. Over and over again in his writing, Fort rams home a few basic points that are frequently forgotten in discussions of the definition of science: the boundaries between science and pseudoscience are 'fuzzy', not very well defined, they might change over time, and there is a strong sociological influence on what is considered 'acceptable' or 'damned' (see strong program in the sociology of scientific knowledge). Similarly, writer John Michell notes that "Fort gave several humorous instances of the same experiment yielding two different results, each one gratifying the experimenter." * Fort noted that if controlled experiments — a pillar of the scientific method — could produce such widely varying results depending on who conducted them, then the scientific method itself might be open to doubt, or at least to a degree scrutiny rarely brought to bear. Fort also points out that whereas facts are objective, how facts are interpreted depends on who is doing the interpreting and in what context.

There are many phenomena in Fort's works which have now been partially or entirely "recuperated" by mainstream science, but many of Fort's ideas are on the very borderlines of science, or beyond, in the fields of paranormalism and the bizarre. Fort resolutely refused to abandon the territory between science and the absurd. Among Fort's contributions to the thought of the 20th century was the invention of the word "teleportation" to denote the strange disappearances and appearances of anomalies, which, tongue-in-cheek, he suggested may be connected.

Many consider it odd that Fort, a man so skeptical and so willing to question the pronouncements of the scientific mainstream, would be so eager to take old stories — for example, stories about rains of fish falling from the sky — at face value. Fort remarked "I offer the data. Suit yourself." The theories and conclusions Fort presented often came from the same sources as those of what Fort called "the orthodox conventionality of Science". Fort's works have — on nearly every page — reports of odd events which were originally printed in respected mainstream scientific journals or newspapers such as Scientific American, The Times, Nature and Science. Time and again, Fort noted, that while some phenomena related in these and other sources were all but enshrined by science, just as often, inexplicable or unusual reports were ignored, or were effectively swept under the rug. And repeatedly, Fort reclaimed such events from under the rug, and brought them out, as he wrote, "for an airing".

It did not matter to Fort whether his data and theories were accurate: his point was that alternative conclusions and world views can be made from the same data "orthodox" conclusions are made, and that the conventional explanations of science are only one of a range of explanations, none necessarily more justified than another. In this respect, he was far ahead of his time. In The Book of the Damned he showed the influence of social values and what would now be called a "paradigm" on what scientists consider to be "true". This prefigured work by Thomas Kuhn years later. In a similar way the anarchic "anything goes" approach to science of Paul Feyerabend is similar to Fort's.

Another of Fort's great contribution is to the humor of science. Although many of the phenomena which science rejected in his day have since been proven to be objective phenomena, and although Fort was prescient in his collection and preservation of these data despite the scorn they received from his contemporaries, Fort was more of a parodist and a humorist than a scientist. He thought that far too often, scientists took themselves far too seriously, and were prone to arrogance and dogmatism. Fort used humor both for its own sake, and to point out what he regarded as the foibles of science and scientists.

Nonetheless, Fort is considered by many as the father of modern paranormalism, not only because of his interest in strange phenomena, but because of his "modern" attitude towards religion, 19th century spiritualism, and scientific dogma.

Fort's collected works are published by Dover Books and individual volumes are available in recent editions.

Fort's work of compilation and commentary on anomalous phenomena reported in scientific journals and press has been carried on very creditably by William R. Corliss, whose self-published books and notes bring Fort's collections up-to-date with a Fortean combination of humor, seriousness and open-mindedness. Mr. Corliss' notes rival those of Fort in volume, while being significantly less cryptic and abbreviated.

Followers and fans of Fort

Fort's work has inspired very many to consider themselves as Forteans. The first of these was the screenwriter Ben Hecht, who in a review of The Book of the Damned declared "I am the first disciple of Charles Fort... henceforth, I am a Fortean". Among Fort's other notable fans were John Cowper Powys, Sherwood Anderson, Clarence Darrow, and Booth Tarkington, who wrote the foreword to New Lands.

Precisely what is encompassed by 'Fortean' is a matter of great debate; the term is widely applied from every position from a Fortean purists dedicated to Fort's methods and interests, to those with open and active acceptance of the actuality of paranormal phenomena, a position Fort would not at all have agreed with. Most generally, Forteans have a wide interest in unexplained phenomena in wide-ranging fields, mostly concerned with the natural world, and have a developed 'agnostic scepticism' regarding the anomalies they note and discuss. For Mr. Hecht as an example, being a Fortean meant hallowing a pronounced distrust of authority in all its forms, whether religious, scientific, political, philosophical or otherwise. It did not, of course, include an actual belief in the magical matters enumerated in Fort's works.

The Fortean Society was founded in Fort's lifetime by his friends, and led by fellow writer Tiffany Thayer, half in earnest and half in jest, like the work of Fort himself. Fort, however, rejected the society and refused presidency; he was lured to its inaugural meeting by false telegrams. As a strict non-authoritarian, Fort refused to establish himself as an authority, and further objected on the grounds that those who would be attracted by such a grouping would be spiritualists, zealots, and those opposed to a science that rejected them; it would attract those who believed in their chosen phenomena: an attitude exactly contrary to Forteanism. It is ironic, then, that many such Fortean groups have been established.

Most notable of these is the magazine, Fortean Times (first published in November 1973), which is a proponent of Fortean journalism, combining humour, scepticism, and serious research into subjects which scientists and other respectable authorities often disdain. There is also an International Fortean Organisation (INFO) and other Fortean societies, notably in Edinburgh and the Isle of Wight.

Several modern authors, such as Loren Coleman who has written about the influence of Fort in his Mysterious America, are sincere followers of Fort. Jerome Clark has described himself as a "skeptical Fortean." Mike Dash is another capable Fortean, bringing his historian's training to bear on all manner of odd reports, while being careful to avoid uncritically accepting any orthodoxy, be it mainstream science's or that of fringe devotees. Robert Anton Wilson's work is heavily influenced by Fort, especially The New Inquisition (1986). More recently, dark-fantasy author and paleontologist Caitlin R. Kiernan has often included Fortean elements and quotations in her novels and short stories, and her most recent short fiction collection was titled To Charles Fort, With Love (Subterranean Press, 2005). She has also published a chapbook titled The Little Damned Book of Days (Subterranean Press, 2005) which chronicles some of her own Fortean experiences.

Paul Thomas Anderson, the director and writer of the critically acclaimed film Magnolia was a large fan of Fort and many aspects of the film were inspired by his books. The noted UK paranormalist, Fortean and ordained priest Lionel Fanthorpe presented the Fortean TV series on Channel 4.

The 2003 children's book Chasing Vermeer by Blue Baillett makes heavy reference to Fort's work Lo! as the main characters struggle to make sense out of coincidences in their lives having to do with an art theft.

Quotations

  • "Now there are so many scientists who believe in dowsing, that the suspicion comes to me that it may be only a myth after all".
  • "One measures a circle, beginning anywhere".
  • "My own notion is that it is very unsportsmanlike to ever mention fraud. Accept anything. Then explain it your way".
  • "But my liveliest interest is not so much in things, as in relations of things. I have spent much time thinking about the alleged pseudo-relations that are called coincidences. What if some of them should not be coincidence?"
  • "If any spiritualistic medium can do stunts, there is no more need for special conditions than there is for a chemist to turn down lights, start operations with a hymn, and ask whether there's any chemical present that has affinity with something named Hydrogen".
  • "The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property".

Often attributed to Fort, but not findable in his books or letters, is:

  • "If there is a universal mind, must it be sane?"

See also

Partial bibliography

All of Fort's works are available on-line. See "External links."

References

There are very few books written about Fort. His life and work has been almost completely overlooked by mainstream academia and the books written are mainly biographical expositions relating Fort's life and ideas.

There has been more recent interest in Fort:

  • Jerome Clark, "The Extraterrestrial Hypothesis in the Early UFO Age" (pp. 122-140 in UFOs and Abductions: Challenging the Borders of Knowledge, David M. Jacobs, editor; University Press of Kansas, 2000; ISBN 0700610324)
  • Jerome Clark; ''The UFO Book"; 1998, Visible Ink
  • Kaplan, Louis, The Damned Universe of Charles Fort, Semiotexte, 1995, 156 pages, ISBN 0936756527.

The latter two books, by Bennett and Kaplan, are not worth reading: Bennett's is so idiosyncratic as to be unrecognisable as anything resembling Fort, and Kaplan's book is a collection of extended quotations, with unprofitably brief and unhelpful 'introductions'.

Although an unlikely superhero Fort has starred in two comics:

External links

The following online editions are on Resologist.net, the site of a Fortean named Mr. X. Each has been edited and annotated by Mr. X.

1874 births | 1932 deaths | Paranormal phenomena | Forteana | Fortean writers | People from Albany, New York

Forteano | Charles Hoy Fort | Charles Fort | Charles Fort | Форт, Чарльз Гой

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Charles Fort".

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