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BOOK OF THE DAMNED
By Charles Fort
CHAPTER: 01,
02, 03,
04, 05,
06, 07,
08, 09,
10, 11,
12, 13,
14, 15,
16, 17,
18, 19,
20, 21,
22, 23,
24, 25,
26, 27,
28
I SHALL attempt not much of correlation of dates. A
mathematic-minded positivist, with his delusion that in an intermediate state
twice two are four, whereas, if we accept Continuity, we can not accept that
these are anywhere two things to start with, would search our data for
periodicities. It is so obvious to me that the mathematic, or the regular, is
the attribute of the Universal, that I have not much inclination to look for it
in the local. Still, in this solar system, "as a whole," there is
considerable approximation to regularity; or the mathematic is so nearly
localized that eclipses, for instance, can, with rather high approximation, be
foretold, though I have notes that would deflate a little the astronomers'
vainglory in this respect -- or would if that were possible. An astronomer is
poorly paid, uncheered by crowds, considerably isolated: he lives upon his own
inflations: deflate a bear and it couldn't hibernate. This solar system is like
every other phenomenon that can be regarded "as a whole" -- or the
affairs of a ward are interfered with by the affairs of the city of which it is
a part; city by county; county by state; state by nation; nation by other
nations; all nations by climatic conditions; climatic conditions by solar
circumstances; sun by general planetary circumstances; solar system "as a
whole" by other solar systems -- so the hopelessness of finding the phenomena
of entirety in the ward of a city. But positivists are those who try to find the
unrelated in the ward of a city. In our acceptance this is the spirit of cosmic
religion. Objectively the state is not realizable in the ward of a city. But, if
a positivist could bring himself to absolute belief that he had found it, that
would be a subjective realization of that which is unrealizable objectively. Of
course we do not draw a positive line between the objective and subjective -- or
that all phenomena called things or persons are subjective within one
all-inclusive nexus, and that thoughts within those that are commonly called
"persons" are sub-subjective. It is rather as if Intermediateness
strove for Regularity in this solar system and failed: then generated the
mentality of astronomers, and, in that secondary expression, strove for
conviction that failure had been success.
I have tabulated all the data of this book, and a great deal
besides -- card system -- and several proximities, thus emphasized, have been
revelations to me: nevertheless, it is only the method of theologians and
scientists -- worst of all, of statisticians.
For instance, by the statistic method, I could
"prove" that a black rain had fallen "regularly" every seven
months, somewhere upon this earth. To do this, I'd have to include red rains and
yellow rains, but, conventionally, I'd pick out the black particles in red
substances and in yellow substances, and disregard the rest. Then, too, if here
and there, a black rain should be a week early or a month late -- that would be
"acceleration" or "retardation." This is supposed to be
legitimate in working out the periodicities of comets. If black rains, or red or
yellow rains with black particles in them, should not appear at all near some
dates -- we have not read Darwin in vain -- "the records are not
complete." As to other, interfering black rains, they'd be either gray or
brown, or for them we'd find other periodicities.
Still, I have had to notice the year 1819, for instance. I
shall not note them all in this book, but I have records of 31 extraordinary
events in 1883. Someone should write a book upon the phenomena of this one year
-- that is, if books should be written. 1849 is notable for extraordinary
falls, so far apart that a local explanation seems inadequate -- not only the
black rain of Ireland, May, 1849, but a red rain in Sicily and a red rain in
Wales. Also, it is said (Timb's Year Book, 1850-241) that, upon April
18 or 20, 1849, shepherds near Mt. Ararat, found a substance that was not
indigenous, upon areas measuring 5 to 10 miles in circumference. Presumably it
had fallen there.
We have already gone into the subject of Science and its
attempted positiveness, and its resistances in that it must have relations of
service. It is very easy to see that most of the theoretic science of the 19th
century was only a relation of reaction against theologic dogma, and has no more
to do with Truth than has a wave that bounds back from a shore. Or, if a shop
girl, or you or I, should pull out a piece of chewing gum about a yard long,
that would be quite as scientific a performance as was the stretching of this
earth's age several hundred million of years.
All "things" are not things, but only relations, or
expressions of relations: but all relations are striving to be unrelated, or
have surrendered to, and subordinated to, higher attempts. So there is a
positivist aspect to this reaction that is itself only a relation, and that is
the attempt to assimilate all phenomena under the materialist explanation, or to
formulate a final, all-inclusive system, upon the materialist basis. If this
attempt could be realized, that would be the attaining of realness; but this
attempt can be made only by disregarding psychic phenomena, for instance -- or, if
science shall eventually give in to the psychic, it would be no more legitimate
to explain the immaterial in terms of the material, than to explain the material
in terms of the immaterial. Our own acceptance is that material and immaterial
are of a oneness, merging, for instance, in a thought that is continuous with a
physical action: that oneness cannot be explained, because the process of
explaining is the interpreting of something in terms of something else. All
explanation is assimilation of something in terms of something else that has
been taken as a basis: but, in Continuity, there is nothing that is any more
basic than anything else -- unless we think that delusion built upon delusion is
less real than its pseudo-foundation.
In 1829 (Timb's Year Book, 1848-235) in Persia, fell
a substance that the people said they had never seen before. As to what it was,
they had not a notion, but they saw that the sheep ate it. They ground it into
flour and made bread, said to have been passable enough, though insipid.
That was a chance that science did not neglect. Manna was
placed upon a reasonable basis, or was assimilated and reconciled with the
system that had ousted the older -- and less nearly real -- system. It was said
that, likely enough, manna had fallen in ancient times -- because it was still
falling -- but that there was no tutelary influence behind it -- that it was a
lichen from the steppes of Asia Minor -- "up from one place in a whirlwind
and down in another place." In the American Almanac, 1833-71, it
is said that this substance -- "unknown to the inhabitants of the
region" -- was "immediately recognized" by scientists who examined
it: and that "the chemical analysis also identified it as a lichen."
This was back in the days when Chemical Analysis was a god.
Since then his devotees have been shocked and disillusioned. Just how a chemical
analysis could so botanize, I don't know -- but it was Chemical Analysis who
spoke, and spoke dogmatically. It seems to me that the ignorance of inhabitants,
contrasting with the local knowledge of foreign scientists, is overdone: if
there's anything good to eat, within any distance conveniently covered by a
whirlwind -- inhabitants know it. I have data of other falls, in Persia and
Asiatic Turkey, of edible substances. They are all dogmatically [53/54] said to
be "manna"; and "manna" is dogmatically said to be a species
of lichens from the steppes of Asia Minor. The position I take is that this
explanation was evolved in ignorance of the fall of vegetable substances, or
edible substances, in other parts of the world: that it is the familiar attempt
to explain the general in terms of the local; that, if we shall have data of
falls of vegetable substance, in, say, Canada, or India, they were not of
lichens from the steppes of Asia Minor; that, though all falls in Asiatic Turkey
and Persia are sweepingly and conveniently called showers of "manna,"
they have not been even all of the same substance. In one instance the particles
are said to have been "seeds." Though, in Comptes Rendus, the
substance in 1841 and 1846, is said to have been gelatinous, in the Bull.
Sci. Nat. de Neuchatel, it is said to have been of something, in lumps the
size of a filbert, that had been ground into flour; that of this flour had been
made bread, very attractive-looking, but flavorless.
The great difficulty is to explain segregation in these
showers --
But deep-sea fishes and occasional falls down to them, of
edible substances; bags of grain, barrels of sugar; things that had not been
whirled up from one part of the ocean-bottom, in storms or submarine
disturbances, and dropped somewhere else --
I suppose one thinks -- but grain in bags never has fallen --
Object of Amherst -- its covering like "milled cloth"
--
Or barrels of corn lost from a vessel would not sink --
but a
host of them clashing together, after a wreck -- they burst open; the corn sinks,
or does when saturated; the barrel staves float longer --
If there be not an overhead traffic in commodities similar to
our own commodities carried over this earth's oceans -- I'm not the deep-sea fish
I think I am.
I have no data other than the mere suggestion of the Amherst
object of bags or barrels, but my notion is that bags and barrels from a wreck
on one of this earth's oceans, would, by the time th |
