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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
EARLY explorers have Florida mixed up with Newfoundland. But
the confusion is worse than that still earlier. It arises from simplicity. Very
early explorers think that all land westward is one land, India: awareness of
other lands as well as India comes as a slow process. I do not now think of
things arriving upon this earth from some especial other world. That was my
notion when I started to collect our data. Or, as is a commonplace of
observation, all intellection begins with the illusion of homogeneity. It's one
of Spencer's data: we see homogeneousness in all things distant, or with which
we have small acquaintance. Advance from the relatively homogeneous to the
relatively heterogeneous is Spencerian Philosophy -- like everything else,
so-called: not that it was really Spencer's discovery, but was taken from von
Baer, who, in turn, was continuous with preceding evolutionary speculation. Our
own expression is that all things are acting to advance to the homogeneous, or
are trying to localize Homogeneousness. Homogeneousness is an aspect of the
Universal, wherein it is a state that does not merge away into something else.
We regard homogeneousness as an aspect of positiveness, but it is our acceptance
that infinite frustrations of attempts to positivize manifest themselves in
infinite heterogeneity: so that though things try to localize homogeneousness
they end up in heterogeneity so great that it amounts to infinite dispersion or
indistinguishability.
So all concepts are little attempted positivenesses, but soon
have to give in to compromise, modification, nullification, merging away into
indistinguishability -- unless, here and there, in the world's history, there may
have been a super-dogmatist, who, for only an infinitesimal of time, has been
able to hold out against heterogeneity or modification or doubt or
"listening to reason," or loss of identity -- in which case -- instant
translation to heaven or the Positive Absolute.
Odd thing about Spencer is that he never recognized that
"homogeneity," "integration," and "definiteness"
are all words for the same state, or the state we call "positiveness."
What we call his mistake is in that he regarded "homogeneousness" as
negative.
I began with a notion of some one other world, from which
objects and substances have fallen to this earth; which had, or which, to less
degree, has a tutelary interest in this earth; which is now attempting to
communicate with this earth -- modifying, because of data which will pile up
later, into acceptance that some other world is not attempting but has been, for
centuries, in communication with a sect, perhaps, or a secret society, or
certain esoteric ones of this earth's inhabitants.
I lose a great deal of hypnotic power in not being able to
concentrate attention upon some one other world.
As I have admitted before I'm intelligent, as contrasted with
the orthodox. I haven't the aristocratic disregard of a New York curator or an
Eskimo medicine-man.
I have to dissipate myself in acceptance of a host of other
worlds: size of the moon, some of them: one of them, at least, -- tremendous
thing: we'll take that up later. Vast, amorphous aerial regions, to which such
definite words as "worlds" and "planets" seem inapplicable.
And artificial constructions that I have called "super-constructions":
one of them about the size of Brooklyn, I should say, off hand. And one or more
of them wheel-shaped things, a goodly number of square miles in area.
I think that earlier in this book, before we liberalized into
embracing everything that comes along, your indignation, or indigestion would
have expressed in the notion that, if this were so, astronomers would have seen
these other worlds and regions and vast geometric constructions. You'd have had
that notion: you'd have stopped there.
But the attempt to stop is saying "enough" to the
insatiable. In cosmic punctuation there are no periods: illusions of periods is
incomplete view of colons and semi-colons.
We can't stop with the notion that if there were such
phenomena, astronomers would have seen them. Because of our experience with
suppression and disregard, we suspect, before we go into the subject at all,
that astronomers have seen them; that navigators and meteorologists have seen
them; that individual scientists and other trained observers have seen them many
times--
That it is the System that has excluded data of them.
As to the Law of Gravitation, and astronomers' formulas,
remember that these formulas worked out in the time of La Place as well as they
do now. But there are hundreds of planetary bodies now known that were then not
known. So a few hundred worlds more of ours won't make any difference. La Place
knew of about only thirty bodies in this solar system: about six hundred are
recognized now--
What are the discoveries of geology and biology to a
theologian?
His formulas still work out as well as they ever did.
If the Law of Gravitation could be stated as a real utterance,
it might be a real resistance to us. But we are told only that gravitation is
gravitation. Of course to an intermediatist, nothing can be defined in terms of
itself -- but even the orthodox, in what seems to me to be the innate premonitions
of realness, not founded upon experience, agree that to define a thing in terms
of itself is not real definition. It is said that by gravitation is meant the
attraction of all things proportionately to mass and inversely as the square of
the distance. Mass would mean inter-attraction holding together final particles,
if there were final particles. Then, until final particles be discovered, only
one term of this expression survives, or mass is attraction. But distance is
only extent of mass, unless one holds out for absolute vacuum among planets, a
position against which we could bring a host of data. But there is no possible
means of expressing that gravitation is anything other than attraction. So there
is nothing to resist us but such a phantom as -- that gravitation is the
gravitation of all gravitations proportionately to gravitation and inversely as
the square of gravitation. In a quasi-existence, nothing more sensible than this
can be said upon any so-called subject -- perhaps there are higher approximations
to ultimate sensibleness.
Nevertheless we seem to have a feeling that with the System
against us we have a kind of resistance here. We'd have felt so formerly, at any
rate: I think the Dr. Grays and Prof. Hitchcocks have modified our trustfulness
toward indistinguishability. As to the perfection of this System that
quasi-opposes us and the infallibility of its mathematics -- as if there could be
real mathematics in a mode of seeming where twice two are not four -- we've been
told over and over again of their vindication in the discovery of Neptune.
I'm afraid that the course we're taking will turn out like
every other development. We began humbly, admitting that we're of the damned--
But our eyebrows--
Just a faint flicker in them, or in one of them, every time we
hear of the "triumphal discovery of Neptune" -- this "monumental
achievement of theoretical astronomy," as the text books call it.
The whole trouble is that we've looked it up.
The text-books omit this:
That, instead of the orbit of Neptune agreeing with the
calculations of Adams and Leverrier, it was so different -- that Leverrier said
that it was not the planet of his calculations.
Later it was thought best to say no more upon that subject.
The text-books omit this:
That, in 1846, everyone who knew a sine from a cosine was out
sining and cosining for a planet beyond Uranus.
Two of them guessed right.
To some minds, even after Leverrier's own rejection of
Neptune, the word "guessed" may be objectionable -- but, according to
Prof. Peirce, of Harvard, the calculations of Adams and Leverrier would have
applied quite as well to positions many degrees from the position of Neptune.
Or for Prof. Peirce's demonstration that the discovery of
Neptune was only a "happy accident," see Proc. Amer. Acad.
Sciences, 1-65.
For references, see Lowell's Evolution of Worlds.
Or comets: another nebulous resistance to our own notions. As
to eclipses, I have notes upon several of them that did not occur upon scheduled
time, though with differences only of seconds -- and one delightful lost soul,
deep-buried, but buried in the ultra-respectable records of the Royal
Astronomical Society, upon an eclipse that did not occur at all. That
delightful, ultra-sponsored thing of perdition is too good and malicious to be
dismissed with passing notice: we'll have him later.
Throughout the history of astronomy, every comet that has come
back upon predicted time -- not that, essentially, there was anything more
abstruse about it than is a prediction that you can make of a postman's
periodicities to-morrow -- was advertised for all it was worth. It's the way
reputations are worked up for fortune-tellers by the faithful. The comets that
didn't come back -- omitted or explained. Or Encke's comet. It came back slower
and slower. But the astronomers explained. They had it all worked out and
formulated and "proved" why that comet was coming back slower and
slower -- and then the dam thing began coming faster and faster.
Halley's comet.
Astronomy -- "the perfect science, as we astronomers like
to call it." (Jacoby.)
It's my own notion that if, in a real existence, an astronomer
could not tell one longitude from another, he'd be sent back to this purgatory
of ours until he could meet that simple requirement.
Halley was sent to the Cape of Good Hope to determine its
longitude. He got it degrees wrong. He gave to Africa's noble Roman promontory a
retroussé twist that would take the pride out of any Kaffir.
We hear everlastingly of Halley's comet. It came
back -- maybe.
But, unless we look the matter up in contemporaneous records, we hear nothing of
-- the Leonids, for instance. By the same methods as those by which Halley's
comet was predicted, the Leonids were predicted. Nov., 1898 -- no Leonids. It was
explained. They had been perturbed. They would appear in November, 1899. Nov.,
1899 -- Nov., 1900 -- no Leonids.
My notion of astronomic accuracy:
Who could not be a prize marksman, if only his hits be
recorded?
As to Halley's comet, of 1910 -- everybody now swears he saw it.
He has to perjure himself: otherwise he'd be accused of having no interest in
great, inspiring things that he's never given attention to.
Regard this:
That there was never a moment when there is not some comet in
the sky. Virtually there is no year in which several new comets are not
discovered, so plentiful are they. Luminous fleas on a vast black dog -- in
popular impressions, there is no realization of the extent to which this solar
system is flea-bitten.
If a comet has not the orbit that astronomers have
predicted -- perturbed. If -- like Halley's comet -- it be late -- even a year
late -- perturbed. When a train is an hour late, we have small opinion of the
prediction of timetables. When a comet's a year late, all we ask is -- that it be
explained. We hear of the inflation and arrogance of astronomers. My own
acceptance is not that they are imposing upon us: that they are requiting us.
For many of us priests no longer function to give us seeming rapport with
Perfection, Infallibility -- the Positive Absolute. Astronomers have stepped
forward to fill a vacancy -- with quasi-phantomosity -- but, in our acceptance, with
a higher approximation to substantiality than had the attenuations that preceded
them. I should say, myself, that all that we call progress is not so much
response to "urge" as it is response to a hiatus -- or if you want
something to grow somewhere, dig out everything else in its area. So I have to
accept that the positive assurances of astronomers are necessary to us, or the
blunderings, evasions and disguises of astronomers would never be tolerated:
that, given such latitude as they are permitted to take, they could not be very
disastrously mistaken. Suppose the comet called Halley's had not appeared--
Early in 1910, a far more important comet than the anaemic
luminosity said to be Halley's, appeared. It was so brilliant that it was
visible in daylight. The astronomers would have been saved anyway. If this other
comet did not have the predicted orbit -- perturbation. If you're going to Coney
Island, and predict there'll be a special kind of pebble on the beach, I don't
see how you can disgrace yourself, if some other pebble will do just as well --
because the feeble thing said to have been seen in 1910 was no more in
accord with the sensational descriptions given out by astronomers in advance
than is a pale pebble with a brick-red bowlder.
I predict that next Wednesday, a large Chinaman, in evening
clothes, will cross Broadway, at 42nd Street, at 9 P.M. He doesn't, but a
tubercular Jap in a sailor's uniform does cross Broadway, at 35th Street,
Friday, at noon. Well, a Jap is a perturbed Chinaman, and clothes are clothes.
I remember the terrifying predictions made by the honest and
credulous astronomers, who must have been themselves hypnotized, or they could
not have hypnotized the rest of us, in 1909. Wills were made. Human life might
be swept from this planet. In quasi-existence, which is essentially Hibernian,
that would be no reason why wills should not be made. The less excitable of us
did expect at least some pretty good fireworks.
I have to admit that it is said that, in New York, a light was
seen in the sky.
It was about as terrifying as the scratch of a match on the
seat of some breeches half a mile away.
It was not on time.
Though I have heard that a faint nebulosity, which I did not
see, myself, though I looked when I was told to look, was seen in the sky, it
appeared several days after the time predicted.
A hypnotized host of imbeciles of us: told to look up at the
sky: we did -- like a lot of pointers hypnotized by a partridge.
The effect:
Almost everybody now swears that he saw Halley's comet, and
that it was a glorious spectacle.
An interesting circumstance here is that seemingly we are
trying to discredit astronomers because astronomers oppose us -- that's not my
impression. We shall be in the Brahmin caste of the hell of the Baptists. Almost
all our data, in some regiments of this procession, are observations by
astronomers, few of them mere amateur astronomers. It is the System that opposes
us. It is the System that is suppressing astronomers. I think we pity them in
their captivity. Ours is not malice -- in a positive sense. It's chivalry --
somewhat. Unhappy astronomers looking out from high towers in which
they are imprisoned -- we appear on the horizon.
But, as I have said, our data do not relate to some especial
other world. I mean very much what a savage upon an ocean island might think of
in his speculations -- not upon some other land, but complexes of continents and
their phenomena: cities, factories in cities, means of communication--
Now all the other savages would know of a few vessels sailing
in their regular routes, passing this island in regularized periodicities. The
tendency in these minds would be expression of the universal tendency toward
positivism -- or Completeness -- or conviction that these few regularized vessels
constituted all. Now I think of some especial savage who suspects otherwise --
because he's very backward and unimaginative and insensible to the
beautiful ideals of the others: not piously occupied, like the others, in bowing
before impressive-looking sticks of wood; dishonestly taking time for his
speculations, while the other are patriotically witch-finding. So the other
higher and nobler savages know about the few regularized vessels: know when to
expect them; have their periodicities all worked out; just about when vessels
will pass, or eclipse each other -- explaining all vagaries were due to
atmospheric conditions.
They'd come out strong in explaining.
You can't read a book upon savages without noting what
resolute explainers they are.
They'd say all this mechanism was founded upon the mutual
attraction of vessels -- deduced from the fall of a monkey from a palm tree --
or,
if not that, that devils were pushing the vessels -- something of the kind.
Storms.
Débris, not from these vessels, cast up by the waves.
Disregarded.
How can one think of something and something else, too?
I'm in a state of mind of a savage who might find upon a
shore, washed up by the same storm, buoyant parts of a piano and a paddle that
is carved by cruder hands than his own: something light and summery from India,
and a fur overcoat from Russia -- or all science, though approximating wider and
wider, is attempt to conceive of India in terms of an ocean island, and of
Russia in terms of India so interpreted. Though I am trying to think of Russia
and India in world-wide terms, I cannot think that that, or the universalizing
of the local, is cosmic purpose. The higher idealist is the positivist who tries
to localize the universal, and is in accord with cosmic purpose: the
super-dogmatist of a local savage who can hold out, without a flurry of doubt,
that a piano washed up on a beach is the trunk of a palm tree that a shark has
bitten, leaving his teeth in it. So we fear for the soul of Dr. Gray, because he
did not devote his whole life to that one stand that, whether possible or
inconceivable, thousands of fishes had been cast from one bucket.
So, unfortunately for myself, if salvation be desirable, I
look out widely but amorphously, indefinitely and heterogeneously. If I say I
conceive of another world that is now in secret communication with certain
esoteric inhabitants of this earth, I say I conceive of still other worlds that
are trying to establish communication with all the inhabitants of this earth. I
fit my notions to the data I find. That is supposed to be the right and logical
and scientific thing to do; but it is no way to approximate to form, system,
organization. Then I think I conceive of other worlds and vast structures that
pass us by, within a few miles, without the slightest desire to communicate,
quite as tramp vessels pass many islands without particularizing one from
another. Then I think I have data of a vast construction that has often come to
this earth, dipped into an ocean, submerged there a while, then going away--Why?
I'm not absolutely sure. How would an Eskimo explain a vessel, sending ashore
for coal, which is plentiful upon some Arctic beaches, though of unknown use to
the natives, then sailing away, with no interest in the natives?
A great difficulty in trying to understand vast constructions
that show no interest in us:
The notion that we must be interesting.
I accept that, though we're usually avoided, probably for
moral reasons, sometimes this earth has been visited by explorers. I think that
the notion that there have been extra-mundane visitors to China, within what we
call the historic period, will be only ordinarily absurd, when we come to that
datum.
I accept that some of the other worlds are of conditions very
similar to our own. I think of others that are very different -- so that visitors
from them could not live here -- without artificial adaptations.
How some of them could breathe our attenuated air, if they
came from a gelatinous atmosphere--
Masks.
The masks that have been found in ancient deposits.
Most of them are of stone, and are said to have been
ceremonial regalia of savages--
But the mask that was found in Sullivan County, Missouri, in
1879 (American Antiquarian, 3-336).
It is made of iron and silver.
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
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