FAQ for alt.misc.forteana, etc.

What is a Fortean?
Why do Forteans need another newsgroup for themselves?
Who was Charles Fort?
What was the original Fortean Society?
What did he write?
What quotes is he famous for?
What else should be part of a Fortean bibliography?
What kinds of Forteans are there?
What Fortean organizations are out there?
Where can I find Fortean information online?
What Fortean publications are there?
What's the difference between Forteans and New Agers or Skeptics?
What do I do if I see something weird?

1. WHAT IS A FORTEAN?

The answers to this question will run the gamut of responses from people you ask. A Fortean, IMHO, is someone who has a) been exposed to the ideas of Charles Fort and b) is willing to do something about those ideas, whether that be bugging astronomers or chasing farfrotskies. Forteanism is not a cult, religion, or doctrine. It might be a worldview, philosophy, or perspective regarding the world. It is almost impossible to explain to those who have not read Charles Fort why they should. Just do it.

2. WHY DO FORTEANS NEED A NEWSGROUP?

Come on. Coffee drinkers and foot fetishists have them. Why not Forteans?

As to why the group is not alt.fan.charles-fort or alt.forteanism, the reason is that Forteans are NOT groupies and do NOT have a doctrine or ideology. They do share a perspective.

Forteans can and do post to the newsgroups having to do with the paranormal, folklore, UFOs, science, and weirdness. But Forteanism is an all-encompassing perspective which takes in all those kinds of phenomena, and is not exhausted by them. Forteans want to share damned data with other Forteans. Therefore they need their own newsgroup.

3. WHO WAS CHARLES FORT?

"Orthodox" Forteans (an oxymoron, by any means) will probably take me to task for the inadequacy of the following answer. They are welcome to contribute to this FAQ, which at least I went to the effort to create. ;-)

Charles Hoy Fort was a 19th-century eccentric who received a sizeable inheritance from his family. He used this minor fortune to travel through the major metropolitan libraries of his day. He would read through the various scientific journals of the day, looking for 'damned data' about which the learned authorities were at pains to explain. Such things would include reports of falls of strange things from the sky, strange things seen in the heavens, and strange disappearances. Fort found the pathetic efforts of astronomers, meteorologists, and other scientists to deny and explain away these weird occurences inadequate, and often mocked them for their pompous attempts to deny that there were things they didn't understand. His notes were originally to be published in two compendia, "X" and "Y," which ultimately were to become The Book of the Damned.

Fort was also somewhat of a second-rate novelist, writing, among other things, The Outcast Manufacturers. Literary friends, like Tiffany Thayer, would found the original Fortean Society in his honor. They also got his nonfiction works published when few publishers would touch them. When offered the opportunity to join the society named after him, Fort grumbled he would rather join the Elks. He died not shortly thereafter.

4. WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL FORTEAN SOCIETY?

Started, as I suggested, by important literary figures like Tiffany Thayer and Theodore Dreiser, the Fortean Society was founded to spread the works and ideas of Charles Fort to the masses. They would follow in the footsteps of Fort, combing journals and newspapers for unexplained occurences, chortling at the official denials and explanations. They published a journal, Doubt. The Fortean Society disappeared before the end of World War II. In 1965, its current successor, the International Fortean Organization (INFO), was founded by the Willis brothers. To this day, INFO continues to publish its own journal, the INFO Journal.

5. WHAT DID CHARLES FORT WRITE?

Ignoring his fiction, to which I leave only the dedicated to pursue, Fort wrote the following nonfiction works.

The Book of the Damned
Lo!
Wild Talents
New Lands

6. WHAT QUOTES IS HE FAMOUS FOR?

I give here only an incomplete (and possibly partially incorrectly quoted) sample. More knowledgeable Forteans are free to offer additions and corrections.

"One measures a circle, beginning anywhere..."
"I close the front door on Christ and Einstein, and open the back door to frogs and periwinkles..."
"I think of the mind of an astronomer as a fizzle, with excuses revolving around it..."
"One can know an existence by its frogs..."
"Our science is like a mutilated octopus, its tentacle-stumps groping blindly..."
"I have no truck with anything so slippery as the products of minds..."
"We are not realists. We are not idealists. We are intermediatists - that nothing is real, but that nothing is unreal."
"When we come upon assurances that a mystery has been solved, we go on investigating."
"My own acceptance is that ours is an organic existence, and that our thoughts are the phenomena of its eras, quite as its rocks and trees and forms of life are..."

While Forteans often like to throw about his quips and quotes, Fort's ideas go beyond mere sound bites. One is the Law of the Hyphen - the idea that much of reality lies in an intermediate, "excluded middle" realm of existence. Another is Fort's basic attitude, expressed frequently, that the more dogmatic and authoritarian a system, the more likely it is to be wrong. Hence his dislike for much of scientific and religious authority. He had a basic perspective that knowledge could ever be completely universalized or totalized - as soon as one door is closed, yet another is thrown open, as he said. There would always be puzzles and riddles for the human mind to be contemplated.

7. WHAT ELSE SHOULD BE PART OF A FORTEAN BIBLIOGRAPHY?

This is hard to answer. Books about the paranormal and the strange appear daily. Many do not approach these things with a Fortean perspective. There are bibliographies of Fort, attacks on him in books by 'Skeptics,' and fiction stories in which he is a character. A good place is to start with the periodicals of Fortean organizations. Another is to read books by Forteans, such as Loren Coleman, Bob Rickard, John Keel, or Vincent Gaddis. As of now, there are really no scholarly histories of Fort, Forteans, or Forteanism, but someday there may be.

8. WHAT KINDS OF FORTEANS ARE THERE?

Though most Forteans would insist that the field of Forteanism is an indissoluble unity, interested in any and all anomalies, whether scientific, philosophical, artistic, religious, literary, behavioral, folkloric, etc., the fact is that many Forteans do specialize in one area of inquiry or endeavor. BTW, many people who would call themselves one of the following might NOT accept the philosophical musings of Charles Fort.

Cryptozoologists - are particularly interested in the possible existence of "alien animals," what some people might call "monsters," "snallygasters," or "undiscovered species." Tend to be interested in lake monsters, 'apemen' (Bigfoot, Yeti, Sasquatch, Wildman, etc.), Big Birds, etc.
UFOlogists - are people who specialize in studying Unidentified Flying Objects. Needless to say, there are several schools of thought within UFOlogy, which rarely agree about how to even begin to study the phenomenon. Most are not Forteans.
Parapsychologists - are people interested in ESP, PK, precognition, OOBE, and other psychic phenomena or "Wild Talents". Some, but not all, are interested also in ghosts, "hauntings," and spiritualistic phenomena; the question of the afterlife or survival; and metaphysical or occult phenomena.
"Earth Mysteries" researchers - are Forteans generally interested in such things as ley lines, the World Grid, dowsing, crop circles, earth energies, megalithic structures, out-of-place artefacts, the Gaia hypothesis, metrology and geomancy, earth-generated luminous phenomena, Earthquake prediction, geomagnetic anomalies, "the Name Game" of sites, catastrophism, and organic agriculture.
Conspiratologists - are of course interested in researching various conspiracy theories and 'revisioning' history. Most are generally interested in assassinations (esp. that of JFK), the 'shadow government,' or the possibility of 'mind control.' Some conspiracy theories can be very broad in scope, and many end up positing some form or other of a scheme for world domination on the part of some group (cf. Alternative 3.) Remember, even paranoids have enemies.
Psychotronics researchers - are Forteans interested in Nikola Tesla's theories, 'free energy' devices, alternative medicine, 'weird science,' time travel, far out technology, bioelectromagnetics, 'suppressed' theories, etc.

It should be noted that people come to Forteanism with a great variety of starting perspectives. Some are entirely folkloristic in their orientation (looking at the hobby as one of collecting interesting anecdotes regardless of their truth-value) while others are overly scientistic, insisting that everything be presented in precise mathematical and physical terms. There are almost as many Fortean approaches as there are Forteans. This is the strength of Forteanism, in all actuality, and not its weakness.

9. WHAT FORTEAN ORGANIZATIONS ARE OUT THERE?

Another excellent question. One can find the answer by looking at my Fortean organization list, which you can get to by clicking here.

10. WHAT FORTEAN RESOURCES ARE ONLINE?

Glad you asked. Read "One Measures the Matrix, Beginning Anywhere." You can access it by clicking here.

11. WHAT FORTEAN PUBLICATIONS ARE THERE?

Off the top of my head, I would suggest one should read Strange Magazine, the INFO Journal, PURSUIT, Pebbles, the Excluded Middle, Fortean Times, and FATE, although this list is not exhaustive. Many of these appear in my periodical guide, which you can access by clicking here.

12. WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FORTEANS AND 'NEW AGERS' OR 'SKEPTICS'?

As I see it, most New Agers are willing to accept almost any kind of occult or bizarre phenomenon without questioning its validity. They are credulous to the extreme, 'true believers' in the existence of the paranormal. It provides emotional security for them.

Most so-called 'Skeptics,' on the other hand, at least of the CSICOP variety, are also true believers - in the nonexistence or nonprobability of the paranormal. (And usually doctrines like humanism, materialism, and logical postivism.) They can be dogmatic in their defense of science, the closure of knowledge, or the impossibility of certain phenomena. They have decided, a priori, that any things not explained by science will soon be. Doubting science puts their faith - in science - in jeopardy. Their duty is not impartial investigation, but instead 'debunking' and propagandizing. This often results in a "New Inquisition" of heretical scientific thinkers.

A Fortean is more properly a 'zetetic' - when it comes to paranormal phenomenon 'X,' they neither believe in X nor believe in not-X. Rather, they choose to suspend belief altogether. One can collect instances of X irregardless of whether one ultimately feels X can be proven to be folklore, deception, hoax, illusion, or 'true,' whatever that means. Forteans have been accused of ignoring evidence and being mystery-mongers by so-called 'Skeptics,' but then they also have been accused of not having the proper 'accepting attitude' by New Agers. Anyone attacked by both ends, IMHO, is sitting in the proper 'excluded middle.'

14. What do I do if I see something weird?

Observations of weird events of a Fortean nature can now be uploaded to the Fortean Times Online Reporting Center. There they can be researched further by Fortean scholars and shared with people on alt.misc.forteana. There also is a UFO newsgroup specifically dedicated to UFO sighting reports, alt.ufo.reports. Seeker1

Press here to return to the FortPages.