The Isle of Wight Fortean Society (IWFS) was founded on Robert Anton Wilson Day, 23rd July, 2004, by Fortean Times contributor Jack Phoenix, and composer and Ottakar's bookseller, James Nye. To see a press release, click here.
Here we present more info on an essential fortean tome by Fortean Times' founding editor Bob Rickard, and veteran fortean John Michell:
The Rough Guide to the Unexplained by John Michell and Bob Rickard
Our first book on unexplained phenomena, Phenomena: a book of wonders, appeared in 1977; it was followed, five years later, by a companion volume, Living Wonders, which dealt mainly with anomalies in the animal world. The Rough Guide to Unexplained Phenomena combines selected chapters from both earlier books into a single volume, updating them with substantial new material. Our purpose, as before, is to introduce readers to the rich variety of anomalous, and often bizarre phenomena, that people have experienced throughout the centuries. The world and our experience of it, are nothing like we have been taught. Things are far more interesting, humorous and wide-ranging than any rational science, religion or world-view can possibly accommodate. Too often, education enforces a standard view of things which dims individual perceptions and brings dullness to the world. It is not our intention here to dispute anyone's beliefs or theories. But we should like to point out their limitations. There are things that happen in this world - and have occurred throughout the whole of human experience - for which there has never been a lasting, rational explanation. Explanations are temporary products, coming and going in response to fashions. Meanwhile, the happenings they are supposed to explain carry on as mysteriously as ever. Yet mysterious phenomena are also to some extent influenced by fashion. For example, clusters of hibernating swallows and living toads encased in rocks, so regularly recorded by nineteenth-century naturalists, seem virtually to have died out; mariners today hardly ever witness sea-serpents; and rings of dancing fairies, once a commonly described part of country people's experience, are now very rare. To make up for these, perhaps temporary losses, other types of weird phenomena have flourished in modern times - UFOs for example, together with alien or demonic entities; rapes and abductions by 'spacemen', obscene mutilations of horses and cattle and - on a brighter note - the beautiful phenomenon of crop circles. At the same time, the standard mysteries, those which have puzzled humanity from the beginning, continue to do so. Creatures and artifacts fall, sometimes slowly, from unknown sources; poltergeists bring floods, fires and stone-showers to tormented households; people are levitated, walk over hot coals, are invisibly attacked, encounter monsters in lakes and mountains, are subject to amazing coincidences, and so on. You hear about these things in myths, legends and folklore, and you can read about their modern continuations in scientific journals and the daily press. As authors we share a common interest in the writings, records and world-view of Charles Fort (1874-1932), the remarkable author and iconoclast who lived in the Bronx district of New York. Much of his life was spent in the New York Public Library, the British Museum Reading Room in London and other repositories of records. Sifting through back numbers of newspapers and science magazines he collected thousands of items referring to events, appearances, discoveries and types of phenomena which did not fit into any established theory or rational world-view. For that reason they were completely ignored and, as far as possible, forgotten. In Fort's view that was unfair and created a biased picture of life. The anomalous reports were often published in the same journals from which scientists derived the data behind their respectable-sounding theories, but the theorists paid no attention to them. Their theories were therefore selective and prejudiced. They were held together by 'exclusions' - by ignoring all data that contradicted them. To illustrate this, and to redress the balance, Fort used his collections of anomalies to create different pictures of reality. It is not that scientific orthodoxy is totally wrong, he said, for nothing in this world is ever totally anything, but he criticized it as being arbitrary. There are many different ways of perceiving and defining reality, and it seemed to Fort that much of the data which orthodox thinkers ignored gave a far more complete view of things than any of the established theories. Fort called the anomalous items he collected 'the damned facts' - damned by exclusion from the pale of scientific consideration. His first book, published in 1919, was called The Book of the Damned, and in the first twenty pages of it he outlined a picture of reality in which the damned facts were given equal rights with those accepted by science. The result was a world-view similar to that of traditional mysticism, in which there are no hard-and-fast laws, merely tendencies, and in which human imagination plays a significant part. In the course of time, he foresaw, the damned facts of the present would be accepted and made orthodox; new theories would be built upon them, and these in turn would then become exclusive, disregarding all evidence that challenged them. The situation, said Fort, is that nothing in our changing, fluctuating world is actually and permanently real, so our attempts to categorize and pin down nature are doomed to failure. The nearest thing to reality th! at he admitted was the universe itself. He saw it as a great, single organism, moving automatically, or perhaps even consciously, to satisfy its own desires and to direct whatever was needed to its various parts. As to the means by which this was done, Fort suggested an unknown force or mechanism which he called teleportation. Excerpt: Fort was among the first to draw attention to several types of phenomena which are now widely recognized, and he was also original in noticing connections between them - between poltergeist events and the presence of a distressed or mentally disturbed young person; between unknown lights or objects in the sky and possible otherworldly intelligence; between outbreaks of hysteria or religious fervour and fires, earthquakes and other disasters. Of all his conceptions teleportation proved to be the most useful. One of his special interests was in the anomalies of animal distribution, whether it was the spontaneous appearance of life in newly-dug ponds, the mysteries of bird and insect migration or the strange ability of certain pet animals to find their owners, even when they have moved far away to unknown locations. Together with these phenomena Fort collected cases of lost possessions miraculously rediscovered, modern artifacts excavated from ancient geological strata,
and objects that manifest themselves at spiritualist sessions, at the behest of shamans and holy men, in response to prayer or intense desire or simply of their own accord. In connection with these and other mysteries Fort spoke of teleportation, not as a scientific theory to be proved or clamouring for precise explanations, which will never be forthcoming. This is a humorous subject, but while laughing at it we are also somewhat respectful towards Fortıs damned facts, and we are wholly respectful towards his inclusive attitude and world-view. There is nothing to be gained by worrying about or wilfully rejecting aspects of our human experience which can never be explained. The greatest of human pleasures (purer and more long-lasting than sex or any of the appetites) is to investigate the world, generally and in its various parts - and much more so if it is done honestly, without regard to prejudices, taboos, inhibitions and other people's conventions.
In this book we make all sorts of connections between the various types of mysteries and wonders described in it, but we do not ask readers to follow us, believe in us or accept any of our tentative conclusions. The most we hope for is to bring relief to those among us who have experienced strange happenings and have been told by their doctors, parents or contemporaries that this is unnatural and even perhaps a sign of madness. Our message of comfort to such readers is that you are not alone. As we carefully demonstrate in the following chapters, these things have always happened, they can happen to anyone, and at least some of them probably happen to everyone in the course of a lifetime. Our very existence in this world is an unexplained mystery, and that is something we have to accept and be happy with. John Michell and Bob Rickard
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Copyright İ 2004 James Nye, Jack Phoenix, Rabbi Burns. For permission to quote, email Jack.
Since 23rd May, 2004