FORTEAN, DO YOU DARE TO QUESTION THE ESTABLISHED BELIEFS ON THE UNEXPLAINED?

Have you heard about Fortean phenomena?

It all comes form Charles Fort.

What I learned from this man?

First of all, not to limit my imagination.

His was brilliant and strange.

In 1915, at age 41, Fort wrote two books, titled X and Y.

X dealt with the idea that events on Earth were controlled by beings on Mars.

Y was about a sinister civilization extant at the South Pole.
(Apparently this is a true picture taken from an expedition in 2014)

Unfortunately, these two creations couldn’t be published.

But these books made me wonder...

Does the information on X and Y really came only from his brilliant imagination?

For me the curious thing was that his imagination did not came from a vacuum. I believe it came from his tremendous powers of observation.

In fact, I believe his powers of observation were so ahead of his time that he was sure, like his predecessor Jules Verne (to whom he wrote asking for an autograph), that space travel was inevitable.

Now consider that added to his imagination and observation he also had a tremendous ability to do research.

Hours and more hours spent on the New York Public Library, reading periodicals, newspapers and scientific journals. All from around the world.

Fort took thousands of notes in his lifetime.

From this research, Fort wrote four books.

Most of the notes were donated to the New York Public Library.

The notes are still available to researchers of the unknown.

FORTEAN PHENOMENA
(Or against mainstream science)

For me, his true legacy resides in the doors he opened.

He showed us a whole universe of possibilities...

Thresholds for our awareness to cross...

The Book of the Damned
(1919)

I think the title is great...

It all referred to "damned" data that Fort collected.

Anomalous phenomena for which science could not account and was thus rejected or ignored...

He was probably one of the first persons to consider the extraterrestrial hypothesis connected to alien spacecraft and mysterious disappearances.

I have come to agree a lot about Fort's stand...

Human beings' – especially scientists' and religious people– claim to have and possess the ultimate knowledge and truth.

Even ufologists are at risk of being distracted from the right path.

Strange falls of both organic and inorganic materials from the sky...

Ridiculous possibility?

Just as any conventional explanation that may deny it.

Fort dared to question mainstream science.

How?

I learned from him to beware, because...

Scientists just follow the trend...

They just believe what is popular and accepted...

And never really look for a truth that may be contrary to what they believe.

Here I started to question and think by myself.

Can I believe in this kind of phenomena?

Maybe I have a strong psychological need to accept this kind of marvels.

But then I realized I'm in no better position than all the people with a same strong psychological need:

Don't believe in wonders.

So what do I believe in?

Even Fort used to say...
"I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written.”

What do we do with what Fort insisted is a strong sociological influence on what is considered "acceptable" or "damned"?

Once again, Fort would make us amplify our perspective on anomalous phenomena...

To prove it as possible...we can't.

To prove it as impossible...we can't.

It is as if he just pushes our awareness, through the different stories, into new horizons...

New Lands
(1923)

New Lands for our consciousness...

And over and over again, Fort takes us decades ahead of mainstream scientific acceptance.

Like a mirage, which takes us miles ahead of spatial perspective and defies our objective sense of reality...

Fort believed that no matter how honest scientists think they are, they are still influenced by various unconscious assumptions that prevent them from attaining true objectivity. 

And I believe to be at the same risk.

Although the Bermuda Triangle was not always famous, the supernatural influence already was perceived.

The Sargasso...

A “hideous expanse”...

Where “countless vessels have fallen victim”...

A “mystic sea swamp”...

Harboring “forbidden secrets.”

The “monster whirlpool” appeared to be a sort of wormhole into another dimension.

All this reminiscent of Fort’s Super-Sargasso Sea.

Web of Evil #19 (October, 1954): ‘The Half-Creatures of the Sargasso Sea’
Artist and writer...unknown.

Lo!
(1931)

By this time our consciousness and awareness were propelled even more into more extraordinary terrains, defying our cosmological view of the universe.

But as incredible as it may seem, Fort kept us in safe ground. At several instances in his books, Fort makes us know that he regarded certain data and assertions as unlikely.

Fort even reported events like teleportation (He is generally credited with coining the term).

Up to this point my mind was really starting to take another dimension...and preparing for another level of paranormal phenomena.

Wild Talents
(1932)

His books seem to center around the idea that everything is connected and that strange coincidences happen for a reason.

 Curious...

Charles Fort gave several humorous instances...

The same experiment yielding two different results, each one gratifying the experimenter. (!?)

Fort also pointed out:

Facts are objective...

How facts are interpreted depends on who is doing the interpreting and in what context.

Here my powers to question even myself started to get stronger...

Like if I were beginning to develop a wild talent...

That of questioning my own sacred personal truth.

Who knows...

Maybe this could be a way to open myself to another kind of possibilities and truths.

Did Fort took his proposals and "theories" seriously?

It is unclear, nevertheless he appeared to hold a genuine belief in the presence of extraterrestrial visits to Earth.

It all became more interesting...

For me to perceive more I really had to understand where Fort's ideas seem to remain.

Like ghosts between life and death...

They float between "mainstream science" and the paranormal.

Here I couldn't help but remember the twilight zone...

And how consciousness and awareness perceives the infinite possibilities of how energy manifests.

Poltergeist events...

Fort warned us from "mainstream science" and "non scientific" thinking.
We are in danger of losing the truth if we go to extremes.

Then how do we explain an apparent "mythical reality"?
Fort taught us about indeterminism...

The same data sometimes can be explained by more than one theory.

THE "EXPERIMENTER EFFECT"
VS
THE AWARENESS FACTOR

Experiments may be funny.

How come controlled experiments -a pillar of the scientific community- can produce such widely and varying results depending on who conducted them?

If this is so then, like Fort suggested, the scientific method itself might be open to doubt.

I wonder sometimes if all the unexplained phenomena are just experiments from the universe.

And if the universe is pure awareness then all the unexplained phenomena is the result of awareness experiments. Funny, don't you think?

The "experimenter effect", recognized by scientists since Fort's death is the funny tendency for experiments to tend to validate the experimenters given preconceptions.

And these reminded me of the curious phenomena in quantum mechanics where the results of the experiments depended entirely on the observer or experimenter.

So once again awareness played a preponderant role in the way we tend to perceive reality and all the unexplained phenomena.

So how do we perceive or interpret or explain the following phenomena?

 Levitation...

Unexplained disappearances...

Out-of-place artifacts (OOPArts)...

Strange items found in unlikely locations.

Animals found outside their normal ranges...
(like the phantom cat)

Ball lightning(a term explicitly used by Fort)...
(Now apparently accepted by mainstream science)

Fort also wrote about the interconnectedness of nature and synchronicity.

Fort considered unconfirmed animals (cryptids) in cryptozoology...
(These new disciplines per se are generally not recognized by most scientists or academics)

In the end, like Fort said...

"I offer the data. Suit yourself."

What I found amazing of Fort is he let us think freely.

He never clung to his data and theories as if they were accurate or the ultimate truth. He just expressed his opinion.

And a mainstream science or religion opinion may be just one of an infinite range of explanations or world views.

Once again, the extraordinary option Fort gave us is that alternative conclusions are at our fingertips. And in my opinion, these conclusions may depend entirely on how we train brain waves or the awareness factor.

For me...anything is possible in the realm of energy and awareness.

Imagine that every book and story symbolizes a different energy and awareness frequency.

The kind of events we can experience become endless and infinite.

In the meantime, many of these phenomena are now collectively referred to as Fortean phenomena (or Forteana).

THE FORTEANS
The Fortean Society
(Founded on January 26, 1931)

Fort rejected the Society.
Why?

Here, once again, is the interesting part to me...

He was not a joiner of established groups. Further more, Fort refused to establish himself as an authority.

He saved us from ending at the opposite end of "mainstream science"...like any kind of spiritual or religious schools of thought.

Either way, he saved our awareness from surrendering to the mental and perceptual prison of "fanatical thought".

Michell says...

"Fort, of course, made no attempt at defining a world-view, but the evidence he uncovered gave him an 'acceptance' of reality as something far more magical and subtly organized than is considered proper today."

Anyway, we could not afford to loose what this great mind shared with us.

So, one way or another, Forteanism was born.

TO BE A FORTEAN

What does it mean to be a Fortean?

It is a matter of great debate.

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".

There are Fortean purists who dedicate themselves to Fort's methods and interests.

There are also those with a strictly open and active acceptance of the actuality of paranormal phenomena.

 Most generally, they have a wide interest in unexplained phenomena, and have a developed "agnostic skepticism" regarding the anomalies they note and discuss.

They hallow a pronounced distrust of authority in all its forms, whether religious, scientific, political, philosophical or otherwise.

Once again, I understood why we almost always are so far away from the truth.

We tend to arrogantly interpret the world around us...always...one way or another.

But what would be the ideal stand for us, who are trying to know and understand this whole universe of energy and awareness phenomena?

Like Charles Fort stated...
Be neither a "True Believer" nor a total "Skeptic".

So you want to explore?

Open your awareness to Fort's thoughts...

"That the truth lies somewhere in between”.

And who knows what kind of Fortean phenomena may appear in front of you.

Return from Fortean to Unsolved Mysteries

Return from Fortean to Paranormal-explore

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