Cyril Kornbluth, Chester Cohen, John B. Michel, Robert A.W. Lowndes and Donald A. Wollheim, from left. (Photo by Jack Robins, Tarrytown, N.Y., July 1939. So, I found the article that James Blish wrote about Forteanism in the early 1940s, which gives some more insight into his evolving ideas on the subject.
Ultimately, the letter was prompted by a story published by Donald Wollheim, under the pseudonym Martin Pearson, called “Up There.” The story poked gentle fun at Fortean beliefs by having an astronaut rip a hole in the sky. (According to Mike Ashley’s Time Machine: I haven’t actually seen the story yet.) “Up There” appeared in Science Fiction Quarterly, which was edited by Robert W. Lowndes. Both Wollheim and Lowndes were members of the seminal science fiction fan group, The Futurians. Lowndes was also Wollheim’s sometimes agent, and so it is little surprise that this magazine would carry a story by his friend and client.
The story received a call-out in the next issue’s letter section (titled “Prime Base”—a reference to one of the Futurians’ shared apartments) by someone named Mallory Kent. Science fiction historians have concluded that Kent was a pseudonym for Lowndes himself, and that helps make sense of the letter—which wants to point out the story’s Fortean origins, but distance it from the Fortean Society, which had been getting heat as subversive since issue 6, put out in 1942. It is worth noting, though, that the Mallory Kent here consistently uses British spellings.
Kent’s letter, in return, sparked a note from Blish. Such on-going dialogues were part of the fun and the function of science fiction magazine letter columns. Blish had briefly been part of the Futurians before attending college and then joining the war effort, and so had known Lowndes—and the two would become very close in the years after World War II, when they even lived together—and so it may be that Blish knew Mallory was Lowndes. At any rate, he took exception to Lowndes-Kent’s description of the Fortean Society.
Despite all the pseudonyms, and possible backdoor connections, the letter is revealing in a number of ways, First, it shows that Blish was, at the time, deeply committed to Forteanism. Likely, he had recently read the books in their omnibus form. It also presumably reflects his correspondence with Thayer, as he offers statistics that sound as though they came from Thayer, and also cites authors of Fortean texts that also sound as though they came from Thayer. However, Blish’s Forteanism was very different from Thayer’s—it was much more in line with what Campbell was saying: that Fort’s ideas were a proto-science that needed to be organized and turned into new bodies of knowledge. He ran away from the cynicism that was a hallmark of Thayer’s views. Finally, Blish’s letter presages his own disavowal of the Fortean Society, as he clearly increasingly saw that Thayer was opposed to all forms of science and not interested in starting new ones. Hence, he came to see Fort as lazy for not having done the work himself (another point that Campbell made). Ironically, Blish’s final view of Forteanism is very much like Lownde’s initial critique.
Blish’s letter sparked one more from Mallory Kent, published in the same issue. Kent says that he came in contact with Fort several years before and, again, this was likely after the publication of the omnibus edition. According to Damon Knight’s The Futurians, Lowndes was hanging out with Wollheim (and his wife Elsie), John Michel, Chester Cohen, Cyril Kornbluth, Daniel Burford, and Knight himself. The letter also served to invite new kinds of writing for the magazine—but there would be no follow up. Science Fiction Quarterly folded until it was reborn under Lowndes’ editorship in 1951.
Below are the letters in question.
“Your two novels this time were both very smooth, imaginative, and highly readable tales, but what took the prize with me was Martin Pearson’s little story Up There. Perhaps some of your readers have read the works of Charles Fort? This is the basis for this story—in fact a number of excellent fantasy and science fiction plots have been culled from this source.
The thing to remember about Fort, however, is that he made no assertions, offered no theories of his own. He admitted freely that due to the source of his material, much of it was bound to be questionable. But he presented it nonetheless and left it to others to sift and sort out. The thing he attacked most ferociously was the silly aura of eclecticism with which many scientists and scientific ideas are surrounded. By constantly pointing out the innumerable times astronomical theories have been overthrown Fort sought to bring home the fact that the ‘scientist’ is not a little tin god, set apart in Olympic splendor from his fellow men—is just as likely to be mistaken, pompous, ignorant, and stupid as any individual in any other branch of human endeavour. And that, I think, is the most important phase of Fort’s work. There has been far too much of the ‘priestcraft’ attitude about scientists, in so far as the general public is concerned. More than any other thing, it is this business, I think, which has served to make the public inclined to be distrustful of the scientist and of science itself.
Fort was continually asking questions, many of which astronomers could not answer. No one should hold that against the boys. Any clever child can ask questions that will baffle the wisest of adults. But when, instead of giving straight, honest confessions of ignorance, the astronomers try to get away with mystical balderdash—or simply refuse to listen to these questions—proposed in the form of actual phenomena for which no explanation has been offered—one cannot be blamed for wondering.
But I’m unalterably opposed to such things as the Fortean Society. When you try to regiment cynicism or criticism, or even organize it to the extent that a formal society would do, you merely start the groove which eventually becomes a rut—you end up with a clique far more dogmatic, idiotic, and mystical than those aspects of the behaviour of certain ‘scientists’ which Fort continually attacked.
We assume that a scientist—a bad term that: rather an individual devoted to the pursuit of some branch of scientific research or endeavour—is going to operate upon the basis of a few axions which are indispensable for the sake of order. Whether or not our ‘scientist’ actually follows the ‘scientific method’ faithfully, he is at least bound in lip-service to that method. But the cynic or critic is in no way so bound—particularly if he is a member of a society devoted to debunkery.
Fort himself never attacked the scientific method, despite his often savage censure of various scientific theories or groups. The man had a keen mind and a high sense of integrity, as well as a consciousness of what he was doing. There is no guarantee that any individual who reads Fort’s books and/or propaganda of the Fortean Society and joins up with these self-appointed judges will have all or any of the above-mentioned qualifications.”
Mallory Kent (Letter) “Prime Base,” Science Fiction Quarterly, No. 8, Fall 1942, 145-6.
“Mallory Kent’s letter in Fall Issue (No. 8) seems to have stirred up something of a controversy. Pvt. Jim Blish, whose stories many of you will remember having read in past issues of SCIENCE FICTION QUARTERLY and our inter publication SCIENCE FICTION STORIES, writes the following:
I was particularly interested in Mallory Kent’s letter about Fort and the Fortean Society. As a member of said Society, I should like the opportunity to say something on that subject.
I am not going to jump down Mr. Kent’s throat, or be particularly impassioned about it. Like everything else in this Fortean world, his letter is neither true nor untrue, and nothing that I say will be any more that similarly intermediate. Anyhow I have no desire to scintillate forever in one spot, as Fort humorously suggested might be the fate of people who got translated to the Positive Absolute. What Mr. Kent has to say about Fort seems to me to be quite acceptable; but what he has to say about the Society leads me to believe that either he does not have a very intimate acquaintance with its workings and purposes, or else that his acquaintanceship terminated some years ago.
He speaks of the Society as one ‘devoted to debunking,’ and says elsewhere that our attempt is to ‘organize’ or even ‘regiment cynicism or criticism.’ I am tempted to say ‘Not at all,’ but instead I will modify that a little and say ‘Only fractionally.’ I wonder if Mr. Kent has ever seen the codified aims of the Society: To put the books of Charles Fort into the hands of everybody who can possibly be made to read them; to publish books and pamphlets, to conduct lectures and debates upon Fortean subjects; to preserve the notes and data collected by Fort; to continue the work of gathering such data. These are the primary purposes for which the Fortean Society exists. I am sure that Mr. Kent knows Fort’s books well enough to realize what an enormous territory they cover; as John Campbell says, ‘They contain the root truths of about four new sciences,’ and it was quite impossible for one man, even such a man as Fort, to assemble all the data relating to these fields as is necessary to give us anything like a complete picture, or even properly to correlate what data he did manage to collect. That’s our job and it is a herculean one. To take all these inexplicable facts—nearly a hundred thousand in the Society’s files now—and make a pattern or patterns out of them—well, you can see that we don’t have much time for the game of debunking-for-its-own-sake. Fort’s own patterns were, except in a few cases, merely whimsical suggestions. ‘I believe nothing; I offer the data,’ he said countless times. We continue to collect these data, and sometimes such men as E.F. Russell, C.S. deFord, Alfred Barley, Drayson, deHorsey, Marriott, Page, Graydon, Crehore, and Hammett attempt tentative correlations. Mostly such attempts turn out to be useful only in showing us that we haven’t yet enough data; or sometimes they work out most spectacularly, as did the theories of Drayson and Graydon. The Fortean Society//145//offers for sale extended scientific works by all the men whom I listed above.
‘Debunk? Sure we debunk. Some people have thick skulls, Mr. Kent; until you show as forcefully as possible the bunk in the system of [sic] theory you are trying to replace, your own work, no matter how careful it may be, nor how thoroughly documented by research and experiment and math, will lie dormant and collect dust. Graydon’s got a letter fro, Dr. Clyde Fisher anent his own work, approving his math, but not all scientists are so open-minded, as Mr. Kent well knows. Some of them are pretty thoroughly surrounded by bunk, and you have to debunk your way through it to get at them. We aren’t trying to be professional cynics! As you say, we’d be as dogmatic as the next man if were were, and it’s a mistake we admit even Fort made. But we try not to make it ourselves. We criticize to a purpose.
‘Self-appointed judges?’ Well, perhaps; but I’m surprised to hear about it, and I think that most of the rest of us would be similarly surprised. We don’t judge, we investigate. If we have four hundred records of falls of living things, and two hundred of mysterious disappearances and appearances, we ‘judge’ that some temporary force may exist, despite disclaimers by other scientists who don’t have six hundred records to match ours, or even one hundred. We ‘judge’ that maybe these scientists may be wrong. This is cautious judgment, and tempered always by our choice of verb—you see, we are still saying ‘MAY exist’ although our records far top the six hundred figure I selected arbitrarily. This is because our often-published and often-repeated tenet is that of the suspension of final judgment and dogmatic acceptance. ‘Temporary acceptance’ is the principle of true scientific endeavor all over the world.
And if we occasionally foam at the mouth and have attacks of debunkiana, I think maybe you can forgive us. We don’t enjoy foaming any more than you enjoy watching us foam, and we do it as seldom as possible, but sometimes—are you human, Mr. Kent—just sometimes, just occasionally, we run out of patience with the log heads who will not listen, and the evaders who squirm away from under our patiently compiled masses of facts without even the politeness to acknowledge our patience with a hearing.
We turned PVt. Blish’s letter over to Mallory Kent, who noted the following:
Blish’s courteous reply to my (apparently none-too-well-founded) attack is appreciated. Yes, my acquaintanceship with Forteans was not very intimate, and occurred several years ago. I think I’d just finished reading Fort’s books at that time, and was interested in the very idea of a Fortean Society, whose aims I imagined much as Jim outlined them. Unfortunately, I came in contact with a clique of dilettantes whose yammerings finally soured me on the idea.
Am glad to hear that these drools were not representative of the Forteans.
By the by, editor old thing, how about seeing if yon Pvt. Blish, or some other qualified party, can do some scientific articles for SCIENCE FICTION QUARTERLY along Fortean lines? If not too technical they ought to be of genuine interest, and not the usual thing one finds floating around.
If yon Pvt. Blish, or any other qualified party, cares to send in such types of articles, we’re more than happy to consider them, Kent, old thing.”
“Prime Base” Science Fiction Quarterly” No 10, Spring 1943, 144-145.
Ultimately, the letter was prompted by a story published by Donald Wollheim, under the pseudonym Martin Pearson, called “Up There.” The story poked gentle fun at Fortean beliefs by having an astronaut rip a hole in the sky. (According to Mike Ashley’s Time Machine: I haven’t actually seen the story yet.) “Up There” appeared in Science Fiction Quarterly, which was edited by Robert W. Lowndes. Both Wollheim and Lowndes were members of the seminal science fiction fan group, The Futurians. Lowndes was also Wollheim’s sometimes agent, and so it is little surprise that this magazine would carry a story by his friend and client.
The story received a call-out in the next issue’s letter section (titled “Prime Base”—a reference to one of the Futurians’ shared apartments) by someone named Mallory Kent. Science fiction historians have concluded that Kent was a pseudonym for Lowndes himself, and that helps make sense of the letter—which wants to point out the story’s Fortean origins, but distance it from the Fortean Society, which had been getting heat as subversive since issue 6, put out in 1942. It is worth noting, though, that the Mallory Kent here consistently uses British spellings.
Kent’s letter, in return, sparked a note from Blish. Such on-going dialogues were part of the fun and the function of science fiction magazine letter columns. Blish had briefly been part of the Futurians before attending college and then joining the war effort, and so had known Lowndes—and the two would become very close in the years after World War II, when they even lived together—and so it may be that Blish knew Mallory was Lowndes. At any rate, he took exception to Lowndes-Kent’s description of the Fortean Society.
Despite all the pseudonyms, and possible backdoor connections, the letter is revealing in a number of ways, First, it shows that Blish was, at the time, deeply committed to Forteanism. Likely, he had recently read the books in their omnibus form. It also presumably reflects his correspondence with Thayer, as he offers statistics that sound as though they came from Thayer, and also cites authors of Fortean texts that also sound as though they came from Thayer. However, Blish’s Forteanism was very different from Thayer’s—it was much more in line with what Campbell was saying: that Fort’s ideas were a proto-science that needed to be organized and turned into new bodies of knowledge. He ran away from the cynicism that was a hallmark of Thayer’s views. Finally, Blish’s letter presages his own disavowal of the Fortean Society, as he clearly increasingly saw that Thayer was opposed to all forms of science and not interested in starting new ones. Hence, he came to see Fort as lazy for not having done the work himself (another point that Campbell made). Ironically, Blish’s final view of Forteanism is very much like Lownde’s initial critique.
Blish’s letter sparked one more from Mallory Kent, published in the same issue. Kent says that he came in contact with Fort several years before and, again, this was likely after the publication of the omnibus edition. According to Damon Knight’s The Futurians, Lowndes was hanging out with Wollheim (and his wife Elsie), John Michel, Chester Cohen, Cyril Kornbluth, Daniel Burford, and Knight himself. The letter also served to invite new kinds of writing for the magazine—but there would be no follow up. Science Fiction Quarterly folded until it was reborn under Lowndes’ editorship in 1951.
Below are the letters in question.
“Your two novels this time were both very smooth, imaginative, and highly readable tales, but what took the prize with me was Martin Pearson’s little story Up There. Perhaps some of your readers have read the works of Charles Fort? This is the basis for this story—in fact a number of excellent fantasy and science fiction plots have been culled from this source.
The thing to remember about Fort, however, is that he made no assertions, offered no theories of his own. He admitted freely that due to the source of his material, much of it was bound to be questionable. But he presented it nonetheless and left it to others to sift and sort out. The thing he attacked most ferociously was the silly aura of eclecticism with which many scientists and scientific ideas are surrounded. By constantly pointing out the innumerable times astronomical theories have been overthrown Fort sought to bring home the fact that the ‘scientist’ is not a little tin god, set apart in Olympic splendor from his fellow men—is just as likely to be mistaken, pompous, ignorant, and stupid as any individual in any other branch of human endeavour. And that, I think, is the most important phase of Fort’s work. There has been far too much of the ‘priestcraft’ attitude about scientists, in so far as the general public is concerned. More than any other thing, it is this business, I think, which has served to make the public inclined to be distrustful of the scientist and of science itself.
Fort was continually asking questions, many of which astronomers could not answer. No one should hold that against the boys. Any clever child can ask questions that will baffle the wisest of adults. But when, instead of giving straight, honest confessions of ignorance, the astronomers try to get away with mystical balderdash—or simply refuse to listen to these questions—proposed in the form of actual phenomena for which no explanation has been offered—one cannot be blamed for wondering.
But I’m unalterably opposed to such things as the Fortean Society. When you try to regiment cynicism or criticism, or even organize it to the extent that a formal society would do, you merely start the groove which eventually becomes a rut—you end up with a clique far more dogmatic, idiotic, and mystical than those aspects of the behaviour of certain ‘scientists’ which Fort continually attacked.
We assume that a scientist—a bad term that: rather an individual devoted to the pursuit of some branch of scientific research or endeavour—is going to operate upon the basis of a few axions which are indispensable for the sake of order. Whether or not our ‘scientist’ actually follows the ‘scientific method’ faithfully, he is at least bound in lip-service to that method. But the cynic or critic is in no way so bound—particularly if he is a member of a society devoted to debunkery.
Fort himself never attacked the scientific method, despite his often savage censure of various scientific theories or groups. The man had a keen mind and a high sense of integrity, as well as a consciousness of what he was doing. There is no guarantee that any individual who reads Fort’s books and/or propaganda of the Fortean Society and joins up with these self-appointed judges will have all or any of the above-mentioned qualifications.”
Mallory Kent (Letter) “Prime Base,” Science Fiction Quarterly, No. 8, Fall 1942, 145-6.
“Mallory Kent’s letter in Fall Issue (No. 8) seems to have stirred up something of a controversy. Pvt. Jim Blish, whose stories many of you will remember having read in past issues of SCIENCE FICTION QUARTERLY and our inter publication SCIENCE FICTION STORIES, writes the following:
I was particularly interested in Mallory Kent’s letter about Fort and the Fortean Society. As a member of said Society, I should like the opportunity to say something on that subject.
I am not going to jump down Mr. Kent’s throat, or be particularly impassioned about it. Like everything else in this Fortean world, his letter is neither true nor untrue, and nothing that I say will be any more that similarly intermediate. Anyhow I have no desire to scintillate forever in one spot, as Fort humorously suggested might be the fate of people who got translated to the Positive Absolute. What Mr. Kent has to say about Fort seems to me to be quite acceptable; but what he has to say about the Society leads me to believe that either he does not have a very intimate acquaintance with its workings and purposes, or else that his acquaintanceship terminated some years ago.
He speaks of the Society as one ‘devoted to debunking,’ and says elsewhere that our attempt is to ‘organize’ or even ‘regiment cynicism or criticism.’ I am tempted to say ‘Not at all,’ but instead I will modify that a little and say ‘Only fractionally.’ I wonder if Mr. Kent has ever seen the codified aims of the Society: To put the books of Charles Fort into the hands of everybody who can possibly be made to read them; to publish books and pamphlets, to conduct lectures and debates upon Fortean subjects; to preserve the notes and data collected by Fort; to continue the work of gathering such data. These are the primary purposes for which the Fortean Society exists. I am sure that Mr. Kent knows Fort’s books well enough to realize what an enormous territory they cover; as John Campbell says, ‘They contain the root truths of about four new sciences,’ and it was quite impossible for one man, even such a man as Fort, to assemble all the data relating to these fields as is necessary to give us anything like a complete picture, or even properly to correlate what data he did manage to collect. That’s our job and it is a herculean one. To take all these inexplicable facts—nearly a hundred thousand in the Society’s files now—and make a pattern or patterns out of them—well, you can see that we don’t have much time for the game of debunking-for-its-own-sake. Fort’s own patterns were, except in a few cases, merely whimsical suggestions. ‘I believe nothing; I offer the data,’ he said countless times. We continue to collect these data, and sometimes such men as E.F. Russell, C.S. deFord, Alfred Barley, Drayson, deHorsey, Marriott, Page, Graydon, Crehore, and Hammett attempt tentative correlations. Mostly such attempts turn out to be useful only in showing us that we haven’t yet enough data; or sometimes they work out most spectacularly, as did the theories of Drayson and Graydon. The Fortean Society//145//offers for sale extended scientific works by all the men whom I listed above.
‘Debunk? Sure we debunk. Some people have thick skulls, Mr. Kent; until you show as forcefully as possible the bunk in the system of [sic] theory you are trying to replace, your own work, no matter how careful it may be, nor how thoroughly documented by research and experiment and math, will lie dormant and collect dust. Graydon’s got a letter fro, Dr. Clyde Fisher anent his own work, approving his math, but not all scientists are so open-minded, as Mr. Kent well knows. Some of them are pretty thoroughly surrounded by bunk, and you have to debunk your way through it to get at them. We aren’t trying to be professional cynics! As you say, we’d be as dogmatic as the next man if were were, and it’s a mistake we admit even Fort made. But we try not to make it ourselves. We criticize to a purpose.
‘Self-appointed judges?’ Well, perhaps; but I’m surprised to hear about it, and I think that most of the rest of us would be similarly surprised. We don’t judge, we investigate. If we have four hundred records of falls of living things, and two hundred of mysterious disappearances and appearances, we ‘judge’ that some temporary force may exist, despite disclaimers by other scientists who don’t have six hundred records to match ours, or even one hundred. We ‘judge’ that maybe these scientists may be wrong. This is cautious judgment, and tempered always by our choice of verb—you see, we are still saying ‘MAY exist’ although our records far top the six hundred figure I selected arbitrarily. This is because our often-published and often-repeated tenet is that of the suspension of final judgment and dogmatic acceptance. ‘Temporary acceptance’ is the principle of true scientific endeavor all over the world.
And if we occasionally foam at the mouth and have attacks of debunkiana, I think maybe you can forgive us. We don’t enjoy foaming any more than you enjoy watching us foam, and we do it as seldom as possible, but sometimes—are you human, Mr. Kent—just sometimes, just occasionally, we run out of patience with the log heads who will not listen, and the evaders who squirm away from under our patiently compiled masses of facts without even the politeness to acknowledge our patience with a hearing.
We turned PVt. Blish’s letter over to Mallory Kent, who noted the following:
Blish’s courteous reply to my (apparently none-too-well-founded) attack is appreciated. Yes, my acquaintanceship with Forteans was not very intimate, and occurred several years ago. I think I’d just finished reading Fort’s books at that time, and was interested in the very idea of a Fortean Society, whose aims I imagined much as Jim outlined them. Unfortunately, I came in contact with a clique of dilettantes whose yammerings finally soured me on the idea.
Am glad to hear that these drools were not representative of the Forteans.
By the by, editor old thing, how about seeing if yon Pvt. Blish, or some other qualified party, can do some scientific articles for SCIENCE FICTION QUARTERLY along Fortean lines? If not too technical they ought to be of genuine interest, and not the usual thing one finds floating around.
If yon Pvt. Blish, or any other qualified party, cares to send in such types of articles, we’re more than happy to consider them, Kent, old thing.”
“Prime Base” Science Fiction Quarterly” No 10, Spring 1943, 144-145.
