Mysticism
Shipley (and perhaps MacNichol) found in Fort a way to acknowledge science’s powers, as well as its limits, thus proving that science’s explanations are not complete—that there was still room for individuals and individual experience. Others used Fort to much more radically curtail the power of scientific explanation. They saw in his accounts of the odd and mysterious that there were other forces operating in the universe, forces that may never be explained by scientific principles but obeyed the laws of something else. Catherine Albanese argues that there was a long tradition of such theorizing in American society—the metaphysical lineage, she calls it. For historical reasons, San Francisco was especially open to metaphysical groups: the rapid growth of the area, from a few hundred residents in 1848 to a quarter million in 1880 prevented the rise of any one dominant religious group; its populating by single men in the days leading up to the Civil War worked against evangelism, which at the time was largely communicated through women and was suspect because of its connection to belligerence; liberal theologians, influenced by Unitarianism and Transcendentalism found especial favor here and maintained a space for religious experimentation; these tendencies were refreshed by a second Gold Rush during World War II, when shipbuilding attracted huge numbers of people to the area. The art community that developed in Berkeley at this time—called the Berkeley Renaissance—which laid the seeds for the later San Francisco Renaissance (and beats and hippies) emphasized this tradition. Poet Robert Duncan (1919-1988) had been raised a Theosophist before he vagabonded across the country, and Rexroth encouraged him to return to those roots. Jack Spicer (1925-1965) claimed to be descended both from Native Americans and Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), founder of the New Thought Christian Science Church.
Kenneth Rexroth saw Forteanism and mysticism as mixing easily. He had been raised in Indiana, but his family spent extensive time in New York and, according to family lore, his father had been friends with Charles Fort. In the Midwest, Rexroth learned mysticism at his grandmother’s knee. She told him tales of ghosts, sea serpents, monstrous births, and horse whispering. They shared the “annoying habit” of second sight—annoying because his prescience always involved trivial matters. According to Rexroth, his grandmother had stories of atmospheric oddities “to rival Fort,” to of which he witnessed himself: a blue sphere traveled through their house and a fish-shaped hole appeared in the sky. Rexroth continued his metaphysical education by reading the works of Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) and studying Asian religion. This mystical approach to the world influence his reading of Fort—and the poetry he produced. Although Rexroth left no specific statement about Fort, it seems reasonable to suppose that he understood his collection of data not as phenomena waiting to be explained by science, but events beyond science’s ken. Experience, then, particularly individual experience, was not amenable to scientific analysis. Rather, it required a refined literary mind to understand and express—a central tenet in the Bay Area artistic community. As historian Richard Candida Smith put it, “The imagination manifested its highest form in the aesthetic act, became the most stable source of personal freedom in a world otherwise deterministic and frightening.”
This connection between Forteanism and mysticism can be seen in some other Bay Area residents, although the coupling may not be as tight. For instance, two Forteans (at least) considered themselves magicians, and not in the sense of being proficient at sleight-of-hand, but of being able to tap into laws of the universe that had not been—and probably could not be—explained by science: occult powers. Neither Fort nor Shipley were drawn to this way of thinking, but George F. Hass (1906-1977) and Polly Lamb both were. They practiced a form of magic that was similar—if not derived from—Aleister Crowley (1875-1943): "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will." Haas’s magical acts included cursing the apartment where he thought the thieves of his television lived and having the set returned and looking for a book that was only available in hardback in a paperback store—yet finding it. Robert Barbour Johnson thought that Polly Lamb’s death might have been caused by her meddling with occult forces. Both were also Forteans, and it is possible to see them understanding some of the events Fort discussed not as weird manifestations of unknown natural laws, but as the actions of sorceresses and wizards. A peripheral figure who may have had a similar world view was Anton LaVey (1930-1997), who would go on to found the Church of Satan in the 1960s. LaVey palled around with Haas and Robert Barbour Johnson and the poet of Auburn Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). His understanding of Satanism was in accord with Haas (and Lamb’s) metaphysics, emphasizing the power of human will to alter the structure of nature, and thus, like Rexroth—who was nonetheless very different—finding in Charles Fort evidence that there were forces beyond scientific manipulation that could be accessed and controlled by individuals, freeing up a space away from the determinisms of scientific materialism.
Shipley (and perhaps MacNichol) found in Fort a way to acknowledge science’s powers, as well as its limits, thus proving that science’s explanations are not complete—that there was still room for individuals and individual experience. Others used Fort to much more radically curtail the power of scientific explanation. They saw in his accounts of the odd and mysterious that there were other forces operating in the universe, forces that may never be explained by scientific principles but obeyed the laws of something else. Catherine Albanese argues that there was a long tradition of such theorizing in American society—the metaphysical lineage, she calls it. For historical reasons, San Francisco was especially open to metaphysical groups: the rapid growth of the area, from a few hundred residents in 1848 to a quarter million in 1880 prevented the rise of any one dominant religious group; its populating by single men in the days leading up to the Civil War worked against evangelism, which at the time was largely communicated through women and was suspect because of its connection to belligerence; liberal theologians, influenced by Unitarianism and Transcendentalism found especial favor here and maintained a space for religious experimentation; these tendencies were refreshed by a second Gold Rush during World War II, when shipbuilding attracted huge numbers of people to the area. The art community that developed in Berkeley at this time—called the Berkeley Renaissance—which laid the seeds for the later San Francisco Renaissance (and beats and hippies) emphasized this tradition. Poet Robert Duncan (1919-1988) had been raised a Theosophist before he vagabonded across the country, and Rexroth encouraged him to return to those roots. Jack Spicer (1925-1965) claimed to be descended both from Native Americans and Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), founder of the New Thought Christian Science Church.
Kenneth Rexroth saw Forteanism and mysticism as mixing easily. He had been raised in Indiana, but his family spent extensive time in New York and, according to family lore, his father had been friends with Charles Fort. In the Midwest, Rexroth learned mysticism at his grandmother’s knee. She told him tales of ghosts, sea serpents, monstrous births, and horse whispering. They shared the “annoying habit” of second sight—annoying because his prescience always involved trivial matters. According to Rexroth, his grandmother had stories of atmospheric oddities “to rival Fort,” to of which he witnessed himself: a blue sphere traveled through their house and a fish-shaped hole appeared in the sky. Rexroth continued his metaphysical education by reading the works of Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) and studying Asian religion. This mystical approach to the world influence his reading of Fort—and the poetry he produced. Although Rexroth left no specific statement about Fort, it seems reasonable to suppose that he understood his collection of data not as phenomena waiting to be explained by science, but events beyond science’s ken. Experience, then, particularly individual experience, was not amenable to scientific analysis. Rather, it required a refined literary mind to understand and express—a central tenet in the Bay Area artistic community. As historian Richard Candida Smith put it, “The imagination manifested its highest form in the aesthetic act, became the most stable source of personal freedom in a world otherwise deterministic and frightening.”
This connection between Forteanism and mysticism can be seen in some other Bay Area residents, although the coupling may not be as tight. For instance, two Forteans (at least) considered themselves magicians, and not in the sense of being proficient at sleight-of-hand, but of being able to tap into laws of the universe that had not been—and probably could not be—explained by science: occult powers. Neither Fort nor Shipley were drawn to this way of thinking, but George F. Hass (1906-1977) and Polly Lamb both were. They practiced a form of magic that was similar—if not derived from—Aleister Crowley (1875-1943): "the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will." Haas’s magical acts included cursing the apartment where he thought the thieves of his television lived and having the set returned and looking for a book that was only available in hardback in a paperback store—yet finding it. Robert Barbour Johnson thought that Polly Lamb’s death might have been caused by her meddling with occult forces. Both were also Forteans, and it is possible to see them understanding some of the events Fort discussed not as weird manifestations of unknown natural laws, but as the actions of sorceresses and wizards. A peripheral figure who may have had a similar world view was Anton LaVey (1930-1997), who would go on to found the Church of Satan in the 1960s. LaVey palled around with Haas and Robert Barbour Johnson and the poet of Auburn Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1961). His understanding of Satanism was in accord with Haas (and Lamb’s) metaphysics, emphasizing the power of human will to alter the structure of nature, and thus, like Rexroth—who was nonetheless very different—finding in Charles Fort evidence that there were forces beyond scientific manipulation that could be accessed and controlled by individuals, freeing up a space away from the determinisms of scientific materialism.
