Trade
It is common to look upon Forteans as atavists—people seeking refuge from the harshness of modern life by indulging a fascination for an imagined past. Recent research has called into question this schema, suggesting that modernity and enchantment grow together. This view is consistent with Scott’s argument about those who did not want to be ruled: often dismissed as primitive holdovers, they, instead, co-evolved with the paddy state, adapting their lifestyles to the growth of the state. They traded, too. Citizens of the state had products that made life more convenient for the hill tribes—proving again that their lifestyles were patchworks of the modern and the old—and the hill tribes had access to goods citizens did not: fruits and other foods that grew only in the forest, for example, artisanal products. Thus, even as the hill tribes tried to remain free from the coercive force of the state, they still engaged with it. The same was true of the Forteans although, of course, not everyone was interested in such trade.
The flow of material and ideas from science to the Forteans is the easiest to document. Fort, clearly, was not interested in retreating to a Romantic past. He read scientific journals, grappled with scientific ideas—he was, perhaps, the first popular writer on the new Quantum Mechanics, for example. He took these scientific facts and re-interpreted them according to the logic of his monistic system. Bern Porter, too, was an example of this trade: brought to his art a familiarity with modern science and its techniques, that he then attempted to put to other uses. Fortean science fiction writers such as Garen Drussai and Anthony Boucher were consumers of science, too, keeping up with developing ideas so that they could incorporate them into their stories. Boucher, for instance, wrote a story that turned on forensic science—in particular, that two people could have the same fingerprint. (Thayer wrote documented examples of this in Doubt; he was no friend of forensics.) E. Hoffman Price and Philip Lamantia were both astrologists. Astrology was an outdated science, no doubt, but its continued practice required an understanding of astronomy, and thus their work necessitated familiarity with science.
What did Forteans provide to science in turn? Some were uninterested in the trade. Henry Miller, for example, also developed an interest in astrology, but he thought of it as only another language in which to speak—and not a way of studying the universe or understanding its mechanics. The same was true of his fascination with Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy: he came to admit she had probably invented her gurus, but what counted were not the facts: what counted was the poetry of her work. He had little interest in modern science—the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company section of The Tropic of Capricorn is a stinging rebuke of modern organizations and their scientific rules—and saw little reason to contribute to science. “The gulf between knowledge and truth is infinite. Parents talk a lot about truth but seldom bother to deal in it. It’s much simpler to dispense ready-made knowledge. More expedient too, for truth demands patience, endless, endless patience.” Miller was a purveyor of truth, he thought. Other Forteans, such as Robert Barbour Johnson, similarly seemed to have little interest in science, either in learning from it or contributing to it, beyond seeking out examples of events that violated scientific expectations, such as the stones that fell on Irene Fellows’s home.
But there were ways in which the Forteans passed ideas into science. Most obvious in this regard is George F. Haas, who did basic taxonomic work on the flower genus Penstemon in the late 1930s and early 1940s, as well as research on redwoods when he was a ranger at Big Trees State Park. Forteanism itself did not seem to drive Haas’s interest in these subjects, but his involvement with both the Fortean Society and the American Penstemon Society show, at the very least, that Forteanism did not force one to reject all scientific knowledge. Similarly, Kenneth Rexroth worked in an asylum while he was a conscientious objector and developed some of his own ideas about therapy; George Leite was interested in criminology, as was, of course, Maynard Shipley. More speculatively, Forteans may have contributed to science in a less direct way: through their writings. Fantastic fiction is a well known influence on the scientific imagination—notably so during the 1920s, when scientists showed little interest in rocketry but science fiction fans and amateurs kept the dream of a rocket to the moon alive. It may be that Lamantia’s surrealist poetry or Boucher’s fantasies fire the imagination of later scientists. One of Fort’s messages was that explanations of the world should not be taken at face value, but treated skeptically, tested, and probed: which is the exact job of new generations of scientists.
It is common to look upon Forteans as atavists—people seeking refuge from the harshness of modern life by indulging a fascination for an imagined past. Recent research has called into question this schema, suggesting that modernity and enchantment grow together. This view is consistent with Scott’s argument about those who did not want to be ruled: often dismissed as primitive holdovers, they, instead, co-evolved with the paddy state, adapting their lifestyles to the growth of the state. They traded, too. Citizens of the state had products that made life more convenient for the hill tribes—proving again that their lifestyles were patchworks of the modern and the old—and the hill tribes had access to goods citizens did not: fruits and other foods that grew only in the forest, for example, artisanal products. Thus, even as the hill tribes tried to remain free from the coercive force of the state, they still engaged with it. The same was true of the Forteans although, of course, not everyone was interested in such trade.
The flow of material and ideas from science to the Forteans is the easiest to document. Fort, clearly, was not interested in retreating to a Romantic past. He read scientific journals, grappled with scientific ideas—he was, perhaps, the first popular writer on the new Quantum Mechanics, for example. He took these scientific facts and re-interpreted them according to the logic of his monistic system. Bern Porter, too, was an example of this trade: brought to his art a familiarity with modern science and its techniques, that he then attempted to put to other uses. Fortean science fiction writers such as Garen Drussai and Anthony Boucher were consumers of science, too, keeping up with developing ideas so that they could incorporate them into their stories. Boucher, for instance, wrote a story that turned on forensic science—in particular, that two people could have the same fingerprint. (Thayer wrote documented examples of this in Doubt; he was no friend of forensics.) E. Hoffman Price and Philip Lamantia were both astrologists. Astrology was an outdated science, no doubt, but its continued practice required an understanding of astronomy, and thus their work necessitated familiarity with science.
What did Forteans provide to science in turn? Some were uninterested in the trade. Henry Miller, for example, also developed an interest in astrology, but he thought of it as only another language in which to speak—and not a way of studying the universe or understanding its mechanics. The same was true of his fascination with Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophy: he came to admit she had probably invented her gurus, but what counted were not the facts: what counted was the poetry of her work. He had little interest in modern science—the Cosmodemonic Telegraph Company section of The Tropic of Capricorn is a stinging rebuke of modern organizations and their scientific rules—and saw little reason to contribute to science. “The gulf between knowledge and truth is infinite. Parents talk a lot about truth but seldom bother to deal in it. It’s much simpler to dispense ready-made knowledge. More expedient too, for truth demands patience, endless, endless patience.” Miller was a purveyor of truth, he thought. Other Forteans, such as Robert Barbour Johnson, similarly seemed to have little interest in science, either in learning from it or contributing to it, beyond seeking out examples of events that violated scientific expectations, such as the stones that fell on Irene Fellows’s home.
But there were ways in which the Forteans passed ideas into science. Most obvious in this regard is George F. Haas, who did basic taxonomic work on the flower genus Penstemon in the late 1930s and early 1940s, as well as research on redwoods when he was a ranger at Big Trees State Park. Forteanism itself did not seem to drive Haas’s interest in these subjects, but his involvement with both the Fortean Society and the American Penstemon Society show, at the very least, that Forteanism did not force one to reject all scientific knowledge. Similarly, Kenneth Rexroth worked in an asylum while he was a conscientious objector and developed some of his own ideas about therapy; George Leite was interested in criminology, as was, of course, Maynard Shipley. More speculatively, Forteans may have contributed to science in a less direct way: through their writings. Fantastic fiction is a well known influence on the scientific imagination—notably so during the 1920s, when scientists showed little interest in rocketry but science fiction fans and amateurs kept the dream of a rocket to the moon alive. It may be that Lamantia’s surrealist poetry or Boucher’s fantasies fire the imagination of later scientists. One of Fort’s messages was that explanations of the world should not be taken at face value, but treated skeptically, tested, and probed: which is the exact job of new generations of scientists.
