Wild Talents

by Charles Fort

  There is a moral in this, and it applies to a great deal in this book, which is upon the realization of wishes. I had wished for pigeons. I got them. After the investigation by the three pioneers all of them came in. There were nine of them. It was the unusually warm summer of 1931, and the windows had to be kept open. Pigeons on the backs of chairs. They came up on the table, and inspected what I had for dinner. Other times they spent on the rug, in stately groups and processions, except every now and then, when they were not so dignified. I could not shoo them out, because I had invited them. Finally, I did get screens: but it takes weeks to be so intelligent. So the moral is in the observation that, if you wish for something, you had better look out, because you may be so unfortunate as to get it. It is better to be humble and contented with almost nothing, because there’s no knowing what something may do to you. Much is said of the “cruelty of Nature”: but, when a man is denied his “heart’s desire,” that is mercy.

  But I am suspicious of all this wisdom, because it makes for humility and contentment. These thoughts are community thoughts, and tend to suppress the individual. They are corollaries of mechanistic philosophy, and I represent revolt against mechanistic philosophy, not as applying to a great deal, but as absolute.

  Nevertheless, by the “occult,” or the “supernatural,” I do not mean that I think that it is altogether exemplified by the experience of the pigeons. In our existence of law-lawlessness, I conceive of two magics: one as representing unknown law, and the other as expressing lawlessness—or that a man may fall from a roof, and alight unharmed, because of anti-gravitational law; and that another man may fall from a roof, and alight unharmed, as an expression of the exceptional, of the defiance of gravitation, of universal inconsistency, of defiance of everything.

  London Times, October—

  Oh, well, just as an exception of our own—never mind the data, this time—take my word for it that I could cite instances of remarkable falls, if I wanted to.

  It looks to me as if, for instance, some fishes climb trees, as an expression of lawlessness, by which there is somewhere an exception to the generalization that fishes must be aquatic. I think that Thou Shalt Not was written on high, addressed to fishes. Whereupon a fish climbed a tree. Or that it is law that hybrids shall be sterile—and that, not two, but three, animals went into a conspiracy, out of which came the okapi. There is a “law” of specialization. Evolutionists make much of it. Stores specialize, so that dealers in pants do not sell prunes. But then appear drugstores, which sell drugs, books, soups, and mouse traps.

  I have had what I think is about the average experience with magic. But, except in several periods, I have taken notes upon my experiences: and most persons do not do this, and forget. We forget so easily that I have looked over notes, and have come upon details of which I had no remembrance. From records of my own experiences, I take an account of a series of small occurrences, several particulars of which are of importance to our general argument.

  I was living in London—39 Marchmont Street, W.C.I. I was gathering data, in the British Museum Library. In my searches, I had noted instances of pictures falling from walls, at times of poltergeist disturbances: but I note here that my data upon physical subjects, such as earthquakes and auroral beams and lights on dark parts of the moon were about five to one, as compared with numbers of data upon matters of psychic research. Later, the preponderance shifted the other way. The subject of pictures falling from walls was in my mind, but it was much submerged by other subjects and aspects of subjects. It was so inactive in my mind that, when I was told of several pictures that had fallen from walls in our house, I put that down to household insecurities, and paid no more attention.

  The abbreviations in the notes are A for my wife; Mrs. M, for the landlady; E, the landlady’s daughter; Cs, the tenants upstairs. According to me, this is not the unsatisfactoriness of so many stories about a Mr. X, or a Mrs. Y, because according to me, only two of us, whom I identify, were more than minor figures: also we may suspect that, of these two, one was rather more central than the other—according to me. However, also, I suspect that, if E should tell this story, I’d be put down, much minored, as Mr. F. A and I occupied the middle floor, which was of two rooms, one of them used by us as a kitchen, though it was furnished to rent as a furnished room.

  March 11, 1924—see Charles Fort’s Notes, Letter E, Box 27—“I was reading last night, in the kitchen, when I heard a thump. Sometimes I am not easily startled, and I looked around in a leisurely manner, seeing that a picture had fallen, glass not breaking, having fallen upon a pile of magazines in a corner. Two lace curtains at sides of window. Picture fell at foot of left curtain. Now, according to my impression, the bottom of the right-hand curtain was vigorously shaken, for several seconds, an appreciable length of time after the fall of the picture.

  “Morning of the 12th—find that one of the brass rings, on the back of the picture frame, to which the cord was attached, had been broken in two places—metal bright at the fractures.

  “A reminded me that, in the Cs’ room, two pictures had fallen recently.”

  I have kept this little brass ring, broken through in one place, and the segment between the breaks, hanging by a metal shred at the point of the other break. The picture was not heavy. The look is that there had been a sharp, strong pull on the picture cord, so doubly to break this ring.

  “March 18, 1924—about 5 p.m. I was sitting in the corner, where the picture fell. There was a startling, crackling sound, as if of window glass breaking. It was so sharp and loud that for hours afterward I had a sense of alertness to dodge missiles. It was so loud that Mrs. C upstairs, heard it.”

  But nothing had broken a windowpane. I found one small crack in a corner, but the edges were grimy, indicating that it had been made long before.

  “March 28, 1924—This morning, I found a second picture—or the fourth, including the falls in the rooms upstairs—on the floor, in the same corner. It had fallen from a place about three feet above a bureau, upon which are piled my boxes of notes. It seems clear that the picture did not ordinarily fall, or it would have hit the notes, and there would have been a heartbreaking mess of notes all over the floor.”

  Oh, very. Sometimes I knock over a box of notes, and it’s a job of hours to get them back in their places. I don’t know whether it has any meaning, but I think about this: the accounts of pictures falling from walls, which were among these notes.

  “The glass in the picture was not broken. This time, the cord, and not a ring, was broken. I quickly tied the broken cord, and put the picture back. I suppose I should have had A for a witness. Partly I did not want to alarm her, and partly I did not want her to tell, and start a ghost scare centering around me.”

  I would have it that, in some unknown way, I was the one who was doing this. I’d like to meet Mrs. C sometime, and perhaps listen to her hint that she has psychic powers, and hint that she was the one who went around psychically, knocking down pictures in our house.

  The cord of this second, or fourth, picture was heavy and strong. It was beyond my strength to break a length of it. But something had broken this strong cord. I looked at the small nail in the wall. It showed no sign of strain.

  Of course I was reasoning about all this. Said I: “If, when this house was furnished, all the pictures were put up about the same time, their cords may all weaken about the same time.” But a ring broke, one of the times. Upstairs, one of the pictures had fallen in a kitchen, and the other in a living room, where conditions were different. Smoke in a kitchen has chemical effects upon picture cords.

  “April 18, 1924—A took a picture down from the kitchen wall, to wash the glass—London smoke. The picture seemed to fall from the wall into her hands. A said: ‘Another picture cord rotten.’ Then: ‘No: the nail came out.’ But the cord had not broken, and the nail was in the wall. Later, that day, A said: ‘I don’t understand how that picture came down.’ ”

  There was nothing resembling a
“scare” in the house. There were no discussions. I think that there was an occasional laughing suggestion—“Must be spooks around.” I had three or four reasons for saying nothing about the matter to anybody.

  “July 26, 1924—Heard a sound downstairs. Then Fannie called up: ‘Mrs. Fort, did you hear that? A picture fell right off the wall.’ ” I go on with my account, or with the mistake that I am making. Just so long as I gave the New York Something or Another, or the Tasmanian Whatever, for reference, that was all very well. But now I tell a story of my own, and everybody who hasn’t had pictures drop from walls, in his presence, will resent pictures falling from walls, because of my occult powers. There are several notes that may indicate a relation between my thoughts upon falling pictures, and then, later, a falling picture.

  “Oct. 22, 1924—Yesterday, I was in the front room, thinking casually of the pictures that fell from the walls. This evening, my eyes bad. Unable to read. Was sitting, staring at the kitchen wall, fiddling with a piece of string. Anything to pass away time. I was staring right at a picture above corner of bureau, where the notes are, but having no consciousness of the picture. It fell. It hit boxes of notes, dropped to floor, frame at a corner broken, glass broken.”

  There was another circumstance. I remember nothing about it. The notes upon it are as brief as if I had not been especially impressed by something that I now think was one of the strangest particulars—that is, if by indicating that I had searched for something, I meant that I had searched thoroughly.

  “The cord was broken several inches from one of the fastenings on back of picture. But there should have been this fastening, a dangling piece of cord, several inches long. This missing. I can’t find it.”

  “Night of Sept. 28-29, 1925—a picture fell in Mrs. M’s room.”

  Note the lapse of time. I am sorry to record that a note, dated Nov. 3, 1926, is missing. As I remember it, and according to allusions, in notes of November 4th, it was only a remark of mine that for more than a year no picture had fallen.

  “Nov. 4, 1926—This is worth noting. Last night, I noted about the pictures, because earlier in the evening, talking over psychic experiences with France and others, I had mentioned falling pictures in our house. Tonight, when I came home, A told me of a loud sound that had been heard, and how welcome it was to her because it had interrupted E in a long, tiresome account of the plot of a moving picture. Later, A exclaimed: ‘Here’s what made the noise!’ She had turned on the light, in the front room, and on the floor was a large picture. I had not mentioned to A that yesterday my mind was upon falling pictures. I took that note after she had gone to bed. I looked at the picture—cord broken, with frayed ends. I have kept a loop of this cord. The break is under a knot in it. Nov. 5—I have not strongly enough emphasized A’s state of mind, at the time of the fall of the picture. E’s long account of a movie had annoyed her almost beyond endurance, and probably her hope for an interruption was keen.” Here is an admission that I did not think, or suspect, that it was I, who was the magician, this time.

  In October, 1929, we were living in New York, or, anyway, in the Bronx. I do not have pictures on walls, in places of my own. I can’t get the pictures I’d like to have: so I don’t have any. I haven’t been able to get around to painting my own pictures, but, if I ever do, maybe I’ll have the right kind to put up.

  “October 15, 1929—I was looking over these notes, and I called A from the kitchen to discuss them. I note that A had been doing nothing in the kitchen. She had just come in: had gone to the kitchen to see what the birds were doing. While discussing those falling pictures, we heard a loud sound. Ran back, and found on the kitchen floor a pan that had fallen from a pile of utensils in a closet.”

  “Oct. 18, 1930—I made an experiment. I read these notes aloud to A, to see whether there would be a repetition of the experience of Oct. 15, 1929. Nothing fell.”

  “Nov. 19, 1931—tried that again. Nothing moved. Well, then, if I’m not a wizard, I’m not going to let anybody else tell me that he’s a wizard.”

  21

  I looked at a picture, and it fell from a wall.

  The diabolical thought of Usefulness rises in my mind.

  If ever I can make up my mind to declare myself the enemy of all mankind, then shall I turn altruist, and devote my life to being of use and of benefit to my fellow-beings.

  Everything that is of slavery, ancient and modern, is a phenomenon of usefulness. The prisons are filled with unconventional interpreters of uses. If it were not for uses, we’d be free of lawyers. Give up the idea of improvements, and that is an escape from politicians.

  Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you, and you may make the litter of their circumstances that you have made of your own. The Good Samaritan binds up wounds with poison ivy. If I give anybody a coin, I hand him good and evil, just as truly as I hand him head and tail. Whoever discovered the uses of coal was a benefactor of all mankind, and most damnably something else. Automobiles, and their seemingly indispensable services—but automobiles and crime and a million exasperations. There are persons who think they see clear advantages in the use of a telephone—then the telephone rings.

  If, by looking at it, a picture can be taken down from a wall, why could not a house be pulled down, by still more intently staring at it?

  If, occultly, mentally, physically, however, a house could be pulled down, why could not a house be put up, by concentrating upon its materials?

  Now visions of the Era of Witchcraft—miracles of invisible bricklaying, and marvels of masonry without masons—subtle uses and advantages that will merge both A.D. and B.C. into one period of barbarism, known as B.W.—

  But the factories and labors and laborers—everything else that is now employed in our primitive ways of buildings houses. Unemployment and starvation and charity—political disturbances—the outcry against putting the machines out of work. There is no understanding any messiah, inventor, discoverer, or anybody else who is working for betterment, except by recognizing him as partly a fiend.

  And yet, in one respect, I am suspicious of all this wisdom. The only reason that it is not conventional mechanistic philosophy is that the conventionalist is more subdued. But, if to every action there is a reaction that is equal and opposite, there is to every advantage, or betterment, an equal disadvantage, or worsement. This view—except as quantitatively expressed—seems to me to be in full agreement with my experiences with advantages and uses and betterments: but, as quantitatively expressed, it is without authority to me, because I cannot accept that ever has any action-reaction been cut in two, its parts separated, and isolated, so that it could be determined what either part was equal to.

  I looked at a picture, and it fell from a wall.

  Once upon a time, Dr. Gilbert waved a wand that he had rubbed with the skin of a cat, and bits of paper rose from a table. This was in the year one, of Our Lord, Electricity, who was born as a parlor stunt.

  And yet there are many persons, who have read widely, who think that witchcraft, or the idea of witchcraft, has passed away.

  They have not read widely enough. They have not thought widely enough. What idea has ever passed away? Witchcraft, instead of being a “superstition of the past,” is of common report. I look over my data for the year 1924, for instance, and note the number of cases, most of them called “poltergeist disturbances,” that were reported in England. Probably in the United States more numerously were cases reported, but, because of library facilities, I have especially noted phenomena in England. Cases of witchcraft and other uncanny occurrences, in England, in the year 1924, were reported from East Barnet, Monkton, Lymm, Bradford, Chiswick, Mountsorrel, Dudley, Hayes, Maidstone, Minster Thanet, Epping, Grimsby, Keighley, and Clyst St. Lawrence.

  New York newspapers reported three cases, close together, in the year 1927. New York Herald Tribune, Aug. 12, 1927—Fred Koett and his wife compelled to move from their home, near Ellenwood, Kansas. For months this house had been
bewitched—pictures turned to the wall—other objects moving about—their pet dog stabbed with a pitch fork by an invisible. New York Herald Tribune, Sept. 12, 1927—Frank Decker’s barn, near Fredon, N.J., destroyed by fire. For five years there had been unaccountable noises, opening and shutting doors, and pictures on walls swinging back and forth. Home News (Bronx), Nov. 27, 1927—belief of William Blair, County Tyrone, Ireland, that his cattle were bewitched. He accused a neighbor, Isabella Hazelton, of being a witch—“witch” sued him for slander—five and costs.

  My general expression is against the existence of poltergeists as spirits—but that the doings are the phenomena of undeveloped magicians, mostly youngsters, who have no awareness of their powers as their own—or, in the cases of mischievous, or malicious, persecutions, are more or less consciously directed influences by enemies—or that, in this aspect, “poltergeist disturbances” are witchcraft under a new name. The change of name came about probably for two reasons: such a reaction against the atrocities of witchcraft trials that the existence of witches was sweepingly denied, so that continuing phenomena had to be called something else; and the endeavor by the spiritualists to take over witchcraft, as evidence of the existence of “spirits of the departed.”

  If witches there be, there must of course be some humorous witches. The trail of the joke crosses our accounts of the most deadly occurrences. In many accounts of poltergeist disturbances, the look is more of mischief than of hate for victims. The London Daily Mail, May 1, 1907, is responsible for what is coming now: