Wild Talents

by Charles Fort

  I should like to come upon a record of the opinions of fifty drivers of hansom cabs, as to automobiles, when automobiles were new and uncertain, but were of some slight menace to the incomes of hansom cabbies.

  In the New York World-Telegram, July 24, 1931, there is a story of a boy, who, at the Medical Center Hospital, New York, was cured of paralysis by the touch of a bit of bone of St. Anne, taken to the hospital from the Church of St. Anne, no East 12th Street, New York City. The boy was the son of Hugh F. Gaffney, 348 East 18th Street, New York City.

  If, according to the views of the majority of the inhabitants of this earth, there is no more divinity at Lourdes or at no East 12th Street, than anywhere else, there are reasons for thinking that it is witchcraft that is practiced at these places.

  The function of God is the focus. An intense mental state is impossible unless there be something, or the illusion of something, to center upon. Given any other equally serviceable concentration-device, prayers are unnecessary. I conceive of the magic of prayers. I conceive of the magic of blasphemies. There is witchcraft in religion: there may be witchcraft in atheism.

  In the New York Evening World, Sept. 19, 1930, is an account of joy in Naples: the shouts of crowds, and the ringing of church bells. In the Cappella del Tesora Cathedral had been displayed the phial containing the “blood of St. Januarius.” It had boiled.

  It is my notion that, if intenser than the faith in Naples, had been a desire for a frustration of this miracle, the “blood of St. Januarius” might have frozen.

  Upon the 5th of March, 1931—see the New York Herald Tribune, March 6th—15,000 worshipers were kneeling at a pontifical high mass in the Municipal Plaza at San Antonio, Texas. Considering the intense antagonism to Catholicism in Mexico at this time, one thinks of the presence of some of this feeling in San Antonio. From a palm tree, the topmost tuft fell into the kneeling congregation. Six persons were taken to the hospital.

  My general expression is that some of the reported phenomena that are called “miracles” probably have occurred, but have been arbitrarily taken over by the religionists, though they are the exclusive properties of priests no more than of traveling salesmen—that scientists have been repelled by the reported phenomena, because of a fear of contamination from priestcraft—but that any scientist who preaches the “ideals of science,” and also lets fear of contaminations influence him is as false to his preachments as ever any priest has been.

  See the New York Herald Tribune, Dec. 6, 1931—an account of the opening in Goa, Portuguese India, of the coffin of Saint Francis Xavier.

  “A special emissary, sent by Pope Pius XI, led the ceremonial procession, in which marched three archbishops, fifteen bishops, and hundreds of other members of the clergy. A throng of ten thousand persons heard the papal mass and benediction, in the Church of Don Jesus.

  “The congregation passed before the coffin, and kissed the dead saint’s feet.”

  But there have been scientists, especially medical scientists, who, in spite of contaminations, have not been held back from investigations.

  In January, 1932, the New York newspapers told that many miracles had been reported in Goa.

  There is no opposition, as sheer, to witchcraft, by religionists. It is competition.

  24

  Our only important opposition is, not science, but a belief I that we are in conflict with science.

  This is an old-fashioned belief.

  There is nothing told of in this book that is more of an affront to old-time dogmas than is the theory of the Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Bohr, that the sun is “deriving” its energy from nowhere.

  The quantum theory is a doctrine of magic. The idea of playing leapfrog, without having to leap over the other frog, is simply another representation of the idea of entering a closed room without passing through the walls. But there is a big difference between “authoritative pronouncements” and my expressions. It is the difference between sub-atomic events and occurrences in boarding houses. The difference is in many minds—unlike my mind, to which all things are phenomena, and to which all records are, or may be, data—in which electrons and protons are dignified little things, whereas boarders and tramps on park benches can’t be taken solemnly. Charles Darwin was similarly received when, in the place of academic speculations upon evolution, he treated of bugs and bones and insides of animals. Not, of course, that I mean anything by anything.

  Quantum magic is a doctrine of discontinuity. So it seems to be opposed to my expressions upon hyphenation, which seem to be altogether a philosophy of continuity. But I have indicated that also I hyphenate in another “dimension.” I conceive of all phenomena as representing continuity in one “dimension,” and as representing discontinuity in another “dimension”—that is, all phenomena as interdependent and bound up with one another, or continuous, and at the same time so individualized that nothing is exactly like anything else, or that everything is alone, or discontinuous. I conceive of our existence as one organic state, or being, that is an individual, or that is unrelated to anything else, such as other existences, in the cosmos, its state of oneness expressing in the continuity of its internal phenomena, and its state of individuality, or apartness from everything else in the cosmos, expressing in a permeation of that individuality, or discontinuity, throughout its phenomena. Of course, if the word cosmos means organized universality, I misuse the word here. For various reasons I let it stand.

  There are hosts of persons, who consider themselves up-to-date, or ahead of that; who blandly arguments in the latest, scientific lingo, and believe anything that they’re told to believe of electrons, but would be incapable of extending an idea from electrons to boarders—even though they argue that every boarder is only a composition of electrons—and go right on thinking of affairs, in general, in old-fashioned, materialistic terms.

  Well, then, in old-fashioned terms, what had I this morning for breakfast?

  I think: therefore I had breakfast.

  If no line of demarcation can be drawn between one’s breakfasts and one’s thoughts, or between a cereal and a cerebration, this is the continuity of the material and the immaterial. If there is no material, as absolutely differentiated from the immaterial, what becomes of any opposition from what may still survive of what is called materialistic science?

  “Science is systematized and formulated knowledge.”

  Then anybody who has systematized and formulated knowledge enough to appear, on time, at the breakfast table, is, to that degree, a scientist. There are scientific dogs. Most of them have a great deal of systematized and formulated knowledge. Cats and rabbits and all those irritating South American rodents that were discovered by crossword-puzzle-makers are scientists. A magnet scientifically picks out and classifies iron filings from a mass of various materials. Science does not exist, as a distinguishable entity.

  Our data have been upon witchcraft in love affairs; in small-town malices, and occasional murders of no importance. According to the phantom, materialistic science, there is no witchcraft. In the monistic sense, I agree. Witchcraft is so bound up with other “natural forces,” that it cannot be picked out, as having independent existence. But, in terms of common illusions, I accept that there is witchcraft; and, just for the sake of seeming to have opposition, which makes for more interest, I pretend that there is science.

  Stars and planets and ultra-violet radiations from the sun—paleolithic and neolithic interrelationships, and zymotic multiplications, and tetrahedronic equilaterality—

  And the little Colwell girl, who kept the firemen busy—and a kid named “Rena” got a haircut—there was a house in which a pan of soft soap wandered from room to room—a woman alone in a compartment of a railway train, and then maybe she wasn’t alone—

  The disdain of any academic scientist—if among the sensationalists of today, there survive an academic scientist—for what I call the data of witchcraft—

  And now my subject is witchcraft in science.

&
nbsp; In the year 1913, the German scientist, Emil Abderhalden, announced his discovery of the synthesis of inorganic materials into edible substances. It was said that to avoid all uncertainties—this back in those supreme old days when all scientists were certain—this announcement had been long-delayed. But experiments had been successes. Dogs fed upon synthetic foods had gained weight astonishingly, as compared with dogs that had been fed ordinary meals. Reports were much tabulated. Statistics—very statistical. Then came the War. If Dr. Abderhalden, or anybody else in Germany, could out of muds of various kinds have produced those alleged meals, perhaps we’d all be fighting to this day. As it is, we have had a rest, and can do the necessary breeding, before again starting up atrocities. So, at least for the sake of vigorous new abominations, it seems to be just as well that some of the widely advertised scientific successes aren’t so successful.

  But the dogs got fat.

  There is scarcely an annual meeting of any prominent scientific association at which are not made, by eminent doctors and professors, announcements of great discoveries that, by long and careful experimentation, constructive and eliminative tests, and guards against all possible sources of error, have been established. A year or so later, these boons to suffering humanity are forgotten.

  Almost always these announcements are not especially questioned, and bring no confusion upon their sponsors. There is much “scientific caution.” A scientist doesn’t know bull: that he may make an announcement, himself, someday. But about the middle of July, 1931, Professor Wilhelm Gluud, of the Westphalian University of Münster, was not received with the usual “caution.” Prof. Gluud announced—these professors never merely say anything—that synthetic albumen could be produced from coal. This dreamery was attacked, and later, in July, Prof. Gluud admitted that he had been “premature” in his announcement.

  But something had convinced a scientist, of international reputation, so that he had risked that reputation by making his announcement.

  So one inclines to think.

  If he had made no experiments, and had simply and irresponsibly squawked into publicity, we have some more monism, and can draw no line between a Westphalian Professor and any Coney Island “barker.” But, if he did make experiments, and, if, in spite of later developments, which showed that, according to chemical principles, success was impossible, he nevertheless had reasons to believe that some of his experiments were successes, these successes that agreed with his theory were realizations of his imaginings.

  About the same time (July, 1931) another scientist was embarrassed. The Russian physiologist, Pavlov, had announced that he had taught white mice to respond to a bell, at meal time—

  But now see here!

  Just how disdainful should persons who put in their time ringing dinner bells for mice be of others who collect accounts of meandering pans of soft soap?

  It was Pavlov’s statement, or “announcement,” that he had taught white mice to respond to a bell, at meal time, and that a second generation of white mice had been keener in so responding. This improvement was supposed to represent cumulative hereditary influences.

  But Sir Arthur Thompson of Aberdeen, Scotland, made an announcement.

  And now see here, again! I should like to hear Sir Arthur’s opinion upon the dignity of such subjects as “the vanishing man,” and stones that were pegged at a farmer’s niece. He, too, had been ringing dinner bells for animals.

  Thompson’s announcement was that he had noted no improved teachableness in a second generation of white mice. Whereupon Pavlov withdrew his announcement saying that he must have been deceived by his assistant.

  This is becoming a stock retreat. Before he shot himself, in August, 1925, Prof. Kammerer, accused of having faked, with India ink what he called acquired characters on the feet of toads, explained that he had been betrayed by an assistant.

  I conceive that, though Pavlov retreated before a “higher authority,” his white mice may have been keener in a second generation, though nobody else’s white mice would have been of any improved discernment in a fifteenth generation—and that, though biologically, nuptial pads could not possibly appear upon the feet of Prof. Kammerer’s toads—

  Pictures on hailstones—a face on a cathedral wall—and an insect takes on the appearance of a leaf—

  That it may be that a man did not altogether deceive himself and others, but that faint markings did appear upon the feet of toads, as responses to his theory—but in all the uncertainty and the evanescence of the incipient—that, convinced that he was right, Prof. Kammerer may have supplemented faint markings with India ink, just to tide over, at a time of enquiry—then exposure—suicide.

  The story of cancer-cure announcements is a record of abounding successes in the treatment of cancerous dogs, cats, chickens, rats, mice, and guinea pigs—followed by appeals to the public for funds for the study of the unknown causes, and the still undiscovered cure for cancer. Look over the records of cancerous growths that, according to triumphant announcements have been absorbed, or stopped, in mice and guinea pigs, and try to think that all were only deliberate deceptions. My good-bad opinion of human nature won’t stand it. But, if some of these experiments were the successes they were said to be, and if the treatments are now repudiated or forgotten, these successes were realized imaginings. I know of nothing in science that has the look of better establishment than that there have been some cures of cancer, under radium treatment. But, in the year 1930, the British Radium Commission issued a warning that the use of radium had not been established as a cancer cure. The look to me is that, in all the earnestness and charlatanry; devotion to ideals, and fakery, and insincerity; exploitations and duperies of this cult, some cures, as if by the use of radium, have occurred; but that applications of soft soap, if subject to an equal intensity of thought, would have done just as well—

  Which brings us to the appalling unnecessity of vivisection, if experiments upon the animals of a toy Noah’s Ark, to cure them of their splinters, would be just as enlightening, if anything can be construed into meaning anything that anybody wants it to mean—in an existence in which there is not meaning, but meaning-meaninglessness.

  And—not wanting to write three or four hundred pages upon this subject—I shall not go much into records of professorial rascals, or faithful and devoted scientists, who have exploited, or have tried to minister unto, the desire of old codgers to caper. I take from the New York Evening Post, April 12, 1928, an account of “discoveries of major importance to the science of rejuvenation,” as announced in Berlin by Professor Steinach, to the annual Congress of German Surgeons. Professor Steinach’s announcement was that he had discovered the secret of rejuvenation in uses of the pituitary gland. If any reader isn’t quite sure where the pituitary is, I remind him that it is connected with the fundibulum. It is in a part of the body that is most profoundly engaged in sex relations. It is in the brain.

  Dr. Steinach announced that, with twelve injections of pituitary serum, in senile rats, he had “restored their failing appetites, induced a new growth of hair, rejuvenated all bodily functions, and had generally transformed ailing, or half-dead, creatures into youthful animals.”

  There is witchcraft in science—

  If bald old rats have turned young and hairy—if dogs, fed on coal products, have astonishingly fattened—if tens of thousands of mice and guinea pigs have magically gone fat, or gone thin, in the presence of experimenters—

  If, in not all these cases has the treacherous, or perhaps kind-hearted, assistant slipped, say, a brisk and hairy young rat into the place of a decrepit old codger; or has not, in secret rascality, or benevolence, meatily supplemented the fare of dogs supposed to be thriving upon coal products—

  If not in all these cases have eminent trappers lied snares for dollars.

  My pseudo-conclusion, or acceptance—which is as far as I can go, in the fiction that we’re living—is that some of these announcements have been pretty nearly faithful reports of o
ccurrences; and that, by witchcraft, or in response to intense desires of experimenters, senile rats have lost the compensations of old age, and have suffered again the tormenting restlessness of youth—all this by witchcraft, and not by injections that in themselves could have no more of a rejuvenating effect upon either rats or humans than upon mummies.

  But, if Prof. Steinach, by witchcraft, or by the effects of belief, did grow hair upon the bald skin of a rat—to say nothing of the more frolicsome effects of his practices—how comes it that he was not equally successful with the human subjects of his sorcery? Today the Steinach treatment stands discredited. Especially destructive have been Dr. Alexis Carrel’s attacks upon it. It may be that the Professor’s own greed defeated him. It may be that he failed because he dissipated his sorcery among many customers.

  25

  If I can bridge a gap—

  Then that, in a moment of religious excitation, an inhabitant of Remiremont, focusing upon a point in the sky, transferred a pictorial representation from his mind to hailstones—

  The turning off Coventry Street—streets in Japan, Kiel, Berlin, New York City—other places—and that wounds, as imagined by haters of people, have appeared upon the bodies of people—

  Or the story of the sailor aboard the steamship Breeshe, in December, 1931—and that it was during a storm—and that in the mind of somebody else aboard this vessel a hate pictured this man, as struck by lightning, and that upon his head appeared a wound, as pictured.