by Charles Fort
There was a performance in the village of Doa, in the Ben-Hounien territory of the French West African Colony.
It is a story of sorceries practiced by magicians, not upon their own bodies, but upon the bodies of others.
“There were the two living children close to me. I touched them with my hands. And there equally close were the two men with their swords. The swords were iron, three-dimensional, metal, cold and hard. And this is what I now saw with my eyes, but you will understand why I am reluctant to tell of it, and that I do not know what seeing means:
“Each man, holding his sword stiffly upward with his left hand, tossed a child high in the air with his right, then caught it full upon the point, impaling it like a butterfly on a pin. No blood flowed, but the two children were there, held aloft, pierced through and through, impaled upon the swords.
“The crowd screamed now, falling to its knees. Many veiled their eyes with their hands, and others fell prostrate. Through the crowd the jugglers marched, each bearing a child aloft, impaled upon his sword, and disappeared into the witch doctor’s inclosure.”
Later Seabrook saw the children, and touched them, and had the impression that he would have, looking at a dynamo, or at a storm at sea, at something falling from a table, or at a baby crawling—that he was in the presence of the unknown.
27
The twitch of the legs of a frog—and Emma Piggott swiped a powder puff.
The mysterious twitchings of electrified legs—and unutterable flutterings in the mind of Galvani. His travail of mental miscarriages—or ideas that could not be born properly. The twitch of trivialities that were faint and fantastic germinations in the mind of Galvani—the uninterpretable meanings of far-distant hums of motors—these pre-natal stirrings of aeroplanes and transportation systems and the lighting operations of cities—
Twitch of the legs of a frog—
A woman, from Brewster, N.Y., annoyed a hotel clerk.
My general expression is that all human beings who can do anything, and dogs that track unseen quarry, and homing pigeons, and bird-charming snakes, and caterpillars who transform into butterflies, are magicians. In the lower—or quite as truly the higher, considering them the more aristocratic and established—forms of being, the miracles are standardized and limited: but human affairs are still developing, and “sports,” as the biologists call them, are of far more frequent occurrence among humans. But their development depends very much upon a sense of sureness of reward for the pains, travail, and discouragements of the long, little-paid period of apprenticeship, which makes questionable whether it is ever worthwhile to learn anything. Reward depends upon harmonization with the dominant spirit of an era.
Considering modern data, it is likely that many of the fakirs of the past, who are now known as saints, did, or to some degree did, perform the miracles that have been attributed to them. Miracles, or stunts, that were in accord with the dominant power of the period were fostered, and miracles that conflicted with, or that did not contribute to, the glory of the Church, were discouraged, or were savagely suppressed. There could be no development of mechanical, chemical, or electric miracles—
And that, in the succeeding age of Materialism—or call it the Industrial Era—there is the same state of subservience to a dominant, so that young men are trained to the glory of the job, and dream and invent in fields that are likely to interest stockholders, and are schooled into thinking that all magics, except their own industrial magics, are fakes, superstitions, or newspaper yarns.
I am of the Industrial Era, myself; and, even though I can see only advantages-disadvantages in all uses, I am very largely only a practical thinker—
Or the trail of a working witchcraft—and we’re on the scent of utilities—
Or that, if a girl, in the town of Derby, set a house afire, by a process that is now somewhat understandable, a fireman could, if he had a still better understanding, have put out that fire without moving from his office. If the mechanism of a motor can invisibly be stopped, all the motors of the world may, without the dirt, crime, misery, and exploitation of coal mining, be started and operated. If Ambrose Small was wished so far away that he never got back—though that there is magic in a mere wish, or in a mere hope, or hate, I do not think—the present snails of the wheels and planes may be replaced by instantaneous teleportations. If we can think that quacks and cranks and scientists of highest repute, who have announced successes, which were in opposition to supposed medical, physical, chemical, or biological principles!—which are now considered impostures, or errors, or “premature announcements”—may not in all cases have altogether deceived themselves, or tried to deceive others, we—or maybe only I—extend this suspicion into mechanical fields.
Now it is my expression that all perpetual motion cranks may not have been dupes, or rascals—that they may have been right, occasionally—that their wheels may sometimes have turned, their marbles rolled, their various gimcracks twirled, in an excess of reaction over action, either because sometimes will occur exceptions to any such supposed law as “the conservation of energy,” or because motivating “rays” emanated from the inventors—
That sometimes engines have run, fueled with zeals—but have, by such incipient, or undeveloped, witchcraft, operated only transiently, or only momentarily—but that they may be forerunners to such a revolution of the affairs of this earth, as once upon a time were flutters of the little lids of tea kettles—
A new era of new happiness and new hells to pay; ambitions somewhat realized, and hopes dashed to nothing; new crimes, pastimes, products, employments, unemployments; labor troubles, or strikes that would be worldwide; new delights, new diseases, disasters such as had never before been heard of—
In this existence of the desirable-undesirable.
Wild carrots in a field—and to me came a dissatisfaction with ham and cabbage. That was too bad: there isn’t much that is better. My notion was that probably all around were roots and shoots and foliages that might be, but that never had been, developed eatably—but that most unlikely would be the cultivation of something new to go with ham, in the place of cabbage, because of the conventionalized requirements of markets. But once upon a time there were wild cabbages and wild beets and wild onions, and they were poor, little incipiencies until they were called for by markets. I think so. I don’t know. At any rate, this applies to wild fruits.
There are sword swallowers and fire eaters, fire breathers, fire walkers; basket tricksters, table filters, handcuff escapers. There is no knowing what development could do with these wild talents: but Help Wanted if for—
Reasonable and confidential accntnts; comptometer oprs., fire re-ins., exp., Christian; sec’ys, credit exp., advance, Chris.; P&S expr.; fast sandwich men; reception men, 35-45, good educ., ap. tall, Chris.—
But I do think that one hundred years ago an advertisement for a fast sandwich man would have looked as strange as today would look an advertisement for “polt. grls.”
Against all the opposition in the world, I make this statement—that once I knew a magician. I was a witness of a performance that may someday be considered understandable, but that, in these primitive times, so transcends what is said to be the known that it is what I mean by magic,
When the magician and I were first acquainted, he gave no sign of occult abilities. He was one of the friendliest of fellows, but that was not likely to endear him to anybody, because he was about equally effusive to everybody. He had frenzies. Once he tore down the landlord’s curtains. He bit holes into a book of mine, and chewed the landlord’s slippers.
The landlord got rid of him. This was in London. The landlord took him about ten miles away, and left him, probably leaping upon somebody, writhing joy for anybody who would notice him. He was young.
It was about two weeks later. Looking out a front window, I saw the magician coming along, on the other side of the street. He was sniffing his way along, but went right on past our house, without recognizing it
. He came to a point where he stopped and smelled. He smelled and he smelled. He crossed the street, and came back, and lay down in front of the house. The landlord took him in, and gave him a bone.
But I cannot accept that the magician smelled his way home, or picked up a trail, taking about two weeks on his way. The smelling played a part, and was useful in a final recognition: but smelling indiscriminately, he could have nosed his way, for years, through the streets of London, before coming to the right scent.
New York Sun, April 24, 1931—an account, by Adolph Pizaldt, of Allentown, Pa., of a large, mongrel magician, who had been taken in a baggage car, a distance of 340 miles, and had found his way back home, in a week or so. New York Herald Tribune, July 4, 1931—a curly magician, who, in Canada, had found his way back home, over a distance of 400 miles.
New York Herald Tribune, Aug. 13, 1931—The Man They Could Not Drown—
“Hartford, Conn., Aug. 12—Angelo Faticoni, known as ‘The Human Cork,’ because he could stay afloat in water for fifteen hours with twenty pounds of lead tied to his ankles, died on August 2 in Jacksonville, Fla., it became known here today. He was seventy-two years old.
“Faticoni could sleep in water, roll up into a ball, lie on his side, or assume any position asked of him. Once he was sewn into a bag and then thrown headforemost into the water, with a twenty-pound cannonball lashed to his legs. His head reappeared on the surface soon afterward, and he remained motionless in that position for eight hours. Another time he swam across the Hudson tied to a chair weighted with lead.
“Some years ago he went to Harvard to perform for the students and faculty. He had been examined by medical authorities who failed to find support for their theory that he was able to float at such great lengths by the nature of his internal organs, which they believed were different from those of most men.
“Faticoni had often promised to reveal the secret of how he became ‘The Human Cork,’ but he never did.”
There are many accounts of poltergeist-phenomena that are so obscured by the preconceptions of witnesses that one can’t tell whether they are stories of girls who had occult powers, or of invisible beings, who, in the presence of girl mediums, manifested. But the story of Angelique Cottin is an account of a girl, who, by an unknown influence of her own, acted upon objects in ways like those that have been attributed to spirits. The phenomena of Angelique Cottin, of the town of La Perriere, France, began upon Jan. 15, 1846, and lasted ten weeks. Anybody who would like to read an account of this wild, or undeveloped, talent, that is free from interpretations by spiritualists and anti-spiritualists, should go to the contemporaneous story, published in the Journal des Debats (Paris) February, 1846. Here are accounts by M. Arago and other scientists. When Angelique Cottin went near objects, they bounded away. She could have made a perpetual motion machine whiz. She was known as the Electric Girl, so called, because nobody knew what to call her. When she tried to sit in a chair, there was low comedy. The chair was pulled away, or, rather, was invisibly pushed away. There was such force here that a strong man could not hold the chair. A table, weighing sixty pounds, rose from the floor, when she touched it. When she went to bed, the bed rocked—
And I suppose that, in early times of magnetic investigations, people who heard of objects that moved in the presence of a magnet, said—“But what of it?”
Faraday showed them.
A table, weighing sixty pounds, rises a few feet from the floor—well, then, it’s some time, far ahead, in the Witchcraft Era—and a multi-cellular formation of poltergeist girls is assembled in the presence of building materials. Stone blocks and steel girders rise a mile or so into their assigned positions in the latest sky-prodder. Maybe. Tall buildings will have their day, but first there will have to be a show-off of what could be done.
I now have a theory that the pyramids were built by poltergeist girls. The Chinese wall is no longer mysterious. Every now and then I reconstruct a science. I may take up neo-archaeology sometime. Old archaeology, with its fakes and guesses, and conflicting pedantries, holds out an invitation for a ferocious and joyous holiday.
Human hopes, wishes, ambitions, prayers and hates—and the futility of them—the waste of millions of trickles of vibrations, today—unorganized forces that are doing nothing. But put them to work together, or concentrate mental ripples into torrents, and gather these torrents into Niagara Falls of emotions—and, if there isn’t any happiness, except in being of use, I am conceiving of cataractuous happiness—
Or sometime in the Witchcraft Era—and every morning, promptly at nine o’clock, crowds of human wishers, dignified under the name of transmediumizers, arrive at their wishing stations, or mental powerhouses, and in an organization of what are now only scattered and wasted hopes and hates concentrate upon the running of all motors of all cities. Just as they’re all nicely organized and pretty nearly satisfied, it will be learned that motors aren’t necessary.
In one way, witchcraft has been put to work: that is that wild talents have been exhibited, and so have been sources of incomes. But here is only the incipiency of the stunt. In August, 1883, in the home of Lulu Hurst, aged fifteen, at Cedarville, Ga., there were poltergeist disturbances. Pebbles moved in the presence of the girl, things vanished, crockery was smashed, and, if the girl thought of a tune, it would be heard, rapping at the head of her bed. In February, 1884, Lulu was giving public performances. In New York City, she appeared in Wallack’s Theatre. It could be that a girl, aged fifteen, if competently managed, was able to deceive everybody who went up on the stage. She at least made all witnesses think that, when a man, weighing 200 pounds, sat in a chair, she, by touching the chair, made it rise and throw him to the floor—
And I am very much like an Indian of long ago; an Indian, thinking of the force of a waterfall; unable to conceive of a waterwheel; simply thinking of all this force that was making only a little spectacle—
Or the state of melancholy into which I am perhaps cast, thinking that a little poltergeist girl, if properly trained, could make all witnesses believe that she raised building materials forty or eighty stories, by simply touching them—thinking that nobody is doing anything about this—
Except that I am not clear that anything would be gained by it—or by anything else.
Lulu Hurst either had powers that far transcended muscular powers, or she had talents of deception far superior to the abilities of ordinary deceivers. Sometimes she tossed about 200-pound men, or made it look as if she did; and sometimes she placed her hands on a chair, and five men either could not move that chair, or were good actors, and earned whatever the confederates of stage magicians were paid, at that time.
In November, 1891, Mrs. Annie Abbott, called the Little Georgia Magnet, put on a show in the Alhambra Music Hall, London. She weighed about ninety-eight pounds and, if she so willed it, a man could easily lift her. The next moment, six men, three on each side of her, grasping her by her elbows, could not lift her. When she stood on a chair, the six men could not, when the chair was removed, prevent her from descending to the floor. If anybody suggests that, when volunteers were called for from the audience, it was the same six who responded, at every performance, I think that that is a pretty good suggestion. Because of many other data, it hasn’t much force with me; but, in these early times of us primitives, almost any suggestion has value. I take these accounts from Holms’ Facts of Psychic Science. I have them from other sources, also.
In September, 1921, Mary Richardson gave performances, at the Olympic Music Hall, Liverpool. Easily lifted one moment—the next moment, six men—same six, maybe—could not move her. By touching a man, she knocked him flat. It is either that she traveled with a staff of thirteen comedians, whose stunt it was to form in a line pretending their utmost to push her, but seeming to fail comically, considering the size of her, or that she was a magician.
It is impossible to get anywhere by reasoning. This is because—as can be shown, monistically—there isn’t anywhere. Or it is
impossible to get anywhere, because one can get everywhere. I can find equally good reasons for laughing, or for being serious, about all this. Holms tells that he was one of those in the audience, who, though not taking part, went up on the stage; and that he put his hand between Mrs. Richardson and the leader of the string of thirteen men, who were almost dislocating one another’s shoulder blades, pushing their hardest against her, and that he felt no pressure. So he was convinced not that she resisted pressure, but that pressure could not touch her.
Suppose it was that pressure could not touch her. Could blows harm her? Could bullets touch her? Did Robert Houdin have this power, when he faced an Arab firing squad, and is the story of the substituted blanks for bullets only just some more of what taboo is telling everywhere? One untouchable man could own the world—except that he’d have a weakness somewhere, or, in general, could be no more than the untouchable-touchable. But he could add to our bewilderments by making much history before being touched. Well, then, if there are magicians, why haven’t magicians seized upon political powers? I don’t know that they haven’t.
It may be the secret of fire-walking—or that wizards walk over red-hot stones, unharmed, because they do not touch the stones. However, for some readers, it is more comfortable to disbelieve that anybody ever has been a fire-walker. For an uncomfortable moment, read an account, in Current Literature, 32-98—exhibition by a Hawaiian fire-walker at Honolulu, Jan. 19, 1901. The story is that this wizard walked on stones of “a fierce, red glow” with flames spouting from burning wood, underneath; walking back and forth four times.
There is a muscular strength of men, and it may be that sometimes appears a strength to which would apply the description “occult,” or “psychic.” In the New York Herald Tribune, Jan. 24, 1932, was reported the death of Mrs. Betsy Anna Talks, of 149 Fourteenth Road, Whitestone, Queens, N.Y.—who had often performed such feats as carrying a barrel of sugar weighing 400 pounds—had carried, under each arm, a sack of potatoes, whereas, in fields, usually two men lug one sack—had impatiently watched two men, clumsily moving a 550-pound barrel of salt, in a cart, and had taken it down for them.
